sales | smallbizdream blog

The 4 Content Marketing Steps To Increase Sales

Content marketing is one of the most successful methods of customer engagement used by businesses for centuries. Although the buzz around content marketing is new, it’s been around way before we had the Internet or the very first website in 1991.

Content creation is probably the most challenging and time-consuming aspect of acquiring and maintaining customer engagement. Rules have changed quite a lot since Google Panda, which now favors quality, substance, and relevance over quantity.

This gives users a much better experience by providing them only the most relevant information from online searches, and, from the standpoint of online marketers, an incentive to create high quality, shareable content throughout the Internet.

Defining Your Target Audience

Content marketing revolves around the target audience, customers and clients, who are the main source of revenue for nearly all kinds of businesses.

Defining you target audience should always be the first priority before starting off with any business venture. Over time businesses may expand or evolve to include additional products or services which could also mean redefining the target audience in every stage of a company’s lifetime.

For a small brick-and-mortar business the target audience could be just the people within or around the city who might be interested with what the company has to offer. However if the brick-and-mortar business has an online component then it could include a national or even international audience.

Setting the Tone and Purpose of Your Content

When you’re absolutely certain about your target audience, the next step is to determine the purpose of creating content. Depending on which stage of the sales funnel you’re currently working on, you could also set a different purpose in creating your content. Some of these include:

• To stimulate interest
•    To inform or educate
•    To entertain
•    To persuade

Content creation, to be most effective, should be a part of a larger system which works hand in hand with every aspect of the business instead of being a separate strategy on its own. Most sales funnels rely on a systematic approach to content creation to lead their clients from one stage to another.

During the initial stages of client acquisition, the purpose for creating content is usually to stimulate viewer’s interest.

Writing copy for landing pages is one great example of how content can be used to start a conversation with the clients. This may also include subscription to a free monthly newsletter or a quick survey for collecting relevant customer information.

Potential clients respond differently to different content. If they want to know more about the company, its products or services, your purpose should be to inform or educate the audience about the benefits and advantages of using or applying them, whether it’s in a form of free content, an informative blog post, infographic, or YouTube video.

The latter part which involves your prospects taking action requires a more persuasive form of content or writing. Content creators needs to be able to make the final push to lead conversion by conveying a sense of urgency and what they stand to lose for not taking action.

Following-up with your prospects is essential to lead conversion at this stage of the customer’s journey.

Being able to define the purpose of content creation allows businesses to accomplish their sales and marketing goals more efficiently.

Maintaining Interest

Holding viewer’s interest is the next important aspect of an effective content marketing strategy. It not only helps with lead conversion, but in the long run, it would also help increase the company’s visibility through online search or social media.

When creating content, keep the following characteristics in mind:

Usefulness – Viewing or reading content will use up some time from your target audience. Creating content that is useful is an incentive to spend more of their time viewing or reading them in the future.
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Relevance – What’s in it for them? Creating content that is on point to the viewers or readers is a sure way to keep an audience. This applies to email sequences where clients receive updates based on how they respond to a given call-to-action (CTA) or data gathered from subsequent surveys.
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Timeliness – Proper timing is also key to maintaining interest. Blog postings, for instance, should follow a certain schedule or pattern where readers could expect something new from time to time. This applies to any type of content whether it’s a YouTube v-log, new findings or research, press release, etc.

Improving Online Visibility

Online content can be used to leverage your marketing efforts due to the fact that it can be viewed or shared across multiple channels. This is particularly true with high quality, shareable content.

Marketing experts have already developed some of the most effective ways to increase visibility through search engine optimization (SEO), search engine marketing (SEM), email marketing, and social media.

Each method has its own ‘pros’ and ‘cons’ but for most startups with limited budgets, improving visibility can be achieved through social media and email marketing.

Some CRM services incorporate these two features to enable small businesses to communicate with their clients at very little or no expense at all. Link-building through SEO or paid inclusion in search engines through SEM, although quite effective in extending reach, could entail higher expenses.

A Better Alternative for Small Business Startups

Having a good sales and marketing app that goes hand in hand with creating content that really speaks to your audience is by far the most reasonable, if not the only way of starting up and growing a small business.

Small Business Dream goes beyond by offering client acquisition tools through its survey creator and landing pages along with sales and marketing automation features. Find out how at www.smallbizdream.com.

Fixing the Gaps in Your Sales Funnel

Sales funnel is a marketing tool designed to convert leads into buying customers in a systematic way which involves several stages. The concept of a ‘funnel’ is based on the fact that for every sequential stage in the sales process some percentage of leads get through while others are lost or stay behind.

