Making Marketing Dollars Pay: Why it's so darn hard to feel good about your marketing spend

By: Ginger Clay

You know you need to spend money to make money. The most successful businesses in our industry have embraced marketing and have learned how to articulate their value in order to boost sales. While your marketing person/team struggle to find the right marketing tactics to fill the sales pipeline, you - as an owner - might find it even more difficult to justify spending more on marketing when it's difficult to measure the results and feel confident about what you have already spent.

There are many reasons why this occurs but the biggest reasons is simply that marketing is not a traditional investment. Unlike equipment, salaries and software, marketing funds are typically "risked" or hedged investments. Several factors influence your brand's ability to be constantly visible and always remain top of mind when a buying decision needs to be made. Frequency, consistency and relevancy are factors with which you can exercise some control. However, psychology of what's makes a buyer engage and ultimately buy is a studies art that takes practice, consistency and pure measurement to get it right...and to get it right often.

Before you spend another dime on any type of marketing or sales activity, it is important to consider a few steps to gain clarity about what you want your marketing to achieve to better understand what you need to measure. 

6 practical quotes for helping you understand how to make your marketing dollars pay!

1. "If you don't know where you are going, you might not get there." (Yogi Berra) 
• Marketing, like Sales or Operations needs to be tied to specific management and strategic goals. I have worked with technology owners who see their sales lagging, invest in a quick marketing campaign, hire more sales people and still experience lagging sales. This is often the result of throwing marketing money at a problem without really understanding what you are trying to achieve. Defining your end result provides you with laser focus on targets and goals, mitigating risky (marketing) investments that fail to yield results.
2. "Garbage in, garbage out." (My mother) 
• The quality of data you put into your system defines your ability to measure your activity and results. Defining the data you want to collect and store is an important 1st step in accurately measuring any investment. It is important for you to figure out how you will collect and measure results across multiple channels, activities, networks, and databases. Social media, advertisement and online marketing is only as effective as your ability to target, collect and measure results.
3. "In God we trust; all others bring data." (W. Edwards Deming)
• Develop a set of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that will help everyone on your team understand how to benchmark performance and understand results. I can't tell you how many times I have had marketing managers say to me, "We increased our campaign open rate by 33%," or "We had 30 hits to our blog this month." As a business owner- with other things on my mind- the first thought that enters my mind: "What does that mean?" As an owner and manager, you don't have time to guess what your team is trying to achieve and understanding performance is far greater than understanding the cost. Performance indicators help you understand incremental change like the value in your change in revenue (are you making more money now than before) or the % of change in revenue (Are you increasing or staying the same?). 
4. "If you can't describe what you are doing as a process, you don't know what you are doing." (Mr. Deming, again) 
• Formalizing a process for collecting marketing campaign and activity data is key to implementing a process that everyone can get behind and execute with success.  I have worked with countless business owners who tell me they want to invest into marketing to grow. To make this happen, it is not enough to throw money at a campaign or hire a social media expert. To really implement an effective marketing program, you must follow steps #1-3 and create a process that fits into the way your organization works. Think through all the ways you touch your buyers, collect data and customize your message/offering. All of these items need to be tracked and measured and the best way to do that is through a formal process.
5. "If everything is important, nothing is important." (Andrei Herasimchuk) 
• Too much information will overwhelm your ability to quantify the business revenue impacts of your marketing investments. I always recommend you produce visual reports of your marketing success to allow everyone to wrap their minds around the results. 
6. "By perseverance the snail reached the ark" (Charles Spurgeon)
• Don't give up too quickly. Tying marketing goals to management goal, determining how you will measure those attributes, formulating a process for systematical measuring results, and making subtle modifications along the way is often underappreciated and over-looked. In a hurry to find ways to generate revenue, we over-look the essentials that help us craft a winning marketing strategy and measure the marketing spend. 

Finally, stick with it; don't give up too early and relish in small successes along your journey to building a business that is visible and feeds your sales pipeline with calculated success.

