Tuesday, June 29, 2010

4 Areas Of Social Media Marketing Segmentation

You out there with your shingle up in the world of Social Media (SM). So now what. How do you work your brand building, your customer service and your product management side? What about the generating of demand side of business? It makes no difference if you are a newbe are just getting started in SM or a underutilizing “pro” who has been out there for years now if you’re not into demand strategies in your SM plan you are probally letting a lot of sales slip through the cracks.

I have divided the world of Social Media into 4 areas of attack. Planting seeds, Lead generation, Opportunity expansion and Customer growth.

1) Seed Planting. In this stage of SM you work at developing your relationships using SM for interaction. People come and go as they flow though your database as raw leads. You need to invest your time in building relationships with these possible prospects to actually find out if they are or can be customers or not. If you have your online content ready to email, if you have finished your profile page on the SM site with your basic description your ready to go. If not, got to square one and finishing your profile page and type up a couple of sales letters to email. Don’t feel bad if you can’t identify the exact people who will become customers. Just nurture or get to know them at this stage. If you don’t someone might jump in and steal them right from under your nose.

2) Lead Generation. The art of building and keeping new relationships with the people you decide or real prospects (not tire kickers) is a real art in and of itself. It helps if you know the length of your sales cycle to know if they are tire kickers or not but that is food for another blog someday. When you use SM to interact and converse with prospects you can go deep into getting the prospect ready. This is all part of the process. People do buy on their time line not necessarily yours and SM is opening up a whole new look at the classical sales cycle. To put some pop in your attack in this stage of a prospects time line you need to be paying close attention to what your prospects are saying to you and to everyone else in the SM site of choice. By tracking (not stalking) and engaging in conversations you can keep these prospects moving at a time when almost any of your competition could engage them and basically steel them away. Integrate your SM channels with more traditional marketing channels outside of the SM site, things such as email, direct mail and phone.

3) Opportunity expansion. The interaction now shifts from being more Social Media to more salesmanship. As you move into a more formal buying cycle engage the prospect in a more focused way. If you have watched over your SM interactions and conversations you now have a deep enough insight to the readiness and willingness of the buying process. There are a few ways to key in on making SM a deeper part of your sales and marketing. And all this time you need to be constantly monitoring SM behaviors and conversations.

4) Customer heaven. Finally all the stars are aligned and the prospect is now ready to become, a customer! They are now a revenue stream. They are now a real live customer. Use SM to reaffirm the purchase. Use SM to engage the customer. Use SM to shower down all the love you can. They are YOUR customer. Start the cycle over for the resale. By establishing and using the rules of social engagement you will have a long term customer, not a one hit wonder.

Larson Notes & Satire: The point is your networks are full of potential customers waiting for you to engage them. But going though the 4 stages of SM nurturing and grown from the earliest stages to maturity your business can and will grow using Social, Media. You can build a reputation in your SM sites as a valued member, trusted leader and reliable supplier

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

6 Month Tune Up

Half the year is almost gone. Are you happy or sad? Are the results you got in the first part of the year what you expected or wanted?

Do you need your engine tuned up for the rest of the 6 month race to the end of the year? Here are a few simple tips you can use on your engine.

1. Take your employees out for lunch. The cost is inexpensive compared to the excellent uplift it will bring to the moral of your people.

2. Create an advisory board. It can be real or virtual, but connect with experts to help give you guiding advice. They can be anybody, but gathering people who have a stake in the success of your company is probably best or people with knowledge and experience outside your own. Pick people whose business insights you respect and experience fills the holes in your own. An accountant, an attorney, a marketing manager, logistics manager etc. People from different areas can give you perceptions outside of your normal view.

3. Customer visits. Visiting the owners/CEOs of your key accounts might be in order. Find out what they need that you don’t now do or make, but that you could. Push the envelope and make sidewise sales or up sales with people at the top.

4. Take a hard look at your marketing to sales to business development. Has your customer base changed? (Mine has, sort of, or at least our strict focus). Review any new situations and determine what works best for you to pursue within your budget.

