The Five Pillars of Lead Followup

Lead gen is only half the marketing battle. Marketers must enable salespeople to follow up.

But a lot of them don't know how, perhaps because business owners have conditioned them to turn all leads over to sales, as soon as they materialize.

Those marketers need to master the five pillars of lead followup:

Website. Your website needs to be lucid and mobile. Your About page must be clear, concise and compelling, because it's the only one most prospects will read. And you need to make it easy to contact your organization—in person.

Content. You need a world-class piece of "cornerstone content," such as a white paper, e-book, or cheat sheet you can share with prospects. It must be authoritative and educational, or prospects will conclude "they have nothing to teach me." Case studies also motivate prospects, because they provide "social proof."

Sales deck.Your sales deck arms your people with a structure for pitching prospects. It should be a scaffold, not an edifice. Avoid a lot of background and blue-sky baloney; lean on images to tell your story; and don't cram the deck with copy, or treat is like a script or book: it's an aid for online and face-to-face presentations, not an encyclopedia.

Playbook. Your in-house how-to sales manual should give salespeople enough guidance that they can close any deal that comes down the pike. Include talking points, target persona cheat sheets, industry data sheets, product data sheets, competitive analyses, a glossary of terms, and an inventory of current collateral.

Email. You need an outbound email drip-campaign that runs at a cadence that makes sense both to you and to prospects. Newsletters are a good place to start. Direct-marketing appeals can be sent in between your monthly newsletters. Each email should offer value and foster interest in talking to your salespeople.

Website Bogged Down?

In the past 150 years, peat farmers in northern Europe have found about 1,000 so-called bog men, those accidentally mummified curiosities now thought to have been failed kings.

Your customers have a better chance of finding a bog man than they do your website, if your site's outdated.

That's because Google feeds on freshness, says Michael Brenner, CEO of Marketing Insider Group.

And because freshness equals relevance to Google, you have to keep your site fresh. You need to:

• Attract new backlinks from other (authoritative) sites.
• Add new pages to your site (20-30% more each year).
• Publish new content consistently.
• Freshen up your old content regularly, revising outdated statements, fixing broken links, adding new visuals, etc.
• Encourage and respond to comments.

When ranking your site, Google loves to see steady increases in click-throughs and dwell-time. You won't earn those, unless you keep your website fresh.

Your old content may once have been king. Today it's just a curiosity.

9 Easy Ways to Increase Your Conversion Rate

Sarah Smith contributed today's post. She works for an online resource for beginning bloggers, StartBloggingOnline.com.

There are lots of reasons your website draws traffic that doesn't convert to sales. 

One is content. You might think you have the best website out there: it looks good, is colorful, and has all the necessary images and videos. But none of that matters, if visitors don’t get anything of value from your site. Visitors need not just information about your products, but about their benefits. Simply labeling them isn't enough. You need to explain their advantages and lasting impact, and prove why visitors should open their pocketbooks.

Another reason is staleness. You need to keep updating your site with fresh information. You can’t feel complacent just because you have gone live and the site looks amazing. You need to keep providing useful updates, and interacting with visitors to make them feel like you appreciate their visits.

Here's an infographic with more tips for converting traffic into sales.

Where Should CMOs Invest in 2017?

How should a CMO invest her budget in 2017?

Forbes asked seven ad agency execs for recommendations. Their answers were:

Video. Video drives brand engagement and can boost conversion rates on landing pages by 80%.

Digital. "Customers in 2017 will be digital; be there," said Craig Cooke, CEO of Rhythm.

Employee engagement. Invest inside, and turn every employee into a sales evangelist.

Social. Social is the most organic way to market your business. But it takes work, so hire someone outside to do it.

Website. A content-rich website improves SEO, boosts traffic, and keeps audiences on your site, rather than some network.

PR. "The art of great storytelling through media isn’t going away," said Nicole Rodrigues, CEO, NRPR Group.

Content. "Content shock" makes quality content today's key differentiator.

To a man with a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Forbes polled only traditional and digital agencies, omitting the experiential. So, I'll add:

Events. Done well, nothing―absolutely nothing―accelerates brands faster. My humble opinion? Move events to the top of your list.

The Magnificient Seven

On her blog, B2B marketing maven Ruth Stevens ranks seven channels by their power to acquire customers. In order, the channels are:

SEM. "The hottest of the hot," because buyers head to Google first to solve problems. "Marketers can hardly find more targeted media," Stevens says. The key to success, of course, is to pick keywords buyers use.