4 Marketing Truths No One Ever Tells You

I wrote a blog a few months ago titled, "5 Reasons why your marketing fails."

I regret writing that blog.

The reason I regret writing the blog is simply this: the reasons I stated for your marketing failure are tactical and only addresses the symptoms. I failed to address the real problem why marketing fails. It's often not due to a solid plan, capable people or enough funding. The real reason marketing fails is because it is not tied to the planned, stated objectives of the business and most owners have not positioned their marketing dollars or efforts to ever reach their stated goals. Hence, marketing is positioned to fail from the start.

I'll explain.

As a marketing strategy coach, I talk to business owners often about implementing and building a marketing strategy. The reasons why different businesses ask for my services is all over the board, but the results they want to achieve using marketing is always the same.

" I want to grow by 10-20-30%"
"We want to increase lagging sales"
"I want to double in revenue over the next 3 years."

Whatever the reason, companies of all sizes, with short/long time spans in business respond the same.

At the beginning of every conversation with business owners and key managers, I ask a series of questions to figure out what they are wanting to do, their perception of what they want marketing to achieve and if it is actually doable. I ask these 7-questions:

1.      What do you want marketing to accomplish?

2.      Why do you believe marketing can solve these problems?

3.      What do you currently have in place? What's worked/not worked in the past?

4.      How do you measure the results of any marketing effort?

5.      What do you believe the role of marketing is in your overall business strategy and goals to grow your business?

6.      How do you/would you contribute to the success of a new marketing plan/strategy?

7.      If we choose to work together, what defined targets, goals or revenue numbers have you defined as achievable based on the size of your organization, resources and budget?

Inevitably the answers are mostly the same. The company believes they can grow big because they experienced quick growth in a short period of time, or they are reselling a new product and believe they can grow, or their sales are lagging and they need leads (lots of leads) to kick-start sales. To solve these problems, an owner believes he/she can increase sales by implementing a bunch of marketing campaigns and tactics to help them grow sales.

Here's the bottom line: Most business owners and leaders view marketing as a series of isolated events intended to work only for a period of time to fix a problem or hit a goal. They don't view marketing as an integrated part of their culture and fabric designed to tell a compelling story, continuously feed the sales pipeline, and nurture unsure buyers until they are ready to make a buying decision. Truth be told, if you were to grow quickly, you might not have the resources in house, processes in place or support staff internally to handle immediate growth. 

MDF dollars only further this thinking by provided dollars to resellers to sell their products. What is missing here is how this efforts (and money) is tied to any strategy or fits into the goals and objectives of the overall business.

What most business owners fail to recognize is that marketing is an investment into the continuous and future growth of their business—with targets that are strategically identified and tied back to overall business goals. It is not an isolated or one-off event.

For these reasons marketing is positioned to fail from the beginning! Marketing ends up being inconsistent. The targets are not defined. It cannot be measured. The marketing activity is not integrated into the overall operations and mission of the organization.

So, what should an owner consider before embarking on a new marketing strategy? Here are the 4 Principles of Marketing Truth that no one ever tells you or writes about:

1.      Successful marketing must be tied to a Sales & Marketing strategy/plan.

2.      The Sales & Marketing Plan must be tied to revenue goals/targets.

3.      Revenue goals/targets must be tied to your Business Plan (Mission/Vision/P&L)

4.      The Business Plan must be tied to the owners vision and goals.

As an owner your vision and communicated targets are the backbone of any and all marketing success.

As Paul Harvey so eloquently said, "and now you know the rest of the story!"

 

 

 

 

 

Networking for Lead$

As much as possible, we will always do business (and repeat business) with people we like, know and trust. Getting people to know us, and like us, (not to mention) trust us is the biggest challenge in finding, and closing new business.

If you would prefer to send a text, reach your target market via email or rely on the web to make your business services known, STOP READING NOW. This is not for you.

What I want to propose is the most simplistic way of building a network of leads from people who probably like you, know about your expertise and are comfortable referring you to others. What I'm talking about is expanding your realm of influence and business connections through word-of-mouth marketing. This highly innovative form of lead generation is called "networking for leads" and it is used by only the best in the industry.  

