Category: Lead Generation

Give ‘em Something to Talk About

I spent ten bucks on a cell phone purse, and it’s a conversation starter every time I wear it. The conversation isn’t only about the purse – it quickly evolves into the story about the organization and the woman who made it.

I bought it at a local festival with hundreds of booths and some fun, creative handcrafted items. I just stumbled upon this particular booth and was attracted to this particular purse. I liked the colors and since I like to write, I was attracted to the design – pens and prolific authors!

Take a Look

Take a close look at the photo. The purse is on the right side, and if you look really closely – you’ll see that it’s made out of a man’s necktie! The pointed flap is the bottom of the tie, and it has a long strap of the same material (which you don’t see in the photo.)

Now, that’s interesting, and it gets attention. But after we discuss the necktie aspect, the next question is always, “Who made it?” That’s when I get to tell the very compelling story behind it, and it becomes a memorable word-of-mouth marketing piece.

Refuge Handicrafts

The people in the photo are involved with a special group of refugees. The woman on the left is actually the very one who made this tie. The group is called “Refuge Handicrafts”, a project of Catholic Charities of Tennessee, Inc. Their mission is to work with resettled refugee women to help promote self-sufficiency through self-employment. These women actually start their own small business and receive 100% of the money generated!

They recognize that refugee women face unique barriers to working outside of the home. In order for the women to overcome these challenges, Refuge Handicrafts works with them to develop their many talents and skills. Through financial literacy classes, English language classes, along with business development & management training, they become successful business owners.

What’s Your Word-of-Mouth Strategy?

I think this is a brilliant word-of-mouth product, and I keep the tag with the story on it right inside my purse, so that when I get the question, “Who made it?” I can show them how to buy their own.

If you’d like to purchase any of their products, or just receive more information about their program and services, contact them by email: handicrafts@cctenn.org.

For more resources, see the Free Management Library topic: Marketing and Social Media.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:
Ms. Chapman’s social media book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

 

Guest Author: Corbin Grimes

“Leads are a starting point, not a closed deal. Think of a lead as the seed, and you are the gardener. The effort you make and what you do to nurture that seed is directly related to its growth and what comes from it next.” – Corbin Grimes

Setting Expectations

Every sales professional in the world wants to work with a lead that’s ready to buy. It’s a common mentality that all sales professionals have – I call this “hot lead tunnel vision.”

Hot lead tunnel vision is a pitfall that can keep you from tapping into many other good resources – resources that you should be utilizing to fill your pipeline.

Before you go out and spend your hard earned money on leads, you need to understand several things about them.

1.) There is no easy button. There is no miracle pill in sales. There is no silver bullet.

2.) There is no such thing as a perfect lead. You’re not going to find leads that will always pan out sales.

3.) There is no “one size fits all lead”. Not all lead programs are going to be a good fit for you.

4.) There are inexpensive leads, and more expensive leads – that doesn’t always equate to quality.

Conversion

Converting a lead into a sale is 100% on you. You may not close many, and in many cases you may not close any at all.

Leads are funny that way. You can give the same list of leads to 5 different people and each will have their own degree of success with the list. With one individual, you might give them the hottest lead on the planet, and they will not convert it. With other individuals you could give them the worst lead on the planet, and they will find a way to convert it. I’ve actually seen this take place amongst sales people using the same list of leads over a period of time. Sales person A worked list #1 for almost an entire year and managed to get one sale. Needless to say, sales person A wasn’t around much longer. The company gave the same list (that had already been called on) to sales person B. Sales person B had only been in the company for 3 months, and has already exceeded their goals for the quarter using the exact same list.

My point is this: sometimes it’s not the lead, sometimes it’s the sales person. It’s important to own up to the fact that sometimes you’ll fail to convert even the best of leads because that is just the nature of sales. Or, perhaps you are not a sales person at all; you’ll need to eventually own up to that as well. It’s important to stay positive and keep your head up and not lose faith as your next sale could be right around the corner.

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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Author Info: Corbin Grimes is a small business consulting firm located in Denver, Colorado offering affordable internet marketing and business solutions including search engine optimization (SEO), web design, e-mail marketing, project management and more. Corbin Grimes has a highly specialized team of web designers, software developers, graphic designers and internet marketers designed to take on any business project while placing an emphasis on affordability, reliability, service and professionalism.

