They realised that the landscape of personal data availability online has changed hugely in a very short time and despite hysterical outcries about Facebook privacy settings, it is an important area that both brands and consumers should be knowledgable about.
Their concept of “personal data stores” is a really interesting concept that is being built out – imagine you, the consumer, setting the ‘terms and conditions’ for a brand to access your personal information?
It’s called Vendor Relationship Management read more here and here.
But see their great Personal Data infographic published in full with a brief snapshot below showing the 2012 situation…it describes the landscape for legislation, technology, entrepreneurs, corporates and consumers and looks forward in scenarios for each to 2017.
Ctrl-Shift the Personal Data Landscape future
It doesn’t work like that.
There certainly are many agencies who sell themselves as inbound or content marketing specialists. And there are just as many brands who say they use Inbound Marketing as part of their promotional mix. Some unscrupulous agencies sell this as the modern web solution and imply that it’s all you need to do to succeed online.
It isn’t.
Inbound marketing Has to be balanced with outbound marketing.
We were listening to Jay Baer on a podcast with Copyblogger and in it he says
“You don’t create demand with inbound marketing, you fulfil demand.”
You are capping your upside
You are reaching out to people who will take the step to find you.
For these people inbound marketing is great, it works.
What about other customers?
But what about all the ones who haven’t yet realised they might need you? For them you need outbound demand generation activity.
Classically this is ‘campaigns’ – executed in many ways, online and offline. Ways to bring your brand to the attention of prospective customers in different marketplaces and with a range of communications.
But there’s more to modern marketing than this. Baer comes back in again with a new catchphrase “YouTility” – this is where you keep your brand front-of-mind in the intervening period between gaining awareness and the point at which the client is ready to purchase.
Blogs and other inbound marketing tools are good at maintaining youtility. And coincidentally these are also good tools for inbound marketing.
See the connection?
Related articles
- Inbound Marketing Attracts Millions from Google, Salesforce and Sequoia (seomoz.org)
- The Ins and Outs of Inbound Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC] (contently.com)
Give 3 minutes of your day to watching this and I guarantee you’ll think of five people who should also hear this message.
Twitter – 3 years on from Andrew Dubber on Vimeo.
We caught up with Nick Grant the CEO of Killer Infographics – a busy man running a fantastically fast-growing startup.
How did the business start off?
Mid 2010 my business partner, Amy, and I were using inforgraphics as part of our content strategy as part of our startup zippycart.com it was a unique niche at the time as not many people were doing infographics then.
I was tasked with doing the marketing of the infographics – I was frustrated that when I submitted them to sites they weren’t responsive or asking for money or not post correctly and give us credit and link back to us.
Through that frustration we thought we should create a gallery and use it for our own and showcase others and use as a critique about what they could improve upon. What happened was those critiques led to people asking of us to design the infographics!
What was interesting was that we thought this was a small side project while bootstrapping our other venture.
So how much did the business grow?
We did 8-10 in month 1 Q4 2010 and we hit 100 per month in Jan 2012. So that is pretty significant.
Of course, nothing happens overnight. This growth took a year but every couple of months we’d hone our process and fix quirks so we could scale up a bit.
We are now at stable capacity… we are doing far more than any one company out there in the infographic space.
How would you advise a biz dev person whether infographics would help them
A focused infographic that is based on your niche and is hosted on your blog may be useful. Thinking about new business in the traditional way – just adding in an infographic ….. you may not get instant measurable results.
But some ideas for biz dev people
- The ‘guest infographic‘ guest blogging is very popular and widely used by sites….it gets face time with a product who may not know about the product or service. Do the same – approach a site that has your prospects on it – talk to them and work with them to partner and ‘can we sponsor an inforgraphic for your site’. Linking back to your site. We did it for geek wire.com a popular Seattle local geek event site…. the image was called “Seattle geek versus Silicon valley geek”….
- Use the infographic in unusual places – Geek Wire used it on the back of the agenda for the summit they had (conference) and everyone saw it with our branding right there. That really gave good response, networking and i’m getting emails and meetings just from that one.
