Listen very carefully – I shall say this only once!

It’s a common situation. You are finally in front of that ideal potential new business prospect, you’ve researched their business & competitors as per my previous post& you are keen to start firing questions. After all you want to impress them with your knowledge, years of experience & show them how keen you are to work with them! At the first opportunity or slight pause you are off.

Unfortunately you have confused questioning with listening as the most powerful communication tool.

BTW I’m not taking about just hearing or even worse just waiting for a gap to speak but hard, focussed listening. If done correctly it can;

• help solve problems & disagreements – not just at work!
• help us learn by seeing opinions through other people’s eye
• improve our empathy & understanding

If you achieve these 3 in your meetings then you are well on the way to exploring potentials where you can add some value & hopefully win some business.

The question is, how do you become a good listener? There are lots of descriptors about the right type of listening & the attributes you should display but I found this pretty good checklist to run through whilst in reception;

• Look for other person’s point-of-view & feelings
• Involve yourself in the conversation
• Summarise to confirm your understanding
• Takes notes
• Evaluate what’s being said
• Neutral about your own views

And yes it spells LISTEN!

Often we can find ourselves starting to form opinions & judgements as we walk in the door or after the first introductions. I’ve found a good tip is to use the simple act of opening my note book or more recently launching Word on my tablet as a prompt to clear my mind ready to begin listening.

We know ourselves how good it feels when someone else understands what we are saying. We finish the meeting with a real sense of purpose & knowing we can now get on with some positive actions – all because someone took the time to really listen!

Being green comes 4th!

In talking with clients & colleagues I’ve picked up a general sense that being green & environmentally friendly  have slipped down the criteria list during the recession. Focusing on quality, price & customer referrals are seen as much more important in shaping purchase habits.

However there wasn’t a sense of scale between these criteria – what was their relative importance to help guide marketing communications?

Research giant Euromonitor have just released their Global Green Buying Behaviour research & in it is this chart;

Of course this is an amalgamation of various sectors & countries but look where strong brand name appears!

By re-profiling the top 4 attributes we can build a benchmark against which we can compare our MarComs;

So next time you are deciding on what to include within that email campaign or PR piece, allow some space for your sustainability credentials.

Being green is still not as important as superb quality, great value & recommendations but they are perhaps more important than you would have thought!

Google is a bat!

We hear all the time about Google’s spiders crawling over the internet. In fact they are really more like bats when it comes to images!

Google can’t ‘see’ your image or logo but you can help it understand what it represents by ensuring you have good, descriptive ‘alt text’ attached to your images i.e. a good description of the image & what it is aiming to portray.

Obviously you don’t want to start stuffing every image with hundreds of keywords but if you match the textual content of the image (or banner ad) to the alt tag content you will be fine as regards compliance.

Like many SEO techniques, it is the sum of the parts over time that generates the results rather than any one activity.

Top 5 attributes of a friend!

New customer + right product + trusted recommendation = sale

Today with millions of brand conversations happening every day, I would estimate 8 out of every 10 purchases have been influenced by a trusted recommendation, whether from family, friends or a respected person.

Are you helping your brand advocates refer you business? Here are 5 tips on becoming their best friend; 

 1. Know your customers

Somewhat of a recurring theme of mine but once you have an acute understanding of your customers you can offer relevant advice that solves their problems

 2.    Legal, decent, honest & truthful

The Advertising Standards Authority mantra is a good one to chant at every customer touch point.

Those brands that consistently deliver customers expectations & as such are seen as reliable, will gain trust. In hard economic times, trust will support your business through recommendations.

 3.    Predict what your customers need

The vast majority of customer decision-making is subconscious. If you have & continue to work on that deep knowledge of your customer’s personalities, motives & needs you will soon be able to offer solutions before your customers really know they needed them!

 4.    Listen & ask questions

Find out what your customers thought of your service. Respond to queries & answer problems quickly with the Advertising Standards Authorities mantra in your ears.

Happy customers are advocates who will come back & bring their friends with them!

 5.    Core customers are king

This was a theme from an earlier post but I can’t emphasise enough how important it is to keep this group well informed. Reward their loyalty, remembering to be consistent & you should in turn be rewarded with positive comments & referrals. 

Every time you are about to ‘market’ your business, be that at a networking event, an email, a Tweet, a sales pitch, a post or call, remember to act like the friend you would want to have. Your advocates will buy your services AND help to sell your business for you just because you understood & treated them well.

When to sell & when to negotiate?

Do you sometimes find yourself in awkward sales positions having to negotiate your way round a problem or a misunderstanding?

Does price become the issue rather than value?

Perhaps you are relying on negotiation skills too heavily & should reconsider the client’s priorities & needs & how you can help them achieve results.

