7 Cold Calling Tips to Improve Your Closing Rate

 

Cold calling potential prospects can be frustrating and hard. Whether you are doing it in person or on the phone, it is your job to warm up a potential customer.

This process can be exceedingly difficult, especially if you’re not used to it.

I’ve called many prospects and I’m going to show you a few cold calling tips that make this process much easier.

Here are 7 cold calling tips to help improve your closing rate:

1. Focus all of your questions on your client, not yourself
2. Plan all of your questions in advance
3. Don’t follow any cold calling scripts
4. Don’t overwhelm your prospect during the first meeting
5. Don’t attempt to sell on your first cold call
6. Keep your prospect relaxed
7. Find out what benefit will make your prospect buy from you

Focus all of Your Questions on Your Client, Not Yourself

In your initial contact with the prospect, focus all your attention and your questions on the prospect.

Don’t talk about who you are and what you do, or about your company or any other companies.

Remember, it is about them, not about you. Client-centered selling is professional selling. You are only selling professionally when you are talking to your client about his or her wants and needs.

Plan All of Your Questions in Advance

More Information = More Sales

In cold calling, the more information that you can elicit, the easier it will be for you to qualify the prospect and then go on to make a sale.

This is where questioning is so important. Your questions should be thought out carefully in advance, and organized in a logical sequence, from the most general to the most specific.

Don’t Follow Any Cold Calling Scripts

Once you have a positive response from a prospect to your opening question, you then ask him questions about his business, his market, his budget, and so on. Very often, people will give you all of this information in exchange for the benefit that you promised in your opening question.

To get the answers to these problems from your prospect, ask questions such as the ones in these cold calling scripts below:

1. “If you could magically eliminate three of your biggest problems in your business or market, what would they be?”
2. “If you could create the ideal situation for your business, what would you change?”
3. “I’d like to schedule a meeting with you in person to discuss your business needs and how my product will benefit you. How does Wednesday at 2PM sound?”

Always remember, that cold calling and sales in general, should be very personal. You should focus on your customer’s needs as an individual on a case by case business.

This is how you build relationships with you customers and have long sales relationships to come. Using cold calling scripts can make the call feel less personal and this is something you want to avoid.

Don’t Overwhelm Your Prospect During First Meeting

When you are “cold meeting” a prospect for the first time, a strategy is for you to “go in naked.”

What this means is that, at the most, you carry a simple folder rather than a briefcase full of brochures or samples.

If the prospect is interested and wants a presentation and more information, you can always go back to your car to get what you need and bring it in. But, when you go in without a briefcase you lower the stress of initial sales resistance and cause the prospect to relax and open up to you sooner.

Don’t Attempt to Sell on Your First Cold Call

On your first call, you should never attempt to sell.

Focus on information gathering. Unless you are selling something inexpensive that requires little thought, you want to interview the prospect by asking questions. Take notes and tell them you will come back to them.

Focus on building the relationship and coming across as friendly, genial and non-threatening.

Keep Your Prospect Relaxed

The longer that your prospect remains relaxed, and the more he opens up to you, the more likely it is you will make the sale in the long run.

If you are cold calling on the phone, read my previous blog about my “100 Calls Technique” that I like to use. It will help you to relax and be much more personable on every one of your sales calls.

Find Out Exactly What Benefit Will Cause Your Customer to Buy From You

With each customer, there is a key benefit that will trigger buying desire and cause the customer to purchase your product or service.

At the same time, there is a key fear or doubt that will hold the customer back from buying. Your initial job in your first cold call with your prospect, and the key to qualifying them, is to find out exactly what benefit will cause this customer to buy from you, and exactly what fear or doubt might hold this customer back from buying from you.

BONUS TIP: Don’t Be Afraid to Ask For More

Don’t be afraid to ask. “Ask” is the magic word for sales success.

You can even say, “Mr. Prospect, what we have found is that there is always a key benefit or major reason that a person would purchase our product or service. What might it be for you?”

If you are open, honest, and genuine, and ask out of curiosity, you will be amazed at the answers you’ll hear. Prospects will ofter give you all the information that you need to make a sale.

The key for you is to ask.

Culled from Brian Tracy

9 Tips for Marketing to Kids and Teens Successfully

 

What’s one tip for marketing your product or service specifically to kids or teens?

The following answers are provided by the Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC), an invite-only organization comprised of the world’s most promising young entrepreneurs. In partnership with Citi, YEC recently launched StartupCollective, a free virtual mentorship program that helps millions of entrepreneurs start and grow businesses.

A. Advertise on Music Platforms

There are two things you know about most teens: they love music, and they don’t have much money. One way to reach teens is by advertising on music platforms with free versions (YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, etc.). Teens are more likely to be using these free versions, and most of these platforms have advanced advertising analytics to ensure that you’re reaching your audience.
- Brett Farmiloe, Internet Marketing Company

B. Get Them Involved

Cut through the commercials, and take your product on the road. Hit high-density venues where you will find kids and teens, such as malls, fairs, schools, etc., and bring your product to them to try firsthand. If mom and/or dad are there to witness their children having fun with your brand, then they will be more likely to purchase it for them over and over again.
- Vinny Antonio, Victory Marketing Agency

C. Be Trustworthy

Even with teenagers, you’ll be dealing with parents who have the power to block your access to their children. You have to make sure you’re worthy of the trust parents need to place in you before they’ll let their children use your product or service.
- Thursday Bram, Hyper Modern Consulting

D. Keep It Short

In today’s age of 140 characters and Instagram pictures, kids and teens have extremely short attention spans. Long sentences, lengthy explanations and blocks of copy will not communicate your message in a way that’s easily processed. Pictures, graphic examples and short sentences that pop have helped ZinePak effectively market to younger audiences quickly and efficiently.
- Kim Kaupe, ZinePak

E. Hook Their Curiosity

In case you haven’t noticed, there’s a lot of noise out there. And the things that gain the attention of teens are what makes them laugh, cry, jeer or truly think. In building content for one of the top 50 most-trafficked websites on the Internet, we built teen content in near real time with a unique voice and engaging visuals. Relevant content that resonates at an emotional level is king.
- Matt Hunckler, Verge

F. Target the New Social Networks

New social networks, such Instagram and Snapchat, rise fast these days. Pay attention to what social networks kids are using, and you’ll be able to leverage those channels to reach them. If it’s a great product or idea, word will spread fast.
- Russ Oja, Seattle Windows and Construction, LLC

G. Be Relatable and Relevant

Marketing to kids inherently involves appealing to their inner world; their imagination. We once developed a tea product for children, licensing a known cartoon to brand it. For teens, social currency is a must. You must stay attuned to current social media trends such as Instagram and Snapchat. Being conscientious matters; do not forget parents spend on and supervise their children.
- Arthur Ebeling, Koi Creative, Inc.

