Business Development Archives - Page 2 of 3

13 April 2017

3 Considerations to Improve Marketing and Sales

Align your marketing strategy and sales development for greater success.

Sales is an integral aspect of any organization: manufacturers, service providers, member-driven associations, small business, bureaucratic enterprises… All organizations rely on a steady source of revenue to survive and grow. It is understood that marketing is an important aspect of creating awareness, positioning a brand and essentially creating a positive environment for sales to occur. Unfortunately, how marketing strategy and sales development successfully work together is often not fully considered.

The relationship between marketing and sales has long been a troubled one. Whereas they should be working together in synergy with the common goal of securing relationships to strengthen the organization, they are often actively at odds with each other, oblivious to each other, or embroiled in a cold war of secrecy and subterfuge.

The digitization of the business world and its business development processes has helped bring these two disciplines closer, and many software tools approach the two coherently. However, many organizations still seem to cling to the old ideology that promotes two separate silos with little connection.

To reap the rewards of harmonized marketing and sales efforts, keep the following three aspects in mind.

Marketing and Sales are Distinct Functions

Although I am stressing the importance of integrating them, it’s important to appreciate that marketing and sales have different functions. One focuses on creating awareness, positioning a brand and developing interest. The other is tasked with capitalizing on that interest and closing the deal. Some feel that marketing spends money and sales makes money. Admittedly, it takes resources to mount a successful marketing campaign, but marketing should be a strategic investment. (And, it is getting easier to monitor and track your ROI.)

The difference in approach may often be subtle, but worth respecting. Trying to sell to new leads will probably annoy and scare them away; whereas a well nurtured lead may always be a prospect unless you provide a timely and appropriate buying opportunity. Understanding the difference between the two disciplines guides the role each should play and how they can successfully work together to improve your business development efforts.

Marketing and Sales Should be Aligned

Although marketing and sales are distinct, they should not be isolated from each other. The old corporate structure had separate departments, often with little communication between the two. Internally it was more of a competition as to which department was most valuable to the organization. Fiefdoms and bureaucracy may have been affordable then, but with leaner teams and higher expectations in today’s fast-paced and cost-efficient business world, it is essential to have an aligned and harmonious process that attracts leads and nurtures them to be satisfied customers.

To align your marketing strategy and sales efforts, it makes sense to work backwards. Determining your sales goals and forecasted breakdown is a good way to start. From their you can better identify your target audiences and flesh out buyer personas. Understanding who you will be selling to provides a good foundation for determining your marketing strategy. Where and how will you engage your audiences, what are they interested in, how will you effectively communicate your advantages and benefits, what aspects of your brand will resonate with them… Key marketing decisions that will guide your content and creative start with considering the final sale.

Structuring how leads transition from marketing to sales, with a communication/feedback loop, will allow a seamless journey for your prospects and returning customers. There are many good software tools that assist you in structuring, implementing and monitoring the process. Many (e.g. SharpSpring) help you to automate the process and identify opportunities — making the process itself an active part of the solution.

Integrate Marketing strategy and Sales Plan

You’re no doubt aware that a smart strategy with SMART goals is a smart way to proceed — plan your work, then work your plan. Most companies have a sales plan, it may simply be targets, but they at least have a clear objective to aim for. Many SMEs have a budget for marketing, but fail to have a detailed marketing plan. And I’d wager that an exceptionally small minority actually have an integrated sales and marketing plan. So, how is an organization expected to develop sales and grow with little or no structured guidance?

Sustained growth is achieved and maintained with goals, processes and tactics in place. Defining the strategy and ongoing tactics to reach your goals, and then putting the processes in place is what separates successful companies. Going the extra step to create a joint marketing and sales process will distinguish you even further.

The simple solution to growth is marketing strategy and sales working in harmony with a coherent strategy. The successful implementation is not so simple — it requires a good deal of knowledge and a lot of work, on a consistent and ongoing basis.