5. Add staff judiciously. If you see a person you would die to have and you see the possibility, maybe you need to go for it and open the wallet and hire them, NOW, instead of after, when a competitor might snatch them up. Another thought is to hire “gray hairs” that might have the expertise you need but might be happy to take on a specialty project or work with you part time.

Larson Notes & Satire: So how is your first half of 2010, really? Don’t go fooling yourself what it was good when it wasn’t. I’m happy here at Larson’s. Really, very happy. Not happy with my bulging accounts receivable but at least my AR numbers are growing. I have hit a few stumbling blocks, who hasn’t but still I like what I have been able to achieve in the first half. Now I’m wondering if I would go out and get a loan and make things happen faster or use cash flow to get to where I want to go, more slowly and carefully. Mmmmmmmmmm maybe it’s time for that advisory board. Maybe two, one local and in person and one virtual to take advantage of my more boarder but wiser contacts. I can think of a few good friends. Any volunteers? I’ll make you work your mind.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

PR Gets You Higher ROI

What would happen if you combined your advertising attack and your PR initiatives together as one coordinated marketing attack? There are many roads to the same ending point. There are many kinds of vehicles to transport you to the exact same place.

I have always lived by the thought that it takes 9 views to make a sale. Some say more some say less. But then I go farther to say that the average person only sees 1 out of every 3 touches you try to make. I am willing to bet with the overwhelming data and information explosion we are hit with it might be more like 1 out of 5 touches to get one view.

Exposure in the media of the PR nature not only gives you a view but if from an outside source it gives you credibility. Not only that, but a PR piece is totally cost effective.

It can be a magazine or a local TV or radio station. When you gain the outside media’s attention you will gain the ears of their readers as well.

Now if you take that and coordinate your advertising program on what kind of PR you are getting and you are making a very hard pressed attack that will get you good solid view,

Larson Notes & Satire: PR is nice very nice, but like your advertising and marketing attack you need to know who your target audience is. If you find your potential customers in the readership or viewership, go after them full force. You can never know where a customer will be hiding. And with PR the price tag is Free. Similar to SM but without you doing all the work.

Then to target your advertising to use the base that your PR has given you, you will be starting at a higher plateau than what you might have been at if starting from scratch.

Don’t drill baby drill, but, Build baby, build!

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Monday, June 21, 2010

Standing Apart From Your Competition

The world gets smaller. Your competition sometimes comes from places you never heard of before. So what makes you special? That’s what your customers want to know, right?

Well start with what YOUR customer’s idea of quantity is. Not yours, their's. The reliability and durability of your widget is what makes you, you, or in my case the higher hit ratios of my services is what makes me, Me. I expect to be compared to my competition. Bring it on! Look us over. Look at the competition on the web, in their literature and then come back and buy “Us”.

Your customers might have less money than 2 years ago but they still want the same control or more control than they ever had. You, me, our customers don’t want to feel they have been limited in the choices that they are making. So position yourself to appeal to the customer’s feeling of choice. Just make sure the choice is you.

Your customers are looking for independent assessments of what makes you better than the best, Twitter, Facebook, Yelp and other SM sites give them just that power. Keep your hands clean and do what you say you will do for all your customers. Think and act like a pro.

Your customers want their voice to be heard. Ask and listen. They will tell you. Then when you get a good idea for a better product, a new twist on your service, act on it, fast. Don’t delay or someone else will do it first. Then tell that person they were listened to and the changes they made were enacted. They will buy. And they will love you for life, or at least a few more months.

Your customers want quality. Make it better than everyone else. The winners will be the ones who figure out how to make their customers feel good about paying out their good money for your product or service.

Take advantage of any and all technological improvements you can. Technology has always been important but as the age of information, the age of the computer advances so does technology and its uses. Be at the forefront in as many areas as you can. Use everything you can find on and off the web and max it out 100%.

