The 5 Sins of Marketing to avoid for success

Podcast EP03 Show Notes: There are five mortal sins that you probably commit every day. Not with your friends. Not with your family. But with your marketing. Customers don’t react well when you commit these five sins. There are rules about what you need to do to reel them in, and breaking those rules can […]

Podcast EP03

Show Notes:


    There are five mortal sins that you probably commit every day. Not with your friends. Not with your family. But with your marketing.

    Customers don’t react well when you commit these five sins. There are rules about what you need to do to reel them in, and breaking those rules can easily lose you sales.

    When making these mistakes – like simply advertising, rather than marketing – you are costing your business money. Instead, you should be providing value to your customers and connecting with them on a deeper level.

    There are huge possibilities for connecting with your audience. You have a lot of tools at your disposal, like Facebook, YouTube, and email. But tools without a process are nothing. In this episode, I’m talking about how to create value in your marketing and avoid the sins that won’t net you any sales.

    I’ll tell you about the strategy you need in order to put your marketing into action. Then we’ll talk about developing your marketing to a new level.

    In fact, I go through all five sins and what you should do instead.

    Link : Buyers Journey



Next Step:

Have some thoughts or any topic you would like me to cover in future episodes – drop them in comments. And Don’t forget to share what you found useful!

if you want to make some real progress then book a strategy session with W3bMinds to put these tips into practice. And Last Follow us on Twitter & Facebook for more tips.

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What’s the Key to Creating Successful Conversion Content? and Grow Sales!

If you want to understand the world in which you live and then write about it, then you’re on the path to creating better conversion content. Accept that readers have a maximum of a few minutes to spare. More often, they have only seconds to read content. Make your words count. Understand Your Customer The […]

  • If you want to understand the world in which you live and then write about it, then you’re on the path to creating better conversion content. Accept that readers have a maximum of a few minutes to spare. More often, they have only seconds to read content. Make your words count.

Understand Your Customer

The rules for how to maintain good content on your site change each day. When you’re creating content, consider what your website visitors need. You don’t want to introduce content that doesn’t affect their buyer’s journey. The best content introduces issues or ideas that affect readers directly or will affect them soon. Some pieces of content also deliver solutions.


Some content persuades people to take an action, and others leave people thinking about an idea. This piece prompts you to explore the logic behind writing brand-reinforcing content. Not every piece that you write will prompt an action, but it could contain an idea or a link to a tool that will benefit readers. Conversion content may remind readers why they need to return to your site, but it doesn’t directly pitch them.



Here’s an Example

In this post, content writers can see how to develop an idea into a piece of conversion content. Let’s say you own a startup business that markets laundry and dry cleaning services, but the angle is that drivers handle pickup and drop-off for customers. This is a dry topic on which to write. Users want fresh clothes for their professional and personal uses. On the buyer’s journey, there are customers who know they can afford the service and customers who need it but who aren’t sure they can afford it.


Conversion content should address both types of readers. I Googled the phrase “how pressed shirts look more professional AND 2017” and discovered a top link to a GQ article category. Another click led me to the article, “When It Comes to Casual Suits, You Should Copy a Frenchman.” One Google search gives me the angle I need for a blog post. I could write briefly about the sleek look of the Frenchman Vincent Cassel in the story or take a more broad look at fashion. I could compare his look with other actors (French or otherwise) or connect the piece back to needing expert laundry and dry cleaning services.


This angle gives readers concerned with their professional image something to read about while relating to their buyer’s journey. I could write a similar piece targeted towards professional women. I could turn this into a series of posts. This writing approach indirectly represents what my brand sells without appealing to readers for their business.



Why Pick a Concept

Writers want to develop conversion content around a concept. It could be a branding concept or an idea that matters to buyers. Sit with your laptop and tell yourself that you will communicate only the ideas that readers need to know (perhaps with examples), and you’ll be fine.


However, your writing product could be boring. When you reread a piece of content, ensure that there’s a hook to capture the attention of readers and a theme or a storyline woven throughout the text. Take readers through the points without losing their interest. Make your edits. Eliminate sentences that don’t support the theme or storyline (unless you’re refuting them for instructional purposes). Remove sentences that introduce other subjects. These are topics for future content writing.


