Category Archives: Consulting

July 28, 2015 · 9:33 am

Don’t Pitch

Every business needs customers, and along with acquiring those customers inevitably comes the need to make a sales pitch. Think for a minute: how many sales pitches have you seen over the years (and yes, ads are pitches too) and of those, how many were really memorable? I’m willing to guess not many.

I want to focus on the personal kind of pitches today – generally those in some sort of business-to-business context. Maybe what I have to say applies to ads as well but they’re generally shorter. This is one of the things with which clients seem to need a good deal of help for a number of reasons and I’d like to lay out some of the guiding principles we discuss.

First, don’t pitch. While some of us who have been in sales enjoy watching someone sell, most people don’t seem to find “being sold” very appealing. The nature of marketing has changed. Prospects want to have a conversation, so take it easy on the superlatives as you’re describing your product or service.  If you make a claim (we reduced costs and increased profits for our clients), back it up with specifics.  Prospects are skeptics and verifiable hard data goes a long way to changing that.

Before you get to that product or service description, however, you need to explain the problem you’re solving for them. In order to do that you need to demonstrate that you’ve taken the time to research their business and to understand the challenges they face. I realize that’s difficult as an outsider, but it turns out this internet thing makes research really easy if you’re willing to spend the time and to ask the right questions.

Finally, and I can’t stress this enough, assume that your prospects can read.  If you’re going through a deck with them, remember that it isn’t a bedtime story and that they’re not children.  Do not read the thing verbatim off the wall or page and expect that you’re going to hold their interest.  They can read faster than you can speak and their minds are elsewhere while you are on bullet point #6.

The plan is this: research the target, solve their problem, and tell them a story in a conversational tone.  I’ve found that method to be pretty effective.  You?

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July 23, 2015 · 10:22 am

Stirring With A Fork

One of the things I work on with clients is using the appropriate tools to solve their needs.  We also focus on using those tools in the right way, which means using the right tool in the right manner to solve the issue.  Failing to do so is the equivalent of stirring a big pot of soup with a fork.  Sure, you can sort of get things mixed up that way but there are more appropriate tools (a spoon) that are better suited for the task and which will result in a better, more efficient result.

I thought of that as I read the report on a study by Regalix.  They surveyed senior B2B marketers to understand current trends in social media marketing and the challenges faced by them in implementing a social media strategy.  While much of the data showed progress, certain results made me raise an eyebrow.  Let’s see what you think.

According to the study, 94% respondents choose increasing brand awareness as the key objective of their social media marketing efforts.  I find that interesting since many of these same marketing types denigrate the use of banners as being only suited to raising awareness and their focus is more on generating click-throughs and other direct actions.  Frankly, there are other tools more suited to the awareness task as well.  I wholeheartedly agree with this point, made in the Research Brief report on the study:

Given the power of social media to engage with customers, it is surprising to find brand awareness overwhelmingly top the list of key objectives, says the report. Perhaps, opines the report, a reflection of the fact that most organizations still largely use social media as a broadcast or advertising medium, and not as much for meaningfully engaging with customers.

Exactly, and there is our fork stirring the pot.  If all you’re doing is switching the megaphone from broadcast media to social, it’s unlikely that you’re going to have much, if any, success. How do you think you’re going to generate actionable insights from social data when you’re doing very little to engage your audience? 71% of organizations said they were either not able to measure the ROI of their social media campaigns or were not sure how to. Only 29% said they were able to measure it.  That’s not surprising since there probably hasn’t been much to measure given the inappropriate manner in which they’re using the social channels.

I have nothing against forks, but I never use them to stir the pot.  You?

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July 15, 2015 · 10:50 am

Getting Found

Perhaps the biggest challenge in business is “discoverability.”  That’s just a fancy term for your business getting found.  If you’re a bricks and mortar operation, it might mean an eye-catching sign.  If you’re a digital business or a business that has a digital presence (are there any businesses that don’t?), it means doing the work needed so that when customers are using the web they can find your site.

That concern is something I get asked about by clients all the time.  They hear about Search Engine Optimization but don’t understand what it is or how to do it.  I’ll preface this by saying I don’t profess to be an SEO expert.  I can, however, get clients through the rudiments, take care of the technical basics, and, if our work shows results, bring in a resource to do the advanced stuff.  So with that in mind, let’s spend a minute on how your business can be more discoverable.

You might find this odd, but the answer is simpler now than it was a few years ago.  Many of the technical parts of SEO are no longer as important as they once were.  What’s important is a recurring theme here in the screed: focus on your customers or prospects.  Making your site content useful to a shopper will have the effect, in most cases, of being great SEO.  What do I mean?

People search either to buy something, to find a place and get there, or to find information.  The latter is why you do informational content (like this blog), the former are product pages, etc.  Making every page of your site clear with respect to what question you’re answering or problem you’re solving with probably mean you’re using the words people (not robots) use to find answers.  That’s good SEO because it is focused on user experience.

Yes, there are a couple of technical things you should do (good title tags is the main one) and you need to hope that people build links to your content (they will if it’s great!).  But the most important thing you can do in order to enhance discoverability is to be useful and clear.  For those of you who are hearing from SEO experts that want to charge you a fortune, you’re welcome (mail me – I’ll tell you where to send the check).  For all of you, I hope that helped.  Did it?

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