For businesses, it is reliable indicator of marketing success, or failure. It tells them exactly which part of the sales process is connecting with the audience and which part isn’t

Identifying Problems in the Sales Funnel

A sales funnel can make or break a company. It’s imperative you analysis each part of the funnel to see what is working and what isn’t.

If part of your sales is a landing page that doesn’t convert, then you need to analysis what isn’t working. It could be that the lead acquisition is too generic, or maybe 50% of all the visitors leave without even looking or clicking on your sign up button.

Low click-through rates against a high number of visits on a landing page, could also be a sign. Something isn’t “speaking” to your customers.

The first step is to identify which part of your sales funnel people are dropping off or not responding to.

Read: What Sales Experts Do to Keep Their Sales Pipeline Up and Running

Fixing the Problem with Lead Acquisition

Marketers use inbound and outbound marketing approach to get people to their site. Some examples include landing pages, surveys, and opt-in subscription to newsletters or free content.

Traditional outbound marketing use advertising such as Google AdWords to generate leads. However, this method doesn’t always guarantee a high volume of qualified leads as this can be exploited for financial gain.

Other companies create a buyer persona to guide them at this stage because it helps generate more responses using the concept of an ‘ideal customer.’

The most common problem at this stage has to do with high bounce rate and getting a high number of low-quality leads. Online analytics tools such as Google Analytics reveal how many visits a page has vs. the percentage of those who have taken action.

Experimenting with the client acquisition tool might help solve the problem. A/B testing or split testing, for instance, can help you pinpoint which specific feature or element in your client acquisition tool has the greatest impact in getting more response from your target audience.

Studies have shown that even slight changes in page layout, content, or CTA can influence viewer perception and user experience.

Landing pages should also address specific ‘pain points’ or areas of interests instead of being vague or too generic. Unique value proposition’ (UVP) or ‘unique selling proposition’ (USP) helps create a distinction between you and your competitors, and makes your business stand out.

Fixing the Problem with Lead Nurturing

Nurturing leads is just as important as the initial stage of acquiring them. Unfortunately, this is where most sales funnels start to atrophy and experience massive loss of volume.

This can be attributed to an inefficient email marketing strategy or not being able to follow up with potential customers in a timely manner.

Setting up an email automation can help simplify the task for you. However, to be effective, you need to segment your prospects to stay relevant with them and not sound too generic.

Fixing the Problem with Lead Conversion

Converting leads into buying customers shouldn’t be too difficult if you didn’t have any issue with the acquisition and nurturing stage.

Problems arise when a company tries to fast-track its conversions by skipping other processes. This is usually the case with most traditional outbound marketing which attempts to speed up the sales cycle by hard-selling their leads and prospects.

Companies should be able to provide potential customers with alternatives when making buying decisions. Upselling and cross-selling are among the best and effective ways to seal any gaps in your sales conversions.

Call to action words and phrases (CTA) can also influence the way customers respond to an offer or invitation.

Unlock the Power of CRM for Your Small Business

Being able to monitor your sales funnel and fix the gap between customer acquisition and lead conversion is what elevates your company from all the rest.

Small Business Dream is built around this concept of sales funnel, which involves customer acquisition, maintaining customer relationship, and driving sales. It’s a sales and marketing tool aimed at helping small business owners like you. We’ll be looking forward growing business with you.

Don’t Prejudge a Prospect!

If you haven’t been following this blog and you don’t know me, my name is Dennis M. Wilson (“M” needed for distinction from the deceased Beach Boy). I want to tell you a lesson that was reinforced in me today. But before I do, I have to give you a bit of background.

I have been selling professionally since I was 10 years old. That’s right, 10! It all started with pet rocks. I got a rock polishing machine for Christmas one year, found a bunch of unused bottle caps, and bought some googly eyes. Instant Pet Rocks being sold by an unbelievably charming kid door to door!

I didn’t even consider prejudging at that age. When you’re young, you aren’t jaded. I just went door to door to door, and made a small fortune — at least in a 10-year old’s eyes — selling Pet Rocks for $1 each.

Later, I moved onto delivering newspapers, and selling annual subscriptions, and new subscriptions. I got the free trip to Disneyland selling the Edmonton Journal newspaper!

I did this by using the puppy dog close. Of course, I had no idea that was what I was doing back then, but it proved very effective. This was the line I used back then: “I just need 5 more subscribers and I get a free trip to Disneyland. If you would just help me out, I would be happy to send you a Postcard from Disneyland.”

Yep, I sent 5 postcards! I still hadn’t learned to prejudge. I had upped my game. (I think the subscriptions were about $30 whole dollars a year!)

I then ran my own Neon Sign company. It is here where I learned to prejudge. I was old enough to have heard enough ‘Nos’ and ‘Not interested.’ It was here where I learned to FIGHT THE URGE to prejudge. It was here the idea was born, long before the technology and internet existed to build a piece of software like Small Business Dream. (We used a product called PackRat, which was good at the time.)