Telemarketing. The "workhorse medium of B-to-B direct marketing" and "the closest thing to a face-to-face selling environment." Beside selling, telemarketing is ideal for lead discovery, qualification and nurturing.

Letters and postcards. "The ol’ reliable," direct mail delivers. Buyers want information to help them do their jobs, so postal pieces are likely to be read.

Dimensional mailers. "Lumpy” mailers gets past gatekeepers, so are even more likely to be read.

Trade shows. Face-to-face performs spectacularly—when the audience is qualified. Big "horizontal" shows can be wasteful.

PR. "Simply the best bang for the buck," PR delivers awareness with high credibility. Contributed articles and news “manufactured” by original research work well.

Your website. "Your own website is the tool that can provide the cheapest, and the most qualified, sales leads," Stevens says. To work for you, your site must feature an offer and a call to action. That offer can be as simple as a white paper or e-newsletter.

What channels aren't gang members?

Print advertising. "Solid direct response ads can work brilliantly for lead generation," Stevens says. "The problem is that most ad budgets are controlled by marketing communicators who are unschooled in direct marketing."

Broadcast advertising. With the sole exception of some radio buys, ads run on broadcast and cable outlets are expensive and wasteful.

Email. "Despite its promise, email has failed business marketers as a prospecting medium, due entirely to the scourge of spam," Stevens says. "We are seeing better cost-per-lead results using direct mail."

PS: Ruth Stevens is a featured speaker at DARE, next June in Baltimore. Don't miss her!

Websites' New War of Attrition

Adobe reports traffic on 4 in 10 websites has decreased since 2013.

“Traffic increases due to Internet penetration have evaporated in North America," says analyst Becky Tasker. "Websites face a more competitive landscape, where you’re fighting to grow by taking share away from somebody else.”

Winning websites "aren’t resting on the strength of their brands alone to drive traffic,” Tasker says. 

“They have a 360-degree strategy, surrounding people in various channels and platforms to drive traffic to their sites.”

The channels driving the most traffic? Social, email and display.

Winning websites are also providing relevant, nonintrusive content, according to Tasker.

Bezos Rekindles Old Paper

Amazon founder and newspaper owner Jeff Bezos' thumbprint continues to appear in the online version of The Washington Post.

Having trouble finishing long articles? You can now use a gadget to enter your email address at any point. The Post will send a URL that lets you pick it up later where you left off.

We can expect more Kindle-like add-ons to appear in The Post, as Bezos dabbles deeper in journalism. 

"The transformation may not be apparent on the surface, but the Internet billionaire has ripped up and revamped the technology underpinnings at The Post since buying the storied daily in 2013, while investing in the newsroom with more journalists, video offerings and tools for digital storytelling," AFP reported in January.

Bezos' investments might be paying off.

Last December, readership of The Post's website overtook that of The New York Times.

All Marketing Rules are Stupid

We love simple rules.

They make our worklives easier, by absolving us of judgement.

Simple rules, in fact, form the bedrock of business strategy.

But I've heard in my time lots of rules purporting to assure marketing success that are simply stupid. 

For example:

Latinos hate purple.

Content needs to be sincere.

Infographics are out.

Avoid pastel colors.

Product names must be literal.

Innovate or die.

Your average skeptic would insist, for simple rules like these to be effective, they'd have to be verifiable. These examples aren't.

A hardline skeptic would go farther, insisting there are no effective rules.

No course of action can be determined by a rule, because any course of action can be understood to obey that rule.

I might, for example, avoid pastels in my web pages. Great, I've obeyed that rule! 

Then another, colorblind marketer comes along and publishes web pages full of pastels.

He's also obeyed the rule.

Stupid marketing rules abound.

It's smart to be skeptical of them, especially when facts aren't handy to back them up.

HAT TIP: Greg Satell inspired much of this post. 

Face Facts

In a controlled experiment, the UK's Behavioural Insights Team studied the effect stock shots of faces had on the responses of 1 million visitors to the website of a charitable organization.

The researchers found the use of stock photos of people's faces significantly reduced conversions.

They concluded that, because marketers over-expose web users to these kind of photos, users simply tune them out—and ignore any content that accompanies them.

"The use of a stock photo discouraged individuals, who saw it as a marketing gimmick," the researchers said.

Your Content Marketing is Broken

Most marketers treat mobile as a poor cousin, even though 61% of online content gets viewed on mobile devices in the US, according to comScore.

