Technology advances have forced companies to change their marketing strategies.  From traditional methods, they get to embrace modern ways to carry out their marketing campaigns. Companies have spent billions to strengthen their marketing strategies. They have adapted several new methods of promoting their products and services to compete with the rising market. Although many have relied to modern marketing today, there are still businesses who opted to use the traditional methods to do their marketing.

Traditional marketing is used by businesses to get the word out about their product or service, whether it is by pushing a cart load of wares around, distributing flyers or advertising in newspapers.   Anyone that is trying to sell something used some sort of these to get their products noticed.

Door to door sales also constitute the traditional marketing.  In some industries some form of knocking on doors is the best way to do business even today.  Another one is by using Yellow Page.  The yellow page is a very thick book filled with thousands of business listing of business owners throughout a specific area.  People would often look through the book to search for businesses that interest them.

Now, there are a lot of other traditional marketing methods that people use to market their businesses, yet because of the emergence of new technologies, they don’t respond to these methods like they did before.  Instead of a business spending millions on television advertising or on other traditional marketing strategies they can save on using some modern marketing strategies like SEO, B2B telemarketing and email marketing and promote just as effectively.
E-marketing is another name for web marketing or online marketing.  It is a business strategy that is increasingly being adopted over the traditional forms of marketing.  For businesses that aim to establish an online presence in a cost-effective way, then this is a much preferred solution.  One of the advantages of e marketing is that it can reach a wider client base for it uses Internet as medium to connect with millions of potential customers.  Unlike with traditional marketing strategies, e marketing can undertake all sorts of tasks like customer service, information management and public relations at low costs.

Some businesses die because of their weak marketing strategies.  Success in business requires careful and longer research of the market, product and service.  Really it takes time to learn what method works for your business.  You will constantly need to find and adapt methods that will meet your needs.  Take a step now.  Outsource your marketing activities to reliable call centers before your competitors eat their way into your potential customers.

The same is true in lead generation. It is necessary that every little thing is qualified, not a mere illusion. Sales leads must be qualified in order to have higher chances of closed sales. The installed technology ought to be qualified according to a company’s specific needs. The outsourced telemarketing company should be qualified in order to wrap up qualified appointments that their clients want.

Every company aims for qualified appointments. They do not want their sales representatives to arrive empty-handed after an assumed qualified appointment setting with a sales lead. After all, they pay a price to get what they want. However, when a business entity outsources a business-to-business  B2B telemarketing, every penny paid is returned in double or more.

Let us uncover the costs and rewards of a qualified appointment setting.

1. Cost Per Appointment

How much does a company pay for every qualified appointment? Does the payment worth the outcome of the appointment? Or is it overpaid?

Cost per appointment depends on the agreement between the telemarketing company and its client. Another thing that has been considered is the specific decision maker that an appointment setter has targeted.

The telemarketing firms have trained and educated their professional appointment setters to provide their clients with a list of qualified appointments, which targeted those decision makers who are at the top management. When client’s sales people delivered well during the presentation, sales come in a hundredfold.

2. Cost Per Quota

Aside from cost per lead, another cost scheme used is the cost per quota. Meaning to say, clients pay when the telemarketing service provider has reached the requirement in the number of qualified appointments. This is no problem for both partners. In the case of the client, an aggregate payment is lower than a cost per appointment. On the telemarketing firm’s side, there is no pressure in meeting the requirement since such agreed demand has been based primarily on the appointment setters’ experiences and capability.

3. Other Service Costs

An appointment is the start and not the end of customer relationship. This is to be followed with lead nurturing. This is so because it is crucial to keep in touch with the customer so that loyalty will exist. The business organization is obliged to keep their customers aware through constant updates.

A life-time value should be established relative to the customer. If a company is content with one sale to one sales lead, then such firm ought to think seventy seven times. It is to be remembered that one closed sale is a big no-no in doing business.