Networking for leads is the process of finding "secret pockets of people" who know a lot other influential business people in your network and refer those people to you for the purpose of finding new business opportunities. Networking for leads is literally "the best and most effective sales strategy for finding new contacts and closing business," says CEO Larry Kesslin of 4-Profit coaching services.  

You might wonder, "What pot of gold are you selling?"

Unlike many marketing programs that talk about traditional tactics for attracting prospects, selling value and tracking leads, Networking for Leads is the process of finding pot-of-gold networking groups that provide you with rich networks of opportunities for finding business you might not otherwise be privy to.

James McBreaty of BNI said, networking is not "net-sit or net-eat; it's net-work," meaning it is going to take purposeful effort to make you visible and known to groups of people who know other effective and efficient business people. McBreaty goes on to add that "business people get business when their expertise is known and others reach a comfort level with them."

Your goal is to produce lasting and profitable results by building a professional network of other business people who will refer you to their clients.

Who are these amazing business connections? They are the very people in your own backyard. They are the best realtors who knows everyone in the city; the favored coffee maker who rubs elbows with the most influencial people in your neighborhood; the bright account who deals with your best customers;  the trusted florist who delivers to the upper-side of town, etc.

These amazing business connections are the people in your neighborhood that rub shoulders with other mover and shakers. Mr. Rogers hit the nail on the head when he crooned "Who are the people in your neighborhood? They're the people that you meet each day."

So, how do you connect with these lead-driven networking groups?

1.      Join a networking group already in progress. These groups are exclusive to individuals who have a certain type of expertise and offering.

There are several professional networking groups such as BNI and Le Tip who have brought together like-minded business professionals for the purpose of sharing leads and finding new business opportunities from other people who share similar values.

They will connect you with a select group of business individuals with a network outside of your own who get to know you and potentially share their clients with you. Of course the expectation is that you will do the same with your client list.

The upside to joining one of these groups is that you have instant access to a group of seasoned and influential business connectors in your immediate geographical or industry network.

The downside is that you may be expected to give leads to individuals you might not trust or want to provide as a referral to your client base.

2.      The second (and often most overlooked) way of networking for leads is to start your own group.

"Why," you may ask?

Have you ever joined a group in the past and thought differently of the one who runs the program? Of course. We have a set of expectations for the person who runs the group and a separate set of expectations for the individuals in the group.

As a moderator, connector or person who brings people together, you are the LINK between you and the others in the group. You moderate, set call times or meeting locations and provide the connectivity to keep the group together. As a result, you have access to all the leads and information being shared among members. What you won't be expected to do is share your leads as readily as those in the group, giving you the ability to pick with whom you share your customer's names.

Finding the right type of network is going to be most important. Preparing to answer questions about your offering and allocating time to network will be essential for your networking efforts to succeed. At the end of the day, this really is the simplest and most effective way to build your network of leads and watch your business grow.

To learn more about how to join or build your own Network of Leads, email Ginger Clay at ginger@4-Profit.com  for a step-by-step guide to building your network of profitable leads.

 

Old School Rules Still Apply When Building Your Network

The world around us is evolving. How we interact with our peers, build contacts and establish our “brand” or identity in our larger network is dramatically changing, and technology is in part to credit (or blame) for this transition. Gone are the days when business leaders have to rely on social events such as Chamber “meet and greets”, trade show or industry mixers, and golf outings to expand our network of peers and professional connections. Social media and online communities have changed all of that! These tools give you the ability to cut to the chase and find contacts that do what you do and share similar interest. They also give you laser focus when looking for prospective businesses that fit your “ideal” client description. Even more important is the value of connecting with other thought leaders in your industry that share similar interest or have something that can help you do your job better and faster.

 

Depending on how you look at, this is an amazing time and age in which we live. We can craft our own identities and rub elbows (hypothetically) with almost anyone, anywhere.

