teamsstepup, Author at StepUp Marketing

5 Creative Presentation Ideas from Top Sales Leaders

Posted on December 19, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

While sales isn’t the only profession that has to deliver impactful presentations frequently, it’s certainly something sales professionals do regularly. So how can you go about keeping your prospect’s attention and covering all the information you need? Try these five creative presentation ideas I learned from Julie Hansen of Performance Sales and Training to improve your presentation style and gain new and effective presentation skills.

#1 Break Your Talk Down Into Chunks

People are constantly being bombarded with new and exciting information and the average attention span has gone down to five minutes. This means long, linear presentations are no longer the most effective way to present your material. Instead, you should break your talk into three to five minute chunks and focus each chunk on a certain part of the message. Changing chunks is as simple as changing topics or shifting to a new point.

#2 Focus on What’s Most Important

Your prospect has already read your website and reviewed enough information to determine whether you’re likely to be able to help them, so skip the parts of the presentation where you introduce your company. Just like movies and novels start with the most compelling part of the action, your presentation should start by answering the main questions that they’re likely to have. Focus on what’s going to be most important to them.

#3 Customize For Your Audience

Different buyers of the same product will be interested in different features or aspects. Take the time to think about what might be driving their purchasing decisions and customize your presentation to talk to the specific prospect. This is more than putting their logos on your standard slide deck. This is doing your research and getting into their heads to be able to answer those most important questions first. Ask yourself how your features will impact them. When you understand your customers, you can help connect the dots between the problem they have and the solution you’re offering.

#4 Know Your Key Point

What is the one thing you want your audience to walk away from your presentation remembering? For a sales professional, it’s probably that you can help them solve a certain problem. If you know the key point you want them to take home, you can then build the rest of your presentation about that topic and present it in a number of different fashions to improve its stickiness.

#5 Keep Your Audience Engaged

When your audience is actively engaged with your presentation, they are much more likely to remember the details of the material you’re presenting. There are many different ways to engage your audience, asking questions is only one. Simple engagement such as slides, videos, and stories is the first step. Active engagement such as questions and contests are even better. You can add these engaging sections in between the different chunks of your talk to help break it up and keep your audience attentive.

With these five tips, you’ll be sure to keep your audience engaged and spark an ongoing conversation about how you can help your prospect. While we can’t replace the charisma and art of the sales professional in the field, Team StepUp can support your company with great branding, insightful content, and lead generation. We can also help with automation – get a taste of how automation can improve efficiency with our free guide to email follow-up. These and other automation tools free your sales team to do what they do best – take the story of your company and share it with your best prospects, personally.

Team Motivation: How to Get it, and How to Grow it

Posted on December 12, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

Where does team motivation come from? In our blog post last week we talked about training for sales teams, which when done right can definitely contribute to motivation. Some motivational speakers might argue that a great video or talk can give your sales team the motivation they need to grow. Warren Greshes, of Speaking of Success, would disagree. Greshes argues that it is next to impossible to externally motivate someone and the only effective way to motivate anyone was to figure out their personal motivating factors.

Rather than trying to motivate someone externally through inspiring them or pushing them, it’s better to help them become intrinsically motivated. As a sales leader, your job is to give your team the tools and techniques they need to be successful. First, you have to start by finding out everything about each person on your team, from their personal goals to their wants and needs, just like you would if you were trying to sell to a client. Once you have that information, you have the key to motivating them by showing them how working for you moves them closer to their personal goals.

Go Through a Goal-Setting Process

It can take some time to go through a goal-setting process, but help them draw up a one to five year plan with specific steps attached. You may have to connect the dots and help them see that the lifestyle or personal goals they have are obtainable and exactly how much selling they’ll have to do to achieve those goals. Everyone is motivated by something different, so you’ll need to sit down with each person and discover what motivates them and what their goals are.

In some situations, you may need to help them draw the lines between how they envision their future and how their career success will get them there. If they know what kind of lifestyle they want in five years, then you can turn that into specific numbers of sales calls or meetings they need to make each quarter to make it happen. In other words, you translate their efforts into the money necessary to create the lifestyle they want. Money by itself doesn’t motivate, it’s the lifestyle money enables. It’s important to understand that business and personal goals work together to create motivation.

Tie Long Term Goals to Short Term Action

Once you know the goals, you can reverse engineer and write down milestones you want to meet every month to build up towards your final goal. Then write your goals down, set the metrics you want to meet, and track everything. Tracking allows you to manage someone by showing them what else they need to do to meet their goals and keeps you from having to micromanage your sales team.