4. Opportunity Costs

When appointment setters pick up the wrong prospects, the opportunity costs foregone is high. The time, money and endeavor that should have been used to generate qualified appointments are wasted when the wrong ones are chosen.

The good thing is that this is not an issue with telemarketing service providers. Through their pre-qualification processes and specialists, no appointment is set until it has been accurately determined that a sales lead is qualified, sales-ready and within the company’s criteria of targeted prospects.

I understand (to some extent) why the B2B sector has been slow in taking up the online space, I just don’t agree with it. In particular it seems that B2B is ignoring Social Media as simply this glossy tool for marketing directly to consumers.

The fact is, the social media phenomenon is a human phenomenon. Last time I noticed, those involved with B2B still fit in that category. So no matter the specific industry, the opportunity must at least be explored. At its best a social media strategy for B2B will open up networks, generate leads and streamline your business’ customer communications. At its worst, you can spend too much time tweeting, posting updates and sharing articles.

The risk is worth it and in addition to the advantages noted, it all contributes to a company’s search engine performance, which nobody can argue with. So to get to the point, here is my Business to Business Marketing Guide to Social Media. They’re five of the biggest names but that’s for a reason isn’t it?

LinkedIn
I start with LinkedIn because it is being heralded as the social networking platform more suited for B2B. The Facebook for professionals (not really but that’s what they say). It has more than 2 million members in Australia and 100 million members worldwide.

Create your individual profile and complete as much information as possible, the more info and the better your SEO return. Make sure you change your public profile to include a vanity URL, i.e. linkedin.com/johnsmith. Connect with as many of your contacts as you can, then go through their contacts and identify some opportunities. Start joining groups that are relevant to your industry and engage.

You should also create a company profile and again complete as much of the profile as you can including products or services. Then encourage other companies to connect with your company.

Finally, there is an advertising platform for LinkedIn and it’s great. You can target other members via location, company and their job title. It can be a really effective tool depending on your specific business. For example, if you’re selling business insurance you could target the CFO’s within your local area from companies with 100+ employees.

Blogging

I would say blogging is the single-most beneficial social media platform for B2B. It can be time consuming but the advantages plentiful. Blogging will drive traffic to your website in ways that you may not have realised. So let’s say that you’re a professional services business with hundreds of competitors all trying to rank in the top five results in Google. The beauty of writing blog posts is, you write about something specific, something that your potential clients are searching for. Instead of searching ‘Accounting Company Melbourne’ or ‘IT Company Melbourne’ they might search ‘How to start a business’ or ‘IT Opportunities for small business’ and all of a sudden there you are (and not the hundreds of competitors)..

Blogging also allows you to validate your knowledge within the marketplace. Sure the customer can read your website and everything that you say you can do for them but they will get more from your opinions on relevant topics.

Facebook
I consistently find myself advising B2B clients on one or the other, Facebook or Twitter. Facebook is primarily an opportunity for you to create an online community for your brand and business. It is a great opportunity to encourage conversations and is best utilised when you can get a level of engagement from that community. This may or may not be possible for your B2B.

I guess an exception in this case is to use Facebook as a customer service tool. Let’s say you’re still in that IT business and you invite your clients to use your Facebook page as an opportunity to ask small questions, so your tech guys can leave answers that are there for the whole client community to see. If it makes it easier for the client, it has to be good for business right?

Twitter
A little more susceptible to a one-way conversation (still highly recommend you engage). Identify the companies you would like to target and follow them. Look for local business and follow them. Search to see who is talking within your industry and follow them. Before you know it you’re engaging in the industry and wider business community. If you want to get attention of people try retweeting them and engaging. Use hashtags to enter yourself into a live stream of conversation. Share relevant articles, express your opinion, share your blog posts, ask people to connect with you on LinkedIn.