H. Reply Quickly

When marketing to kids and teens, social media is where most of your target consumers are hanging out. Social media moves fast, so when you’re marketing to kids and teens, remember that the attention span on most of these platforms is rapid fire. You must engage fast, be responsive to questions and feedback and communicate in real time. Being accessible will gain you mindshare with this audience.
- Doreen Bloch, Poshly Inc.

I. Post Sharable Videos Online

Kids and teenagers still respond to video best, but not many companies can afford a prime TV spot. The best alternative is to create exciting online videos and market them through social media channels. Once kids see their peers sharing the next cool thing, you can bet their parents will hear about it.
- Robert De Los Santos, Sky High Party Rentals

Culled from Huff Post

5 Ways To Make Your Business More Visible Online

 

1. Keep Your Website Fresh. Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is no longer just about keywords. Search engines are looking more and more for websites that are continually updated with new information or pages. “Business Card” style websites no longer work, if your website is static you are going to start dropping in the search rankings!
2. Valuable Content Is King. You may have heard the expression “Content Is King” before, but many businesses have taken that to mean any content. That is definitely not the case! Content is like currency, you are paying your potential customers to learn more about you. If your currency has no value, you won’t get anything in return. Make sure everything you put out there is either helpful, emotional (cute, funny, sad, etc), or related to current events. And most importantly, it always has to be connected to your business’ message.
3. Get Rid of Superfluous Social. In a rush to be relevant did you create pages for your business on every social media platform? It’s alright, we all did it, but now it’s time to delete the pages that aren’t being used. Empty or outdated social pages look bad to both consumers and search engines. If you are a law firm you probably don’t need an Instagram page, just like a soaps store doesn’t need to be on Linkedin.
4. One Word: Mobile. Going back to your website, if it isn’t optimized for mobile devices then it should be! Not only has Google factored into their algorithm whether your website has a mobile version, more and more consumers are using their phones and tablets as their primary devices. If someone can’t read your website because the text is too small, they are going to move onto a competitor. Don’t let that happen to you.
5. Cohesive Branding. Branding isn’t just for the big boys anymore. If someone looked at your website, Facebook business page, business card, and storefront would they know they all belonged to the same business? If the answer is no, it’s time to make sure your online and in person branding all looks the same. You want someone to recognize your website after they’ve walked past your storefront, and vice-versa. The more times a consumer sees your brand, the quicker they are familiar and comfortable with becoming a customer of your business.

Culled from Burlingame

Common Marketing Problems of Small Business Owners

 

As a small business owner, what would you say is your biggest marketing challenge? Some challenges small business owners face when it comes to marketing might include:

• not enough resources to effectively implement and carry out a marketing plan
• budgetary constraints to hire the right team members
• not sure what direction you need to go or even how to begin
• not enough time to do the marketing tasks you’d like to do

Unlike ten years ago, a business can stay competitive in its industry without a large marketing budget. Thanks to the Internet and social media, getting your messages spread across the radio or on a television commercial isn’t as critical as it once was. You can—for free, mind you—now spread your message to your audience in a more effective, non-interruptive way using free tools like social media and blogging platforms. Because this method of marketing is what a lot of companies are still getting used to, our job is to partner, teach, and help small businesses better understand how to do it.

Here are some marketing tips we suggest for small business owners:

• Budget for a website design (or re-design) that will allow you to capture leads online. A one-time investment in a well-designed content management system will pay off for you over and over again. Your website should be one that allows for easy updates, has a built-in blog, allows you to easily capture leads.
• Start using social media. Is this easier said than done for you? Then it’s time to start researching. See what your competitors are doing and how they’re using social media. Use it as a way to talk to people and start building their trust.
• Blog everyday. One of the most effective ways to improve your search engine ranking is to produce fresh content on a daily basis. Content that will solve a problem in your industry, provide value to those reading it, and share knowledge about industry news and topics you already know so well.

 

Culled from The Marketing Squad

 

 

What Does Being Digitally Literate Mean?

Let’s understand it this way- back in the day, knowing excel used to be a big deal. Every resume that I made for myself during college days said ‘Proficiency in Microsoft Excel, PPT, Word’. Today, using excel is a minimal requirement. Similarly, today’s equivalent of being digitally literate means knowing the basics of all online platforms. What makes you stand out today are skills like coding and data analytics.

Tomorrow, they too will be a minimal requirement, this is the inevitable future.

The four pillars of digital include

• Coding

• Digital Design

• Digital Marketing

• Data Analytics

Why just these four? Because that’s all you need for building the companies of tomorrow. You need a coder to build it, a designer to make it look good, a marketer to sell it and an analytics person to optimize it.

Hence having even one of these digital skills can prove to be a great asset for anyone today.

Opportunities that being digitally literate bring on board:

1. Take any business online

The number of customers to be found online will always beat the physical limitations of brick and mortar. Roughly, only 18% of the world’s businesses today are online and the rest don’t know how to get there.

2. Build your own brand

“Developing your personal brand is key to monetizing your passion online.” — Gary Vaynerchuk

Don’t think of it as being an influencer, look at it as - following your passion. Being socially active and sharing valuable content that you’re passionate about could get you the recognition only fifteen-year long hardships could bring.

The idea is to create an audience that loves the authentic you.

This can allow you to not only start a product line in a matter of weeks but also put you in the limelight.

2. Start your own blog

You can earn massive payouts with advertising options such as Ad Sense, Facebook Audience Network and many other options that are available out there today.