Sustaining motivation over time is done by showing people how their actions are moving them forward. A five year plan is great, but you should break that into smaller milestones so that you can measure your progress and celebrate your results more frequently. Once you help your sales team members make a plan, you’ll want to revisit it every quarter to make sure they can see how they’re moving forward and make changes as life changes.

Your sales team is your client, so in addition to helping motivate them to work, you also want to provide them the training, tools, and support they need to reach their goals. You can start by sending them the link to our guide on email follow-up, which sets out key tips and tools for customising and automating email follow-up and making efficient use of the leads your sales team gets. You’ll have to motivate your sales team, but we can make sure they’re getting the content, leads, and digital support they need to turn those goals into reality.

Building a Team with Sales Skills You (and They!) Really Want

Posted on December 5, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

Part of managing a sales team, especially at a growing or large company, is facilitating development of sales skills among team members. Katie Early and Kieran O’Flynn, Hubspot sales managers, recently shared a video within the Hubspot community in which they discussed their role in building a team with sales skills that translated to success.

Being a sales manager means you’re motivated to move the needle at your company in a big way, but you’re also focused on supporting the team members who work with you to make that possible. This means when it comes to training, you should pay attention to both what will improve the team as a whole and what will help your sales staff continue their professional growth. A good sales manager pays attention to each of these concerns and implements skills training options that address each one.

Internal or External Training?

Training can be accomplished both internally by a company trainer, sales manager, or other sales leader and externally by bringing in experts in the field or sending members of the team out into the community to get training. Sales leaders should have the ability and flexibility to mix the types and formats of the training their team receives to keep people engaged and reach those with different learning styles.

For example, sometimes having team members sit in a round table and discuss how they handled a particular aspect of the sales process is valuable because everyone gets an opportunity to share and learn from the others. In other cases, it helps to do simulated sales calls or one-on-one reviews to work with a specific team member on the skills they need to master. For the specific needs of certain team members, being able to send them to a training conference or executive classes at a community college can be helpful.

Training for Top Performers

It is important for sales managers to really get to know the individuals on their teams so that they can not only pinpoint what skills will help the most people, but how everyone likes to learn. Further, you should keep conversations open with your highest performing sales members to find out what kind of specialized training they need or would like to receive. Everyone wants to keep learning and growing, so you shouldn’t ignore the top performers just because they’re doing so well already. Sales teams often have high turnover after 2-3 years. A good sales manager is paying attention to everyone on their team, even the senior members, to make sure they feel like their careers are still moving in the right direction and that the company is invested in their success.

The other consideration for sales managers is how to make this training repeatable. After all, the odds are that if one salesperson needs this training, so will another. Can you replicate the curriculum you prepared by saving slides, taking a recording, or teaching others on the sales team to deliver the training?

If you’re wondering how your sales team can leverage digital data and inbound marketing information, download our guide on automating email followup. It’s packed with more tips for sales teams on customizing and automating lead followup to increase productivity and save time.

How to Combine Inbound and Outbound Marketing to Create a Powerful Lead Funnel

Posted on November 27, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

I recently watched a talk by Mark Hunter of The Sales Hunter, which I loved because he suggested a novel approach to mixing inbound and outbound marketing to make your sales funnel flow faster. For many industries that have traditionally been reliant on a skilled sales team, mixing the two creates an ideal combination.

What’s interesting about inbound marketing is that it’s effective because it focuses on leads who already have a need and are looking for that need to be met. With inbound marketing you produce helpful content for those leads in many different channels and then introduce them to your solution for their need.

However, particularly if you’re selling expensive products or services, the need you’re trying to meet is far more customized than a simple consumer product. That’s where the telephone comes into play. Your inbound marketing is designed to qualify your leads and then, by getting the person on the phone, you can understand their needs and help them move towards a purchasing decision much faster. Here are some tips Mark gave for successfully employing this mixed-marketing strategy:

Continuity

Having a strong presence on the right social media channels for your industry is key. It’s all about creating brand awareness and familiarity with customers, so when they have a need, they recognize the name of your company and know you may be able to fill their needs.

Competence

Once you’ve gotten a new lead, either because they’re interacting with you on social media or they’ve filled out a contact form on your website, you want to jump on that lead right away and engage with them in person. Getting phone numbers here, in addition to email addresses, gives you the ability to open a discussion with the customer immediately. Start the conversation with a question that fits your services. If you can understand their need, then you are able to show them your company can meet their need.

Confidence

Once your customer is sure you understand their requirements, you’ve reached a point where they have confidence in your abilities. You’ve also instilled confidence that you’re attentive, available, and responsive to their concerns and needs. Reaching out over the phone to the leads social media has qualified for you, asking good questions, and listening is the way to create opportunities.