- Trade shows where I can see an info graphic as a great take away. e.g. a company that’s new and doing trade shows to showcase their unique value proposition – you only have small interactions for people at your booth. So having a nice printed infographic showcasing the overview of your products that they can take away and read later… and not have a 20 page pdf that is over-complex and won’t get read or get lost.
- We have thought of doing it as a business card – statistics about the industry for example.
- We have also done them for companies needing to get angel or VC funding – this is catching on in west coast – give as a take away… at a pitch it’s hard to keep someone engaged and listening all the time. Present your stuff and give a cool pretty sexy infographic that showcases everything about the business; the passion of the founders, where the product is at and the type of funding that they need to take it to the next level. An Infographic is very similar to a VC pitch – what the problem is; how you’re going to attack it, what your secret sauce is….why your product is the next best thing.We had a client that is a news blog competing with Reuters – they try to find these “20 something” media planners and ensure their website is on their radar… and that their audience is differentiated so they can be part of these ad buys… they are not the best known player in the space. They are going to use as a print mailer and use to cold call … “I’m following up on the info graphic I sent you….” Which I think is a really good biz dev application for an infographic.
How to brief in an infographic
Work out the concept or topic – Think about it like a college essay. State the problem or overview – what the reader will learn by getting into this, then lead into the main bits of information and close with the take-away
ideally you want them to learn one thing that they will share, learn or resonate enough to want to share it.
Make sure there’s a hook in the title and also in the content [niche based on survey/ results / cutting edge - new and fresh - something that hasn't had an infographic created about it before.]
What’s your process?
Up front we need to know
- The aesthetic reference. What the site looks like and what type of content the site would be receptive to. e.g. Australia and UK have a different aesthetic that they like which is different from US/Cananda.
- Understanding if there is any print application or is it web based only,
- Learning if there’s any limitations any restrictions and size – depends on where it’s going to live e.g. the guest post site may be narrow or they may want Landscape not portrait.
- For high profile sites – do you need to consider their brand guidelines or color palette or fonts. Deliver a piece they will like and want to use. If you miss the mark they may not use it.
- The design process – chime in at the wireframe stage – ensure that everyone is on the same page. Do the wireframe first (common). Data and direction and research locked down and the aesthetic direction. Do it timely and get back to brief fast
So what are you waiting for? Go find yourself a topic and get an infographic about your client’s business.
Take a look at my Pinterest board “Creative Agency Infographics” for some ideas.
When it comes to hooking a customer and encouraging them to speed down the marketing funnel by way of a website landing page, your greatest tool is your wording, your language, how you communicate.
How to get started planning your landing page
A client of ours was recently re-creating their website (no small feat), and commissioned the Creative Agency Secrets team to write the content. Our task was to a create a series of landing pages specifically designed for different types of prospective consumers.
Certain features of our client’s product are appealing for different groups, so rather than bombarding visitors with all of the product features at once, we wanted to focus specifically on their unique needs.
Customers as individuals
No one likes to be viewed as just another number. You have to know your customers, know the different types of customer and speak to their individual needs.
To show our customers right from the start that we acknowledged them as individuals, we made it so that from the main web page they had the choice of clicking on one of five different tabs, identifying themselves. How did we achieve this?
Take a look at Dell - they ask you to self-identify when you first visit their site, showing products “for home”, “for small office”, “for education, government, and healthcare” etc. Dell had the right idea but again, it’s all about wording. If they had phrased their options so that they identified the consumer rather than the product, (are you a student? work in a small office?) the effect would have been more powerful. After all, it’s expected for a salesperson to know their product, but it’s much more impressive when they know their customer.
In order to do something like this, background knowledge is a must. That’s why we spent hours researching the five main groups of consumers that our client’s product catered to. We studied their lingo, learned about their needs, and recognized their goals, so that we could better tailor our wording for each landing page.
Single focus landing page
Landing pages are meant to have one main focus, which, in marketing, is often “you want to buy our product: here’s why”. But that’s boring, plain vanilla, and doesn’t give a visitor a compelling reason to purchase.
