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Sales and marketing CRM alignment

4 February, 2020/0 Comments/in B2B, Data, Sales /by Rebecca Caroe

The old chestnut about “sales-ready leads” versus “marketing qualified leads” never ends – it just mutates like a virus.

I went to a presentation of a sales research project last week and their survey and report were interesting.

If you work in marketing or new business development and are starting to use ABM, take a read – the link is at the bottom.

Results of 2020 sales leader survey

Key 2020 Sales takeaways

Three quarters of survey respondents use a CRM
39% of sales teams are using a different CRM from the rest of the firm
35% monitor website engagement
One thing the sales team thinks they can do better – Business Development

My interpretation of this is:

Absolutely stunning. Why are firms not using a CRM? FFS it’s 2020 folks! Even small firms can afford one.
Why is a CRM not deployed? Are you expecting the sales team to initiate this tech project – because they won’t.
Using a different CRM from the rest of the firm is astonishing. Do the IT department not check why the firm and the sales team are using different software? Siloed data is a giant challenge and this creates and reinforces this problem.
Glad that a third of sales people realise customers go to websites FIRST before contacting sales.
The “wait and see” for disruptive technology reinforces my view of the static nature of sales compared to marketing.
Take the lead, marketing folks, and draw the sales function along with you for the ride to integrating your work.
Business development is the interface between sales and marketing. If this is ONE thing your firm can do better – marketers initiate the project. Sales are gagging for it.
CRM and website marketing are not “disruptive technologies” any more. They are BAU. Get used to it.

Here’s the report – it is on page 10.

Digital Strategy and your Website

20 January, 2020/0 Comments/in Lead Generation, Marketing, Marketing ideas, SEO /by Rebecca Caroe

For all in-house marketing managers, I’m running some training hosted by CCH Learning during February. I first ran this course three years ago and it remains the most popular I’ve ever done with them. Digital Strategy and Your Website.

Update your professional website

Business websites cannot be static “set-and-forget” marketing assets. Recent changes to search and social algorithms affect your business. Learn how to work your website hard so that it pays back the investment to the business, brings in new enquiries and showcases the firm’s expertise and key staff.

This is a practical training webinar which will show you how to test your website’s effectiveness and give you a checklist of what you can do to improve key metrics.

Further, a business website MUST be the central hub for all your marketing activity. It needs close integration with other key marketing technologies which I’ll be teaching on this course.

Invest in your marketing skills

Get yourself onto this course – the investment is a modest NZ$215 + GST and I know you’ll be glad you came.

My reviews from all the courses I have given reflect the client testimonials I get from direct clients.

Sales funnel, B2B sales, B2B marketing expert

Tips for manufacturers to grow client base

13 January, 2020/0 Comments/in B2B, Lead Generation, Marketing, Sales, Strategy /by Rebecca Caroe

My company provides mechanical designs and manufacturers and supplies products to a few companies in both the US and Europe. How do I increase my customers?

This is a typical “opening” question that I get asked when starting a new engagement with clients. B2B marketing needs to be closely integrated with the new business and new client acquisition process to be effective.

For a public question and answer, I gave some straightforward answers. The detail of how to apply these, is where my expertise will help you get it right first time.

Planning B2B sales and marketing plan

Step one for B2B sales

Ask your existing client/s for referrals. If they were happy with the work that you did, they should be happy to help. If you feel the need, offer them a X%/$X discount on the next project for every client they refer. This is ‘win-win-win’ situation because you get more clients, they get a discount, and they use your services again.
Ask your existing clients for a written recommendation & permission to use their logo on your website. Publish them both on your website. This will help increase the conversion rate on your website. If you feel the need, you can offer them a link to their website which will be good for both of your SEO rankings – so another win-win.
Publish as much (relevant and quality) content as possible on your website (about the projects you’ve done, potential projects, your fields of expertise, etc. Obviously, you need to have a professional and trustworthy looking website. I can explain how the articles need to be done.
Create a free ‘get a quote tool’ – many customers check online to get an estimate of how much the project will cost. If you have an automatic online tool, this can attract a lot of customers. I have personally used such a tool and I was very impressed.
Partner with organisations/companies that work with your target clients – for example: I work with lots of entrepreneurs and many of them ask me for referrals to various types of service providers, including programming companies. These companies give me a small percentage of the profits they make from my referrals (of course I only refer to companies which I know and trust as my reputation is worth more than the referral fee).

