Monthly Archives: April 2015

Choosing the right social media tools for your business

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social media marketingI was talking to a guy recently who told me that booking a conference room in a hotel and delivering a sales presentation worked really well for his business.

So here’s what I’m going to do.

There’s a really nice conference centre in a hotel near our offices so I’m going to book it for next month. We’re going to put together a killer presentation, build a stage, make a video, lay on some nice food. I’d say 100 people should cover it.

That’s it organised – all systems go.

What’s that you say? What about the audience?

Not a problem – sure that guy told me it worked really well for his business.
I hope you’ll agree that this is a completely ludicrous idea. Ill conceived with no consideration for the requirements of my business.

Yet people are doing this day and daily in marketing departments all over the world.
Maybe not with the conference room booking but instead with their choice of the social media channels that they use.

Like magpies people are drawn to the latest shiny new toy in the pursuit of the coolest way to deliver their marketing messages.

People flock to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn with no knowledge of whether their customers are using this media.

Across the board there seems to be a universal reason for this behaviour – because they’re free.

They only way they are free from a direct financial cost is if you are working for nothing (which I’m guessing that the vast majority of you are not).

Even if you are working for free then there is the cost in terms of your time to consider. Time that you would surely prefer to be spending on activities that will add some value to what you are doing.

And then there’s the opportunity cost – what new business are you missing out on by wasting time on marketing tools that will deliver no results?

How much more business could you win by stopping focusing on all the shiny new toys and narrowing the focus to tried and tested channels that you know will bring you results.

You wouldn’t deliver a sales presentation in an empty room so don’t use any marketing tools until you know your customers are there.

Stop using delivery channels for your marketing messages based on how new, how cool they are or based on other trendy, cool people and companies that may be using them.

Do your research. Understand your customers. Select the right channels. Clearly define the message you want to communicate and the customer interactions you are seeking.
Only then will you be extracting maximum value from every penny in your marketing budget and making the most efficient and valuable use of your time.

What do the best marketeers all have in common?

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Passion trumps everything Over the decades marketing has changed. The tools we use have changed. The delivery mechanism for our messages has changed. Our audience has changed. Fonts, colours, design trends change so often that it can be hard to keep up.

In this environment where there is so much change how do we go about building marketing teams that are future proof?

How do we go about ensuring that we back the right horses when recruiting to ensure that we can continue to deliver the results from our marketing activity that will continue to drive our business forward?

It may please you to know that the solution to this problem may not be as complicated as you think.

Why? Forget about change since the Mad Men era. The truth is that over the centuries marketing hasn’t changed. For hundreds, if not thousands of years people have bought products that they feel a connection with. What remains true today is that the main function of your marketing efforts is to make people believe in what you are selling.

Read my previous post; Make people love what you’re selling

In order to make other people believe in what you are selling you have to believe in it yourself. This is supported by the fact that in my experience working with small and medium sized businesses the company founder often remains the best performing sales person. This is because they are driven by the passion and belief that saw them start the company in the first place.

We’ve all experienced it. We’ve all heard people talking about their product or service with such passion and belief that we’ve immediately bought into the idea. We want what they’re selling.

So when you’re adding a new person to your marketing team make sure that you take the time to find out whether they can bring this passion to their efforts. All the qualifications, experience and training in the world will not trump passion – the most important skill a marketeer can have.

But how do you go about assessing this during a recruitment process?

This is a question I’ve struggled with myself. During our recruitment efforts we tend to put the focus on ourselves.

What do they know about our company? – a pointless question which just involves a recital of all the information on the ‘About Us’ page of your website.

How would they go about selling product X in country Y? A tick box exercise in whether they’ve done this sort of stuff before.

The answer is to stop focusing on you and start focusing on them.

They don’t have a passion for your products or services. They can’t. They don’t know enough about them.

They will be passionate about something though.

Maybe it’s the sports club that they are a member of.

Maybe it’s the charity work that they do.