Having a large number of visitors on your blog can give you an opportunity at a great earning opportunity similar to the old school broking - Affiliate Marketing. Today, all major e-commerce websites offer a program for affiliates that offer a great commission.

Best part? It’s all passive income.

4. Freelance or Digital Nomad

A freelancer is a person who is self-employed and is not necessarily committed to a particular employer long-term. And it is high in demand. So today, being a freelancer can easily mean earning better than most desk jobs have to offer.

While a digital nomad is similar to a freelancer but is not restricted to any physical location, they travel from place to place. Hence the term - Digital Nomad.

If you Google -“Top Freelancing Industries”, the top results are- graphic design and web design. Hence, digital skills are extremely vital.

Also, it’s super easy to get gigs to work on with a great freelance platform like Fiverr, Upwork, Freelancer, Indifolio and many more.

5. Build your own business

As discussed earlier, the four pillars of digital are the foundation to build companies of tomorrow. If you think you have a vision and want to see it come to life, all you need is a little digital literacy, the right skill set and you can truly actualize your dreams.

6. Be a consultant, you’ll be most valuable

 

Most people don’t have these skills. So anyone who’s ahead of the curb gets the most benefit of mastering these skills which are being financially secure.

Quick Bonus - Types of income

You may already know this but there are two types of income primarily:

1. Earned/active Income - The income you basically exchange your time for.

2. Passive Income - Recurring or non-recurring income that is generated with activities that require a one-time effort or zero-time investment from your side.

We can sum up the article in one sentence, it would say:

“Create enough passive income to cover your active expenses, and then you won’t need any active income and will be financially free”

Most digital jobs offer the opportunity to earn money passively, which is what we need today!

Conclusion

The only thing AI and Machine Learning is doing for humans is taking away the manual labour intensive jobs human beings used to do. It is taking the jobs away from us that were redundant and didn’t require much mental capacity. These redundant jobs are being automated so that human beings can use their brains for innovating and doing better for humanity. This is where digital skills play an important role. Just like all the jobs today require you to know how to use a laptop, all jobs tomorrow will need you to have the general knowledge of digital skills.

Culled from Entrepreneur

 

8 Ways to Do Big-Time Marketing Without Spending a Fortune

 

Marketing is essential to any company’s bottom line. However, traditional advertising channels such as newspapers, radio and television can get expensive really quick. Furthermore, they may produce little or no ROI. Contrary to these earlier practices, your own marketing strategy does not need to break the bank. Here are several tactics for saving money on marketing while still ensuring that your message reaches your target audience.

1. Do partnered giveaways.

Team up with other brands to generate large contests with grand prizes instead of organizing small, standalone giveaways. All of the involved businesses should pool distribution support and marketing manpower, as well as share email lists and social media followings. One example to take inspiration from is Oklahoma’s News on 6, a TV station that has partnered with different local businesses in Oklahoma to promote giveaways.

2. Foster user-generated content.

Get users to build content and broadcast your company. BuzzFeed utilizes this method by encouraging community posts. HerCampus.com is largely community-driven, with the majority of its site content created by university women. Another tactic is to create a contest for the best user-generated content. For instance, Doritos hosts a yearly Crash the Super Bowl contest with a cash prize to get fans to produce Super Bowl video commercials for the brand.

Related: Millennials Spend 18 Hours a Day Consuming Media -- And It's Mostly Content Created By Peers

3. Promote customer referrals.

Encourage customers to refer their friends to your product or service. Airbnb and Uber grew considerably thanks to their powerful referral programs, both of which only involved small incentives. All you need to do to bolster your referral program is to provide a little money or discount to the source and recipient of the referral.

4. Use social media.

Social media provides many cost-free avenues for advertising your brand, including Facebook and Twitter. Another growing opportunity is hosting a Reddit Ask Me Anything (AMA) and inviting Reddit users to ask any questions. A wide range of individuals and companies have hosted Reddit AMAs, from celebrities promoting movies, to employees of large corporations, to founders of start-up companies. Before hosting one of your own, be sure to read through a few relevant threads to get a sense of what the best practices are for marketing your business and for answering questions.

If you have more money in your social media budget, consider creating a YouTube video. Get ideas from “Dumb Ways to Die,” a safety PSA for a local Australian train company that went viral due to a skillful combination of animation, catchy music and black humor.

Related: If Marketing About Avoiding Death Can Be Funny, Why Is Your Content So Somber?

5. Hire brand ambassadors.

Employ friendly individuals to be brand ambassadors for your product or service. Brand ambassadors act as representatives of the company and spread the word to the public in many types of ways. Businesses like Lyft and Amazon hire university students as brand ambassadors to advertise their services across college campuses.

6. Transform old campaigns into new ones.

Instead of starting a marketing campaign from scratch, repurpose or update a previous one to save time and money. Refashion what works and toss out aspects of the campaign that were not successful. Moreover, this strategy should help maintain the consistency of your message, and according to Rand Group, a consistent advertising message may improve brand recognition. An inconsistent one on the other hand can be costly – it can lead to significant setbacks for brand recognition.

7. Exploit online marketing tools.

There are many free or low cost marketing tools on the Internet that help companies save money and time on marketing efforts. For market research, SurveyMonkey provides free online survey and questionnaire tools for polling your target market and analyzing their responses. MailChimp offers a free email marketing service for sending emails using newsletter templates, managing subscribers and tracking email results. If you want more powerful tools, try a 30-day free trial of HubSpot, an extensive inbound marketing and sales software.

8. Dispose of weak ads.

Stop wasting money on poorly performing ads. This may sound like common sense, but an estimated 46 percent of ads go unseen, so many businesses do spend money on ads that never reach an audience. Keep track of what you are paying for and why you are pursuing certain tactics. If there are marketing channels that have little ROI, then curb your ad spending, reevaluate your current strategies and carry out more effective advertising approaches.

Marketing your brand can be an overwhelming and costly process, but these tips will save you loads of money and time. There are many more free and inexpensive tools available today than ever before – take advantage of them!

5 Tricks to Step-Up Your Self Promotion Skills

 

No one wants to be super annoying, and that’s what a lot of people’s greatest fear is when they think of self-promotion.

Self-promotion comes much more naturally to some people than others – the task is obviously more difficult for introverts or people that generally like to keep out of the limelight.