Some writers maintain their focus by following an outline while other writers develop ideas in a more fluid process. They see ideas unfold around a paragraph structure, adding more details below their topic sentences. In the end, read the piece aloud and see if it answers the reader’s questions without exceeding the target word count.



Write Words That Matter

Placing yourself in a reader’s shoes, you can determine if a piece communicates a concept. Did you write words that matter? Did you babble on about the keyword phrase and turn readers away from the site? We live in a world in which consumers decide whether to keep reading content in a matter of seconds. Does the piece benefit them? Should they read more? Readers click away to other content if the writer wastes their time. For more details on converting readers into brand consumers, please contact us for more information.

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Inbound Marketing – Perfect For People Who Hate Selling

Many business owners and marketing professionals have a secret that they usually keep to themselves: they actually hate selling. The fact is, not that many people are naturally good at sales. For the rest of us, it’s a necessary evil, something we only do when we think it’s essential for our livelihood. The good news […]

  • Many business owners and marketing professionals have a secret that they usually keep to themselves: they actually hate selling. The fact is, not that many people are naturally good at sales. For the rest of us, it’s a necessary evil, something we only do when we think it’s essential for our livelihood.


    The good news is that the traditional approach to sales is rapidly becoming obsolete. The current generation tends to dislike the sales approach. So what’s the alternative? Inbound marketing, when done the right way, is not about selling, at least not in the way most of us think about it. It’s more about providing useful information and guiding customers to find products that actually benefit them.

The Problems With Selling and Outbound Marketing

Selling has long been an essential business skill. It’s also the approach that’s closely associated with traditional outbound marketing strategies such as direct mail (better known as junk mail) TV, radio and print advertising. Certain online marketing tactics are also outbound. Banner ads, telemarketing, and unsolicited emails (aka spam) fall into this category. All of these marketing tactics involve an aggressive, heavy-handed approach. Younger people, in particular, dislike this type of advertising. One study found that 84 percent of millennials distrust traditional advertising. This is a wakeup call to everyone in the business world.

Some of the characteristics of traditional selling and outbound marketing include:


  • Broad, untargeted approach. The typical TV commercial, spam email or print ad is designed to reach a broad audience. There’s little or no customization, targeting, or segmenting.

  • One-way communication. Selling is mostly about the salesperson or ad telling the customer why he or she needs the product. Sophisticated sales people are trained to respond to common questions and objections but the focus is on persuasion rather than genuine two-way communication.

  • Costly and resource-intensive. Because of the broad approach, outbound marketing tactics require a large budget and lots of time. If you’re going to send out unsolicited direct mail or emails, you’ll have to send out a very large number of them. Traditional print and TV ads are very expensive.

  • Low response rate. Outbound marketing has always suffered from low response rates. This is only getting worse as younger audiences have less and less patience for this type of marketing. This makes the process even more costly and time-consuming.

Inbound Marketing: an Alternative to Traditional Selling

For business owners and marketing professionals who don’t like selling, inbound marketing is a viable alternative. Happily, this is also the approach that your customers increasingly prefer. Inbound marketing reverses the typical qualities of selling.


  • Highly targeted. With inbound marketing, you tailor your message to a laser-targeted audience. Ideally, you segment your audience into as many groups as possible by criteria such as gender, age, geography, interests, and buying history. The point is that you’re not trying to reach everyone; only people who can truly benefit from your product or service.

  • An educational approach. Rather than simply listing the features and benefits of your product, you strive to educate your audience. That’s why content marketing, whether with articles, blog posts, videos, or other content, is such a strong component of inbound. The best content isn’t directly selling but rather informing.

  • Interactive. Whereas traditional selling is mostly about telling people why your product is so great, the inbound approach invites communication. You interact with customers via email, social media, webinars, your blog, and other platforms.