8 March 2017

How to Write Alt Text

PROSAR: understanding sales and marketing - image of a businesswoman pressing a floating unlock button

Alt text, short for “alternative text”, is text in the metadata of images that shows up either when the image doesn’t load, or for screen readers. If you’ve ever had an email full of images have the space replaced with, say, a coupon value, you’ve seen alt text.

While it appears simple, alt text requires time and effort to get the hang of.

Why should you put in alt text?

In short, it makes the graphic content of your website readable. This is useful for:

SEO
People with slower/limited internet connections
Individuals who use screen readers

If you’re in Ontario, you might be facing down the legal requirements of AODA, which requires all graphic information to be accessible in text. This is in accordance to WCAG, the international standard for web accessibility that is becoming the norm worldwide. While this is a laborious task, it reaps many rewards outside of disability circles.

By utilizing alt text to the maximum capacity, you can reap a rich keyword benefit that won’t visibly clog up the page (but don’t overdo it, as Google will still penalize you for keyword stuffing), and make your site available to a larger demographic.

Implementing alt text on a WordPress site is as easy as installing Yoast (for SEO) and allocating the hours to writing the material.

How to put in alt text

Simple images: describe the image in the “alternate text” window provided when you go to edit an image on your website. Sometimes, you need to go into the image’s properties to find this window. If the image has a caption associated with it, make sure the caption and image are vaguely related— the image might not be read with the caption!

Complex information: Diagrams that show a company’s organization, pie charts, and other images that present information graphically must also have alt text provided. It can be tricky to know how to tackle these, because usually you do graphics to make complex information more easily digestible.

For things like pie charts or flow charts that don’t show many steps, you can still describe the image in the alt text window. Just be extremely clear what information leads to others. For pie charts, descriptions should include what it’s for and the percentages per allocated slice. An example is:

Pie chart for [diagramed information] displaying: 49% of funds went to rent, utilities, maintenance; 32% to programs; 16% to staffing; 3% other.

Flow charts can be done much the same way:

Chart shows [item] at head, displaying four branches labeled 1, 2, 3, 4. Down the 1 branch, we have items A, B, and C. Down the 2 branch, we have L, M, N.

For larger pieces such as infographics, consider having a transcript of the whole chart that is available at a well-described link, such as “Click here for transcript of infographic.” (making sure your links are descriptive out of context is also required for WTAG compliance!)

Regardless of how you write the descriptions, making sure to include key terms you want to rank for (when appropriate) will boost your overall SEO. It is a heavy time investment, but the rewards are numerous— including people knowing your company is thinking about multiple types of web users.

Image credit: oatawa

23 February 2017

Branding for a multilingual market

Being aware of your audience is one of the key aspects to successful branding. And, in today’s ever-changing market base, which has become so diverse, we can no longer expect that a one-tier cultural brand marketing approach will effectively connect throughout. In fact, without even realizing it, you may be ignoring an entire group of clients.

In 1969, leading car manufacturer Chevrolet came out with a new car, the Chevy Nova. There was one tiny problem: “no va,” in Spanish, literally translates to “it doesn’t work.” No surprise here, for many Spanish communities this came across as a joke and stopped people from considering buying it.

Obviously, it’s not just about having a cute brand name or slogan but you need to check how a more diverse population is going to react to it. This is where an inclusive approach to branding comes in. Brands have an opportunity to create meaningful connections with clients, and make clients feel welcome.

As we’ve said in one of our earlier blogs, “branding is an essential part of a marketing strategy, which is where it should all begin.” (I Have a Website, Why do I Need Branding?). If you have a business that caters to a multilingual demographic then inclusive branding should be fully considered from the start.

What can happen when your company makes additional efforts to relate to a specific community? Let’s take Starbucks as an example. Starbucks coffee shops across the country have recently started to teach their employees basic American Sign Language and some stores have even enabled drive-through webcam software so that deaf people can place an order. Using an inclusive approach with language, Starbucks’ unique branding approach has managed to successfully win over an entire community.

Including specific audiences opens more doors

No matter what language you speak or how well established your business is, you will benefit by focusing your efforts and expanding your customer base. Fostering a multilingual inclusive approach to your branding and appealing to a new audience has great advantages.