Focus on Customers’ Needs Stimulates Growth

Montana Instruments is a Bozeman, Montana firm that manufactures state-of-the-art optical and cryogenic research equipment.

In the early stages, Montana Instruments’ founder spent months interviewing researchers around the world about how they use their equipment to determine what they wanted and what they needed. He wanted to gain knowledge about how they use cryogenic systems and what could make one better. In a few years, the company had progressed to actively marketing its product and preparing for a steady production rate to not only keep up with demand but also to increase sales.

Design and Marketing Phases

For a technology product, a focus on the customer is critical not only during the design phase but also during the marketing phase. New perspective was needed to see the product’s value through customers’ eyes, by identifying why different features are valuable to them. To reach its niche market effectively the company needed a strategic marketing plan, a clear customer message and support pieces to attract buyers.

Results: The Founder of Montana Instruments Corp projects several million in sales over the next few years. He added 3 employees, created a strategic marketing plan and branding campaign, and increased the company’s online presence.

How Did They Do It?

They tapped into programs with approaches that really work for a small company on a limited budget. These experts helped simplify the message, communicate value and made it concise.

The firm sought expertise from:

1) the B2B Marketing Program, a collaboration of Montana Manufacturing Extension Center (MMEC), an MSU College of Engineering outreach center and NIST MEP affiliate, and

2) the Montana Department of Commerce (DOC).

B2B Marketing

The B2B marketing specialist worked with the company’s Business Development Officer, who had previously been a technology company owner, to bring customer perspectives to marketing and instruction on sales strategy. After defining the product value for customers, the pair collaborated in writing a selling script for cold calling; segmenting potential customers by specialty; identifying a target market; and characterizing the best customer. The Montana Instruments tag line “Cold Science Made Simple,” is an outcome of B2B marketing meetings.

MMEC/DOC B2B taught strategies for trade show setup, promotional ideas, how to engage new customers, and to keep the message simple and clear. The creative ideas for trade show exhibitions have helped attract traffic to the Montana Instruments exhibit booth, visually demonstrating the differences between the Cryostation and competitor products in attention-getting ways.

Montana Instruments’ Momentum

In less than two years from the company’s start, it evolved from an R&D (research and development) project to a company commercializing with seven employees. It now has 10 employees and projections of several million in sales.

(Thanks to USA.gov for the details.)

What outside expertise have you tapped to help market and grow your company?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman:

Ms. Chapman’s new book, The WebPowered Entrepreneur – A Step-by-Step Guide is now available at:

• Amazon.com: http://bit.ly/AmazonTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur and
• Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/BNTheWebPoweredEntrepreneur.

Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. She helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com

Presented by Now Possible

Guest Post by Bruce Kasanoff

A long time ago, business execs used to say, “I know we get 80% of the benefit from 20% of our marketing budget, but I don’t know which 20% works” Today, that is an optimistic statement. Not even 20% is working.

I have a list of 30 provocative questions companies ought to ask about their marketing, and aspiring marketers ought to consider before deciding on a career path.

1. Is it more important to improve our products or our advertising?

2. When we compete on price, are we revealing a lack of faith in the value our products deliver to customers?

3. Is “customer loyalty” a valid concept in a smartphone enabled, app-driven marketplace?

4. Would we be wiser to seek to win every competitive match-up, rather than aim for a sense of inherent loyalty to our offerings?

5. Needs-based customer segments provide a means to allocate marketing resources. Have we created such segments?

6. What knowledge do we have about specific customers that our competitors lack?

7. What are the benefits of having knowledge of our customers that our competitors lack?

8. Do we make it convenient for our customers to be loyal?

9. How could we make it more convenient for our customers to be loyal to us?

10. What percentage of our revenues come from delivering customized products or services to customers?

11. How many ways do we use customer information to benefit that customer?

12. How many new ways could we develop to remember information for customers, instead of just about them?

13. When we collect feedback from customers, do we talk in terms of the job/task they were doing or in terms of their perception of our firm?