I had someone whisper to me at a recent event, “Oh he’s so old school. He thinks he can just show up at this event, hand out his business card, rattle off his elevator pitch and a short list of client names and get new business.” She was a colleague of his and unhappy about his personal aversion to social media. 
 
Can you effectively network using “old school” rules? As a marketing professional and national speaker on social media topics, I am going to say, “yes,” because the rules of rules of engagement have not changed.

If you have heard me speak on social media at popular events, you might be thinking I am not practicing what I preach! Not so.

While technology has taken us into networking circles we might never had been privileged to enter without an invite or special membership, as business leaders, the rules for building an effective network have not changed. Instead of calling it a network, we call it a community. At the end of the day, it is still all about achieving “relationship ROI” and building a social-peer-professional networks that arms you with the ability to stay abreast of new technologies, follow industry influencers, stay close to your competitors and get past the gate-keeping in an organization through a referral or introduction. It also gives you the ability to give back to others in your community, mentor aspiring leaders and provide thought leadership on wisdom you have acquired through the ranks.

In this regard, nothing has changed.

As a business leader, relationships still carry their own ROI. They just look a little different. With the availability of social networks, communities and online events, we now can claim to be “connected” to someone or know something about someone we would have otherwise not known. As humans, we still want to connect with others on a more intimate level. The need for face-to-face interaction still exists. This will never change. So, the old school rules can apply.

Building a healthy network starts with making purposeful, relationship-based connections. If you can embrace social media tools to help you be more successful, power to you! Remember, it is not just who you know, but the value you bring to the relationship that really matters as you build your peer and professional networks.

Here are the 6 steps I recommend for building your network:

1.     1. Take inventory of your current network.
Begin by taking inventory of everyone you know in your industry. This will include customers, experts, media and vendors. Begin by using the following list as a guide for developing your list of networks.

2. Identify networks that provide the greatest "bang for the buck."
Research and make a list of the social events, networks, associations, trade shows and professional associations that hold the greatest potential for helping you growing your network. Prioritize the list. Research the cost of membership and decide which networks best fit your mission/value/goals.

3. Decide who in your organization represents you best. 
Networking should be a volunteer event. Take inventory of your internal staff and decide who in your company enjoys networking and can represent your company best. Too often business owners try and do everything themselves. Use your internal staff resources to help build your network of influence.

4. Create a matrix of expertise within your organization.
Decide which expertise in your organization is best represented at select networking events. Match those individuals to specific networking events. Make this a fun activity by having various individuals on your team pair-up at events and report who they met at a company event or manager's meeting. Don't forget to have a system in place for systematically collecting leads, follow-up and tracking progress in your sales pipeline.

5. Use your daily activities to build your network.
You can do this simply by building contacts through casual conversations that occur while doing the things you like to do such as playing golf, attending charitable events, extracurricular activities, kids events, etc. Don’t forget to make social media an asset for building your network by systematically mining for contacts by role, company, interest and industry.  Finally, host an after-hours Open House to meet other influential people in your professional "neighborhood."

6. Ask for contacts!
Go ahead, don't be afraid to ask your professional community, your current contacts and happy clients for introductions and referrals. Clearly communicate to them that you are building your professional network of influencers and tell them what types of individuals you are looking to meet. If they think you are worthy of an introduction, they will gladly make the call.

What the hell is social media suppose to do for me anyways?

Everyone thinks they need to add social media to their marketing mix. Who's to say they are wrong? Afterall, hundreds and thousands of people connect on social media everyday.

What is it that you are trying to achieve and what should you expect to get out of social media if you are wanting to use the tools to generate leads or build community among your current user base?

The answer is simple: Interest, Visibility, Connections

Getting there is the tough part.

As a marketing professional who dabbles in social media and has had to figure out how to make it work for the clients I serve, I decided to step back from the noise and ask myself a handful of questions that I now ask EVERY client who approaches me to help them incorporate social media into their marketing strategy.

Questions to ask before embarking on any social media strategy:

1.      Where do most of your customers engage in social media? If you don't know, don't begin. You want to purposefully connect with your clients. Ask and you shall know.