It is critical to know your audience and to choose which area of brand marketing you want to focus on. Using language correctly attracts your market and engages them so they are ready to listen and will actually hear your message. Going further, once you have their ear use the language effectively to convey your messages in a way that they will understand. Avoid any mistakes or pitfalls that could actually cause rejection or harm your brand.

Poorly constructed brand names, slogans and badly written text slam the door on the business of some clients

So, you have a chosen a brand name that expresses the value of your organization, your client base trusts your brand and believes in what you stand for. Pay close attention to the language you use, this will reinforce and maintain your brand positioning. Firstly, if your brand has a negative image you may consider changing your company name and look, if you do, check the spelling and pronunciation in the languages of your target audience. And secondly, make sure that it does not have any silly or negative connotations.

Here’s a prime example, when Coca-Cola introduced their brand to China, it was at first pronounced “ke-kou-ke-la,” which means “bite the wax tadpole.” Even coming from a huge conglomerate that sounds pretty silly, doesn’t it?

When you have an established brand name, slogans/taglines are good way to market your brand to diverse groups. Be sure to adapt your slogan rather than straight translation. It may, at first, seem smart to hire a translator, yes and make sure that your translator knows your target cultures and market goals. That is why your best approach may be to pick a combination team with translators and marketers. A good marketing team shows respect to the client by having a knack for languages, target cultures, and is aware of today’s diverse market. Whatever you do, do not simply use translation software. This seems obvious, but many prospective clients have been lost that way.

Photo By: CreativaImages/gettyimages

13 January 2017

Web Content Accessibility Guidelines

Ontario is in the midst of rolling out AODA, a set of guidelines to make Ontario more accessible for people with disabilities. Websites will soon be judged on whether or not they adhere to the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, AA compliance (except for live audio and video). The timeline for when compliance is required can be found on Ontario’s AODA page.

Reaching WCAG guidelines helps open up your website to a wider variety of potential prospects, and earns goodwill among clients. Many principles of content accessibility are good SEO, smart design, or both. Even if compliance isn’t mandatory (which it is for all public companies and all private companies over 50 employees), WCAG are often simply good design protocols.

Where to Start

Low or no vision accommodations make up a large percentage of WCAG guidelines; this includes making sure all links are comprehensible out of context, there are proper code markers in place for screen readers to know there is text to read, and all information available in graphics is also available within text.

This is one of the most comprehensive places to start, and one that shows the most immediate benefit. Making graphic information available in text also helps your SEO by giving either alt text (for simple images) or search engines a better idea of what is displayed on your webpage (which helps determine its relevancy).

Keep Cleaning Up

If you have audio or video content pre-recorded on your site, transcripts and descriptions need to be available for those. Building a site map is also advised, for how it helps people navigate and find the page they’re looking for more quickly. If people have to make choices on your site, make sure colour is not the only differentiating factor.

Any PDFs you have available on your site should also be checked. If you have Adobe Acrobat Pro, you can use tools within the suite to determine if they’re accessible. Make sure all buttons have a programmed purpose, so a screen reader can say what button to press.

Continue to Maintain

Reaching WCAG guidelines is both an initial investment and a continuing one. If you refresh content on the site frequently, then any and all new content must also be compliant. This includes new graphics, PDFs, pages, and audio/video. Determine how often you should review your content based on the frequency you update the website, and allocate time to run a small scale audit for accessibility. Our monthly maintenance packages can help you stay on target.

4 January 201713 August 2021

7 Reasons Why You (Probably) Need a New Website

Hand-drawn image that says Time to Update

I spoke with the owner of a manufacturing company recently who asked “why should I invest money in a new website when I already have good clients and I don’t deal with the public?”

In another discussion, a client stated, “We need to keep our costs as low as possible, so perhaps we’ll look at a revamping the website next year.”

As an experienced marketer, I found it incredible that seasoned and capable managers could have these viewpoints. Obviously, if times are tough and you need to choose between a new website and paying your staff and suppliers, marketing should take a back seat while you hunker down and prioritize payments. However, if you are simply waiting until your cash flow is particularly flush before addressing your website, waiting for the “right” time may be your downfall.