Maybe it’s the hobby that consumes their every free moment. Their garden, their record collection, their love of old lawnmowers.

So instead of asking them to deliver a presentation on how they would improve YOUR website, improve YOUR branding, identify YOUR unique selling points just change the focus.

Ask them to tell you about something that they are passionate about. What it is. Why it is important to them. How it makes them feel.

This will give you a real insight into how passionate they are likely to get about your product.

All the tools that we need to master as marketeers will change. The need for us to have a real passion for what we’re selling is a constant. So focus your efforts here and you’ll not only enjoy much more fulfilling and informative interviews but you’ll build a formidable marketing team.

It’s all about passion – because that’s what all great marketers have in common.

And truth – but that’s for another time.

If you’d like some help building your marketing team then get in touch.

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What’s your most effective lead generation tool?

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email marketing petrac marketing

Email marketing remains one of the most effective lead generation tools

This isn’t a rhetorical question. It’s just a question. What’s your most effective lead generation tool?

Of the many functions that we as marketers are involved with I personally believe that lead generation is the single most important activity.

This is the first stage in the sales process and allows us to help the sales team to build the pipeline that will lead to future sales.

So how do we know which is the best tool when there are so many available to us?

The cost of generating the lead is obviously a very important factor in assessing whether it represents good value. However, the cost of acquiring the lead isn’t the only factor to consider. It is also essential that we understand the potential for that lead to convert to a sale. It’s only when we understand both of these factors that we are able to make a proper judgement on whether our lead generation activity represents good value for money.

For the purposes of this post I want to focus on email marketing and explain why I believe it represents one of the best value tools on your kit bag when it comes to trying to generate new leads.

It starts with your list

Your list building activity should be focused on developing a subscriber base that you know has an interest in your products or services. By doing this you are maximising the opportunity for a high conversion rate from your email marketing campaigns.

Another key element in a subscriber list that will add value (sales) is to remember a phrase critical to email marketing success – permission marketing.

Your list is only a valuable resource if your subscribers have opted to receive information on the products and services you are offering.

List building is easy if your focus is on the wrong thing. If your focus is solely to build your list to 10,20,50 thousand subscribers then I can’t imagine your email marketing campaigns will deliver any significant value.

If on the other hand your metrics involve not only the size of your list but also monitor open rates and click through rates then you are building your list with quality subscribers – all of which combines to deliver higher conversion rates.

Understanding specific customer needs

If you’re selling a range of products or services then it’s unlikely that everyone on your list wants to receive the same content.

It’s going to offer a far better return if you send your email marketing campaigns to smaller groups with a specific interest.

All of this information is easy to obtain at the subscription stage – whether that is through a web sign up form, leads from an exhibition or registrations for an event you are hosting.

By focusing on product, service or market specific campaigns you are further increasing the potential for your lead gen activity to convert to a sale.

The delivery mechanism

Loads of great tools out there – Mailchimp, Constant Contact. Dotmailer are just three that spring to mind.

These packages have such a broad range of functionality that it’s difficult to imagine why you would try any other option. They will all manage your lists – new subscriptions and unsubscribes – produce easily digestable reports outlining your key metrics and most importantly help you to optimise your campaigns to ensure maximum open rates and click through rates are achieved.

As well as all this boring (but critical) mechanical stuff they also offer a superb range of email templates from which you can choose. If you have your own design team – that’s no problem either as you can create your own email marketing templates quickly as easily.

In summary..

Email works

This may surprise you given the volume of the stuff that we all seem to receive on a daily basis but if you get your list building strategy right then you will have a very good chance of generating leads and converting sales from your targeted email marketing campaigns.

As trade magazines (eventually) move into the digital arena they are offering expensive email blast campaigns to their large distribution lists. In my experience you can generate the same number, if not more leads at a fraction of the cost if your email marketing activities are organised in the right way.

If you would like some help developing your email marketing strategy – list building, campaign design and delivery – then get in touch:

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