Step 2 tactics for more sophisticated marketers

In Europe, there are a number of partnership sites for B2B. You could use these sites to post your offer or search for other offers and hopefully make a match.

Another approach is considering hiring local distributors who specialise in your industry. The advantage here is local distributors will already have a strong network to promote your products/services. Furthermore, local distributors would have thorough understanding of the local market, language, and business culture to close deals.

Go talk to your current customers. Ask them why they do business with you. They may, and most likely will, tell you something different than you’re saying to new prospects. Listen to what your current customers are saying and use their messaging to talk to the market. Ask them if they know other companies that could use what you have,

Go and join the professional trade bodies who represent the industries for your existing clients. Ask your existing clients what these are. Once you are a member, you will be able to see a membership list of other organisations who are also members
Plan outbound marketing to approach these companies and see if they want to also work with you.

Consider visiting the annual conferences and trade shows which these professional bodies run because you will then meet in person with prospects. Many people find it easier to sell their expertise face to face. You could consider doing a trade show stand as well where you can display your past work and the logos of your clients. This builds trust and can start discussions.,

B2B sales and marketing work together

In summary – you need to learn the process of B2B new business, you need a strategy for your new business development and then you need a regular tactical execution process to deliver the new business programme.

You may choose to hire an external advisor to help write the strategy, you could get an in-house salesperson to deliver the tactical execution as well, depending on the size of your contracts and how many you need to get in order to pay for their salary plus commission to make it worthwhile for the business.

Is B2B marketing yielding good returns?

11 December, 2019/0 Comments/in B2B, Data, Lead Generation, Marketing ideas, Public Speaking, Strategy /by Rebecca Caroe

Is the marketing you are doing giving you the yield you seek?

I am asking this question a LOT at the moment. I ask it to myself, for my own businesses, I ask clients, I ask prospects.

One answer came from a professional services marketer. It serves as a good example for in-house marketers to challenge their thinking, to up-skill and to get insight from beyond the internal team in the business.

This is what she wrote to answer

Hmmm… It’s hard to tell. I cannot know if a speaking engagement got someone interested enough to ask their consultant to investigate our solutions and eventually get in touch with us and 2 years later… we have a deal signed. It is a complex process to sell our service.

Is a long sales cycle a B2B marketing problem?

Yes, it certainly is. Tracking and managing a diverse set of marketing tactics and campaigns over time takes discipline and forethought.

But where I felt this marketing manager was failing her business colleagues was around integrating the content creation, the speech-giving with marketing analytics and tracking data.

I challenge the assertion that you “cannot know” if a speaking engagement has any effect.

How to track conference speeches for marketing impact

Let me make some suggestions:

Every conference – offer a free download of something valuable. Create a trackable URL. Cookie the browsers visiting that site.
ALSO offer the visitor something even more valuable (not a sales pitch) if they sign up to your database

Both of these create trackable events which (even if 2 years passes) can enable you to demonstrate results.

Any pass-on of URLs to second parties like consultants or colleagues is tracked too.

I use Google Campaign URL builder and also short link services like Bit.ly for this.

Upskill your internal marketing team

When did you last go and get training and invest in your internal marketing team? I fear many in-house teams do not get the attention they deserve. Hiring an agency or consultant is not necessarily going to improve the team skills – it delegates marketing activity to outsiders.