Self-promotion also means having to indulge in that dreaded word - networking. Yes, it can strike fear into mere mortals, but networking is a key part of a business, and of building your personal brand.

So, how can you make self-promotion a little easier for yourself, and ensure you’re not becoming obnoxious with your messaging?

Here are some tips.

Self-Awareness

Self awareness is so important to keep in mind when you’re self-promoting, or indeed, in any of aspect of your life.

Being self-aware is about having an understanding of your place in a conversation, and being conscious of your actions and choice of words. It’s basically thinking of other people and their perception, considering how you would see yourself.

For some people this is just normal, but you’d be surprised how difficult lots of people seem to find it.

To start with, don’t intrude on every conversation at an event or on social media and seek to railroad through with your message or what you’re up to at the moment. Self-promotion is a subtle art, and it’s about building foundations and relationships, instead of the equivalent of getting out your microphone and blaring out your resume.

Listen to others, engage with them - and where appropriate, and relevant, tell them a bit about yourself too.

Promote Others

Give and you shall receive.

Practice being someone that gives to other people around them, or those in your industry, by promoting others for cool things that they’re doing. If you look like a positive person who likes to help and support others, then other people around are more likely to return the favor.

Of course, you shouldn't just say things for the sake of it, but if you’re principled about promoting people doing good things, then chances are that you’ll start to see people doing the same for you.

Being generous and sharing others success is a positive action, and whether you get anything back or not, the other person will feel valued.

Ask People to Promote you

Another thing you could consider is asking your close buddies to do your self-promotion for you. If you hate writing about yourself, ask someone else to come up with something.

Or you could ask someone to post something from their own account, or do a joint post about something you’re working on together.

This can work really well, because sometimes, if people see that someone else is saying something good about someone, it can carry more weight then you personally telling someone how great you are.

Keep it Interesting

No one has the time to hear your whole life story, however interesting it might be. Try to keep your self-promotion concise and impactful, and only include the really good parts that pack a punch.

A good practice is to write down your key points at home, so that if you get into a conversation or you’re asked anything online, you can quickly reel off some of the best parts about you, instead of a monologue that goes nowhere.

Be careful not to sound too robotic though, and try not to come across too polished - otherwise it’ll just sound like a sales pitch.

Also, be light-hearted, and don’t take yourself too seriously.

Stay Authentic

Self-promotion is obviously about trying to convey positive messages - but this doesn’t have to mean that you make everything sound 'hunky dory' all the time. Being honest and authentic about your struggles and failures can be just as effective - if not more so - than pretending everything’s been plain sailing.

People can relate to and connect with vulnerabilities, as they too have had their own, so sharing your story in a way that's authentic, and even self-deprecating at times, can be a really good, truthful way to promote yourself, which people will notice and pick up on in the long-run.

Final Thoughts

Self-promotion doesn’t have to be sparkling, loud and super positive 24/7. Be relaxed, true to yourself, and be honest when you’re building your personal brand, whether online or in-person.

A version of this post was first published on Bryan Kramer's blog.

3 Tips to Expand Your Content’s Reach

 

Nobody likes crafting a stellar press release, blog entry or even social media post, only to watch it disappear into a black hole with little or no exposure.

Here are three ways to optimize your online PR content for greater reach, readership and results:

1. Punch up press releases via social media. A/B test your press release headlines on social networks to compare effectiveness using metrics like retweets, favorites, mentions and clicks. The metrics will tell you which is more effective, removing the guesswork and ensuring a more productive release.

"First, create two headlines for an article or press release that you think will perform well,” says Peter Methot, managing director of executive education at Rutgers Business School. “Then tweet both of these headlines roughly one hour apart and compare the data for each tweet."

The headline that has received more clicks, mentions and RTs obviously performed better. Use this one for the press release or any other type of content you’re distributing. “Let the data be the determining factor—not a gut instinct,” Methot says.

Register for PR Daily’s Aug. 6 PR University webinar “The New SEO for PR: Skyrocket Reach and Budget with Optimized Content” to learn how to vault your brand or news to the top of today’s search rankings.

2. Share content with variations to different time zones. Share any given press releases socially at different times to reach prime viewing audiences in key geographical regions. This will expand its reach and shareability.

“We found that 10 a.m. Eastern is the best time of day to push releases,” says Methot. “We want this content to be seen in different time zones in that sweet spot, so we push it again via social media with slight variations so it falls at roughly 10 a.m. in whichever time zone we want it to be seen.”

3. Frame content to address audience wants, needs or pain points. Use words and images your audience would use, rather than company-centric jargon or technical speak. This is how your key audiences will look for answers to their wants, needs or pain points, so deliver solutions in the same way.

Methot gives this example: The heartburn relief drug Nexium is also referred to as “The Purple Pill” or “esomeprazole magnesium,” its clinical name. Each of these names can help segment audiences and shape the content and words used to aid them in searching for the drug online.

For instance, someone using the search phrase “purple pill” has likely seen the product’s marketing materials and may have a need for more information about the benefits and risks. Someone using “Nexium” in a search is more likely in the buying phase and wants to know where to purchase the product or find a prescribing doctor. A person using the drug’s clinical name is probably a doctor. This person’s information needs would more likely be about dosage and other prescriptive guidelines.

In each of these situations, content end users will use different words in their research and reading—and the content they search for and engage with must be useful, understandable and relevant to their given moments of need.

Hitting that sweet spot will go a long way toward giving your content greater reach and results.

Brian Pittman is a Ragan Communications consultant and webinar manager for PR Daily’s PR University. SEO-PR’s Greg Jarboe and Rutgers University’s Peter Methot will search engine marketing tactics in the Aug. 6 University webinar, “The New SEO for PR: Skyrocket Reach and Budget with Optimized Content.”

 

4 Ways to Differentiate Your Brand in a Congested Marketplace

 

The beauty of free enterprise, capitalism, or whatever you want to call the backbone of an economy is that anyone from anywhere can launch a business.

As a result of this freedom, the Marketplace is full of small businesses and locally-owned enterprises. This makes the marketplace congested.