An effective website is a crucial piece of your marketing arsenal and shouldn’t be put-off or overlooked as an effective conduit for sales. Despite management’s best intentions, very few websites are actually designed to facilitate the sales process. Simply listing what you do and including a map as to where you are, won’t cut it anymore. The real role of a website is to interest and engage those who aren’t already sold. To educate those who don’t know about your product/service or how it can benefit them. To position your company and product/service favourably with customers and prospects. To initiate or nurture strong relationships.

Here are seven reasons why your website is important, and deserves your attention:

1) Powerful Prospecting

Whatever you sell and whoever you sell it to, your market is doing its research online. Prospects are clarifying product info and qualifying your company as a worthy supplier. If your website isn’t designed and edited to engage viewers and facilitate the sales process, you’re losing potential sales.

2) Create Caring Customers

We all understand the value of our customers and the importance of nurturing those relationships. Websites are an opportunity to always have the porch light on and the welcome mat out. A warm place where customers can be reminded of what you do, as well as learn about services they had no idea that you provide. It’s easy to take existing clients for granted, so review your website every now and then with a customer-centric point of view and ensure you’re addressing their needs and affirming their decision to do business with you.

3) Engage Employees

Using your online presence to motivate and retain employees is an important aspect that should go beyond a website application form. Featuring your team online, highlighting social outings, participating in blog articles… there are many ways to involve company staff in the website and welcome them as part of the family.

4) Build Brand

Brand sets the tone and positions your organization in the minds of your audience. Your website should be a hub for your brand. The design, messaging, and functionality combine to deliver a user-experience that will either support or malign your brand. A strong brand will help you gain sales, recruit talent, attract solid suppliers and please the public; so how is your website supporting your brand?

5) Supercharge SEO

In order for people to do business with you, they have to first of all, find you. Your website is not only your opportunity to tell your story, but it can serve as the magnet to attract viable prospects, too. Properly setting up your site for SEO and having strategically written content will lead to more traffic based on relevant organic searches. This increases your website’s potential to deliver qualified leads.

6) Responsive Design

More and more people are searching the web on their smartphones. In fact, this past Christmas season, Amazon shipped over 3 billion packages and 72% of those orders were made on a mobile device. Whether you have an e-commerce site or a blog, making your website easy to navigate and read is critical. A responsive website adapts to the screen size so laptops, tablets and smartphones can all provide an enjoyable user-experience. It also helps with your Google rank, as the search engine giant appreciates sites that adapt to the users’ screen, and penalizes websites that don’t.

7) Accessibility

In some states and provinces, having a website that is accessibility by people with a disability is regulated. In Ontario, the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) outlines how your website must comply (based on WCAG 2.0 criteria). It covers colours and contrast, size of type, consistency and ease of navigation, Alt text for all images… there’s a long list of design and technical considerations to optimize the user-experience for a variety of users with different abilities. Not only is it good sense to make sure your website can be used by the entire populatin, but now it’s the law.

There are more reasons good reasons to look at what your website can be doing better for you; such as providing fresh content, facilitating administrative actions, creating process efficiencies, polling and intelligence gathering… what would you add this list?

Image Credit: IvelinRadkov / Getty Images

31 August 2016

Manage Sales Costs With Marketing

Sales calls fact – it’s damn hard to get in to see anybody these days.

I recently spoke to a business owner about sales travel. He replied that his sales people were travelling less these days. It’s hard to get suspects and prospects to commit to appointments. Past customers are not interested in the latest and greatest unless they actually need something. Factor in the high cost of travel and the sales’ regular road trips are often not viable.

Willie Loman would die an early death in today’s markets.

Still, business relies on a constant supply of new customers and new business. Although the specifics vary by business and industry, the cost of acquiring new customers is multiple times the cost of retaining customers. There are resources and costs required in both efforts.

Business owners and sales managers have a dilemma. How to manage resources effectively between acquiring new customers and retaining existing customers?

Marketing can help with managing the costs of both obtaining new customers and keeping existing ones.