Opportunity

By reaching out to a qualified lead on the phone, asking questions, and showing them that you are interested in and understand their challenges, you’ve created an opportunity for business.

Process

As with everything you do in a well-run business, you’ve created a process for your sales team that goes from interested buyer to qualified lead to opportunity and request for quote. This takes advantage of the best in modern digital marketing and traditional cold calling.

Mixing inbound and outbound marketing is a great way to both bolster and streamline your sales funnel, especially as more companies are largely relying on social media and neglecting traditional forms of advertising. When you call a potential contact, your business immediately stands out. They get a feeling and comfort level for who they’ll be dealing with.

Even if you don’t get someone on the phone, leaving a brief voicemail creates a positive first impression. Be short, specific, and clear as many people now convert their voicemail to text. Make sure you follow up after your voicemail with a related email. Most people need to be touched by marketing messages several times in order to turn into customers. If one of those touches is a phone call, then you’re establishing the human connection behind the social content machine.

Looking for follow up email templates to help automate part of your sales funnel and free you up to devote more time to personal touches like phone conversations? Download our free guide, “Best Follow-up Email Templates” designed exclusively for B2B sales and marketing teams who want to make the most of their leads.

5 Secrets of the Best Sales Emails

Posted on November 19, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

Why should you spend time planning and writing a sales email? Because when done right, it absolutely works to drive traffic to your business. A recent talk by Heather Morgan from SalesFolk highlighted ways to create the best sales emails for your business.

Download our guide to email follow up after a trade show.

There are many reasons to consider reaching out to prospects via email. First, marketing has changed significantly in the last decade. There is more competition in all industries and it is no longer enough just to shout “I am here!” and wait for the work to appear. Telemarketing and cold calls are hard and not as effective. You need to adapt your approach to continue to gain new customers and projects.

Inbound marketing is the new way to attract and educate qualified leads, but building quality content takes time. You also have to spread this content over multiple channels such as email marketing, Facebook, and LinkedIn to attract leads to your website.

If done right, sales emails can be very an effective way to attract, educate, and retain clients. Here are five principles to follow to create an effective sales email:

Know Your Audience

Are you writing to the CEO? Then your email should address concerns most CEOs have such as cutting costs and boosting sales. Writing to the engineers? Then talk about tolerance, maintenance costs, or customization options. Spend some time looking at the web profiles of the company and individuals you’re targeting. You’ll be able to learn what they’re reading about and where their interests are. You can also see what thought leaders and industry influencers they follow. From this information, you can understand what their concerns are and how they’re making decisions. All this information can help you draft a better sales email.

Get a Reaction

People react to an email for three reasons:

Curiosity: Humans are, by nature, curious about things they aren’t familiar with. Use curiosity to get people to open your emails by employing leading questions as your subject line.
Desire: When you can paint a compelling picture of how you’re going to solve a problem and improve their situation, clients are quickly motivated to take action.
Fear: This is when you talk about situations people want to avoid. You can target their problems and pain points. Just be careful that your email is designed to motivate quick action and not make them give up.

Download our guide to email follow up after a trade show.

Create a Feeling of Trust

Call on existing customers to brag about your company. When it’s someone else exclaiming your virtues, prospects are more likely to take note. Ask your current clients to share a story about how you’ve helped them succeed. Get them to describe what it’s like working with you. Share a picture of your client or their name so that they are relatable.

Have a Clear Goal for Your Email

It is important to be specific about the goal of your email. Do you want the prospect to call you? Fill out a form? If you know what your goal is, you can craft your entire email towards the one simple action you want the prospect to take.

Collect Data

Be a data fanatic. Set goals for your sales campaigns and measure your results. Modern email marketing tools come equipped with email testing capabilities, advanced reporting, and lots of specific insight into what’s happening with each email.

Many people are afraid of cold emailing, but success really depends on your state of mind. If you have a great product or service that can truly help the people you’re contacting, then it is your obligation to sell it.

Now you know you need to send sales emails – but what to write? Check out our free guide of proven follow up sales email templates for ideas of emails to use throughout the sales process, and for every kind of lead. Templates can help you semi-automate your follow up process, save time, and reach more of the leads you want. When you use the right tools, the right leads will come your way.

Three Key Tips for Converting the Right Leads

Posted on October 26, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

Every business has a specific customer they’re looking for – preferably one who can afford their services and is ready to make a purchasing decision. For B2C companies, this customer might be clear to everyone. But for B2B companies and in particular industrial companies, often only the owner of the business inherently understands the profile of their ideal customer. Communicating this to sales and marketing teams, and making sure that you are converting the right leads, is a challenge.