Twitter like Facebook can also be a terrific customer-service tool. I rarely like to give telcos a plug but @telstra uses Twitter really well as a customer service tool, which if your query is generic is a real time-saver (compared to waiting on a call)

YouTube
The online video site is the second-largest search engine online. It’s a great opportunity for you to upload product and/or services videos. You can also use the site to produce video blogs with the same theory as above. Whatever the strategy, potential clients can find your videos through search engines to help convince them of your services or alternatively you can actively promote the videos to get that next client over the line.

Honourable @Mentions

Quora
A simple Question and Answer tool. Users follow particular topics and when a question is put out there, those following submit their answers and they are voted on. It’s great for those looking for the answers of course. But the opportunity for B2B is to follow the topics relevant to your industry and answering when you can. By answering you are establishing a knowledge within the marketplace and creating more links to your website and improving your overall search engine presence.

Google+
It’s the newbie out there at the moment, already tipped to reach heights greater than Twitter and LinkedIn. I’m yet to be convinced at this stage because, whilst I love the features, it’s hard to network when you know very few people using it. But if some of the expectations are true then it could very well be a social media tool well worth B2B adopting.

Among a few it features Hangouts, Circles and Sparks that might all benefit B2B. The Hangouts are a great way to video chat and perhaps coordinate face to face meetings between the sales team and prospective clients. The Circles feature would allow a B2B to segment their audience and tailor communications accordingly.  The Sparks feature will allow you to let your audience know when you’ve published content they’ll be interested in.

SlideShare
It’s a great site that allows you to upload your powerpoint presentations like you would videos on YouTube. People can search their interests and find your presentations. It’s a great way to get people to look at your work and of course use the opportunity to encourage people to connect with your company.

Whatever platform you choose to investigate, I hope you don’t flatly dismiss social media as being an opportunity for businesses marketing to consumers… You can always benefit in engaging with potential clients on a human level, isn’t that what the free lunches and tickets are for?

Can you afford to make price your main selling point? Here’s five really good reasons why I believe you should not be discounting:

The big boys have the money to outlast you
It hurts any small business owner to see big retailers or big business in general coming out with a heavy schedule of advertising, promoting discounts and undercutting your products. But trying to combat this by matching the discounts is really dangerous because the chances are, they have bigger margins because of their buying power and they have more advertising dollars to promote their sales.

Consumers come to expect it all the time
In a frugal environment we as consumers are more than often researching online to find the best prices, or even visiting various stores to assess prices before purchasing. So it goes without saying, once we find the cheapest price for something then we will continue to go back. The only thing we’re loyal to at this stage is price. Once that price goes back up, then it’s back on, we’re searching again. This means you will have to find something else to keep them coming back otherwise they’re gone, or continue discounting.

We’re becoming immune to discounts
There was a time and it wasn’t that long ago when 10% or 20% off actually meant something. But now, anything less than 20% isn’t that special and to be honest 10% off or less is just embarrassing (maybe 10% off a BMW). This perception will not be changing overnight and worst case, it might continue so whilst you’re happy to discount 25%, have you got the margins to go to 40% and further?

It devalues your product and your service
Unfortunately we tend to perceive value by cost. Everything in a discount store is cheap and nasty and basically very poor quality. Is this really the case? Do we know for fact? No. But because it’s all cheap that’s the perception. So there is every chance that once you’ve been discounting for a an extended period of time, consumers will start to devalue your products and your service. This affects your brand and your business.

It cuts your margins and your profits
Business is tough. The overheads are increasing, consumers are cutting their spending. Can you afford to cut your margins in an environment like this? Obviously many see no other way. If you discount 50% then think about it, you’re going to need to sell twice as many units.