What could you do to invest better, to improve your team’s ability to run the strategy as well as the execution, to better understand what the agency / consultant is doing for you, so that they can brief better, to guide the marketing plan better, to adapt and adjust the marketing budget for new tech, for new market conditions (recession?) and above all, to stay in front of the competition?

So challenge yourself, is the marketing you are doing giving you the yield you seek?

podcasts, seo podcast, search for podcast

Podcast SEO and search

2 December, 2019/0 Comments/in Podcast /by Rebecca Caroe

Podcasts are seriously TERRIBLE at helping your website and brand SEO.

If you are a podcaster, chances are that you have a website page or category in which you list your episodes. But these pages do not perform well in natural search. Have you done a search in your own analytics for podcast pages? Have you done an incognito search for your own podcast in a search engine? Chances are that you were disappointed in the results.

I have done searches looking for past episodes of my podcasts and found that the name of the guest is often a good result for natural search – IF the person is looking for information about that guest. The rest of the time, it’s just been hard graft for precious little return.

3 reasons podcast SEO is bad

The situation is not good at present for three reasons.

Podcast episode blog posts get little traffic – even if you send emails to your list with links
Show notes and transcripts aren’t keyword optimised
Anyone who already subscribes to your podcast is listening in an app (not searching your website)
People looking for your podcast content are searching in apps not via a web browser (which reinforces 1 above)

What can we do to improve SEO for podcasts?

Luckily for us, Google has also noticed that its results need improving. As announced earlier this year, Google will start indexing individual podcast episodes into its search results. But there are caveats – you have to include the word “podcast” in the search string…. and it is starting (obviously) with already popular content from publishers with “authority” and prioritising US based podcasters [don’t get me started on where the centre of the universe actually is….].

Search results for podcast – that’s mine, RowingChat

The image is of a search I did today for “best rowing podcasts”. And halfway down the page are image link results under a sub-heading of Podcast.
And individual episodes show up higher in the page, as well as results from other distribution services like Stitcher. So far so good.

What can I do to get MY podcast showing up?

Publish your podcast on the Google Podcasts platform – they are prioritising their own ecosystem first. I had to get a US based friend to submit my podcast for me (it isn’t rolled out in all countries yet)
Use an RSS feed to publish – Google say that they are using this to automatically index shows.
Write good headlines – ensure your episode title has the most important keywords early. Don’t waste characters by repeating your podcast name, episode number or hashtag. Save that for the description or show notes.

Write a custom 404 error page

29 November, 2019/0 Comments/in Copywriting /by Rebecca Caroe

Custom 404 pages are a great sign to your readers that you are engaged with your website and want to be helpful.

Here is a sample text I wrote for a client

Custom 404 page text

Oops! That seems to be a broken link.

Sorry.

If you have the time or inclination – please tell us the page it was on by sending us an email. [link Sendto: support@yourwebsite.com Subject: Broken Link on Website]

Maybe you are looking for something like

Our Services [link to services summary page]
Our Shop [link to shop page]
Something else? Contact us [link to contact page]

Add a lightly humorous image – something to show that you thought about it.

I have chosen a capsize image for a watersport brand, a broken stick for a gifts company and a sad looking person for a consultancy firm.

Get on it now….

How retailers can differentiate customers

13 November, 2019/0 Comments/in B2C, Case Studies, Marketing ideas /by Rebecca Caroe

This photo was shared by the famous author, Susan Cain. She noted “There’s an introvert on the customer services team.”

Her world view is all focused on explaining to the majority of the population who are extroverts how the minority (introverts) prefer to be treated.

Treat different customers differently by Sephora retail

Skilful marketers treat different customers differently

Face to face retail is different from online retail. Online, the customer wanders where she wants, unhindered except by popups and tracking cookies – she’s unaware of one of these most of the time.

But in shops, it’s different. Many sales assistants are paid on commission – this drives their behaviours. And without a customer to speak to they risk not getting a commission payment.

When I worked the shop floor [Harrods, Burberrys] and now when I go to Trade Shows, I developed a technique which was successful for me.