Inbound marketing is a marketing methodology that addresses this issue. In contrast to traditional marketing or even digital marketing, inbound marketing involves creating a system that starts with understanding the ideal customer. This understanding then guides an entire process of communication. Here are three key steps you can follow to start building an inbound system:

1. Create a Clear Buyer Persona

Take the time to sit down and draft a persona for your ideal customer. What role do they hold within their organization? How educated are they about your industry? What specific needs do they have that your company can fill? Is there a certain size or type of order they might need?

For businesses marketing to other businesses, this means that your buyer is generally someone in management or procurement at another business. They’re generally well educated and have done at least some basic research about your industry. Define exactly who this person is so that sales and marketing are reaching people who can make decisions, have projects your business can complete, and are focusing on converting the right leads.

2. Ensure Marketing and Sales Alignment

Particularly when businesses focus heavily on a professional sales team, marketing may get less focus. However, marketing still plays an important role in making sure the message is consistent and that potential leads are aware of the brand. Regular communication between marketing and sales personnel will ensure that marketing isn’t over-promising the company’s capabilities and the sales team is presenting a consistent, professional image.

3. Create a Clear Sales Funnel

In a manufacturing company, there is a clear process required for each task within the manufacturing process. In the same way, creating a sales funnel where a prospect goes from a stranger to a customer makes sure you’re capturing the information you need to make informed marketing decisions. It also ensures you can properly analyze every lead that comes your way, focusing on converting the right leads that will become customers.

Start with a clear process to document and track leads and move them from someone who is just learning about your business into a prospective customer. Your sales team should also have a clear process to follow for approving and sending out request for quotes and handling changes requested by customers. Even a simple process can be useful to make sure you don’t miss any details and, if set up correctly, can scale as your company grows.

Handling the marketing aspects of a growing business may seem like you have to learn a completely new, and highly technical, subject. That’s why collaborating with an outside marketing firm that specializes in B2B sales such as StepUp Marketing is helpful. While you’ll still have to articulate clearly who your buyer is, they have the technical expertise to set up the marketing processes that feed directly into your sales funnel.

Blogging For Business – 5 Reasons To Apply It To Your Business ASAP

Posted on March 27, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

In the past, blogs were considered a rarity within the business world – very niche specific, without much value. Now, this is no longer true – blogging for business has evolved to be the main staple in most business marketing strategies and more specifically, within any inbound marketing strategy.

While blogging can take some time and may even seem slightly daunting, the advantages of having a blog for your business are numerous and hard to ignore.

Business Blogging Defined

First, it’s important to note that business blogging looks different than other forms of blogging. Perhaps you choose to blog in your free time, or maybe you’re a frequent reader of travel blogs, that’s all great. But with business blogs, you must keep in mind that its main purpose is to be part of a strategic marketing plan.

The length of posts can range drastically, yet what’s important is that you treat the blog as a part of your company’s website, and keep the subject of posts relevant to what you are selling or providing.

The goal of the blog should be to increase online visibility, whether that is through SEO or social media. Use your company’s expertise to share insights of real value with potential customers. Ensure that posts are speaking to your client’s challenges, holding their interest and proving to them that you are established within your specific industry. Showing them the value that your company has to offer simultaneously promotes your service or product, prompting traffic to be converted into leads.

Why Blog?

In 2017, a blog for your business has more to offer than ever before. The overhead is low, and the benefits are high. Consider this:

Companies that blog have 97% more inbound links
82% of consumers enjoy reading relevant content from brands
Websites with a blog have 434% more indexed pages
77% of internet users admit to using blogs

Here are five best reasons why we believe blogging for your business is a must:

#1. Business Blogging Drives Traffic

This was briefly mentioned above but is important enough to really dig into. Specifically, with Inbound Marketing, driving traffic (instead of being annoying/distracting) truly is key.

Make sure to view your blog as an extension of your website. Hopefully, your website has been kept simple and doesn’t have a lot of pages, yet most likely isn’t updated as frequently as a blog would be updated. Which is perfectly fine, because blog posts are basically just indexed pages on your website.

A statistic from Hubspot notes that 78% of internet users are turning to the internet to do their product research. With frequent blog posts addressing the concerns of your potential consumers, the odds of them stumbling upon those indexed pages are high.

With every blog that you write and post, you are increasing your chances of:

Showing up in search engines (driving traffic)
Increasing your social media presence with your current audience/followers
Expanding the potential of being discovered via social media by new potential leads

Think of it this way – with each blog post you are publishing, you are increasing the odds that your audience will be sharing and re-sharing this post to others. It’s a simple way to build on free marketing, while also building credibility.

All the above examples are working towards your end goal of driving more traffic, resulting in more potential leads. Which brings us to our second reason.