Of course it’s real easy to turn around and say don’t do it but you need a solution right? Please check out some of my other posts for some ideas or if you prefer to just keep discounting then hopefully these ideas should help:

• One Day Only Sales - Identify what is your slowest trading day and introduce discounts for that day each week. It will encourage the people looking for bargains to come in during the week and it will ensure your margins are still healthy on your busiest days.
• Encourage Loyalty - Ask for your customers mobile numbers to run small SMS campaigns, get their email address so you can send them an email newsletter, ask them to ‘Like’ you on Facebook. The point is, it’s OK to give a customer a discount if you know you’ll see them again and again. So get their details and provide exclusive discounts, it encourages loyalty.
• Minimum Spend - Only apply discounts on a minimum spend to ensure that you are doing what you can to increase revenue.
• Offer a Freebie - Is it possible in your situation to give away a freebie instead of a discount? At the end of the day, the consumer is looking for value. If you can source cheap, relevant gifts that perceive value this may be a better strategy. Perhaps this might even be branded to help encourage them coming back. For example, if you’re running 25% off and someone comes in for a $100 item, you’ve essentially handed them $25 in discounts but what if it was a $10 gift? As long as it weighs up in the customer’s mind.

Discounting has a place in any marketing strategy, but it can be dangerous and it should not be done hastily. Think about some of these options I’ve noted and be creative. You will be much better off if you do not compete for a customer based purely on price.

Photo credit by linder6580.

Totally wrong. Your subject line is the most important part of your message. If it’s not a good one, your email gets trashed in a nanosecond. In fact, research by ExactTarget (my email newsletter service) show that the average person spends only 2.7 seconds on a message before deciding if they’ll delete it, forward it or read it.

Just 2.7 seconds. That’s all the time you have to capture a readers attention. That’s why your subject line is so darn critical.

First, let’s talk about what you don’t put in a subject line. In order to avoid auto-deletes, it’s imperative for you to:

• Avoid salesy verbiage. Get rid of words like excited, hot new product, free offer or special pricing.

• Avoid info on your company. No one is interested in your new product announcements or company updates except you.

• Avoid capital letters. Just the first word should be capped. Otherwise it seems like a headline, not a personal message.

Now, let’s talk about what works in your prospecting emails. Here are several options that have proven effective with today’s crazy-busy prospects.

• Use a referral. If someone has referred you to this person, put that in your subject line. They’ll want to know why. For example, you might write: Terry Jones said to get in touch.

• Ask a quick question. If your prospect feels it’s simple and relevant, they’ll take a look. Your subject line might read: Quick question re: new client acquisition challenges.

• Tempt with ideas or information. My prospects are always interested in subject lines like this: Idea to reduce your sales cycle time or How XYZ company increased sales to Fortune 500 companies by 127%.

• Mention a trigger event. If something is happening within the company or in their greater business environment that’s relevant to your offering, bring that up. For example, if you read about a recent merger, you might write: Impact of XYZ merger on (insert relevant business issue you address.)

Get the picture? To work, your subject lines must focus on something your prospect cares about. If you do that, they’ll keep reading.

Here’s a major caveat though. When they start reading your message, it needs to deliver exactly what you promised in your subject line.

If you move into salesy mode or talk about your company, you’ll trigger your prospect’s auto-delete reaction. They can’t control it. And you’ve lost the opportunity to open the conversation.

Hopefully by now you understand just how critical those simple little subject lines are to your sales success. I’d suggest you sit down right now and create 10 new ones you can use in the upcoming weeks.

Finally, start your experiment. See if you can tell which subject lines are most effective with your prospects. Then create variations off the same theme. You’ll immediately see the difference in your sale success.

What are some of your favorites websites and blogs to read?
I always go to my deviantart.com, cgsociety.org & other art sites, this gives me ideas when I work on graphics. For blogs, I don’t usually read many blogs but I go to megagogo.com and it’s affiliates.

What are your favorite social media marketing tools, and why?
I use Facebook & LinkedIn, because a lot of people go there and because I’ve met a number of clients there.

How have social media, and/or your blog, helped build your business?
Word of mouth referrals helps me build trust with my clients because when you refer or they see that I am their friends’ friend they will also trust me to do their projects. Social media is one of the best marketing tools out there.