  • Economical. An added benefit of inbound marketing tactics is that they’re cheaper to implement than outbound methods. Since you’re targeting your message more precisely, you don’t have to broadcast it as widely. This approach also tends to give you a better ROI, further reducing your marketing costs.

With inbound marketing, you can put aside many of the qualities normally associated with selling. You can forget about cold-calling, spamming, and writing cheesy copy full of hype. With this more educational, targeted, and toned-down approach, you connect with your customers in a more straightforward manner. This is better for both you and your customers.

To find out how we can convert your business ideas into money-making machines, contact us.

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The Worst Advice We’ve Ever Heard About Sales

There is some great direction, brilliant minds and creative thinkers in the world of business. These are sources we draw from, rely on and often use for inspiration, guidance and planning. Yet, like almost everything else, there are also two sides to this coin as well. For with good information, insight and assistance success is […]

  • There is some great direction, brilliant minds and creative thinkers in the world of business. These are sources we draw from, rely on and often use for inspiration, guidance and planning.

    Yet, like almost everything else, there are also two sides to this coin as well. For with good information, insight and assistance success is inevitable, while following misguided and just plain bad advice certainly leads to failure.

  • This holds a deeper and more meaningful message for the sales industry. Sales is not only one of the oldest vocations, it is also one of the most personal. This industry is defined by people, shaped by people and that includes years of crafting the trade. That also equates to countless years of advice, both good and bad.

    Now that we have this piece of information, this advice, what then?…

  • We know it is important to be a good decision-maker, right?

    We also recognize that this is because those decisions guide and ultimately determine our success. Part of that decision-making process is being able to discern the difference between that good intel versus that awful advice.

    Some of that bad advice may not be so easily recognized. Some bad advice is clearly obvious. Either way, this is here to help you recognize the smoke before you get too close to the fire.


The Worst Advice We’ve Ever Heard About Sales

1. It’s Not the Quality, It’s the Quantity:

Ever get those calls that come in at random and usually very inconvenient hours?

Dinner time or as you are ready to leave for work (technology has done a great job at minimizing and reducing these spam calls today) – that person on the other end either acting like a robot reading a script or sounding like your best friend for years.

That sound familiar?

Those are companies and outbound call centers aimed to make as many contacts per hour, per minute as possible. The oft-quoted Zig Ziglar said it this way:


“The top salesperson in the organization probably missed more sales than 90% of the sales people on the team, but they also made more calls than the others made.”

This may be a good strategy for people selling one-time items or not looking to build long-term business relationships. For most businesses, however, the goal is to win customers and build mutually beneficial relationships for both the company and the client.



2. Push Past Objections

Potentially the most harmful advice given, this is an old theology designed to overcome buyer objections and resistance. Many salespeople have been taught that consumers want to buy and that they often need a push in that direction.


The problem with this technique in today’s social media and internet influenced arena, is the risk of alienating customers and causing them to feel unheard. With a more personal emphasis on the buyer today, more care is given to their concerns and more effort is made to provide solutions.

There is a stronger “how can I help you” mentality today and less of a “buy this” pressure.



3. Don’t Pre-Qualify Your Leads:

Here is some bad advice that might look like good advice, because this sounds like it has some rhyme and reason to it, right?

That’s because it does.

When taken to the most literal interpretation it was meant to inform the representative to avoid making any assumptions about the “likelihood” of the contact being inclined to buy.

Every call was an assumed sale. There really isn’t anything about this sales ideology that doesn’t work,

but…

This is where the technological impact has shifted the landscape. With smarter data and data management combined with new and organic inbound lead generation (i.e. Social Media), things have changed – a little.

Technology has enabled us to create

  • enough leads (Quantity),
  • build relationships as opposed to using pressure sales (Push Past Objections) and then
  • prioritize not pre-qualify – based on customer-driven data.
Smart, right?


Don’t expend the greatest amount of your efforts on generating leads or qualifying customers. The answer to finding the best marketing strategy for your business is balance – then prioritize.

Contact us to get more information on finding that balance, developing that strategy or even some good advice – and we already know where that leads.