#2. Blogging & Building Leads

In short, having a blog for your business is going to generate more leads, it’s as simple as that. The traffic that we mentioned above, some of it is looking specifically for your product or service, and therefore are well-positioned to be converted into leads once discovering your blog. When it comes to converting those leads, the use of ‘call to action’ opportunities within the blog are crucial.

Blogs are a GREAT opportunity to utilize CTA’s. Some simple CTA’s to consider adding to blog posts can range from free fact sheets, webinars, training, even an e-book; any simple value-add that encourages a visitor to exchange their contact information. Without a CTA, it may be little more challenging to ensure that you’re turning blog traffic into leads.

Part of turning your traffic into leads is also developing that relationship. The language or tone that your blog uses may help to connect more with your audience than your actual website does. When writing posts, consider asking questions towards the end to promote comments from your readers; which also will give you a view into the kind of traffic you are seeing come through your blog, and what kind of solutions they may be seeking out.

Along with building relationships with your traffic and/or potential leads comes the perk of also building trust. Or in other words, credibility.

#3. Creating Credibility

Stemming directly from the concept of building relationships through your blog now comes the concept of establishing yourself as a credible source of information to your audience; one of authority. The more that you are able to interact with your prospects and answer their questions, the more quickly you can build up that authority.

Perhaps there is confusion around a certain issue, or a visitor is unsure of how to solve a particular problem. If an existing blog post of yours is able to answer a question or solve that problem, you’re able to quickly (and easily) build up that credibility with a visitor, simultaneously increasing the chances of turning them into a lead.

It makes sense; if you’re able to organically utilize a blog to answer questions, the chances of your audience then trusting you and being willing to enter the sales process will be much higher than without. Not to mention the fact that your leads are coming to you more educated because of that blog, which may enable them to actually move through the sales process more quickly than those being established from ground zero.

At the end of the day, you should be striving to create a blog that establishes yourself as the “go-to” resource when it comes to your industry. Provide educational, easy-to-digest knowledge for your blog traffic, and you will build leads that trust you – leading to higher customer conversion rates. It’s as simple as that.

#4. Connecting With Clients

A business blog is also a great tool to genuinely connect with your customers, and communicate with one another. Focus on posting content that addresses issues or pain points that they have (and that you can solve), or use posts to further explore areas that may also be of interest to your audience.

It can be a great resource to test new ideas and thoughts on different solutions or products, by posting and then seeing how your audience directly responds. Using the “comment” feature at the bottom of a blog post is a must; end posts by encouraging your readers to respond to it with their thoughts or questions, and then use that direct feedback as some navigation as your business continues to move forward.

Perhaps your readers are choosing to reach out and comment on challenges that you had never even considered before. Just like the use of social media, blogs can be a great opportunity to then use that information that is freely given to you, and explore ideas within your own business, so that you can possibly offer solutions around those pain points being voiced while growing your business over time.

#5. In it for the Long-Haul

The last thing to consider when it comes to blogging for your business is that blog posts can help grow your business, forever. If you are writing relevant content for your readers to absorb and utilize, your blog posts will continue to bring traffic to your website for years to come.

Think about it. Once you share a new blog post, the hope is that it gets shared, reshared, read through emails being sent out, social media, and so on. This helps your blog to get ranked in search engines and then sets you up to be found in the future – for the weeks and months to come.

So essentially we are suggesting that a blog is not only a short-term but a long-term investment. As long as posts contain a value, they will continue to offer value as long as they continue to exist out there on the world wide web. Be patient, don’t always expect immediate results, and trust that traffic (and leads) will continue to flow in from your blog, over time.

Hubspot – our marketing platform – actually reported that 70% of their blog traffic per month actually comes from posts that weren’t even published during that month. The traffic came from old posts. Old posts, with great value.

It’s Time to Blog for Your Business

When it comes to building your business, blogging can be an extremely relevant, helpful tool, without having to put excessive amounts of time and effort into it. And the best part is, if you don’t know where to start, there are plenty of resources out there to help you launch your business blog and get it underway.

Questions? Comments? Want some help with starting a blog – or your entire marketing campaign? Get in touch with us today!

5 Reasons To Use Hubspot As Your Marketing Platform

Posted on March 24, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

Are you still wondering why you should be using Hubspot for your marketing? It’s well known that inbound marketing has proven itself as the most effective option within the marketing world. Yet common hesitations to using inbound marketing can include concerns that too much work needs to go into it, and having to use many different software and/or applications at the same time.

Inbound marketing can be hard work, but that’s why it works. And with the help of Hubspot, it can become very simple and easy to track and act.

What is Hubspot?