Slowly I started to prejudge by the tone in their voice on the phone, or the fact they didn’t call me back.

I even played the old ‘It is Monday game’ — nobody wants to be followed up on Monday, they are all too busy. I was deep in my prejudging mode.

At this time I was selling Neon Signs anywhere from $299 to $10,000. It seems the prejudging gets to happen more and more often, the higher ticket item you sell.

The battle NEVER ends for a salesperson.

Now I sell $10,000 to $180,000 Software systems. I would love to say I have learned to NOT prejudge. I can tell you I have found a way to limit how much I do it. It is called Small Business Dream. It simply works by giving me a list of people to call based upon MY decided order by the last contact I had with them — open Small Business Dream, call, email, send a text, send a Facebook message, or whatever else it tells me to do, and don’t stop until the list is empty.

Systematize. It’s not 100% magic, but it keeps me on track a lot more than just hoping I will remember who to call and what was said and NOT make excuses they might not be interested so I won’t call. Just CALL or DO the action Small Business Dream says.

At least I have a weapon against my brain!

Is the battle over?

About 2 weeks ago, I got a phone call on a Sunday morning from somebody interested in our software, and they only were going to have a very small number of people in their company, and I totally PREJUDGED thinking they weren’t actually a prospect. It was Sunday morning, so I think I was a little miffed at myself that I answered the phone on a Sunday morning.

I did all the wrong things in sales; I answered the phone in a slightly less than perfect mindset. I PREJUDGED this wasn’t a prospect and I had wasted my time. Fortunately, I use SMALL BUSINESS DREAM, so he was already in the system and he came up for a call-back on Monday.

With the help of Small Business Dream, I can battle against my BRAIN’S poor judgement, ended up calling him back and following up as I was supposed to ON MONDAY, even though I had completely prejudged him.

Well guess what? It turned out that we were to have another call the next day and I thought he was very likely going to purchase our $30,000 software platform from me! The key in sales is DON’T PREJUDGE. Even the best salespersons aren’t perfect.

I got the sale the very next day. However, I prejudged and could have lost the sale but thankfully I got lucky and I saved it, because I had proper sales automation in place to make sure I stayed in communication, even though I didn’t feel like it, and it was hard to pick up the phone to call because I had prejudged him.

Small Business Dream said I need to call him, and my stats for the day said I had only made 61 contacts so far that day. My goal was 100. I couldn’t handle the pressure of resisting the call, and everything just forced me to pick up the phone to make that last phone call and sent that last text message.

And I got the Sale.

DON’T PREJUDGE. Just let your sales process take hold and do the right things according to your sales automation follow-up software. And by not prejudging, you are going to sell more and make a ton more money.

The Importance of Follow-up in Converting Leads to Sales

I just wanted to share some thoughts I had the other day about the importance of follow-up as I was going through Small Business Dream and doing all my follow up calls for my software company. I started to think about follow-up and how important it is. I had a customer come on board that has been on my drip follow-up for 12 years!

He bought every other kind of solution he could, while avoiding the main thing we sell. He had every excuse in the book to not be ready every time I called. That’s right. I called and called without any judgement; I just called if he came up on my call list in Small Business Dream. In addition, my email autoresponders kept dripping on him with high quality information about his software problems and how we could help.

I reached out probably twice a year because my Small Business Dream told me to and I talked to him by voice. Yep, you got it — BY VOICE! I helped him with his issues. I counselled him.

When he finally bought, he said, “Dennis, I wouldn’t even consider looking at anyone else because you’ve been there for 12 years giving me free information, helping me along my way and never getting the sale. Well, now you got the sale. If you’re that good before you got money, I can’t even imagine how great it’s going to be to work with you.”

Twelve years of follow-up got me a sale. It wasn’t hard, I simply let Small Business Dream remind me when to call or drip out pre-written helpful content. Eighty percent was purely educational while 20% was more about my software company and how we can help.

I started to wonder how many people follow-up for 12 years. How many people have a system that allows them to know, when they get a new customer, the first contact was made 12 years ago? This is the kind of thing Small Business Dream can do for anybody.

If you have everything working together seamlessly — email autoresponders, semi-automated follow-up through social media, phone call logs — you can become a follow-up pro and significantly increase your productivity.

I waited 12 years. But this was a $30,000 sale. Was it worth waiting 12 years? Hey, I would have loved if it only took 2, but on the other hand, 12 years later, there’s a $30,000 sale because Small Business Dream kept me on top of my follow-up and I didn’t pre-judge and I didn’t say, “Oh he’s never gonna buy, I’m going to stop following up.”