There are many different ways to go about writing content for a landing page, but the major components that we included for each were
- what a customer wants, needs, and expects out of this service
- how our product addresses those wants
- testimonials
- pricing info
- the final promotional push
Road map in place, it was time for the real task: tailoring content to each specific consumer audience. This is where our research paid off. With our background knowledge we were able to highlight product features and market persuasively to each group.
Calls to action on landing pages
Calls to action are another key feature for any promotional work- they are a way to speak directly to a consumer.
In this age where just about everything can be done online, (social communication, purchasing, publishing, and more) it’s of the utmost importance that a market does whatever they can to keep the sales relationship personal. A call to action (“tell us your experience more about your needs, contact our excellent customer service”) is personally asking a customer to take part in something.
But what is the most important call to action that you could have?
Let’s take a moment to look more closely at that final promotional push listed above. If you’ve reached this point, you have given out all of the information showcasing why your product is right for a customer and now there is only one thing left to say: “Click here to begin your 30 day free trial”. It’s not too blatant to say something like this, and, so long as you’ve proven why a customer should buy your product, they won’t mind hearing it. It’s expected.
So…
Get personal! Speak directly to your consumers and they will respond, by purchasing your product.
]]>Get one for yourself:
I’d like help writing landing pages that work
A neat way of promoting the whole skill base of your agency to interested parties.
20/20 Public Relations Team twitter group
And then having noticed one, we also saw this at the Optimizer HQ
Optimizer HQ twitter group for the team
How to create groups in Twitter
These articles cover off several businesses who offer this service:
- Mashable - How to Create Groups for Twitter
- Twitter Help – How to Use Twitter Lists
- Mashable – 30+ more ways to create groups on Twitter
- Josh Bartlett – How to cut the noise and create groups for friends [more about filtering than group lists]
Read more posts about Step 2 in our Business Development process “2- Marketing communication”
If we all agree that people need to be safe before they make a purchase decision and we agree that most purchase decisions are made emotionally, then it is safe to say compelling stories go a long way in accelerating the sale.
How? Let me illustrate four ways stories contribute to strong sales and marketing strategy.
1. Stories are much easier to understand, remember and share than complex 
details. Features and benefits cause our brains to work hard and ultimately like all our organs, brains that work hard need to rest. Stories, on the other hand, are processed by a different part of our brain. That’s why good ones are so easy to remember.
2. People actually like sharing stories. Good, bad or ugly, they like having information that they think other people will find valuable. That’s why bad experiences are shared 10 times more than good experiences. We are trying to prove our value by helping others stay away from bad experiences.
3. Social media accelerates story sharing. In the old days (three years ago) people told stories to other people. Today, people post stories, they blog about their experiences, they convert stories into reviews and those stories are carried across the web and out through a variety of social media.
4. Stories are told in a variety of mediums. There are three different learning styles, visual (learn by seeing and looking), auditory (learn by hearing and listening), and kinesthetic (touching and doing). Research shows that 60% of the population are visual learners. This means stories need to be visual and written. So when you create your stories, keep YouTube in mind.
To learn how to get stories into your marketing, download this Free Report – 9 Steps to Creating a Content Marketing Strategy for Your Business.
Here is something you can do today to get stories into your business.
Rebecca has created a pinterest board just for B2B Marketing and another for Creative Agency Infographics. Take a look at the ‘What value is a Facebook fan’ or ‘Lifetime Value explained’ and ‘Why Healthcare is so Expensive’. Gorgeous illustrative skills.
A snippet from the full Copyblogger infographic
Related articles
- 22 Ways to Create Compelling Content When You Don’t Have a Clue [Infographic] (copyblogger.com)
- Content Marketing Infographic Looks At “Heart Of Online Success” (webpronews.com)
- The Content Marketing Explosion {INFOGRAPHIC} (edelman.com.au)
- MyBlogGuest Adds Infographics Gallery (pamil-visions.net)
The idea is brought home to us every day: creativity will benefit our careers and personal goals. We all have to think outside that box. Those of us who are not ˜creative by trade, whether visually or in the written word, will all see and recognise this, wherever we personally think we may be on the creative spectrum.