14. What percentage of our marketing budget can be quantified by accurate metrics?

15. Are we 100% truthful with customers?

16. Marketing tries to make our firm look good. How do we avoid having social media call us out for fudging the truth?

17. Is outbound marketing declining in effectiveness?

18. Do we offer enough compelling content and innovative services to attract customers to us?

19. Are we designing sensors into our products and services?

20. Do we encourage customers to provide feedback, and do we allow other customers to see it?

21. Should we take funds from advertising and general marketing and shift them to developing more innovative services and products?

22. Do we have active and effective teams that combine marketing, engineering and design professionals?

23. Do we encourage and respect a diverse range of opinions and skills across our marketing organization?

24. What percentage of our customer touch points are smart (interactive) vs. stupid (static)?

25. Do we have a mobile strategy that places a greater emphasis on serving than selling?

26. Are we consistently looking at the edges of our industry to spot disruptive technologies and business models?

27. Do we speak at customers or with them?

28. Do we reward customers for feedback?

29. Are we getting increasingly granular in our marketing metrics, to better spot opportunities?

30. Do we reward employees for serving customers, regardless of divisions or jobs?

What questions would you add to the list?

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Bruce Kasanoff

Bruce Kasanoff is President of Now Possible, a strategy firm that offers fresh thinking about marketing and customer relationships. The Chartered Institute of Marketing – the largest organization of marketing professionals in the world – cited him among their inaugural listing of the 50 most influential thinkers in marketing and business today.

He is the author of Making It Personal: How to Profit from Personalization without Invading Privacy, a critically-acclaimed 2001 book that predicted many of the innovations we see widespread today.

Every month, 25 billion pieces of information are shared on Facebook. Imagine for a moment that you own all that data, and you need to find customers for your newest product – the Bait Mate – a device that automatically baits your fishing hook.

Dive Deep into Marketing Data

Facebook now boasts around half a billion people, all sharing their information and lifestyle choices. It’s a virtual goldmine of consumer data. You can find the factual data such as age, gender, hometown, etc. And you can find preference data such as dining, vocation, sports activities, and the like.

Now, to find your customer market for the Bait Mate, you’re in heaven. How many fisherman have posted photos of their big catch? Where do they live? Who are their fishing buddies? What guides do they use? Where do they travel to fish? You have, at your fingertips, the deepest goldmine in the business world. Bar none. All your questions have answers.

What About Privacy?

For the many millions of people who have posted their personal data on the internet, privacy is a moot point – it’s already public. So the hunt is now on for marketers to find ways to mine the data quickly, accurately and effectively; and make money doing it.

This new surge is further blurring the lines of privacy, and most consumers don’t even know it’s happening. For instance, if you “Like” the new Bait Mate on your Facebook page, you’re likely to see new ads appear on the right side of your page for things like fishing gear and river trips. Facebook has categorized your preferences in their database, and include your profile in the ‘list’ they ‘sell’ to these advertisers.

If folks realized this is going on, would they care?

Watch for Social Search Engine “PeopleBrowsr” and Many Others to Emerge

PeopleBrowsr is a data mining, analytics and brand engagement service provider for enterprise brand managers, advertising agencies, social media strategists and hedge fund managers. They started three years ago, building a huge data mine of tweets, facebook data and MySpace data

According to Jodee Rich, CEO of People Browsr, “We look at events, we look at brands, we look at the global Twittersphere. People Browsr, as a ‘social search engine’ and a ‘conversation mine’. In advertising terms it’s ‘sentiment analysis’, where people, computers, or a combination of both, trawl through online comments, conversations, opinions, for information about how people are thinking and feeling about certain products.”

How do you feel about this deep dive into data? Is it tolerable or too invasive?

(Many thanks to ABC.net, Background Briefing, Shevonne Hunt, “Social media and sentiment mining” for the inspiration and quote.)

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For more resources, see our Library topics Marketing and Social Networking.

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ABOUT Lisa M. Chapman: With offices in Nashville Tennessee, but working virtually with international clients, Lisa M. Chapman serves her clients as a business and marketing coach, business planning consultant and social media consultant. As a Founder of iBrand Masters, a social media consulting firm, Lisa Chapman helps clients to establish and enhance their online brand, attract their target market, engage them in meaningful social media conversations, and convert online traffic into revenues. Email: Lisa @ LisaChapman.com