So you have a blog—big deal! Without the proper team (and supportive management) working on the project, you may be too reliant on content marketing alone—and missing out on true blog cohesion. There are many moving parts to a great blog-producing team (besides, of course, a stellar marketing strategy). Here are a few: Editor and Copy Editor The editor guides the content direction, and the copy editor ensures that content is relevant, streamlined and engaging—as well as grammatically correct. Analytics Support You have to track your results. Not only should you implement…
Email marketing as you know it is fading fast. According to the Content Marketing Institute: 91% of consumers are opting out of email, which has become the “new” junk mail 63% of consumers reported they may defect from brands due to irrelevant content To prevent your customers from becoming disengaged and defecting, Sandra Zoratti at the CMI suggests focusing on data-driven content development and marketing. But first you need to know what kind of data is needed to maintain brand loyalty. Zoratti writes that finding this information … “… requires data access,…
This is a part of a series that was created to help you get the practice of corporate blogging built into your company. This series will walk through the process, necessary roles, in addition to guides for each role to help your company get started quickly. The following several posts make up a quick start guide for the blogging administrator. In order to keep the output and quality high, it’s important to keep your bloggers engaged with the blogging initiative. Without engagement your program will fail. That said, you have to keep looking for new ways to spark interest firm-wide,…
Social media and its infinite potential need no introduction.
Well-engrained into the prototypical marketer’s lexicon, social media can make or break an otherwise-perfect online marketing strategy without much fuss. If you overlook the medium, social media will exact its revenge upon you with swift, unyielding justice until you bend to its (and your customers’) will. You will hemorrhage customers and eventually, profits. Why is social media so unfeeling? Because people just don’t understand it. And no example is a more fitting explanation of this than the social media calendar. One of…
A viable and sustainable sales process starts long before any calls are made. The employee must have a high sense of self-worth and believe in what they’re doing. Their main motivation – and this should be passed from the top, down – shouldn’t be money. Instead, they should avert their gazes from the alluring cash. It’s a temptation that clouds judgment and ends up hampering sales. A virtuous sales methodology begins within a company strategy and reverberates down to every salesperson. Skilled sales people are easy to recognize. Here’s what separates them from their colleagues: They’re highly motivated and driven.…
With the litany of distractions available to throw you off track, you’ll need to ignore your surroundings if you want to be productive.
All of the things we utilize as tools during the work day – Twitter, Skype, LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. – can actually cost us valuable time and focus. Say you’re trying to work on a project, for example, and you keep encountering message prompts, one after the other. You’re going to get bogged down and the project will suffer. When it comes to your sales process, this can…
Jay Ehret is the Chief Officer of Awesomeness at The Marketing Spot. This article was originally posted on his blog here. The Best Entrepreneurs are Marketers at Heart. They understand that business is not just about selling stuff. They know the best companies deliver more than just a product. That’s how Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh transformed a small online shoe retailer into a company that sold to Amazon for nearly a billion dollars. Three months before the historic sale, Hsieh delivered the opening remarks to the SXSW Interactive Festival in Austin, Texas. In the seven minute video below Hsieh reveals…
Ever find yourself looking for a boost to finish your year off strong?
With telesales, the end-of-year rush presents unique opportunities and challenges. Guess whose job it is to remain abreast of the changing tides and be able to take advantage of the altered landscape. Yours. Your sales methodology should already have your sixth-sense piqued and eager to take advantage of this situation. Here are some tips for improved telephone sales: End of year budgets may mean added cash for some companies. If you struck out with one prospect earlier in…
Sales teams often struggle to squeeze the last bit of productivity out of their days. And managers are tasked with trying to scheme up new ways to free up more of their time or refine the operations that encompass the sales process. When you look at an entire sales department, you may have dozens of employees who are all facing the productivity challenge. Every day, they could benefit from increased time to sell. How is this done? Through a CRM implementation that will reduce the amount of time spent on wasteful tasks. Your options are vast and varied here. You…
A good content marketing strategy—according to Chris Chariton at iMedia Connection—is comprised of a slew of materials with many moving parts: “… you need a library of brochures, specification sheets, webinars, e-newsletters, white papers, application notes, and more to help make your case. But the content shouldn’t be sales-oriented; it should be informative yet non-promotional, helping prospective buyers do their jobs better. Offering good content to your prospects helps you gain an advantage over competitors.” But before you jump into the 5 different marketing strategies to get these customers, first you need…