Larson Notes & Satire: I think I said it a thousand times since last August on how I changed my company’s entire focus to printers, graphic, advertising agencies, ad specialties, multimedia, trade show booth builders and other graphically and creatively natured firms. The end result is that we are growing faster than I can keep the lid on. Yes, we still do other industries target marketing and telemarketing projects but we focus and go after printers and graphic companies. So much so that, if you are a printer in a metro area and we have a client in your neighborhood, my personal goal is to make life difficult for you.

I am walking walk, talking the talk, so deep that we will take on a printing account on 100% incentive. (Don’t do this plan or we will make even more money, your best deal is really the flat hourly plan, no kidding) I have no fear in offering a 100% incentive plan because I am so sure of what we are able to achieve.

There will be other services that are pushed out as need, market, requests and the necessary funds allow, yes growth takes cash, but I am having more fun now than a year ago, no wait 10 years ago when life was good!

We asked, we listened, we acted.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Facebook and Business Trust

I found an interesting study from MarketingProfs that 60% of marketers are using Facebook for some kind of businesses communications. Waving my hand in the air, Me, me, me! But as to the trustworthiness of that channel of communication and marketing? Well… the trust factor is another matter all together.

Marketers Trust In Facebook
10% - Completely
58% - Somewhat
15% - Not very much
7% - Not at all
9% No opinion

Movement Of Facebook Trust
0% - Increased a great deal
8% - Increased somewhat
19% - Decreased somewhat
10% - Decreased A Great Deal
47% - Neither Increased or Decreased
16% - No Opinion

*Source: MarketingProfs; Sample: 488 marketers, including 154 marketers at large companies; May 18 thru May 21, 2010

Larson Notes & Satire: I do use Facebook for marketing. Guilty as charged. I do trust what my friends say about their businesses. Am I gullible? I am blond after all. I think most people are honest. The only question to me is; are my Facebook postings going to the right audience? Only my closed sales know for sure, but I did get one customer though Facebook. www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans Join today and get even more inside info as it happens on Larson & Associates.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Thursday, June 17, 2010

What Brings You Traffic?

What is driving or bring people to your web site? How to people find you?

In a study done by LeadForce1, of all things Wikipedia was found to be the most effective channel in bringing in new relevant leads to a b2b web site. LinkedIn was found to drive the most visitors to a site even if they are not the best leads possible. Twitter and Facebook tend not to be huge lead generators because they are, for the most part made up of existing customers.

As a marketer you don’t necessarily want to go after sites with the largest number of users, but the sites that being you the most hits based on the effectiveness.

Web Hit Source
52.58% - Direct Hits
29.66% - Search Hits
13.71% - Referral Hits
4.05% - Paid Hits

*Source: LeadForce1 Study done in 2010. A company is identified as a unique visitor

Larson Notes & Satire: A hit is a hit. A sale is a sale. To me a successful hit is one that causes a prospect to either email me or pick up the phone and call to inquire about my services. I know though analytics how many hits and unique hits my various web pages get. I am here for sales. If you’re a big LinkIn networker, network away. If you’re on Facebook, stay there. If you twitter your PR news, keep it up. If you blog, write and post away. But keep your links in place. Keep putting out your name out there for searches. Print your web site on everything you have. Yes a hit is a hit, but interest, real interest, real relevancy is the key denominator to bringing in the sale.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Can CRM Fix Your Sales?

CRM cannot fix anything. There I said it. Don’t be fooled into a faluse sence of hope. CRM does nothing, does not fix anything, does not make you sell better, unless you do work to make it work.

Just because you go out and spend a chunk of money on a new CRM with all the latest bells and whistles, it will do you no good if you don’t learn how to use it and focus on the needs of your customers and not the needs of your company.

Just because you have the tools of CRM technology sitting on your computer, does not mean you understand how to engage the customer with your product or services. Until you make a 180 degree turn and start focus on customer needs and finding ways to satisfy them, it’s all for naught.

Larson Notes & Satire: CRM is not about technology but rather a tool to give better customer service. If you ignore the basics of customer service CRM will do nothing for you. Money and programs won’t buy you success. Only your actions can do that for you.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Is Direct Mail Dying?