I would make eye contact with the customer prospect, smile, and then look away first. Sometimes I also said ‘Hi’.

Why did this method customer engagement work?

Firstly, I made the customer aware that I was there and could help if needed.

Secondly, by looking away first I left them in control of any future re-engagement. They could choose to ignore me and I had signalled that this was fine, that they had no obligation to respond or engage with me.

Back to Sephora

A comment under Susan Cain’s post said

While I understand that we are not all extroverts, is it really that hard to say no thanks when asked if you require help? Perhaps it is? Perhaps one solution would be to changes the words. Red”Happy to be approached for you to assist me” Black “Thanks for not approaching me, I would love your assistance when I ask for it”

And this was my reply

It’s not the “hard” aspect that matters, Debbie. It is the quiet lack of interruption in the shopping experience and the energy it takes to interact when you’d prefer not to.

I am married to an introvert and I have had to do a lot of learning.

Plus, enabling ways for brands to “treat different customers differently” is not just about Susan Cain‘s introverts versus extroverts angle. There are many ways.

I did a website design for a real estate agent. 2 buttons on the home page – I’m Buying – I’m Selling. They go to separate customer journeys…. with different messaging.

Retail customer segmentation challenge

If you run a retail business, where can you enable simple ways to allow customers to self-identify into different groups who want / need to be treated differently?

Mid-Sized Business Marketing

7 November, 2019/0 Comments/in B2B, Strategy /by Rebecca Caroe

The power of New Zealand business as an engine for economic growth lies mainly in mid-sized businesses. These are under-recognised by many for the power they wield.

Grant Thornton has done a study of the sector which has some interesting findings.

Mid-sized firms are growing faster than large or small (absolute numbers).
Most are mature, in B2B industries
Job growth is much higher than in other corporations (large or small)
They suffer low productivity
Capital investment is low (obvs as GT specialises in this type of consultancy)
Suffer low international / export aspirations
Few get >10% of orders via online sources and most under-utilise digital opportunities

5 solutions for future growth

The recommendations made by GT are rather bland, probably reflecting the diversity of business types in the group and the fact that they want to be paid for custom recommendations.

Here’s what I would add as ways to get your own business started on its future path.

Bring on short-term contractors to assess opportunities and report to the Board
Add Board Members with specific expertise on a short term basis to guide the Board [and then leave] e.g. cyber-security, digital marketing, B2B procurement online
Budget for pilot projects [and be prepared to walk away]
Hire newly migrated kiwis who can bring overseas experience [leverage them for knowledge, implementation and then don’t worry if they leave]
New Zealand experience in employees is over-rated. Find people NOT like your current team. Use them to show you overseas methods / techniques / tools and input to 1 above.

Mid sized business recommendations

Download the report

Solving B2B marketing challenges

6 November, 2019/0 Comments/in B2B, Sales /by Rebecca Caroe

I got this question from a client

Marketing Association Training Courses

Our challenge is the digital marketer who may not be well-versed in the requirements and realities of B2B. Often they have come from a B2C/retail environment, and might get stuck on things like 3rd party seller integrations that we don’t offer, rather than the deep integration and B2B functionality we specialise in. These personas are generally NOT committed to passing on our story, because they’re telling themselves a different one.

Common situation – where you know more than the (junior) client marketer, but you need them to be willing to implement your solution.

How to solve for ignorance

Easy fixes.

Find a partner who LOVES those 3rd party seller integrations and agree to collaborate with them. So you can confidently say that “yes we integrate with everything” and bypass these objections. [BTW Zapier does pretty much everything with an open API.]

One thing you can also do is offer deep hands-on training when you implement so you will be up-skilling the digital marketer who doesn’t have a B2B marketing background… leaving them skilled in both using and implementing good tactical campaigns. If this can be aligned with a public certification as well (See the CIM courses or NZ Marketing Association Diploma) then there’s a side-benefit for the individual getting a recognised qualification along the way.