What is it you actually do?

How many times have you been asked this question?

Whether in first meetings, on the golf course, down the pub  or at networking events, having a succinct & well thought out answer will avoid that embarrassing pause that makes you look silly or stop you from launching into your life story in the hope that something useful will fall out 20 minutes later. Meanwhile your questioner suddenly has a pressing meeting & ‘is it ok if we aim to finish in about 10 minutes?’.

Here are3 tips to help you prove your worth to the buyer & quickly get to the point where you can start to ask some questions, identify some needs & discuss how you can help solve them;

1. Write down a sentence that describes your company’s positioning & what you deliver. Share this with other people in your organisation & ensure you are all broadly saying the same thing.  You don’t have to repeat parrot fashion the company line, your own words are much better but you do have to be consistent.

Once written down you & your colleagues will find yourselves adapting the sentence depending on the circumstances but the core message will remain the same.

Here’s ours for FJR Communications

‘We are an experienced marketing consultancy demonstrating improved results for clients through independent marketing director support, key action identification & account managed strategy implementation via a long list of trusted specialist partners. ‘

2. The natural follow on from explaining your positioning is to list the problems you have solved for other clients. I’ve found a good way is to hand over a nicely branded list & let the buyer read through & hopefully identify a few that they are experiencing.

Here’s an extract from the full marketing service sheetwe developed as Founding Partner of springboard, a 20 strong consortium designed to broaden our business development offering & list of specialists;

• Where can we get some quick customer leads & what return should we expect?
• Do we really understand all of our potential customers, their media habits & competitive buying decisions?
• Are we confident our proposition & brand image are the very best, clear & aligned to our customers needs?
• Do we really need social media?
• Is our website on page 1 of Google, is it attracting, capturing & managing enough of the right customers?
• Do our emails & PR get read & remarked upon?
• Is everyone in our business marketing us effectively particularly our sales team?

Of course if you are about to hit a screaming 3 wood to the green, agree to take their card & email over the list!

‘Any on there that are relevant at the moment?’ should get you nicely into a discussion on where you can help add some value.

3. Even if your list doesn’t evoke a positive response (it should if you’ve done your homework before the meeting – see this previous post) you still have the opportunity to show how you deliver on your initial statement.

For example at FJR Communication ‘our  results based service covers marketing strategy assessment & development, channel neutral digital & traditional marketing plans, interim marketing director support & supplier sourcing, negotiation & implementation management’

So next time someone casually asks ‘what you do’ you are prepared, can put them at ease, demonstrate you know what you are talking about & quickly move on to how you can help with their issues.

No more Ronnie Corbett monologues!

Infographic – 60 seconds in social media

Originally published by Brand Republic, here’s a great infographic that demonstrates just how much activity is happening in the social space every 60 seconds.

Take a guess on Pinterest, Foursquare, Flickr, Tagged, LinkedIn,StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube activity before you take a look at the slide below – bet you are way off!

2013 website amends invoice attached!

You’ve finally agreed on your new website design & structure. Your decisions have been supported by some good insight into what your customers are looking for & what your competition is doing. You’ve incorporated good practice in coding, so that it can be easily found by the search engines. Best of all it doesn’t seem to cost a huge amount but…

…have you considered the longer term costs?

For example is the all singing, all dancing platform suggested by your web team flexible to adapt with your business? Can anyone in your organisation update the site content with ease?

There should be a section in your digital brief called Future Proofing.

Here’s what I think should be included;

Design Update – We may want to change the look & feel of our site in the future.  The current design should be an overlay to the site structure & content. Any visual changes should be easily implemented without affecting site functionality.

Bolt On – The selected platform must have a strong support system so new modules & functionality can be easily added when required.

Content – Our web visitors expect our site to change as we introduced new products, services, offers & knowledge.  The selected Content Management System should be intuitive to use by anyone with basic computer skills & allow them to edit, add or delete content and menu headings.

You will have noticed I’ve used ‘selected’ a couple of times in the above.

I’m increasingly of the view that your web team shouldn’t be wedded to a single system or platform. Instead they should have a range to offer & be able to identify which is the most appropriate for your requirements today & in the future.

Alternatively ensure you brief at least 3 or 4 web teams & keep asking those searching questions to avoid a nasty website amends invoice in 12 months time!

Being just a friend doesn’t win business anymore

Use to be that a tenacious & yes sometimes manipulative sales person could do well. Back when I was buying £M’s of media, I met lots of them!

Then in the 90’s the internet exploded & there was the beginning of a shift in power. Customers started to research, compare offers & generally took back control of the sales process.

Much like the Direct Line ad, the slippery genius of a salesperson recognised that to succeed they had to work on the relationship AND deliver their promises.  The era of the long lunch, promo gifts, discounts and free overseas trips was born.

Fast forward to today & a good client relationship is almost a given (or at least should be!) in today’s highly competitive & undifferentiated market.  So how are some businesses succeeding?

I think it’s marrying a good relationship with good information.  In doing so a salesperson can help customers look at new revenue streams, improve efficiency & capabilities.  This new type of salesperson is willing to drive innovation, develop insights into a customer’s market & lead a customer to a solution.

