Selling is still social

Selling is still social

Mar 31, 2016 | Customers, Marketing, Sales, Social Media

Well may you ask, has it not always been so?

Sales has always been at least somewhat social, the old ‘not what you know but who you know ‘ sort of process. However, the last decade or so things have become so competitive that the numbers have taken over, and we often seem to put the social dimensions back into second place.

The numbers however, have hidden the essential truth that people buy from people  not from organisations. The social selling tools that have evolved have put another  layer onto the selling process that enables scaling of effort, but at the end, people still buy from people.

Most of my clients these days are B2B marketers, some have embraced the social platforms around, but most see them as a place to stay in touch with family and friends, and have a point of common dislike of all the cat photos infesting social media.

However, leveraging the social platforms as selling tools that span the numbers and the people aspects of selling can make sales efforts highly effective. The platforms provide leverage to your efforts and when used well can deliver significant results.

Following are a few  commonly asked questions, and my usual response:

Which of the social platforms are best to use?

LinkedIn and Twitter are the most common for B2B, but B2C is a different matter, where Facebook and Pinterest dominate, but the needs change. What is clear is that you  cannot be all things to all people  so it is more about figuring out where your major prospective customers may hang out when in a professional mode rather than a social one, and going there. No different to the old sales techniques where you joined the golf club inhabited by your target prospects.

How to I spend my time productively?

Social sites can be prodigious consumers of that most rare of resources, our time. In my experience if you join platforms based on where your prospects are, you will maximise your time by limiting it to a combination of  two networks. This implies that you have a clear view of the interests, habits and digital behaviour of your primary potential and current customers, which is a whole new topic.

How do I connect?

Connection is a two way process, you need to reach out to them, but they need to be able to see that you might be worthwhile them investing some time, no matter how little in ‘being reached. ‘ Even if you are just asking someone to accept a connection invitation, most people will make the conscious decision, Yes or No, and there are things you need to do swing the numbers to’ yes’.

  • First you need to make the choices well. If you appear to be somebody who just seeks connections at random, and it is apparent that numbers are your objective, the rejection rate will be high. Think of your own behaviour, you are more likely to reject a connection request if it is just a generic request from someone you do not know. If you appear to be discriminating in your connections, that the circles you have a may be of value to the person on the receiving end, and the request is personalised, you will significantly improve your acceptance rate. It also takes more time.
  • Second, your profile needs to be one that is attractive to a potential connection. There is lots of advice on the net about ‘personal branding’ and while much if it is just common sense and tosh, the foundation is right. Imagine you are at a social gathering, you are more likely to be drawn into conversation with someone who appears to share your values and interests than someone who is way outside your normal fields. This is human, so consider it as you fill in your profile.  Ask yourself what it is about you that might interest those with whom you wish to connect, and highlight those characteristics and experiences.
  • Third, answer the question of yourself  “what is the value I can bring to this connection?. If you have nothing, why bother, and why should they bother.
  • Finally, send them a personalised message, something that offers evidence that you have done a bit of homework, and have something of value to offer them. Better still if you have a mutual acquaintance to who might be prepared to offer you the courtesy of using their name as a referrer. Importantly do not try and sell a new connection anything.  Again, think of the social setting. When you are introduced to someone who just talks about themselves, or immediately goes into a sales pitch, most of us just want to get away as fast as possible, and it is no different on social platforms.

Having done all that, the work of sales starts.

The 3 dimensions of Lead generation

The 3 dimensions of Lead generation

Mar 28, 2016 | Branding, Customers, Marketing, Sales

Virtually any B2B business owner I talk to, one of their key challenges is lead generation.

When you dig a bit, often it is the case that lead generation  becomes a problem where there is a shortage of sales, then they react in a short term manner.

Lead generation is a long term proposition, B2B and B2C, the techniques may differ a bit,  but when working day to day the only effective tool to get another sale is price, so you lose.

So it seems to me there are three dimensions to effective lead generation:

  1. The means by which you generate the lead
  2. The conversation rates at various points  through the sales process
  3. The time taken in the sales process

Lets look at them in a little detail.

Means. This is the essence of marketing, the game is to identify who might be a buyer, why, when, and the means by which you can facilitate and support the transaction then build on it for a longer term. Digital has exploded the techniques available to us but the rules have not changed: Understand how you add value to who, and walk them through the relationship building and sales processes to a transaction. Brand building by another name.