In many cases, a majority of sales come from existing customers. The satisfaction of existing customers and ongoing “staying in touch” are obviously very important in retaining customers.

Focus on acquiring new customers is equally important in keeping the sales pipeline full and fuelling company growth.

Marketing Qualified Leads

One aspect of marketing is to cast a wide net for new business opportunities.

Marketing can do much of the ”leg work” of qualifying leads before the expense of sales people are required. Marketing can reach many in an instant, much faster than even your speediest inside sales star or your heartiest cold caller.

The Internet has made marketing more focused and effective by allowing for very specific targeting, yet on a broad scale.

Marketing can filter the wide catch of prospects into those that you actually have a chance of doing business with. Filters like company size, geo location, and simple questions determining needs can qualify prospects before assigning to sales.

Marketing to Existing Customers

Another aspect of marketing is retaining existing customers and loyalty.

There is a lot of work to satisfying customers and showing the appreciation that you really care about them. It’s delicate staying in touch with people while respecting their reluctance to talk to sales people when not they are not in shopping mode. Sales people often feel they are banging their heads against a wall.

The Internet plays a large role in marketing effectiveness. Engagement is the key and in today’s world often public. The public nature of social media, reviews, and commentary is well serviced by the marketing dept. This takes some of the heat off of sales staff in not getting mired down in trying to do everything for existing customers.

Marketing techniques and marketing automation service existing customers until they are ready for sales assistance. Again, “leg work” is provided until valuable sales people need to get involved.

Managing Sales Costs

Having marketing help manage sales costs can make a big difference in profits:

Marketing can bring down the costs of acquiring new customers by qualifying suspects into prospects. Marketing qualified leads can be passed on to sales. Sales can then do what they are hired to do – work with legitimate prospects and close them.

Marketing can bring down the costs of customer retention by delivering consistent messaging and managing customer engagement. Satisfied customers become repeat customers. The lifetime value of repeat customers should not be underestimated.

Managing sales costs in today’s markets is a challenge. Marketing can help by doing the “leg work” of getting your message out in the widest distribution possible. Marketing qualifies the interest generated to ensure precious sales staff only focus on potential opportunities. Marketing maintains the message that your customers are important and your organization is always a part of the conversation.

24 August 2016

The ABCs of SEO: A Project Manager’s Perspective

To say that there is a lot to know about SEO is quite an understatement. For not only is there a great deal of knowledge, skill and experience required to be truly competent at planning and managing SEO campaigns, but the rules keep changing. Google is constantly changing the landscape, sometimes subtly, sometimes dramatically, but each new algorithm can drastically influence the effectiveness of your efforts. Mastering SEO is like going to school, and the class never ends.

That being said — and acknowledging upfront my ignorance to the wild inner-workings of Google’s algorithms and how to tame them — this article deals with a top-level approach to SEO.

Whether you work for an agency, a small enterprise, an international conglomerate, or a non-profit organization, SEO is one of the tools you use to improve your online presence. If it isn’t, it should be. Virtually every organization these days benefits from a strong online presence, and SEO is an integral part of the online marketing mix. But what do you know about SEO and are you confident in how to approach it? Hiring knowledgeable people is an excellent first step, but you still need to be able to manage these people, as well as your company’s expectations.

We’ll start with a quick clarification, SEO can include the following tactics:

– Organic: Writing strategic content (web pages, blogs, white papers, social media, etc.) to help your website rank higher in searches.

– PPC (Pay Per Click): Paying Google (and other search engines) for keywords and ads to drive interested traffic to your website.

– Advertising: Paying other websites and online publications for banners and other online ads to drive interested traffic to your website.

[NB Paid efforts can also be referred to as Search Engine Marketing or SEM.]

Here are three important criteria for project managers when considering SEO. Your staff, contract workers or agency should be able to explain and address each of these areas to your satisfaction.

Accountability

First and foremost is getting results. So what do you need to provide I order for your SEO efforts to be successful? Your agency, or inside team need guidance and information to direct their strategy and tactics. Consider the specific campaign objectives, areas of focus, targeted markets (demographic, geographic, industry), content, keywords and budget.