This high competition makes it challenging for even the most successful brands to stand out. As a business owner, or marketer tasked with elevating the status of your brand, it’s imperative that you find a way to rise above the crowd and overcome the burgeoning list of industry competitors.

Here are four tips to get you started:

1. Pursue alternative pricing

The quickest way to get noticed is to offer alternative pricing that stands in stark contrast to the competition. There are three general ways of doing this.

Low pricing: The first option to consider is low pricing. If you’re able to sell a similar product or service at a lower price point than the competition, you’re going to garner attention. This is obviously much harder than it looks, though, or everyone would offer lower prices.

Premium pricing: The opposite strategy involves developing premium pricing. If your products are extremely high quality and your target market has the budget to pay a higher price, then you can benefit from differentiating your brand in this manner.

Unique structure: The third option is to offer a unique pricing structure. If everyone in your industry offers a 90-day retainer for services, consider offering a month-to-month payment structure. People like alternatives and a unique option can grab attention.

It’s a good idea to start with dollar signs, since most markets are based on how much products and services cost the consumer. However, it’s not the only way to stand out.

2. Devote your brand to customer service

Establishing a customer-centric culture is the second best way to stand out in a crowded industry. According to Andrew O'Connor, director of search at American Addiction Centers, customer centricity is important for three reasons:

• The balance of power has shifted to consumers, who can now amplify their pleasure or displeasure with businesses via social media.
• Automated business models have made personal customer service less frequent.
• Long-term loyalty of a customer base is the best way to guarantee profitability for years to come.

By building a customer-centric company, you can stand out against the collection of other organizations in your industry that turn a blind eye to customer issues.

3. Forge partnerships

At some point, you have to realize you can’t do everything on your own. Even the most powerful brands find it valuable to forge partnerships and relationships with other businesses. This doesn’t necessarily mean the competition, though. This isn’t about mergers or acquisitions. This is about cross-industry partnerships that help you offset deficiencies and leverage resources you don’t have.

The Coca-Cola Company and Ericsson recently did this to help rural communities that needed access to better resources. Are there any businesses in other industries that you could combine forces with to strengthen an aspect of your business or increase recognition?

4. Don’t be afraid to pivot

The term “pivot” often gets exaggerated in entrepreneurial circles. People assume it means you completely abandon your core business activity and spin off in other direction. It’s not always this dramatic, though. Sometimes a pivot is nothing more than a very subtle decision to specialize.

For example, let’s say you’re a full-service landscaping business that earns 75 percent of your revenue from mowing lawns. Instead of competing with the other lawn care companies in your area that offer the same services, why not dedicate all of your resources to offering cost-friendly mowing? It’s part pivot, part specialization.

The majority of businesses in crowded industries fail to stand out because they don’t do anything to differentiate their brands. They simply do what everyone else does, content with scraping by and ignoring the scary proposition of taking a risk.

While part of the problem is the sheer volume of competition in industries such as law, health and construction, the other half of the problem is that many business owners are afraid of standing out. They like the idea of differentiation, but when it comes down to taking action, they can’t seem to step out on a limb.

If you truly want to stand out in a competitive industry, you must take action. The tips mentioned in this article are a great place to start. As millions of new businesses launch in 2016, it’s important that you stop following the crowd and start forging your own path.

Culled from Entrepreneur

9 Strategies To Revive Your Brand

 

Commoditization is a fact of market. I always remember that great observation by VJ Govindarajan that “Strategy starts dying the moment it is created”. It dies because its (potential) effectiveness dies and with that, its relative value.

That idea, transposed to brand is, in reality, what commoditization is: the (slow) death of relevant value. However, there are strategies you can put in place to reverse the speed and/or pace of that commoditizing effect. Here are nine ways I outlined to a leadership forum in Malaysia recently to decommoditize your offering and reassert its branded value.

In the presentation itself, I focused on actual commodities, but the principles are in fact applicable to any brand that doesn’t command the value that it needs to, or once did:

1. Think of the product in new ways – when you redefine what something is or could be, you reframe its context and it’s much easier to redefine what it can be used for. When you stop thinking of milk as a drink, for example, and start thinking of it as a food, as Fonterra did, you change the scope of the product you’re working with in so many ways.

2. Redefine who you want to be a brand to – if the current audience places a declining level of value on it, think about who might be able to use it in ways that enable you to regain value. Starbucks redefined the value of coffee globally by making coffee hip, urbane and tailored to individual taste. Now they’re looking to do the same thing with tea. In a world that really does believe it’s seen or searched it all, discovery is a powerful consumer motive.

3. Change what it looks like – sometimes changing the value of a commodity can be as simple as changing how it appears to others. Think about the difference in pricing and perception between bottled beer and beer on tap. However, new packaging alone won’t make up for a product that doesn’t add value. What it can do is signal the unrealized value that you want consumers to take up on.

4. Formulate your offer in different ways – the water industry changed how we think of water by adding vitamins and/or carbon dioxide and then segmenting those offers to specific audiences. Today, the world spends more than $100 billion a year on bottled water. What could you do to what you have to make it more than it is right now?

5. Name it in different ways – the deer industry in New Zealand renamed its venison offering “cervena” to differentiate it from deer meat sourced from elsewhere and to make a strong country-of-origin play. If you’re selling copper and everyone else is selling copper, what can you call your copper to distinguish it from what people can source anywhere. Again – renaming alone won’t be enough. In the case of cervena, the change in name spoke to an idea that consumers were interested in, and eliminated the concern, amongst American consumers, that they were eating Bambi.

6. Package it in different ways – the red meat industry is now starting to segment its offer and to assign different perceptions of value to cuts and breeds that not too long ago would all have just been beef. Angus is a classic example. Others are packaging along ethical lines to put daylight between themselves and others and to appeal to consumers who are prepared to pay more for feel good foods. Cage-free and free-range eggs are part of this trend. (What’s interesting for those interested in moral labeling, however, is how those terms and others can be defined in some jurisdictions. It doesn’t necessarily mean what it appears to mean.)

7. Distribute it in different ways – changing the distribution channel can be a highly effective way to transform your white label product into something valued by a more specific audience. iTunes rebuilt the value of music by reinventing the concept of the single into a single digital track and allowing people to buy the music they wanted in a new way, at a new price. Tablets are having the same effect on books and magazines – redefining how consumers access content and buy it. It’s a very different value equation than it used to be – but at least it’s a value equation.