Conversion rates.  How do you calculate your sales conversation rates? Digital is now awash with numbers, marketing has changed from the fluffy to the numerical and we are belted over the ears to get with the program.

Marketing Experiments is a shop flogging the notion that marketing experience, creativity and intuition can be turned into a mathematical formulas, and in doing so they have done a fair job of nailing the variables in a digital sale to the extent that they can be nailed:

Probability of conversion = Clarity of Value proposition + (incentive to action – friction associated with the action) – Anxiety.

Whilst a bit convoluted, it does make some sense, and you  can weight the factors according to your market, but the essential message is that marketing can be measured. To an extent  it can be, but losing sight of the emotion involved would be a mistake, and emotion will always be virtually impossible to measure with any certainty. As Gary Vaynerchuk asked, “what is the ROI of your mother?”

Time.  Every business and market is different, as is every potential customer situation so there are no rules in this except one: Only a small number of your prospects will be ready to buy right now.

However, if you extend the time frame to a month, or a year, and there will be many more ready. The challenge therefore is to be talking to them in terms that they are comfortable with at that particular point in their  journey to a transaction.  Given the reality of this journey, the worst thing to do is make the effort ‘stop-start’. It has to be a continuous marketing effort to ensure that there is a flow of leads into and through the sales process. Take the foot off the pedal and you will have a hole in the sales. Keep talking, build a relationship, guide them through the process. Demonstrate credibility and expertise, so that when they re in the buying mode, you get the call.

Too often we concentrate on finding the few who are ready to buy now, rather than playing the long game. Patience rewards the skilled fisherman, same with sales.

.

Marketing’s lean future

Marketing’s lean future

Mar 23, 2016 | Governance, Leadership, Lean, Marketing

The best marketers I employed in days past as a honcho in a corporate environment were pretty much always from a professional background of some type. Those with engineering, science, architecture training, and with a bit of sales thrown in were almost always better marketers than those with marketing degrees.

Having just a 40 year old (had anybody heard of marketing 40 years ago) marketing degree, this both intrigued and disturbed me, and it took a while to understand “why” it was so. It became clear that those trained in the professions had an instinctive approach to problem solving, commonly called the ‘scientific method’. By contrast, those with just marketing degrees tended to jump from problem definition straight to a final solution, missing all the nuances and understanding to be gained from the interim steps, and often getting it horribly wrong as a result.

“Lean thinking” 35 years ago was just a babe, an approach to operational improvement that has transformed the way manufacturing operations around the world are run, and delivered huge benefits to our way of life. It is absolutely based on the scientific method.

More recently however, it has been realised that lean thinking has applications far wider than just operations, and office work flows are rapidly transforming as a result. The next obvious cab off the rank is marketing, traditionally a qualitative, smoke and mirrors part of a business, and marketers have been their own worst enemy.

It often seems marketers sit around, drink coffee, and go to lunch a lot, and as a result of allowing that perception to survive, (and it has been true in an unfortunate number of cases) , we get what we deserve.

If people do not understand the role of marketing, particularly those who allocate resources and measure performance, no wonder there are problems, but there are some pretty simple solutions taken from lean thinking.

Have an objective

Map the processes

Form hypothesis

Test and measure

Rinse and repeat.

From the perspective of managing this process, it is essential that two criteria be met:

  1. There is great transparency of the whole process across functions, everyone these days is “in marketing”. Leveraging the resources available by the collaboration enabled by technology will evolve as standard practice, for which transparency is essential.
  2. It is OK to be wrong, you can learn more for your mistakes than from what works well, but to learn  there must be understanding of the flaws in the tested hypothesis coming from the failure. In addition, there needs to be a robust process of due diligence both before and after the experiments are done. Saying it is OK to be wrong is not a license to be sloppy, as I have seen from time to time.

Marketing has been very late to the technology table, and as a result the size of the gap between the ‘leading edge’ and what most small and medium businesses are doing is huge, and getting progressively ‘huger’. There is a real danger of just leaving it in the too hard basket, but that would be a mistake.

Marketing technology offers the opportunity to leverage resources and widen the impact, the core principals of marketing remain unchanged, indeed become more important as we increase the leverage that can be applied. For small and medium businesses these technologies are the competitive tool-box they have been seeking.