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The 5 Sins of Marketing You Should Avoid at All Costs

How do you get your new business from 0 to 100? The key to success is startup marketing. At the same time, too many businesses think that simply throwing money at the problem helps to raise brand exposure, and inevitably gets the right clients in the door. That’s far from the case. Marketing is an […]

  • How do you get your new business from 0 to 100? The key to success is startup marketing. At the same time, too many businesses think that simply throwing money at the problem helps to raise brand exposure, and inevitably gets the right clients in the door.

  • That’s far from the case. Marketing is an art, and one that needs to be planned as well as any other aspect of your business. Are you looking to avoid the mistakes that some of your startup competitors are making as we speak? If so, stay clear of these 5 mortal sins of marketing.

1) Marketing Without a Strategy

We’ve all been guilty of it: in the momentum of promoting a new business, it’s easy to jump right into developing ads and placing them on relevant channels. But in reality, marketing needs to be strategic in order to proceed.

Start with your business goals: what are you trying to achieve? Then, build measurable marketing metrics that your individual ads and content can accomplish, from website visits to lead conversions.

Consider your audience, and choose your channels strategically. Only then should you actually develop the content that will drive your marketing implementation.


2) Trying to Blanket the Market

The idea is tempting: for a new business, more coverage equals more awareness. But in reality, you probably don’t have the budget to take an approach similar to some of the largest brands in your industry.

Instead, startup marketing needs to be targeted in order to succeed. Analyze your audience, and place targeted ads in the channels they are most likely to frequent.

The same concept also applies to your content marketing efforts. Rather than looking to appeal to as broad of an audience as possible, develop niche content designed to get to the audience segment most likely to become your customers.


3) Pushing Too Much Promotional Content

Too many marketing novices, old school thinking still prevails: marketing needs to be promotional. But increasingly, that is no longer the case.

In reality, your audience is likely tired of banner and pop up ads. More than 60 percent of mobile devices in India now use ad blockers, a clear indication of their thought toward more traditional, promotional marketing efforts.

Instead, try a value adding approach. Develop ads and content that, once seen buy your audience, actually answer a question and solve a pain point. A value focused marketing approach will be much more likely to succeed in today’s digital environment.


4) Failure to Connect the Dots

Random acts of content creation are a surefire killer of any type of marketing momentum. An ad, blog post, or social media video that doesn’t fit into the rest of your brand presence will alienate, rather than attract your audience to your brand.

Instead, your entire marketing strategy needs to be consistent and build on each other. When an ad links to your website, the visual and textual message should remain the same for one, simple, successful message.

In other words, every one of your marketing efforts needs to play its part in connecting the goals to a larger, strategic framework.


5) No Adjustments Over Time

Finally, try to avoid falling into the set it and forget it mindset at all costs. To be successful, your marketing tactics need to be evaluated and adjusted regularly.

Audience preferences change on a dime. An ad that was successful last week may have overplayed its welcome, requiring a creative refresh.

To accomplish consistent marketing success, plan to regularly evaluate every message you put out on a regular basis, and according to the metrics established in the first step above. Then, make adjustments as needed to make sure your outreach remains as effective during the seventh month as it was during day one.

Succeeding in the art of marketing your business requires careful planning, strategic execution, and continuous evaluation. Avoid the 5 mortal marketing sins mentioned above, and you will be well on your way to growing your business and becoming a force to be reckoned with.



Over to you: have you been guilty of any of the above sins? How do you plan on stepping into the same pitfalls as countless other new businesses before you? Share your thoughts in the comments below, or contact us for more strategic advice on building a sustainable marketing strategy.

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4 Strategies That will get you Success with Interruption Marketing

Answer these questions honestly:How do you feel about telemarketers? What about promotional emails? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate most television commercials? If you’re like most consumers, you not only said, “don’t like ‘em” — you might have even gotten mad. Telemarketers are the bane of our existence, right? That’s […]

  • Answer these questions honestly:

    How do you feel about telemarketers? What about promotional emails? On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate most television commercials?