Websites, blogs and ads are still designed by rote, looking swell on desktops and laptops, but broken on mobile devices.

The majority of marketers also ignore the fact that customers often switch throughout the day from mobile phones to tablets, designing content for just one of these devices.

By failing to design "adaptive" content, marketers are merely distracting chronically distracted customers.

Analysts call the right content marketing strategy for today a "mobile-first strategy."

Maybe it's time to get smart about your strategy.

If the shoe fits.

Learn to Love Tofu

I've just concluded my first month as a Vegan and resigned myself to loving Tofu.

As a marketer, Tofu should be part of your daily diet, too.

Tofu is an acronym that stands for “top of the funnel.”

The top of the funnel, of course, is your lead-cistern.

According to inbound-marketing agency FiveFifty, 97% of first-time Website visitors are top-of-the-funnel people.

They're "just looking" and far from ready to buy. 

So, if your content appeals only to bottom-of-the-funnel people, you look a little desperate.

"Remember the last time you were shopping at a retail store, and the sales representative kept asking if they could start a dressing room for you?" FiveFifty asks. "If you’re just browsing, their attempts to close a sale can feel overly pushy."

To make delicious Tofu, you need to prepare "buyer personas" that include the demographics, pain-points and priorities of your leads.

"The world’s best Tofu is based on answering real-life questions people have when they first come to your company's Website," FiveFifty says.

Going Broke? Maybe Your Website's Broken.

Research firm Forrester asked 5,200 customers what they do when a Website fails them.

According to the study, Websites That Don’t Support Customers Waste Millions, they:

• Pick up the phone. 35% call when your Website lets them down.
• Take their business elsewhere. 17% move to a competitor. 
• Give up. 17% abandon their purchase.

Forrester also gauged the cost of broken Websites and concluded:

• Large e-retailers are losing $47 million in direct income every year.
• Large e-retailers are adding $47 million to their cost of sales every year.

For 14 years, Forrester has been evaluating B2C and B2B Websites. 

It estimates that only 3% aren't broken.

To learn if yours is broken, Forrester recommends you ask. "The only way to know whether a site visit was a success is to ask the customers," the report states. 

Ask visitors three simple questions:

• What did you come to the site to do today?
• Were you able to accomplish that goal?
• If not, why not?

More on Mobile-Friendly Websites

"Is your Website changing with the mobile revolution, or is it remaining stagnant?" asks online marketer Sarah Tharp, writing for Biznology.

An unfriendly site costs your business dearly, Tharp insists.

 

"I cannot begin to tell you the number of times I’ve attempted to access a Website online, and because of glaring functionality and usability issues, have gone back to the search results and given my business to a competitor site," Tharp writes.

 

What's fundamental to a mobile-friendly site?

• Fast page-loading
• Navigation with tabs to information most needed by mobile users
• Pages that require little or no scrolling
• Large buttons that can be easily pressed
• An easily accessible search bar
• A phone number with a “click to call” option
• An address that can be clicked to automatically present directions

At a minimum, every business should know how its Website appears on mobile devices and how mobile users are experiencing it, Tharp says.

Should You Highlight Your Pricing?

In A letter to event technology companies trying to sell me stuff, event guru Adrian Segar challenges marketers to trumpet their prices.


"Bombarded with email from event technology companies," Segar begs vendors to "give me some idea upfront how much your products/services cost."


He bristles at firms that "have spared no expense creating great material designed to turn me into a customer," but don't disclose prices. 


"I'm sorry," Segar writes, "but I don't have time to enter into your next sales step—the 'contact us to discuss your requirements' dance—on the off chance that your actual pricing model represents real value for me."


Segar in effect warns vendors, if you're coy about costs, you can forget any consideration from me. "I can handle talking about money upfront. And so can you," he scolds.


Segar's letter speaks volumes about customers' mindset.


The simple fact: customers have been traumatized by "frugalnomics."


In many of their organizations, frugality still trumps growth (and will continue to do so until consumer and corporate spending return to pre-recession levels).


Should you respond to frugalnomics by highlighting your prices?


The short answer is: no.


That would be like a doctor showing the trauma patient photos of the accident scene to comfort him.


Your job as a marketer is to help prospects—with the aid of case studies and testimonials by gratified users—envision better days ahead.


Discussions about pricing should begin only after prospects understand how your products or services can improve the way they do business.