In short, Hubspot helps you to maximize and simplify your inbound marketing efforts. It is a marketing platform, ranked as the best inbound marketing platform in the world, that serves over 10,000 companies in 65 different countries. The platform scoops up all of your current software, services, support systems, etc., and puts them all into one place, on one platform.

We’re confident that after just a short period of time using Hubspot as a platform, you’ll quickly see the added value it offers, and how it is contributing to your business growth. And while the platform comes at a price, let’s be honest; the use of several marketing applications at once can be JUST as pricey if not more. So instead of juggling several log-ins, software, and having to use four monitors at once just to keep track of it all – keep it simple, and put all of that money into one, easy-to-use platform. Hubspot.

Here are some reasons why Hubspot is the answer to your marketing needs:

#1. Centralized, All-in-One Toolset

How often do we find ourselves at work logging into many different software and tools, often having to pull up multiple screens, and jump from window to window to get work done? With Hubspot, it’s one password and one platform; everything you need to get your work done, all in one place.

Anything from your blog, email, landing pages, and forms is all kept and stored within Hubspot. There are even reporting options, and an SEO view, and a handy tool called Social Inbox that syncs your various social media accounts into one place.

That means that you don’t need to constantly be rotating from Twitter to Facebook to Instagram, and so on; it can all be pulled into the Hubspot platform so that you can monitor, respond, and even schedule future posts all from one place.

More Hubspot Platform tools:

Website content management system
Blogging platform
Social Media platform
Analytics software
Email marketing platform
CRM
Landing page & Call To Action tools
Excel or Google Sheets

#2. Personalization Options

The personalization and attention to detail that goes into your inbound marketing strategy are truly what brings the value. Hubspot offers some mind-blowing personalization option in regards to this.

An example of this is Hubspot’s Smart Call to Actions (Smart CTAs) that can actually be built into your website with their Content Optimization System (COS). The entire system is built around website personalization, responsiveness, and the smart CTAs. Plus, with the use of the HubSpot software, everything is integrated into the platform – even your website!

With the use of Hubspot’s COS, you are able to craft and mold your website’s content for individual visitors based on things like location, language, source, device, or by literally any detail that’s stored in your contact database.

The feedback that you then get from the COS – which is labeled as HubSpot’s smart content insights – allows you to receive all of the information surrounding your website’s visitors, making personalization for your audience easier than ever before.

#3. Hubspot Automation

With only so many hours in the day, automating tasks and systems can not only be useful, it’s often quite necessary. Hubspot gets that; automation is their middle name.

Take Workflows for an example, their marketing automation app that can basically automate as much or as little of your marketing efforts as you desire, in a contextual and measurable manner. The best part is Workflows taps into Hubspot’s entire platform, allowing the creation of items like email lists to be built on literally any criteria – from persons to custom lead scores, etc.

It starts with setting the goal of whatever you want your automation to be. So take something simple like sending emails; from there you can choose to build in your contact properties, add them to a list, create and then label the emails. Hubspot can help you to schedule optimal timing while keeping the sales funnel in mind.
Or you may choose a ‘recipe’ that is listed within Workflows, which are automation that already exists, have been tested and proven to work in regards to lead nurturing and business growth. This simple option can speed up your automation process even further.

Other automation examples include:

Automating specific tasks
Updating contact properties
Automating emails sent to leads’ owners when a lead is sales qualified.

#4. Simple, Easy to Navigate the Platform

If you haven’t already noticed, Hubspot is all about simplifying your inbound marketing plan. So if it isn’t attractive enough just to know that all of your tools are in one place, how about also knowing that they are in one, easy to navigate software?

Let’s take a look at reporting, a task that a lot of people may dread or be intimidated by. Perhaps you don’t even know where to start when it comes to reporting. The HubSpot platform offers both free reporting, as well as event analysis. There are various reports on your contacts, companies, and attribution reports, or you can choose the route of letting Hubspot walk you through how to easily build your own customizable reports.

Because inbound marketing is such a new, growing industry with tons of potential, there is the fact that you’ll be seeing constant improvements and additions to your platform. Hubspot does a fantastic job of consistently offering new, easy to use tools that are evolving to meet new demands within the industry, all while being mindful of keeping your life simple.

#5. Customer Relationship Management

CRM’s have pretty much become a ‘must have’ when it comes to your set of marketing tools. Guess what? With Hubspot, your CRM is free (and perhaps just this alone justifies the cost).

Of course, the CRM is located within that same platform and pulls from your contact information, helping to inform you on exactly how those leads are interacting with your content. As always, personalization is the name of the game, and the extreme personalization of your Hubspot CRM helps to ensure that you are staying relevant in the sales process.

