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.