So, why is it that within the creative agency world, there is little similar reflection about deploying business techniques and processes?
Of course, agencies grow from small seeds and acorns into flourishing shrubs or trees, not by sheer creativity alone. We all know that tending to our own internal business needs is important “ that stimulating and measuring effectiveness within any organisation, especially within the service industry, requires this.
But why is it that, in 2012, so many smaller concerns, which predominate in the creative industry landscape, which want and need to grow, are not employing the proper business sales techniques in order to do so?
Note, no use of the term ˜business development’ a sanitised phrase for the agency world. In fact, this I believe is the root cause of the problem (as well as a serious lack of sales skills).
For if you truly believe that your agency will standout purely on the face of your work alone, you are mistaken. And ˜business development and ˜new business? They wont get you there without you fundamentally embracing what ˜sales means first.
Lets face it, sales,is still a dirty word
To admit that, in life, we are all selling something to someone else is hard. But we do sell, each of us, in every communication we make. Whether the stakes be conveying a particular point in a meeting to gain a desired response or negotiating your next trip away with your loved ones, we are each selling.
Selling is about need and fulfilment.
Selling and buying are fundamental to gaining food, a roof over our heads and warmth in the home.
The stereotype of a sales person is a used car salesman, or a double glazing cold caller. The negative associations of these images still exist within the agency environment. Often large agencies will employ a ˜business development and marketing team but wont understand how to measure effectiveness or set realistic targets in the first place. All too often this is because the process is little understood and is simplified into sending out mass mailshots and slamming out phone calls, which is a fundamental mistake.
The whole dirty sales process is misunderstood, seen as necessity, somewhat sordid, beneath the agencys shiny creative output.
The effects of denying selling for an agency
Sadly, what this does is remove the knowledge-gathering, in the form of empowering the whole business with sales techniques, and just engenders an ˜us and them feeling within an agency: ˜me creative, me accounts person, you sales monkey.
Until the murky mystery of ˜how to sell is unravelled and embraced within a business, that business is not going to effectively sell itself. In fact, most creative concerns can benefit from as many client-facing roles being fully versed in sales techniques as possible.
Key truths about selling
Here are some skills to acquire and engender throughout the business:
- Selling is about building trust. So it is not a one-off push for a meeting, it is about relationship building. To sell, you pull, you dont push. You build up a dialogue to get into the privileged position of listening, then diagnosing the problem and then suggesting a solution.
- Research, planning and preparation are key to developing a true sales pipeline because whilst you are selling services not widgets, understanding your marketplace rather than selling your own talents will provide more new quick wins.
- Selling is intrinsically connected to marketing and the two teams should be as versed in PR and creating marketing tools as they are using those tools across all new and traditional platforms.
So, what does this all mean for your agency?
Most important of all:
Showing off your work is not enough.
Whether a stunning show-reel, something funky on Facebook or worthy on LinkedIn or beautiful in print, or with gravitas in a brochure¦ it is not enough.
You need to join it up.
Its the SO WHAT? factor. It ultimately comes down to effectively understanding that your offer is brimming with ˜features but your clients will buy benefits.
To discover the benefits your clients truly want, you need to apply the above methodology “ research, listening and planning, in order to sell. With your head held high, you will have uncovered the benefits that your clients truly need, indeed desire.
To learn more about making the above a reality within your business, contact The Hand, we offer bespoke business development services and training workshops for sales and account management teams.
This is a Guest Post from The Hand – a tailor made business development and marketing service.
Related articles
- Improper sales techniques (practicebetterbusiness.wordpress.com)
- Top B2B Franchise Shares Best Techniques for Turning Cold Calling into Warm Calling (prweb.com)
Thank heavens for the wonderful people at NameChk.com
They do the grunt for you.
Now all I need is to go register the name…. there’s a handy text download file option that gives you the URL you could get for each one.
Just don’t expect me to know what they all do!
NameCheck social media name availability