8. Price point it in different ways – This is a particularly effective approach when combined with segmentation. Go after various parts of the market with products that demonstrate various levels of value add and are price pointed accordingly – e.g. a bulk product at a bulk price, a high end or specialized product priced at a top-end price, and a consumer focused product that may even operate at flexible price points. Forced into what was close to a death-spiral for many, the airline industry repriced to find new ways of achieving yield. First, they cemented the front-end profit by giving business and first class passengers more space and more comfort to protect margins. Then they debundled their economy offering, adding new categories like Premium Economy, cramming in more seats in cattle class and instigating fees for service that have kept the asking price low whilst charging at every point for things that were once considered included. This evolution hasn’t exactly been a success from the travelers’ point of view, but it has certainly forced a rethink on what is paid for, and how.

9. Wrap a different story around it – New storylines can change how people perceive a product. Water, beer and wine have all used stories to engage consumers and to deliver a new sense of worth. Increasingly, there are opportunities to link undifferentiated products to differentiating stories around environment, supply chain, conduct, purpose and cause. Psychologist Dr. Norman Holland, in an interview with Stephen Denny, explains why: “When we adopt a brand for our own use, we integrate it into the stories of our daily lives.” Once integrated of course, that storied brand has new value for buyers because now it’s personal.

A note of caution. While, as outlined above, there are a number of ways to stave off deterioration and even to restore value to goods whose value has decayed, there is also no denying that the product or brand you make has a best-before date in terms of margin. Unless you assume commoditization, and continually look for ways to slow its advance or reverse its influence, it will get your brand in the end.

The key to successfully staging a resurgence in the value of your brand is to think of each of the nine tactics outlined above as a multiplier. To an extent, the more multipliers you can employ simultaneously, the greater the chances that you can relift your brand. Focus them specifically on the key needs and unmet desires of your (new) target market. So, for example:

In a market, where your brand has been painted into a corner – I might look to use these three approaches:

Think of the product in new ways X Change what it looks like X Distribute it in different ways

Or if the market you’ve traditionally targeted is treating your brand like a commodity and threatening to start a price war, I might combine these four:

Redefine who you want to be a brand to X Package it in different ways X Price point it in different ways X Wrap a different story around it

When you change how a product is viewed and accessed, you open the door to changing how it can be marketed.

Culled from Brand Strategy Insider

7 Email Marketing Tips For Marketers

 

Marketers should always use email marketing to stay connected with their target audience. Regardless of the different strategies open to marketers today, you’ll find email marketing to be integral to your marketing campaign. This is still the leading channel for getting the best ROI.

But email marketing is not a silver bullet. If your email marketing efforts aren’t effective this is because you aren’t doing the right things. You can’t just do anything and expect it to work. You have to think about your strategy and use customer behaviors to turn it around.

This is how to do it.

Stop Treating Your Customers Like Nameless Faces

What a lot of marketers fail to grasp is that customers don’t want to be seen as a nameless face. They want to be acknowledged as unique human beings. This is relatively easy to do because all you have to do is indulge in some personalization.

Rather than sending out the same emails to everyone, use the feedback you’re getting to segment your email list. That way you can make sure customers feel like you’re reading their minds.

Change The Sales Funnel Based On The Customer’s Journey

The customer journey is becoming more important within the field of marketing. Mapping out the customer journey is about charting the various touch points you’ll come up against. The way customers behave will tell you what content they are looking for.

Combine this with demographical information to customize the sales funnel based on the type of customer you have.

Optimize And Retest

You should always be optimizing and retesting your various email campaigns. A/B testing campaigns are easily run from your mailing list provider. You can harvest detailed stats and begin to refine your future campaigns.

Effective testing will help you to make sure your strategies remain as potent as they were before. It will stop you from allowing the email marketing world to leave you behind.

Give Your Customers Space

It’s true that your customers do want to hear from you. The fact you have a regular email marketing campaign is one of the magic elements boosting your ROI. But there’s such a thing as overkill. Once you come off a great campaign it’s tempting to run the same campaign again in an attempt to get the same results. The chances are you’re going to get diminishing returns.

Customers don’t want to be bombarded by promotional emails every day. Give them a break and don’t make them feel like you’re harassing them.

Define a schedule, based on the feedback you’re getting from customers, and stick to that schedule. If you promise your customers they’ll only receive a weekly email don’t send them more than one email per week. Your welcome email can also come with a form to help customers decide how often they want to be contacted.

Don’t Rely On Automation

Email automation is an essential ingredient of every great email campaign. But this doesn’t mean you should rely on it. You should be using it to eliminate the tedious processes that come with crafting an email marketing campaign. It shouldn’t be replacing you in general.

Solve The ‘Opt Out’ Problem With A Break

Did you know that 54% of the average person’s inbox is taken up by promotional emails?

It’s no surprise to see people opting out of mailing lists faster than ever before. They’re becoming more discerning because they’re tired of so many low-quality mailing lists. Marketers that have this same problem can alleviate it through implementing a break.

Opting down is a better option than giving people the chance to stay or go. For example, you can add a form that allows people to reduce how often they receive your emails. You can still retain your customers without bothering them. It’s the best compromise.

Get Ready For Mobile

What companies are learning, often the hard way, is some people access the Internet exclusively through mobile devices. All your emails should be optimized for mobile. No matter the device someone reads your email on it should automatically adjust itself to fit their screen.

Luckily, optimizing for mobile is easier than ever before. The majority of emailing list providers automatically provide you with optimized mailing campaigns.

Conclusion

Your customers do want to stay in contact with you. Marketers have to be able to do it in a way that provides them with something of value, though. Through following adopting these big corporate practices you can increase your subscribe rates and keep people subscribed for the long haul.

How will you improve your mailing campaign today?

Culled from Forbes

3 Signs You Should Rethink Your Branding Strategy

 

When business growth stagnates, talk inevitably turns to increasing advertising, website redesign, lowering fees, etc. to earn back former clients and entice new prospects. All of those tactics can be effective, but only if they send the right message to your audience. So, if your firm’s growth has slowed, referrals aren’t as strong as they once were, or you’re having trouble recruiting top talent, it may be time to consider a brand refresh.