It is my prediction that inside a decade technology decisions will be driven by marketing. If you cannot locate, understand, engage, and deliver value to your customers in a digital world, you will not survive. This post from the ‘Martech’ guru Scott Brinker detailing the 2016 marketing technology landscape says it all.

Lets see how that goes as the technology landscape continues to evolve.

What can marketers learn from comics?

What can marketers learn from comics?

Mar 18, 2016 | Communication, Marketing

For no particular reason I was watching some comedy on YouTube recently, top comedians plying their trade.

Great fun, but it struck me that there was a lot that we marketers can learn from the techniques that permeated all the routines I watched.

Comedians may be funny, but at heart they are storytellers.

We have all seen really funny jokes hit the floor in the hands of a poor storyteller. It is not  the fault of the story, it is the teller.

There was a clear pattern to the stories told by these comedians, irrespective it appears of the type of story they were telling. Jimmy Carr’s potty mouth stories had a similar  structure to  Jerry Seinfelds mother in law appropriate ones.

Some time ago I attended a corporate event that featured comedienne Fiona O’Loughlin as the after dinner speaker. She told her own story, her personal battles with alcohol,  an upbringing in Alice Springs,  early marrriage and a pile of kids. There was some pretty black stuff, but she had the room in stiches, and left a powerful message about personal responsibility.

Back to the structure of a successful story.

First,  every story has to grab your attention, so there is an opener of some sort, 5-45 seconds, that poses a question, makes a contestable statement, or paints some picture in the mind of the listener. An exemplar if you need another one is that almost every TED talk starts this way, with a device of some sort that grabs and holds attention.

Second, the story opens up, the comedian  weaves a narrative using all the tools of their voice and body, the dimensions of the stage. They create then relieve tension, ‘draw’ a series of pictures in the minds of the audience, only to pull them down to  show how ridiculous they are, almost mini- punchlines, and they are almost always personal, human, showing the foibles and idiosyncrasies of people. They reveal themselves and their emotions  to the audience, seeking to engage by having the audience relate to the story they are telling, winning the hearts of the audience with the struggles they are describing, reeling you in the with authenticity and ‘this could have been you’ narrative.

Finally there is the punch line, always something unexpected, providing contrast that evolves out of the story, but is not something that is obvious, it is this contrast that delivers the humour.

In telling the story, the comedian has allowed the audience to get to know them in an intimate way, you know how they think and feel, they have won your liking and respect with the authenticity of the story, and you trust them, because they have trusted you.

Marketing is no different, we have to tell stories about the products, how they fit into our lives to make them better, and they ways the audience can benefit.

Do that and your communication will work, fail to tell a good story, and it will hit the floor like a dirty wet  mop, and probably splash you in the process.

 

 

The secret sauce of marketing.

The secret sauce of marketing.

Mar 16, 2016 | Branding, Communication, Customers

 

The currency of marketing success starts these days with a simple word:

Attention.

How to get it, keep it and leverage it.

In the crowded world we are in, it is the secret sauce of marketing.

Every day we are assaulted by messages, millions of them, yet we actually ‘see’ just a tiny fraction.

In a world where our brains give us comprehensive and automatic filters, where even those that get through have a split second to make an impression and gain some of our attention, it pays to understand the means by which this process happens.

Automatic sensory cues.

When was the last time you completely ignored a gorgeous bird (if you are a bloke) wearing a short skirt and blazing red shirt?

Never happens right? That is because our brain is on automatic, it sifts the information coming at it in an unconscious manner. However, when something triggers one of the basic responses in our ‘reptile’ brain, the deepest most ancient part of the grey matter that controls just a few things, we notice. This automatic response was vital to the survival of a weak mammal being hunted by sabre tooth tigers, and thankfully survives to ensure we see the red shirt.

Reputation.

We often almost automatically trust things and people based on reputation. Tom Clancy brings out a new novel, and fans of the genre will buy it based on the experience and reputation of his previous books. In the past we also tended to trust authority, police and doctors for example, but the transparency of the last 25 years has almost seen that gone, we now make judgements on a wider base. Taking that one step further, we now put some weight on crowd sourced reviews as Amazon does with their rating and referral systems.

Recognition.