Then, what should you expect from your agency or staff? They will quantify your objectives (how many leads, submissions, page views, clicks, etc. are required to meet your objectives), perform keyword research and assessment, create/edit targeted content, design/write ads, create an implementation plan, provide ongoing monitoring and reports with recommendations. Working as a team, you will constantly refine and add to the tactics and work closer to your objectives.

Note that SEO is not a quick fix. Attracting new traffic with content is essential and long-term, but may take months to have a measurable effect. Even PPC and ads, which can generate traffic quickly, typically take some time to consistently drive the right audience to your website. Moving the new web traffic through your funnel, or nurturing the desired behaviour (e.g. register for a course, ask for a quote), is also a process that takes time to prefect.

Benefits

A marketing rule of thumb is that no-one does anything with receiving some form of benefit. It may more altruistic than “What’s in it for me?,” but there needs to be some form of gratification or reward to encourage action.

Consider how your targeted markets will benefit from engaging with you and articulate that clearly and in a compelling manner. Look at each action you would like your new web traffic to take (e.g. clicking through to website, clicking on a CTA/banner, signing up for your blog or e-newsletter, asking for a quote) and provide some incentive to help them along the path.

Congruency

Some see the ultimate objective of SEO to drive more traffic to your website; of course, it’s more sophisticated than that. Increasing traffic is a step towards developing business, so certainly it is important, but you need to attract the key audiences that fit your ideal personas. So, if you’re an organization that is focused on serving parents of elementary school kids, you’ll only be successful if a good portion of that new web traffic fits that demographic.

Beyond the audience you attract, your SEO initiatives must represent, and ideally promote, your brand (which should already take into consideration your mission vision, etc.). Organic, PPC or advertising all revolve around content. Ensure that the tone, vocabulary and information presented all embrace your organizational brand and culture. Even if one of those parents mentioned above does not click through to your website, you’ve had an awareness and branding opportunity to positively position your organization in their mind; maybe next time they will click through.

And, of course, your SEO efforts need to flow with any other marketing and advertising campaigns your organization is running. Not just from a brand perspective, even theme. You may be able to increase the effectiveness by leveraging the theme from an existing campaign.

What would you add to this list of important criteria for a project manager to consider when employing SEO? Add your thoughts to comments below.

21 April 2016

Nomophobia: The Reason Why Your Business Should be Mobile

You heard it first! Nomophobia!

Now before you start wondering what that is and how it impacts your business, just quickly look to your left, and now to your right or at the most, in your pocket. Did you find your smartphone yet?

women looking at phone in misty woods — gpointstudio/Thinkstock

Like 73% of people, if you don’t find your phone immediately or don’t feel it at hands reach, you might start to feel panicked or a little nervous and worried while trying to remember where it is. This fear of not finding your phone is called Nomophobia and as you can see, close to three quarters of your customers might be victim of the same faith. Now, how does that play in your favor? That means that more than half of your audience are always or constantly on their smartphone browsing the Internet to find new products, deals and the latest provider for their required service. If you are not mobile yet, this is the time to join the trend.

Nomophobia aside, 1st Aerial created an infographic that puts into perspective the importance that we place on our smartphone and main arguments why your business should be mobile friendly and offer a mobile adapted website. To see the full infographic, click here.

Now why should your business consider this statistic:

4.77 billion of mobile users worldwide

There are 4.77 billion people worldwide that own a smartphone. The statistic goes even further by confirming that more people own a smartphone than people that own a toothbrush. That is a massive audience that cannot be ignored. Although these people are still regular customers in your store or online on their laptop, the fact that so many people today own and use a smartphone can only mean more potential customers are moving their purchases online and will be getting a first impression about your brand through a phone screen instead of on a computer or in person.

crowd using cell phones — Michael Blann/Thinkstock

Without necessarily offering an app or bringing your entire business onto mobile, there are advantages of adapting your website to be mobile friendly and offer a great experience to your customer every time they look you up on their phone. My colleague, Claire Phillipowsky, also covered the topic of mobile friendly websites in The New Mobile-Friendly Website Imperative: What all Top Businesses Already Know.