Being a friend is no longer enough. Customers want someone who will help them develop an advantage by guiding them through an increasingly complex & ever changing environment.

Perhaps leadperson is a more appropriate title?

Infographic – History of Marketing 1900 to date

I love visualising information & this is a fabulous infographic from Hubspot, the in bound marketing software experts, traces the history of Marketing from the Gutenberg press to 106M Smartphone users & 55M Tablet users!

The digital train is leaving – are you on it?

We have all read articles about the ‘Digital Revolution/Explosion’. We know ourselves how easy it is to be connected virtually everywhere. But have you really considered the effect this rapid smartphone/smarttv/tablet adoption is having on how your customers buy from your business?

These were the predicted online trends a good few years ago that are now a reality.

Consumers are now;

• locating shops
• researching products
• comparing prices and reviews
• making purchases online
• relying  on the recommendations of friends and colleagues to help inform their buying decisions
• increasingly impervious to marketing hype preferring authenticity and honest answers
• in control with more power, influence, and discriminating than ever before.

So what is digital marketing?  Basically any digital channel that reaches consumers and that can build stronger relationships e.g. corporate websites, online communities, internet search-and-display advertising, mobile technologies, online videos, and social media such as Facebook and Twitter.

How much should you invest in digital marketing? It’s no surprise that there is a clear link between increased investment & increased expertise but what should you invest in digital marketing?  I feel that answer depends on where you believe your company is on the digital maturity scale. Within this scale I see three distinct stages & investment levels;

experimenting with <10% of total marketing budget

building with between 10% & 20%

digitally evolved with over 20% & sometimes over 50%

To help you decide on how digitally mature your business is I’ve listed below 8 statements.

1. Our digital marketing strategy is in line with our business objectives
2. We understand how our target consumers use digital channels & we select the most appropriate through testing their relative performances
3. We use objectives & metrics to select our  different marketing channels
4. We employ digital listening to assess our brand health
5. We have a centre of digital excellence
6. We have a  clear decision making process where digital overlaps with other departments
7. We encourage digital experimentation through a test & learn culture
8. Our CEO/MD believes in the importance of digital

Much like our SEO fitness scorecard, if you answered No to more than 5 then I would suggest you are in the experimenting stage & may lack the necessary capabilities in house.

Time to consider bridging this gap with some external support? Mind the digital gap!

Cold calling your prospects is a waste of time & money!

The temptation is to buy a database that broadly matches your target criteria then hit the phones. Surely if I make enough calls or can buy enough calling days, it will work – after all everyone says cold calling is a numbers game with a single digit response rate at the end.

Today we are so much better connected & informed. Any decision maker worth their salt will spot a mile off, any salesperson who hasn’t first considered a meaningful approach.

Remember the Bat Phone? Now that’s how to make a call – direct to the person who can help you achieve your objective.

Such a ‘red phone’ calls require;

• thorough planning
• structure
• research  to determine why you are calling
• knowledge about the person you are calling and most importantly…
• a strategy to persuade action

7 tips to make the perfect Bat Phone call:

1. Understand & research your customers – who & what influences their buy decision.
2. Have something to say – see if you have a shared connection or something in common & review ‘their’ media and social networks for insights and intelligence. Have at least one piece of interesting info before you call.
3. Never cold call a decision-maker – it’s likely you will only get one chance to pitch.
4. Remember  your P’s – 7 P’s, 5 P’s it doesn’t really matter,  the key is Preparation & Planning
5. Find a referrer.
6. Be confident & credible – you’re a business owner as well.
7. Don’t just rely on the Bat Phone – remember the Bat Sign? Use email wisely, send support information or insights & build up an effectively frequency of communication.

It may take weeks but the result will be worth the effort.

Video – 4 tips

4 quick video tips for a Friday;

1. Video is like a Pringle – you can’t eat just one!

One video is definitely better than no video at all and could help connect a client to your company. However a selection of videos can describe the multiple uses of a product, or explain to viewer how to do something particular with a service. This can have positive effect in reducing customer queries or information gathering errors.

Keeping a regular flow of new videos ensures an increase of viewership and can position your business as the ‘go to’ place within your industry.

2. Help you get found

Video content will increase the likelihood of your business being found on Google & other search engines.

Search Engine Optimization encompasses a range of tactics to ensure your site is attracting your customers & is easy for the search engines to ‘index’ what you offer.  The more video content the more SEO.

A 2009 study by Forrester Research found that with video, you are 53 times more likely to be found on Google’s first page of search results. Imagine what that multiple will be in 2012?

3. Keep it short & simple

Video almost forces you to cut down on complexity and to be concise – you only have a couple of minutes maximum so use all the features video can offer to get your message across quickly!

Plan, script, voice over, effects & testing are all critical to craft a great video.

and finally…

4. Don’t just put video’s on your website

Broaden your viewership potential by harnessing the power of social media & online syndication.

Numerous studies have shown how for example videos in press releases can dramatically increase views or when in emails how they can increase click through rates.

Think beyond your site – where else can you broadcast your videos?

To see some of the video’s we’ve helped develop please visit fjrcom.com