The Hubspot CRM takes as much information as it’s able to piece together on a lead, and then presents it as a profile for your sales team to use for whatever they may need, from follow-ups and check-ins to pursuing hot leads.

More CRM Perks:

Integrates with the Hubspot database seamlessly
Timeline feature helps you to stay organized, track and manage details, organize your day.
Recording of phone calls/log emails

Last but not least, alongside the CRM tool comes the little brother – Hubspot Sales. HubSpot Sales comes in two versions – a free version, and a $50 option. This feature is similar to having a personal assistant that helps to manage your sales emails and makes sure you know your leads and potential buyers.

More Hubspot Sales Perks:

Insights from your email and your browser
Notification of when your email is read
Helps to schedule timely emails

The Wrap Up

To be honest, the list of what Hubspot has to offer as a marketing platform could go on for days; these are just a few of our favorites. At the end of the day, in order to both maximize and simplify your inbound marketing efforts, Hubspot is your one-stop shop. Make your marketing life easier, while continuing to grow your business and delight your customers.

How to use the new Facebook Messenger Ads to drive qualified leads to your business

Posted on March 20, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

This past fall, Facebook decided that it was time to change the advertising game with the update of Facebook Messenger Ads. You might jump to the opinion that this ad type will only work best with the more ‘techy’ audiences, or larger companies with a big social media presence, etc. But let’s look at this single statistic:
There are over 1 billion Facebook Messenger users. One. Billion.
All of your potential leads? They’re all on Facebook.

This chart from Business Insider is mind-blowing. At the beginning of 2015, monthly usage of the top four messaging apps surpassed usage of the top four social networks.

Anyone Can Benefit From Facebook Messenger Ads

With the right resources, any business can benefit from Facebook Messenger Ads.

Here’s another quick stat for you: by the middle of 2015, the monthly usage of the top four messaging apps had surpassed the usage of the top four social media networks.

But let’s take a step back from the numbers. Instead, let’s look at the basic facts of business growth. When it comes to marketing, businesses should join the conversation as a possible resource as early in the game as possible.

Facebook Messenger allows us to enter that conversation much sooner. Your business can be present in the early stages when the customer is still forming opinions and educating themselves. It allows for the ability to be extremely reactive as a business, and hyper aware of the customer’s journey.

So how do Facebook Messenger ads even work? Great question. Let’s take a look.

Facebook Messenger as a Destination

Also known as Destination Ads, Messenger Ads hang out in your leads’ newsfeeds and are seen on both desktop and mobile views. One click and your potential consumers are then taken to a Facebook message to communicate directly with you/your bot.

The advertisement itself looks like any normal Facebook ad, but the exciting new advantage here is the option to start a conversation. Instead of a ‘call to action,’ consider it to be a “call to conversation.”

For many people, this may actually be very appealing. Often when people are searching for solutions or answers to questions, they would rather connect directly with you/your company. Otherwise they are clicking on a hyperlink and are taken away to another website, left searching for the answers to their questions.

The options are open when creating the ad, with the ability to select options like interests, behaviors, different custom audiences and so on.

Destination Ads: Audiences to Target

Facebook Messenger Destination Ads can be a great option when it comes to retargeting an audience. It gives the unique opportunity for people to ask the questions that may be holding them back from actually purchasing your product.

Yet another audience to consider are the potential customers that haven’t even heard of your company or solution. Overall, a Destination Ad can help to build awareness around what you have to offer. It allows for a sales conversation to be had at the choice of your potential lead. Running an ad with the right question could potentially prompt a quality conversation, leading to the gain of new customers more quickly.

Inbound Marketing – The Future of Marketing and Sales

Posted on March 13, 2017February 26, 2024 by teamsstepup

Marketing and sales: is one more important for business growth? It’s an ongoing discussion in the industry. For years sales people have argued they are the most important figures in the business and marketers have claimed that without them sales people are useless.

In 2017, marketing and sales are more competitive (and challenging) than ever. Prospects are tired of aggressive advertising and pushy sales pitches. Poeple are looking to find great products and services that are easy to consume and understand.

Cue: Inbound Marketing. The future of marketing and sales.

Why is Current-State Marketing Broken?

Current marketing, or outbound marketing, is the more common marketing approach of the past. Outbound marketing tends to be aggressive and interruptive, putting ads, billboards, and flyers in the faces of potential leads, and can often be irritating instead of attracting.

Digital marketing is already a very crowded space, and because of this consumers are more likely to get annoyed with ads instead of being drawn to them. Not only this, but they now have the ability to easily block ads, or the propensity to ignore them.

And the cherry on top? Data tells us that outbound marketing is actually less effective, yet more expensive.