83% of internet usage is mobile

It is a fact that purchasing has moved online and more and more people will go into a store to evaluate an item but will most probably go online to find a great deal and complete their purchase. Now, on top of that already challenging step in the customer journey, nearly 83% are doing most of their internet searched on their mobile. This number clearly examplifies the current behavior of your customer and is a very good reason to be online and to easily be found when your name gets typed in to a search. As a business, you might already be investing in Adwords and online search advertising but make sure with your agency that mobile searches are being included in your potential reach.

More than 60% of people are more sociable with their mobile than real people

The survey showed that 35% of people admitted to looking at their phone when they are in public or have nothing to do. And another 33% said that they pretend to be busy in a restaurant or a bar by browsing through their phones instead of talking to people around them. So over 60% of your customers and potential customers are using their smartphones as an excuse to keep themselves occupied and not look bored. A great way to do that is to shop on their mobile, look up their next purchase and plan their next trip thanks to your mobile friendly website, your latest app or your SMS filled with tips.

two people using cell phones facing each other — Image Source Pink/Thinkstock

Out of sight, out of mind, so make sure to be present in your customers mobile experience and help them choose you as their ideal provider, partner or simple marketplace! For more advice about how to bring your business forward and add a mobile component to your marketing, meet with a PROSAR team member today.

12 November 2015

Who’s Your “Amy”?

three women with shopping bags — Photo credit: ThinkstockPhotos-454296797

Last week the Globe and Mail published an article by Marina Strauss on Sears Canada’s marketing focus (New Sears Canada president’s mission: Win over ‘Amy’) — spoiler alert, it’s all about Amy. Amy is “40 years old and has one child and another on the way. She’s time-starved and looking for reasonably priced fashions.” And she doesn’t exist as an actual person, she is a representative of the ideal customer that they believe will help Sears regain some of its lost market share in Canada. And, for the foreseeable future, most of their marketing decisions and service implementation will take Amy into account.

Defining your ideal client, even to the point of naming her or him, shouldn’t seem odd in this time of avatars and online profiles. In fact, determining your target market and understanding your customer is nothing new. However, the structure and detail applied in the current trend does seem to be adding an additional dimension to the practice. And, that’s a good thing. It is driven, in part, by the rise in content generation and inbound marketing tactics. It’s important to understand who you are writing content for and how best to attract their attention and online loyalty.

Sears realizes, of course, that they can’t ignore the existing customers who remain loyal shoppers. Have you met Linda? She’s an “over-50 customer with two grown children and an ingrained Sears shopping habit.” (Maybe Amy and Linda will go shopping together, and Amy can help Linda post her purchases on Instagram.)

Under the savvy stewardship of new President Carrie Kirkman Sears Canada is applying a disciplined marketing strategy. It sounds obvious, and you might assume that all companies employ this type of strategy, but most don’t. In fact, many SMEs don’t truly implement any structured marketing strategy. (Yes, they probably have some form of strategic plan, but they often don’t have a workable implementation plan, so it never becomes part of the day-to-day consideration.) And that’s the real strength of what Sears Canada is doing. This strategy is pervasive and lends itself to implementation at all levels — not easily, it will take real commitment. But making it more tangible (Would Amy use that product, notice that display, appreciate this service…) It’s easier to understand directives and more motivating to care about how they are fulfilled when you’re “doing it for Amy.”

In addition to facilitating implementation, here are some other advantages to a successful buyer persona directed marketing strategy:

Coherent Communication: For any organization, and especially large corporations, communication (both internal and external) can be rather confusing. Concentrating on buyer personas provides a simple and engaging storyline internally, and coordinates clear external messaging.

Resource Deployment: Having such a laser focus reduces waste as you more effectively direct spending and staff.

Staff Morale: Understanding who you are working for and why can be a rallying force for staff. If everyone understands their targeted demographic is, if everyone knows Amy, then the entire organization can understand what they are doing and why. Retail, and virtually every organization, is reliant on service; isn’t it easier to care of a friend?