 

2.      Do they spend their time making buying decisions from information they acquire on social media? Probably not. However, they strongly influence and are influenced by what they see. People want to know that they are making a good buying decision. By seeing others interact and comment about your products/services in a positive light, their decision to work with you is only reinforced. The power of suggestion is powerful. It can make or break a buying decision. 

3.      How do you typically communicate new news to clients socially? Could a social media tool be added to the mix? Social Media is a great way to create the "sticky" factor that every company wants with their clients. Really think this through and find a strategy that keeps you top of mind and visible to your clients. Don't try and be everything to everyone. Choose a handful of social tools and be consistent-- make them work for you.

4.      How do your clients currently learn of new products, updates and "insider" news about you? (Or do they? Just kidding...sort-of.) So many times we spend hundreds/thousands of dollars to win new clients. We win them and ignore them until we are ready to ask for more money. Keep your current (and most valuable) clients close by announcing fun updates about your product, "Did you knows" about how to make the technology work for you and insider news that they can only get by connecting with you through a social channel.

5.      How would I use social media to cultivate current client relationships to create a degree of "stickiness" to our services? This is the key to making social media work for you. Don't just think business. Use a mascot or clever tagline to create community and interaction. The more your clients think of you, the stickier you are to your product/services and the less likely they are to leave you.

6.      How can I use social media as a tool for boosting my search engine rankings to drive clients to my website? Yes, yes, and yes! The best part of social media, you can use tools like blogging, social RSS streams and new content to keep your website at the top of the browser rankings. If you don't understand SEO (search engine optimization) or can't figure out how to link social media to your site, outsource it. There are a lot of affordable and talented SEO companies that can use your social activity to get your website higher rankings. You provide the content; they provide the know-how.

Ginger Clay provides the spunk and drive behind 4-Profit’s marketing strategy, which is designed to help solution providers transition from little to no-marketing to focused outsourced marketing strategy that positions solution providers uniquely in their market space, drives demand, and maximize sales effectiveness. Ginger leads the Marketing Influencers Peer Groups for marketing professionals in a solution provider's practice. To learn more about 4-Profit and questions for Ginger visit ginger@4-profit.com.

5 Reasons Your Business Marketing Fails!

As solution providers, we often feel the most insane task we perform in our business might be the act of marketing. To compound matters, we have limited time, limited resources and very little understanding (if we are honest with ourselves) about why are customers respond or do not respond to our marketing efforts. What we are really doing is practicing a form of insanity. By this I am mean you market to your clients the same way over and over expecting different results.
The bottom line is that sales drive profits and profits provide you the ability to hire additional resources and reach more clients — which should give you back more time to concentrate on growing your business. Sales are fueled by marketing. So, what is marketing and why is it the last item added to the budget?

Marketing Basics

Marketing is the process of courting potential customers; keeping your product top of mind; driving demand for your products and forming a positive perception about your offering in the minds of current and future clients. When we don’t practice good marketing we experience feast or famine in our sales pipeline, forcing us to perform insane marketing tactics in hopes of building our pipeline.
Stop the Insanity.

Common Marketing Mistakes

I am going to share with you 5 reasons why marketing fails. These mistakes are made by the best of us, but understanding how to stop the insanity will help you make better choices with your time and money.

Marketing Mistake 1: Aiming at everyoneNo one can be all things to all people. It is true that marketing to large volumes of clients might make the phone ring more frequently, but it will also require more human resources to qualify callers and turn unqualified callers away. The best marketers know that a focused audience can increase the intensity of your brand appeal, drive demand and increase margins. You’re better off being the 1st choice of 10% of your target audience than one of 10 choices.

Marketing Mistake 2: Focused on features instead of valueI always remind my clients that “no one cares what you do until they know what you do for them.” Most clients expect you to deliver what other solution providers offer. What you want to convey is the value or experience that a future client can expect by using your services. Selling the experience speaks to your red-hot value; features selling leaves you looking vanilla.