What’s your biggest online marketing challenge?
For now I have only tried advertising in Facebook & Google ads, but I haven’t challenged myself enough with online marketing. I still don’t have much time, I think it is because I have two jobs plus am actively freelancing at home.

Follow Crom on:

Tumblr: My art blog which I post my designs & artworks, it is http://www.tumblr.com/tumblelog/cromworx.

Link to company website: http://www.cromworx.com

LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/cromworx.

The Psychology of Graphics

In the previous two articles, we discussed both The Psychology of Color and The Psychology of Copy. In this third and final article in this three part series, I will be discussing one of possibly the most influential psychological aspects to a web site.  That if done effectively, will create an outstanding increase in your web site conversion rate.

Let’s get into it, shall we?

The Psychology of Graphics

“Ads with 10 or more visuals are 55 percent more likely to be noted than ads with few or no visuals.” – Drew Whitman. Graphics draw in the viewer. They engage, draw emotion, and educate them.  Without graphics, your site is like reading a nutrition label.  It’s informative, but doesn’t hold my attention.

But what are the best types of graphics to use on your site?  Do some graphics work just as well as others?

In my experience, there are a few categories of photos that when used, draw a huge response.

• Women
• Food
• Celebrities
• Groups of adults

The reasoning behind this can be connected to the psychology of the human mind.  Women are seen as more trustworthy, kind, and visually appealing than men are.  Food is a factor in human survival. People love to admire the lives they aspire to be in. And everybody has the desire to be accepted within a group or organization.

Here are a few other psychological graphic tips.

• Having a person in a white doctor’s coat draws immediate credibility.  Whether the person is an actual doctor or not.
• A women facing directly at you smiling is the most trustworthy image to have on your site.
• Placing a photo of your product on the main screen increases conversion by 13%.

There are a million different tricks to boosting your business web site.  These are just a few examples.  Most will come with trial and error.  These, on the other hand, have been proven time and time again and can be implemented today!

The Psychology of Copy

Welcome to part two of this three part series on the three most commonly unknown psychological tricks to increasing your conversion and interaction rates on your business web site.

In my last post, we discussed the Psychology of Color.  Where you were taught what colors were effective and what ages these people prefer them.  If you haven’t read it, check it out!

This next psychological trick to boosting your business web site is one that can greatly make or break a site.  Industries have evolved around this concept.  People spend years trying to master it.  Only few can truly say they have succeeded.

I am talking about copy.  The voice of your web site.  The idea that explains who you are, and what you can do for your customer.

Let’s explain.

The Psychology of Copy

Most people think that in order to gain a readers respect and trust and eventually make a sale, they need to write in a formal manner.  They make sure to correct all their contractions, changing words with better thesaurus replacements, and use deep and lengthy sentences.  A piece of copy that a college professor would be proud of.

The truth is the average American education level is 5^th grade.   So unless you’re selling to a sophisticated target market, most of your web site users are not looking to read sophisticated wording. They want to be told the benefits and where to buy.  Trying to be too fancy with your wording won’t impress your reader, it will confuse them.

Dr. Rudolph Flesch talks about this point further in his book, The Art of Plain Talk. Here he creates his Flesch Reading Ease Score (FRES) which, based on a 1 to 100 scale, rates the reading easiness of your copy. The higher your score, the easier your copy is to read.

The Flesch Reading Ease Score is calculated in a 5 step process as follows:

1)     Count every word, number, and symbol in your copy.

2)     Count all the syllables in the words, numbers, and symbols as you would pronounce them.

3)     Count every sentence that is separated by a period, question mark, semicolon, colon, exclamation point, or dash.

4)     Divide the total number of syllables by the total number of words.

5)     Divide the number of words by the number of sentences.

The result of your answer is your readability score.  If your score is 70 or above, your copy is in a good readability range.  In order to be truly effective as well, you should keep your sentences at around 11 words.

So when looking at your site, are you selling your product, or just telling about your product?