It is true that direct mail on any scale is not the kingpin of a marketing plan like it use to be, but it is far from dying away. Any channel will lose its overall effectiveness when it is used alone. Not all customers and prospects respond to your advertising and marketing message in the same way. We all are more sensitive to the way we process information, sight, touching and hearing all come into play. So to with communication preferences; phone, email, search, radio & tv, youtube and mail as well.

On the down side of a mailing campaign is the launching. A direct mail campaign requires an expenditure of some money before it happens. Cash is needed for layout and design, writing, production, printing, list creation, postage.

Yet, when used in a wave of channel attacks each element can complement one another. Direct mail can drive people not just to your store, but to your web site and your phone. Don’t think that only electronic methods will get your customers online to give you hits.

Direct mail might not make sense in all situations or marketing campaigns but it is still a viable and integral part of a cross-channel total marketing campaign.

Larson Notes & Satire: Whenever I put direct mail into my marketing, even a simple plan I see a 7%-10% bump in sales to new customers. That is getting in a new customer 7 to 10 times faster or deeper in penetration of my market. Maybe that is why this week we are working at the highest number of billable hours for the last 9 years. Phase 3 of my companies marketing plan has a different element of direct mail involved and is planned to go into effect in September. Can we get another 10%? Heck, I’ll take another 3-5% off the top.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates">
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Monday, June 14, 2010

Upselling Plans For Businesses

Upselling, selling more of what you got to the customers you already have. Sounds nice, doesn’t it. 38% of B2C and B2B businesses are making upselling a top marketing goal this year. And why not, sell more to the people who are trusting you to take their money already. I do it. My son’s running specialty shop does it. Maybe you should think about it as well.

To Better Leverage New Channelsb>
31% - B2C
29% - B2B

To Improve Analytics To Strengthen Campaigns
39% - B2C
34% - B2B

To Increase Their Contact Database
37% - B2C
41% - B2B

To More Prospects/Leads faster through the sales funnel
29% - B2C
51% - B2B

More B2B Marketers are using CRM than B2C Marketers

B2C
43% - Yes
58% - No

B2B
69% - Yes
31% - No

*Source: Silverpop from a sample of 1,805 marketers in mid-March 2010

Larson Notes & Satire: If you sell more than one thing why not do it. I sell direct mail to my telemarketing customers and telemarketing to my direct mail customers. My son sells socks to his shoe customers. If you even increased the amount of a sale by 5% on 10% of your sales what would that do to your bottom line?

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates
http://teamcircle.ning.com/profile/HowardLarson

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.

Friday, June 4, 2010

Mobile Activity Use In Marketing

Not using mobile in your marketing? You are not alone. 78% of companies are NOT, yes not using any mobile marketing in their outreach.

For those that are, here is the breakdown of their usage, just in case you want to make the plunge.

Mobile version of website
38.5% - Retail
63.4% - Overall

Mobile applications
30.8% - Retail
52.1% - Overall

Text messaging
53.8% - Retail
56.3% - Overall

Mobile e-mail
53.8% - Retail
39.4% - Overall

Retailers are also spending more on acquisition channels and email service providers than other kinds of companies

E-mail service providers
21.5% - Retail
17.3% - Overall

Acquisition channels
36.3% - Retail
30.3% - Overall

Emerging channels
6.7% - Retail
12.3% - Overall

*Source Omniture from a sample of more than 600 respondents from an online survey from May 10.2010


Larson Notes & Satire: Not being a mobile user does not mean that I think there is not a place for using mobile in some businesses. Just not mine. Look at your demographics of your target market. The younger it is the more acceptable to mobile and text marketing they are, the older the more the distaste for the efforts, yet I might see a place in even my business in a more mobile friendly web site. Yes the old dog can learn new tricks.

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

P.P.S. An American Company, marketing American Companies! Call or email to get an appointment to pick my brain (a $125.00 value) for 30 minutes.