Here’s a number of customer reactions & what I think is the correct response – sell or negotiate;

But what to sell & what to negotiate on?

Here are some possible options for each customer expression;

• Needs should be addressed & satisfied.
• Objections should be clarified & where appropriate corrected.
• Interest should be turned into an order through further rationale of added value.
• Acceptance should be turned into an order.
• Demands should trigger review & analysis from the customer’s perspective.
• Consideration should be supported by your best proposal & reiteration of how you add value.
• Rejection should trigger the fall back plan

I talked about the concept of a leadsperson rather than a salesperson in this previous post. The idea was that a good sale is one where the customer is lead or guided to an advantage that delivers the best possible results.

I think we could change that to leadsconsultant, as good selling is all about providing good consultation based on relevant knowledge.

Landing pages – 4 top tips to manage conflict

We’ve all seen both good & bad landing or sign up pages on our digital travels.

However how often have you taken the time to consider what makes a good experience v a bad one?

Take a look at this chart;

There is often a very fine balance between capturing as much information as the business requires compared to what the user is willing to divulge to receive the benefit the business is offering.

As a business here are 4 tips to help get the balance right;

1. Set defaults to your preferences – generally people are lazy & will leave tick boxes alone if they are pre-ticked.

2. Don’t be pushy – only ask for the information you actually need & bracket answers eg age 35 – 44

3. Following the group is reassuring – show how many people have signed up already or if you are just starting include a few customer testimonials

4. Don’t strangle the impulse – keep users informed eg step 2 or 3

Above all put yourself in the shoes of your customer & reassure them that what they are giving you will be worth what you are about to give them.

In fact apply this to all your digital marketing & you won’t go far wrong!

 

Digital marketing strategy – Don’t forget LinkedIn!

Does your business sell to other businesses? If so LI Pay Per Click should at least be on your test plan.

Yes it might be a little pricey compared to other platforms but it has one of the most refined targeting systems available.

Want to show an ad to all event managers in London alerting them to your  new catering menu? Perhaps you have a target list of companies you would like to attract Both these are possible through LI & don’t forget the supporting awareness your ad will generate.

Haven’t designed that campaign landing page yet? LI has a neat lead collection tool.

It creates a pop-up on your standard pages allowing LI to manage the lead for you. Potential customer can perform a ‘Request for Contact’ follow-up directly from the ad.

Finally don’t forget to tag your test ads so results will show up in Google Analytics.

3 weeks left for capital expenditure decisions!

You might be considering new office equipment, machinery, updates to your office infrastructure or certain forms of research & development projects.

If you purchase these after 31st March you will now pay tax on anything above the new £25,000 allowance . The current allowance is £100,000.

An accountants example;

Company year-end 30 April 2012

Only purchase in year for a company is a £75,000 lathe completed on 31 March 2012

Capital allowances to offset against company profit is £75,000

Compare this to the same purchase but completed on 1 April 2012

Capital allowances to offset against company profit is £16,547.

A difference of £58,453 or £11,690 in tax @ 20%!

Please also note that the main rate for writing down allowances also reduces from 20% to 18% on 31 March 2012.

If you are undecided on whether to buy that new ‘next best thing’ then ask your finance team to calculate the tax if you wait until April - should focus the decision!

Infographic – Pinterest for business

Originally published by The Wall, this is a great infographic on the amazingly fast growing social site, Pinterest.

If you are targetting women with a product that is very visual, take a look at some of these stats;

2/3’s of brand owners are already on the Digital Train – are you?

The Society of Digital Agencies in partnership with Econsultancy, polled 651 new media executives. Well over 2/3’s  confirmed they are in the process of adapting their marketing operations in light of the ever evolving digital marketplace.

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about being on the Digital Train. This latest US research highlights just how important it is to have a digital strategy. Here are some of the highlights;

• Teams are being reorganised around consumer segments
• Social learning is being spread throughout the organisations
• Social listening is being integrated into traditional research
• Voice of the customer groups are being built
• More resources are being allocated to digital capabilities with digital marketing expenditure being increased v 2011
• Increased emphasis is being placed on corporate blogs, apps, digital brand management , measurement, mobile websites & social media marketing

“The things that we learn from our interaction with people via reviews and online forums really help us understand what consumers … feel are the really pertinent issues around consumer electronics,” said Matthew Moller, senior manager for customer engagement at Samsung Electronics.

Now is a very good time to start developing your digital strategy.

I say this because the market appears to be levelling out of its dive, according to the latest CBI quarterly report. Combine this with the  fairly lean time that’s been experienced by the digital  outsourcing community & there are opportunities to get on the Digital Train at off peak rates!