I doubt if I’d spent 1 hour of time per year following up by phone call for 12 years. I probably spent 4 hours in the first year, so a total of 15 hours of work? If a salesperson had made this sale for me, just how happy would they be… 12% commission on $30,000 = $3600. Divide that by 15 hours… $240/hour. Hmmmm. Not bad… Annualize that… $499,200/year. Nice!

I just followed the process until he either bought or said no. He always told me, you know maybe someday… we’re just not ready… maybe someday… we’re just not ready… we’re gonna try this… we’re gonna try that… I don’t think we’re ready… I don’t think we’re ready… He never said, no I’m not interested. I kept following up because my system reminded me. I did it without much thought, without any kind of hesitation or reservation. I don’t prejudge and made $30,000.

Anybody can do this with Small Business Dream. All it takes is following the system and trusting that it works.

How Sales People Can Look Desperate and Some Tips to Avoid It

Sales people are constantly under pressure to perform within the company’s standard. Attrition rate in the sales department is fairly high — as much as 50% a year in some companies.

Most of the time, they would resort to desperate measures in a last ditch effort to reach the monthly or weekly quota. But as we know these futile attempts made no difference other than making them look desperate.

Surviving this job requires persistent effort and a high degree of salesmanship acquired from years of experience and training.

What Persistence is Not

One of the roadblocks to becoming a successful salesperson is the lack of understanding of the customers and the sales process. In order to succeed in a highly competitive market, a salesperson should know the difference between persistence and pushing too far.

Here are some telltale signs that a salesperson has already crossed the line:

1. Salesperson does all the talking.

Sales people can become overly enthusiastic to the point where they start taking up most of the conversation. This usually puts customers on the defensive, especially if they don’t have any intention of buying the product. Some salespersons are not so conscious about it, but it’s actually off-putting to most customers.

2. Salesperson offers ‘solutions’ prematurely.

Businesses provide solutions to their customers’ ‘pain points’. If it’s something that has real value to the customer, it won’t be too hard to make the sale.

However, giving ‘unsolicited advice’ by offering a ‘solution’ too soon can be misconstrued as pushing the sale. Although not necessarily wrong, it would be much better if they would hear from the customers first before going any further.

3. Salesperson gets too ‘salesy’.

Nobody likes a pushy salesperson and people’s natural reaction is to back away if a sales person tries to tell the prospect what is good for them, even if the prospect wants what the salesperson is selling.

Be honest about your product or service and never over-promise — and definitely never lie. A salesperson needs to lead the prospect to water, not try to drown them.

4. Offer discounts too soon.

If not done correctly, offering discounts right off the bat can actually send a different message to the customers. It could mean one of two things — it’s cheap quality, or it’s previously overpriced.

Either way, customers will have a negative impression about the offer, especially those who prefer quality and value over price savings.

5. Criticize others.

Badmouthing other companies betrays a lack of confidence and could undermine the company’s reputation. However, it doesn’t mean sales people couldn’t give their honest opinion about a certain product or service. They just have to put it in context and not use it to promote their own.

Lead Them in — Don’t Push!

The notion of smooth-talking salesman has long been gone. It’s no longer just about the personality or creating a good first impression.

We now live in an era where customers make buying decisions based on facts and not just on some 30-second TV, or YouTube commercial. Hence, we don’t expect customers to just pour in or take the bait right then and there.

We need to cultivate their minds and educate them about the benefits of using our products or services instead of shoving them down their throats.

Converting leads to buying customers doesn’t have to be that hard, if we only take time to nurture them. There are 3 ways you can accomplish this:

Know your customers better. Contacting each potential customer at random will only lead to frustration. You need a tool that allows you to keep in touch with all your contacts and be able to sort them out in the most efficient way. CRM applications like Small Business Dream can make this all possible with less effort.
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Follow-up your leads. Your initial contact with your customers can give away some clues about the things that they like or are interested in. Have them fill up a quick survey and ask some basic information, or you can invite them to your mailing list for a weekly or monthly newsletter to learn more about the benefits of using your product or service.
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Be patient. Unless you’re very lucky, you won’t get the sale on the very first engagement. On average, it takes around 4 to 7 engagements before a deal is made. So be patient and wait for the right opportunity. You don’t want to annoy your prospect with your incessant calls or reminders about the offer. But if your leads are already ripe for the picking, by all means get to them and close the deal as soon as possible.

Being a salesperson doesn’t have to be too difficult with today’s latest innovation in sales and marketing. Small Business Dream simplifies the work for you, so you won’t have to sweat it out just to get things done.

Visit us at www.smallbizdream.com to learn more about our suite of tools which include sales funnel, survey engine, email autoresponders and more.