Satisfied Clientele: Not trying to please everyone allows your organization to hone in on satisfying your targeted market — improving both ROI and customers’ experience.

Regardless of the type of organization, you will benefit from articulating your ideal client/customer/member/donor/patron, and focusing your strategy on that buyer persona. Any business is not necessarily good business, so determine who you should be catering to, and set out to rock their world.

29 October 2015

The 3 A’s to Business Networking Online

Recently, I have been looking up different ways to maximize online strategies to connect with potential partners and networks. I mostly found that articles don’t explore as much the idea of social media as a networking environment and focus mainly on reaching the end-user. Now, when I say networking, I mean mainly to interact and connect with other businesses and services that will help you promote, distribute and eventually, generate sales. To help you remember what you need to consider when thinking of such a strategy, check out my 3 A’s to Business Networking Online.

Achievement

Every good strategy has a goal or an objective. This is what I call an achievement. Although, you have not yet achieved it, this is what you want at the end of your networking efforts.

Important to note, contrary to a B2C approach, you will not be speaking directly to the end user. You will be connecting with like-minded partners, peers and other parts of your industry. So what do you want to achieve at the end of it all? Here are a few examples of achievements you should work towards:

– Position yourself, or your organization, as an expert in your field

– Find partners that are willing to work with you to push your message or cause

– Generate leads to grow your distribution channels

Like any worthy destination, these achievements will take some time and effort to reach. Which also means your networking strategy needs to be on a longer timeline than a simple social media campaign to promote a new product or make a quick sale. Best to set achievement goals that will push you to connect, network and create relationships over both the short and long term, but remember that time will be required to gain significant traction. To find inspiration, and check out what other businesses might consider a priority, check out Scott’s article on a recent HubSpot survey: Only 8% of Sales Leaders Prioritize Social Sales.

Audience

When thinking about the audience you want to reach, remember that every company has individual people in it. This being said, your message needs to be focused to achieve your goal, but accessible enough to be noticed by a broader audience. Typically, it will be be an employee, community manager, or even a CEO, looking on social media for like-minded partners that will find you and initiate the conversation.

To start that process, you will need to decide, what part of your industry you want to network with and why. If we adopt the three goals listed above, this is what could be considered:

– Position your company in the industry: you will want to connect with researchers, experts, other companies that are pushing the development of your industry.

– Find like-minded partners: you will be connecting with potential competitors, associations, organisations, partners in other countries, companies that can collaborate or recommend you.

– Generate leads and grow your distribution channels: you will connect with other parts of your supply chain, partners in new markets you want to reach, prospective customers.

Creating a dialogue with these people and nurturing relationships builds a network for referrals, feedback, advice and industry/competitive information. In many cases, these contacts become more intimate than in typical B2C social networks, where the relationship can be more generic.

Avenue

Here, I am referring to the different channels, platforms and media that are available to you. From a social standpoint, the main ones to include are Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Now within each of those platforms, here are certain avenues to consider for your networking efforts:

Facebook: Does your industry have any specific Facebook groups you should be apart of? If not, maybe you should be the one to create it.

Twitter: Are your industry experts, researchers and partners online? Do they participate in certain Twitter chats? Are they on certain lists? If not, you should perhaps host a chat to regroup your like-minded partners.

LinkedIn: What groups should you be in? What kind of messages are your peers posting? What kind of knowledge do they want to receive? Can you contribute in any way?

Forums: Does your industry have its own topic? If so, than find those forums and see what the conversation is all about. Can your company help find solutions in any way? How can you get involved?

And let’s not forget the offline avenues! Lasting connections can be initiated and nurtured online but often offline conversations will reinforce those relationships and help you generate leads or references. Here are a few avenues to consider:

Events: What events can you go to? Can you be a guest speaker or host a workshop?

Publications: What publications should you be in and how can you contribute a piece of information instead of a simple ad?

Direct Contact: What companies can you meet face-to-face with and how can you connect with them directly?

These suggestions based on the 3 As (Achievement, Audience and Avenue) are meant to serve as pillars when building your online networking strategy. To start your journey and add the right elements into your plan, include these considerations!