Having to refine your branding strategy does not mean your brand has failed. On the contrary, the evolution of your brand can be the natural outcome of your growth and changes in the market. But research shows that brands that do not refresh every 5 to 10 years will be out of synch with the marketplace and struggle to remain relevant.

Your Brand—More than Just a Logo

Your brand is more than just your name and logo. At its core, it’s the essential message you send to the marketplace to communicate your story and promise. When done well, your brand will help you to accomplish important marketing objectives, including the following:

• Share your values and vision with the marketplace, which will help you attract both new clients and top talent.
• Increase brand awareness—your firm’s visibility—in your market.
• Encourage referrals by giving influencers a clear and consistent message they can share with others.
• Furnish employees with a compelling and consistent vision that will influence their work
• Encourage employees and clients to be advocates of your firm on social media and in networks.
• Attract top talent
• Command higher fees—The percentage varies by industry, but a recent study showed that top brands can earn up to 32% higher fees than lesser known competitors.

If your growth has slowed, you are entering into a new market or offering a new service, or the visuals associated with your brand looks dated or “tired” it is time to refresh your brand.

Growth rate has slowed

Flat growth or an inability to get to the next level are important indicators that your brand may no longer be relevant. Lack of a clear and compelling brand message makes it harder for prospects to quickly understand what you do and how you can help them.

Prospective clients and top talent commit themselves to strong brands with a compelling vision of the future.  If your message and brand are unclear, influencers can’t articulate your advantage to prospects.  And if your brand seems outdated or unclear to those outside your firm, it will also be perceived that way by your own staff and potential job candidates

Entering a New Market or Offering a New Service

Humans are interesting creatures. We are capable of great depth and complexity, but our internal filing systems are stubbornly simple. Perceptions are not easily changed. Once a business becomes known for a particular service, it’s very hard to change people’s perceptions of that business.

A significant change in your firm will also likely require a change in your brand and your messaging. Unveiling a new logo or tagline are very effective ways to introduce your changes to the marketplace and begin to change how prospects and clients perceive you.

Your visual brand looks tired

We know from our research that 80% of people who are referred to a firm check out that firm’s website before reaching out. If you are hesitant to send prospects to your website or feel sheepish when you present the outdated graphics in your firm’s PowerPoint deck, it’s time for a refresh.

The speed of today’s market drives graphic design trends and tastes. Websites and collateral need to be refreshed every few years to look relevant to the marketplace. A website that looks outdated—or does not address the problems the prospect is trying to solve—can quickly deter a prospect from further interest. And a competitor with a fresher, more on-point message is just a click or two away. Even small tweaks like updated images, font, and new colors can make a big difference.

Whether your goal is to bolster your firm’s growth, increase awareness in the industry, or simply to remain relevant in today’s dynamic marketplace, a brand refresh is something to consider before investing precious time and money in tactics (advertising, brochures, etc.) that will be sending an outdated or ineffective message.

Hinge Marketing

How to Select the Perfect Keynote Speaker for Your Event

 

One of the most important entertainment elements to an event is selecting a great keynote speaker and other presenters for the agenda. When hiring an outside speaker to fill the role, event planners may either contract directly with a professional speaker or rely on the expertise of a speakers bureau. Whether it’s an internal executive, industry leader, or a professional speaker, a successful program will identify speakers early in the planning process.

 

Advice From an Expert

Diane Goodman, president of The Goodman Speakers Bureau, Inc. in Windsor, CT is a recognized industry leader in providing professional and nationally-recognized speakers and entertainers for corporate and organization events. She is the expert author of Survive The Search: How To Target & Choose The Best Professional Speaker, a 12-page primer for meeting and event planners.

Goodman structured the guide as a checklist of helpful tips and questions that beginning and experienced meeting planners should address internally before reaching out to hire or select a speaker.

 

What to Do Before Selecting a Keynote Speaker

First and foremost, as with any event, advance planning is always helpful, and at times critical, to landing the best speaker for your event. It’s much easier to secure the best speakers by planning at least six to 12 months prior to the event. The norm for booking a professional or well-known speaker used to be a year. Of course, this isn’t always reasonable or realistic, and today, bookings have been known to be made only a few months in advance. If you can help it, don't leave yourself in a panic during crunch time.

You'll thank yourself later.

So to be prepared enough to start the keynote speaker search, Goodman advises the following steps be in every event and meeting planner's initial internal checklist:

 

1. Determine meeting logistics/scheduling
2. Understand the audience
3. Capture the meeting objective
4. Define the expectations of the speaker
5. Benchmark success

 

Only once these tasks are thought through (and perhaps others specific to your event or meeting), should you begin the keynote speaker search. A keynote speaker can play several different roles in a conference or meeting. Does your meeting require a corporate speaker or would your audience be better served by an inspirational or motivational speaker? Going through this checklist will not only provide a better framework from which to conduct your speaker search, but it will save you time on the back end in getting internal approval on your first choice of speaker.

 

What to Do During the Search for a Keynote Speaker

Once you know the conceptual direction of the meeting, you will have a better experience finding an appropriate keynote speaker. Where most event planners get stuck is not in the search and selection process itself, but rather in the negotiation of keynote speaker fees.

Professional keynote speakers with a published book can run companies upwards of $10,000 to $20,000 not including travel costs for an event. A New York Times best-selling author, on the other hand, can collect as much as $40,000 per speaking engagement. While these numbers can feel extraordinarily high for event planners new to the keynote speaker space, you must approach the fees relatively. How does the speaker's fee compare to say the cost of the catered morning breakfast or the number of people expected at the meeting?

 

The Bottom Line

Since event planners serve as the internal and external face of the business meeting, this type of structured approach to speaker selection will help obtain the needed internal approvals for a budget as well as moving a program forward.

When planning a meeting, one of two scenarios tends to occur: the business meeting date is approved without content, or the business meeting date is not approved without confirmed content.

Goodman’s approach recommends that event planners should have a thorough understanding of the meeting, who will be attending, what messages are being communicated, what type of speaker is needed, and what has worked in the past.