The Psychology of Color

In this three part series, you will be taught the three most commonly unknown psychological tricks to increasing your conversion and interaction rates on your business web site.

Web developers have found over the years that designing a website has become more of a science than anything else.  Using key features that are guaranteed to create higher user interaction. And eventually, a sale.

We are exposed to dozens of websites a day.  But why is it that some resonate deeper with us while others fall by the waste side?

Answer: Psychology.

There are proven features that build user engagement.  Features that help convert prospects into sales that go unnoticed to the untrained eye.

Let’s discover the first.

The Psychology of Color

Choosing your color scheme for your site is a longer process than throwing a dart at a color wheel.  There should be thought applied to every element of your page.

According to Drew Whitman’s bestselling book “Cashvertising,” the following colors are psychologically preferred for both men and women.

1) Blue

2) Red

3) Green

4) Violet

5) Orange

6) Yellow

Did you know that a person’s age affects color preference as well?

The preference for the color blue grows, as the person’s age grows as well.  Why is this?  While you are young, your eyes are young and clear.  Allowing only roughly 15% of blue light to enter.  While on the other hand, the older you become the more your eyes begin to haze and protect itself from strong, bright colors.  Causing closer to 75-80% of blue light to be absorbed.

Use color when trying to highlight important features to your site.  For example: The checkout button, call to action arrows, “learn more” links, etc.  By using certain colors, the user’s eyes are actually driven to these key features automatically.  Without them having to search the page for it.

What are some effective ways you have used color on your sites or ads? Leave your comments below.

What does Google+ mean for your business?

Google+ has been gaining steam in the social media world since the beginning of its test prelaunch in early July. Gaining upwards of 1.7 Million Google+ accounts in its first week, and rising to an estimated 4.5 Million accounts the following week.  All before the social media site has even officially gone public! Holding accounts for some well known names such as Seth Goden, Myspace’s Tom Anderson, and even the social media bad boy himself, Mark Zuckerberg.

Google+ is currently only offering accounts for people. Business profile pages are still in the works. But while the numbers continue to rise, and people start to “check out this new Google social site everybody is trying to be invited to,” businesses should be busy licking their lips at the SEO possibilities.

Here are a few reasons why your business should be preparing for Google+ business pages.

Combining Google+ Pages and Search Engine Rankings

It is quite possible Google will integrate the amount of feedback a +1 button on Google+ posts receives into their search rankings algorithm.  Helping Google sort out the relevant and quality content from the irrelevant.

What does this mean for your business?

This means there will no longer be a separation between a business’s social media presence and its search engine rankings.  The two will then be one in the same. Providing quality and engaging content will, in real time, affect a company’s search engine presence. Helping give hope for smaller businesses everywhere!

Keeping Your Customers Organized

Google+ offers a more aesthetically appealing way to keep your friends organized with “Circles.”  Easily allowing people to click and drag their friends into different categories such as: Closest Friends, Family, Work Buddies, etc.  Allowing certain posts to be only seen by circles predetermined by the user.

Google+ business pages can categorize their fans into the different stages of the customer cycle.  For example: Top Customers, Need More Information, Recently Purchased, etc. The ability to categorize your fans and then post content to that specific circle will be a huge advantage.

Google Offers and Maps

With Google’s answer to the growing success of Groupon, Google Offers­ would be a realistic integration into the Google+ business page. Supplying a very user friendly daily deals service.  To compliment this feature would most likely be the feature of Google Maps.  Displaying directions to your business, or the closest business franchise locations.

What does this mean for your company?

It would be wise to incorporate a Google+ promotion that leads to a Google Offer for your business.  Allowing you to again keep what would normally be separate entities, one and the same.  Also, Google Offers would then be linked to a convenient Google Map of all the closest business locations where the offer can be redeemed. Take all extra steps out of the equation.

These are my thoughts into the wonderful minds of Google and their future development of Google+.  If you have any thoughts on your own of how you see Google+ growing, please leave them in the comment sections below!