Marketing Mistake 3: Your message is weakYour future clients should be able to quickly understand what you do for them. Often a solution provider’s message reads like a mission statement or leaves the prospect unable to distinguish unique advantages. Describe your client’s challenges back to them and speak to how you make their lives easier. Stop talking about the type of technology you provide. As a result, your future client will better understand what it is you do (for them).

Marketing Mistake 4: You fail to go the distance
Marketing is the process of courting a client through the buying-decision process. One of the biggest mistakes made in marketing is giving up on a buyer before they are ready to buy. Often we follow-up, send a couple of emails and hope the prospective client engages with our attempts to sell our product/services. When they don’t respond, we write them off as “bad-leads” and move onto the next call. Statistics show that most clients need a minimum of 7-touches before they are convinced they can do business with you. Relationship selling begins with trust. Don’t give up before they are ready to engage.

Marketing Mistake 5: You ignore your current customersTypically it will cost you five-times more to get a new client than to keep your current client happy. Don’t ignore your current client base. On-boarding, awareness of new products and periodic communication is key to making your clients paying customers for life. Now that you’ve got them, keep them.

Ginger Clay provides the spunk and drive behind 4-Profit’s marketing strategy, which is designed to help solution providers transition from little to no-marketing to focused outsourced marketing strategy that positions solution providers uniquely in their market space, drives demand, and maximize sales effectiveness. To learn more about 4-Profit and Ginger’s services visit www.4-profit.com.

DO THIS, NOT THAT FOR SUCCESSFUL COOPERATION BETWEEN SALES & MARKETING

by: Ginger Clay

The effectiveness of any marketing effort is only as good as the cooperation and collaboration between the sales and marketing teams. This is not always as easy as it may seem. The role of the marketing team is to bring interested buyers to the table, court interested buyers and pass those buyers to sales.  The role of sales is to bring qualified and interested buyers to transaction.

The rub between marketing and sales usually rears its head when marketing believes they are delivering qualified buyers and sales cannot bring those potential buyers to transaction. Sales might feel that they are unable to close sales due to the quality and type of buyer. When this occurs, there is a breakdown in communication and ability to measure the “quality” of the lead through the entire marketing and sales pipeline. To avoid such a dilemma, we suggest you be mindful of the following Do’s and Don’ts for creating profitable synergy between your sales and marketing teams.

DO	DON’T
Do create a set of measurements for tracking the effectiveness of a lead.	Don’t allow the sales or marketing team to dictate the “effectiveness” of a lead. Lead scoring (defined in Step 8: Marketing & Sales Metrics) determines if a lead is truly profitable and worth pursuing.
Do communicate your end-goal targets to both the sales and marketing teams collectively.	Don’t not communicate your end-goal results. Your sales and marketing team wants to perform and receive praise for their performance. A lack of communication between management and the marketing and sales team only invites discourse. As a manager it is your duty to set and communicate end-goal results, allowing your marketing and sales team to work together to achieve those goals.
Do institute a quarterly review between your Marketing and Sales managers to discuss the “effectiveness” of current leads in the pipeline tied to specific marketing strategies.	Don’t hope that your marketing and sales team will evaluate lead effectiveness, because they won’t! Marketing has their hands in several projects at one time while sales it looking to hit a set dollar amount each month. While sales and marketing share the same objective- to increase revenue- their definition of “success” is measured differently.
Do encourage cooperation between the marketing and sales efforts.	Don’t pit your sales team against your marketing team. We see this happen all the time as an effort to motivate the sales team to work “harder.” This tactic only results in divided efforts.
Do provide public accolades and rewards for achieved results.	Don’t withhold praise for earned success. This is a group of individuals that strive for public praise. Be careful to criticize this group publically. Their motivation is based on their perception of their performance.

 

Ginger Clay provides the spunk and drive behind 4-Profit’s marketing strategy, which is designed to help solution providers transition from little to no-marketing to focused outsourced marketing strategy that positions solution providers uniquely in their market space, drives demand, and maximize sales effectiveness. To learn more about 4-Profit and Ginger’s services visit www.4-profit.com.