When we recognise something or someone, it grabs our attention. Walking through Sydney’s CBD a few weeks ago, paying no particular attention to anything, I unexpectedly recognised someone I had not seen for many years, walking the opposite way on the opposite side of Pitt Street. The sudden and unexpected recognition riveted my attention, I had to race across the road and accost him. (luckily my recognition was accurate or it would have been embarrassing). This also works inside businesses, the recognition of the familiar, weather it be people, processes or existing patterns of behaviour are powerful motivators of future behaviour.

Think like a customer.

It often surprises how little marketers actually look at their output from the perspective of those they are trying to influence. Stepping across and putting yourself into the shoes of the receiver in a way that enables you to see the material you are producing through their eyes, recognise and respond to the emotional hooks, feel urge to ‘connect’ that you are trying to build, recognise the  relevance and power of the offer or call to action. To some this capacity to jump into your customers persona comes as naturally as breathing, to others it remains a bridge too far no matter how hard they try, how much research they read. Finding someone in your team who has this capacity can mean a quantum step in the effectiveness of your efforts.   Thinking like a customer makes gathering attention much easier as you can see the cues your customer will respond to, and deliver them in a manner that creates and drives the attention.

This task, the drive to gather and leverage attention is one of the foundations of marketing success, understanding the triggers is essential.

How to Design a winner by staying out of the way.

How to Design a winner by staying out of the way.

Mar 9, 2016 | Branding, Marketing, Small business

 

Few of us are designers, although most would like to think the contrary

Few things get stuffed up more than design, and it is normally because a good designer was nowhere near the project.

You did it yourself, or had the intern do it, the boss’s wife, or you went on line and got 55 alternatives for $99.97 and picked one with a pin.

Does not work, does it!

While running large marketing departments long ago  in my corporate dark ages, there were two simple rules:

  1. There was a rigorous process of the product managers doing what they were supposed to be good at, building a design brief based on the strategies, product value proposition, and profile of the target audience, and it was followed.
  2. Nothing went out without me seeing it, and if there were several options, the one I favoured least was normally the one that was chosen.

I am a very good and widely experienced marketer, but a crap designer. Fortunately for the many successful projects over the years I know my own limitations.

So, to the design brief, the heart of any design project.  Here is a short list of do’s and don’ts

Do:

  • Offer the designer a range of emotional words you would like the designer to communicate. If the product is a healthy food product, words such as “nutritious,” “fresh,” and “natural” are likely words, but if the product is a body building supplement, they are more likely to be “Bold” “aggressive” and   “masculine”
  • Ensure the designer knows as much as it is possible to know how the customer will select, interact with, use and dispose of the product when it is finished. The more the designer can put themselves in the mind of the primary customer the better.
  • Make sure you take a mock up or two into the typical outlet to see how it fares in its competitive habitat if it is a product that must compete for retail display space.
  • Leave the graphical elements to the designer, that is their skill, so don’t box them in by specifying fonts, colours, layout ideas, or any of your  preconceptions. However, if there are elements that are mandatory, such as a brand colour guide, or that will cause the rejection of a design such as using your photograph, it would be wise to ensure they were aware of the boundaries.
  • Test where possible. Digital products can be subjected to all sorts of A/B tests and they often throw up amazing results, but in any event, be prepared to experiment, and improve with the benefit of the insights gained.
  •  First impressions matter, particularly when the impression is by someone with some empathy for the category. When running those large marketing departments of FMCG manufacturers, I used to ensure that all the women in the place were exposed to the designs, as they were more representative of the typical buyer than the men in the department.
  • Finally, and most importantly, the design has to tell a story to the buyer, it must communicate what the product does in a split second, and why they should buy it.

Do Not:

  • ‘Crowdsource’ the preferences of friends, co-workers, and particularly your partner beyond the “which do you like” question. Going one more and seeking advice on how to fix the shortcoming they see is asking for trouble.
  • Stick with a design that once in the market is clearly not working. We all make mistakes, the skill is in recognising them early, acknowledging, fixing, and moving on.

 

As a final word, do not do the design yourself, it will most times be rubbish. Design is a fundamentally important and often abused part of the process of delivering value to a customer. Short cuts almost never pay off, they end up costing heaps in rework and lost opportunity, and keep the list of Do’s handy.