These steps, combined with some scheduling flexibility and advance planning will result in a successful program.

Culled from Small Business

10 Tips to Manage Your Business Like a Pro on Instagram

 

Instagram is primarily a visual medium for sharing memories and moments in pictures and short videos with friends and followers.

However, these days it is currently regarded for doing more than just that. It is fast becoming a business and branding tool for as many who can get a hang of it.

The Facebook-acquired app now boasts over 300 million monthly active users, so it would be great to put it to good use for business just as much as for personal purposes.

Here are a number of tips to put into use:

Set up personal and business accounts

Let there be a distinction between your individual account and a business one. Using one and the same account may not work if you have personal photos you want to upload.

Your business as a brand must have a clear consistent voice with all posts. This also goes for comedians whose humorous persona have become their brands.

Regular posting time

It may be counter-productive to not have a regular time with which you produce content for your followers. Having a regular schedule for posting keeps you organized, and accountable to a large extent.

Be focused

It’s cool to have a specific area that you will become to be known for. Trying to be a jack of all trades will not earn you a loyal following. If you are going to combine topics, then they should most probably be under the same category of interests like football and basketball. If you have a wide range of interests, you might want to create multiple accounts for them.

Hashtag Hashtag Hashtag

Hashtags are not only fun to use, they also serve a purpose, which is to let searchers interested in your type of content easily find it when they key in the hashtag with the search term or keyword. Using too many hashtags, however, is a huge turn-off to many.

A rule of thumb has suggested seven hashtags as the maximum number one should use. That’s left for debate. Just let your instincts guide you with the number of hashtags.

You could also build a brand around a particular hashtag and let people know you for it. Just make sure it fits into your brand objectives.

It goes down in the DM

Well, not that kind of going down. But, heck, whatever works for you.

Do not take for granted the engagement you get from your audience. When you can, deliberately read their comments and respond accordingly to them.

This makes you more human and puts a face to the brand, which creates a loyal following, and potential customers of your business. With DMs you get to build one-on-one relationships with your most engaging followers. It doesn’t get any better than that.

Make your Instagram bio catchy and friendly

As simple and personable as possible is what should describe your bio. You could also draw in more people with a human display picture as against a business logo, not to undermine the importance of a brand logo.

Use tracking codes on your links

When you have a link you want to share that would lead back to your website, create a URL builder and generate a tracking code to help measure the number of clicks that link gets, which would help inform your decision better.

If you are going to use a URL shortener, be sure to let your followers know the content of where you are directing them to because the shortened link doesn’t give a clue sometimes.

Have a dedicated landing page for Instagram

Asides creating landing pages that direct to your website, you could also optimize a dedicated landing page for your social media account like Instagram. Sponsored ads from a Facebook or right on Instagram can do the trick. The key is to make sure the potential visitors are going to meet what they expect on the page.

Move up with video

With video, you usually can’t go wrong. A mix of humour, a friendly presentation and of course armed knowledge of your topic will score you many views, leads and eventual customers. Video gives your brand a relatable dimension and allows the audience to get a more personal experience of behind-the-scenes moments of your business.

Analytics

Instagram analytics helps you have an overall insight into how your audience is interacting with your content. This helps you of course to make well-thought-out decisions going forward. Try out Iconosquare.

Bonus tips: Be AUTHENTIC, NEVER EVER buy followers or verifications; Take advantage of Instagram Live and Instagram Stories as much as you can.

Credit: Pulse

5 Social Media Tips for Promoting Your Online Course

 

An online course can cement your status as an industry authority.

The global market for online learning is estimated at $241 billion, thanks to a wide internet reach and increased demand for less-expensive, easily accessible classes.

Online course subjects range from programming and web design to carpentry and baking. If you have exceptional knowledge or skill in a particular area, you can enhance your online reputation by designing your own online course.

Content that delivers real value to your target audience can go viral. Unfortunately, many course creators mistakenly assume that online courses will attract an audience without promotion.

Here’s how to promote your first online course via social media:

1. Start with your own account.

Use social media to generate initial interest for your course. Many of your connections have similar interests or challenges, making them an ideal focus group.

In an interview with Kajabi, Chris Becker, founder of Ketology, says his teachings on healthy weight loss began on Facebook, recalling, “I asked my friends, ‘Hey if you need help, I’m going to do this little challenge.’… my friends started losing weight and then I just thought, let me actually build this into a real thing.”

Becker’s initial success afforded him insights to develop future courses while building a strong word-of-mouth foundation within his niche.

2. Get Facebook group participation.

Facebook pages have experienced notorious declines in organic reach, but that doesn’t mean the platform is no longer viable for reaching your target audience.

Facebook groups help like-minded users to connect on a variety of topics—and they are a great way to get the word out. Keep in mind, however, that you should never join a group purely to promote your course.

You must become an active participant, asking questions and offering advice. Only then can you position yourself as an expert and promote your course—without getting kicked out of the group.

As you share your knowledge, those who benefit from your insights will be drawn to your social media accounts.

3. Offer referral rewards.

Referral programs can help build word-of-mouth for your brand. Potential followers are more likely to respond to posts by family or friends. Your students are more likely to share their experiences on social media if you offer incentives.

These can range from a discount for signing up through a specific link to a free video chat session offering additional tips and personalized insights. Provide extra value, and students will do your social media marketing for you.

4. Use paid ads wisely.

Paid ads can attract new audiences, but that doesn’t mean that you should have them running 24/7 or expect immediate results from a Facebook campaign. Social media advertising requires patience and research.

Make sure you fully understand your target demographic and their interests, and target your ads based on what you learn.

Ensure that your images and text deliver your marketing message. Do A/B testing to gauge which options deliver the highest click-through rate.

As you use these principles to fine-tune your social media marketing, you’ll drive more traffic to your accounts and online courses.

5. Share mini tips.

Only about 10 percent of your content should be promotional. Rather than continually spamming followers to sign up, deliver short tips related to your course content through Instagram posts, live video and more.

For example, Melyssa Griffin of Blog to Biz Training provided short informational posts on her Instagram account about monetizing blogs and increasing productivity, expanding her following and generating traffic for her course.

PR Daily