  • If you’re like most consumers, you not only said, “don’t like ‘em” — you might have even gotten mad. Telemarketers are the bane of our existence, right? That’s why more than 45% mobile users in India have registered on a “do not call” list. And most people now fast forward through TV ads. What about promotional emails? Well, no one likes their inbox cluttered with ads for products they don’t care about and don’t want.

So, Why are there still telemarketers and promotional emails, and TV Ads?

The simple answer is that they still work. According to John Pritchett writing about telemarketing for LinkedIn, for example, “Done properly, picking up the telephone is still one of the most effective tools for lead generation and demand creation.” And, although many consumers find a way around television spots, many others still watch them, and still make purchases based on their content.

As for promotional emails, even Hubspot (the leader of inbound marketing) agrees they’re indispensable to a comprehensive marketing strategy, and that consumers respond to them—for example, 66% of consumers report that they’ve bought products based on an email marketing message.


When Is It OK to Interrupt Someone?

People don’t like it when you interrupt them, right?

Well, it depends. If you’re telling a friend that you’re about to pay 15 Lakhs for a new car and he interrupts with, “Wait — I know a dealer who’ll give you that car for 13 Lakhs” — will you get mad, or will you thank him?

Interruptions are OK when they help people, give them smart advice or steer them in the right direction.


What Is Interruption Marketing?

Interruption marketing gets its name from the fact that it interrupts whatever someone is currently doing to grab his attention. Tech Target defines interruption marketing this way:
“Interrupt marketing, sometimes referred to as interruption marketing, is the traditional model of product promotion, in which people have to stop what they’re doing to pay attention to the marketing message or deal with it in some other way.”
Examples of interruption marketing include telemarketing calls, mail campaigns, email campaigns, television and radio ads, interstitial and transitional online ads, and “preroll ads” that play before video content. Whether or not these traditional marketing strategies work for your business depends on how you deploy them.

So what’s the Secret?

The trick to successfully deploying interruption marketing is to understand the fine line that separates curiosity and nuisance. If a telemarketer calls with a pitch on refinancing your mortgage, you’re annoyed — unless you happen to be thinking about refinancing your mortgage, in which case you might want to know more. A promotional email for landscaping services is a nuisance for many consumers — except those who are searching for top landscaping services.

Said differently, the secret to successful interruption marketing is understand your audience — what they want and how they want you to communicate with them.

Here are 4 strategies to make interruption marketing work for your business:


  • 1. Target the right people: when you send a product email to a prospective customer who has zero interest in that product, you don’t just lose that sale—you also create mistrust. That customer probably won’t pay attention to subsequent promotional emails, even when they’re about products he does want. You need to segment your email list based on who your customers are, what they want, and where they are in the buying cycle.

  • 2. Don’t make customers jump through a lot of hoops: whatever your call to action is, you need to make it easy as possible for customers to do. If you send an email with a link to an online form on your website, don’t ask for too much information, especially if it’s a new customer. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes—how much action would be too much for you to take?

  • 3. Appeal to their pain points: consumers are motivated to buy products and services that help them solve problems. You need to clearly understand what that problem is, how your product solves it, and how to most persuasively make that case to prospects. Generally, that means stating the problem upfront (it’s good to do this in the form of a question, as in, “Are you still trying to get rid of that annoying belly fat?”) to pique curiosity, then answering the question with your solution to the problem.

  • 4. Ask for their permission: you can’t bully people into buying your products — when you push hard, the natural tendency is for them to push back. You can make your statement of a given consumer problem as straightforwardly as you want, but you still need to ask for permission to make your case. If what you want, for example, is someone’s contact information, offer them something they want (like a discount or useful content) as an incentive. And, when it comes to emails, always (ALWAYS) be sure recipients have opted in, and always give them an opportunity to unsubscribe.
 

Conclusion

To drive sales and grow your business, you need to identify the weaknesses in your sales process — whether it’s generating leads or closing sales — and then craft a strategy to eliminate it. That means understanding your audience and leveraging the right technology to put your plan into action. To learn more about the ways our technology services can help you achieve your business goals, contact us today.

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