Discover Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing focuses on drawing in customers organically – using content that has been designed to solve the needs and questions of your audience. The main principle of inbound marketing is to ‘get found’ by the customer, instead of having to seek them out. When done correctly, your leads will end up on your unique landing page, social media site, etc. – and discover exactly what they’ve been searching for. This method is particularly effective because it helps to quickly build credibility.

How Does Inbound Marketing Work?

The inbound methodology itself is often broken into four marketing actions. We’ll keep it simple:

1. Attract.

More traffic doesn’t necessarily mean good traffic; we are looking for the right traffic. The right traffic can be defined as our ‘buyer personas’ or, people who are already able to relate to your product or service. They may have similar challenges, needs, questions.

This timeframe is also considered the beginning of the Awareness stage, during which consumers first realize that they have a problem that needs to be solved. From there they move into the Consideration stage, which shifts potential personas towards defining and researching solutions to their problem.

The above stages are part of what we refer to as the “Buyer’s Journey”, and the inbound marketing strategy is built specifically around these, ensuring that the right message is being sent at exactly the right time.

2. Convert

Now let’s turn those personas into leads. How? Contact information! Methods such as simple forms, or a call to action on your website to get email addresses in exchange for something free – perhaps a helpful PDF, an ebook, etc. The options truly are endless.

3. Close

OK, so you’ve got your leads – now what? Using a variety of tools from Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems to a series of simple emails, there are plenty of methods to transform your leads into customers. With the inbound marketing methodology you will nurture the leads with more useful content and identify the exact moment they are ready to buy. Only then will you close them as customers without being pushy or aggressive.

4. Delight

In order to keep those happy customers delighted for life, you can’t just forget about them post-purchase. Keep in touch with your audiences through outlets such as surveys asking for feedback, and social media interactions.

Authentic Marketing That Actually Improves Sales

The key to the inbound marketing strategy is that it isn’t just ONE key – it’s a whole bunch that come together to create success. Options range from content marketing, blogs, all forms of social media, organized events, search engine optimization, emails, and so much more. It’s a methodology that earns the attention of potential customers and sets up your company to easily be found – with our help of course.

It’s because of this personalized approach that you then draw in the most likely leads. Odds are that your leads are discovering you because they are already clicking around with questions about your specific industry, or product. This circles back to the concept of ‘earning the attention’ of your customers, instead of screaming at them and begging for attention.

Because let’s be honest, no one likes to be cold-called or approached out of the blue when they’re simply trying to mind their own business. With only 19% of consumers now utilizing salespeople as a resource for their buying decisions, it’s simply an outdated method of the past.

Digital Marketing Is Changing…

And we have the stats to prove it:
– Two billion people are using Facebook to search for content, daily.
– Four billion people are using messenger apps to communicate and search.
– Two out of three adults use social media to keep up on world events.
– Mobile ad blocking has increased 90% year over year.

(Source)

Now, more than ever, the customers have the power over the ads, not the marketers.

Let Inbound Marketing Change The Way You Do Business

The good news is, we have inbound marketing, a more authentic method that addresses those problems and needs that your potential leads are searching for. And it’s not just about using the right data – it’s about pushing it out at the correct time, in the correct place – so that your leads are delighted instead of irritated

Inbound marketing sets up the relative searches to be lead to you – perhaps your blog, or a recent tweet – in a completely natural and less aggressive way, personalized for the consumer.

An added perk: inbound leads cost roughly 61% less than outbound leads gained through the “louder” methods such as mailings, radio/TV ads, etc.

How Does This Apply to Me?

Let’s run through a real life scenario.

You’re leaving your house in the morning, and decide that you want a coffee on your way to work. Coffee shops using traditional marketing (the outbound method) may still be doing things like mailing coupons to your mailbox, or posting an ad to promote their new coffee shop.

This may have worked years ago. However, in our ever-changing, nonstop digital age, people aren’t pausing to check their mailbox on the way to work, and aren’t reading ads in newspapers or magazines. Where are they looking instead? To search engines on their phones, and to social media for recommendations or interesting content on hot new coffee shops.

Consumers today are more empowered than ever. Essentially any need or question they may have can be found by a simple search on Google, Facebook, and other digital media channels.

Marketing That People Love

Need more reasons as to why inbound is the future of marketing? Check it out:

Sparks social media sharing
Empowers your customers while encouraging brand interaction
Generates brand awareness
Fosters more leads, for less money
Develops and grows your search engine optimization (SEO).

Don’t get left behind – get on the inbound marketing train. It truly is the future of marketing and sales.

Sources:
https://www.marketo.com/inbound-marketing/ (stats)
https://www.hubspot.com/inbound-marketing (4 actions)
https://blog.hubspot.com/insiders/11-facts-about-inbound-marketing