How to Stock Your CRM with Fresh Leads Posted on February 10, 2014October 2, 2020 by Jessica Lunk Catch and release is great for conservation, but when it comes to business, you’re playing for keeps. Don’t let great prospects slip by. Keep your small business CRM from going stale by capturing leads in person and online. 1. Convert Casual Site Visitors into Nurtured Leads If your website feels more like a static brochure than a lead generation machine, it’s time for an upgrade. Feed your CRM by placing forms throughout your site to convert the casual website visitor into a nurtured lead. Try one (or all) of these: The Contact Form If you have a web presence, chances are that you have a generic contact form. That’s a great place to start. Contact form leads are actually nice and warm. Someone has actively hunted down a way to reach out to you. They are aware of your business and your product or service offering, have done some research already, and are likely in a buying state of mind. But don’t stop here. A contact form only captures a fraction of the people who come to your site. What about those visitors who are just browsing, but aren’t ready to commit? They could be great opportunities down the road. Capture their info now so you can nurture them until they’re ready to buy. Newsletter Sign-Up Most businesses send out some form of correspondence on a weekly or monthly basis, whether in digital or physical form. So why not leverage that content to stay in touch with prospects? A newsletter sign-up form can capture leads on your site who are interested in your products and services as well as the expertise you share. To increase retention and conversion of your newsletter sign-ups, segment your leads by the type of content they’d like to receive, like: Updates on the latest deals and discounts. “Let me know when your resume-writing services go on sale.” Industry tips and tricks. “Send me the latest blog posts on sustainable urban living.” Specific product or service updates. “Share the availability of your seasonal beer.” Gated Content Use your expertise to generate helpful, informative, in-depth content. Then give it away in exchange for contact information. You’re producing content everyday, so re-package it in an enticing way: Bundle your best blog posts into an ebook or guide Share recorded webinars Create a whitepaper based on your most frequently asked questions Online Ads Whether you’re using banner or text ads, don’t simply direct visitors to your homepage. Instead, create a custom lead generation form with content optimized to convert visitors into leads. As a rule of thumb: Address how you can relieve the pain-points your customers face Outline the key benefits of your product/service Create trust through testimonials, reviews, accreditation, certification, etc. Provide a strong call-to-action that compels prospects to act now Product Information Don’t forget to ask for what you really want – a sale. Capture hot leads by making it simple to get the product or service information that opportunities need to make a buying decision, such as: Demonstration Product trial or sample Consultation session Quote Social Networks Remember that you don’t own the followers on your social media platforms. Promote your lead gen forms to your social media followers. Once they opt-in through your form, you can keep them engaged with your brand no matter what new social network craze comes next. 2. Follow Visitors Out the Door Leads aren’t just captured in the digital sphere. You’re fielding inquiries and connecting with prospects in real life everyday. Don’t let them leave without collecting their calling card. Take advantage of touchpoints at your brick and mortar location(s) to capture: Business cards Newsletter sign-ups New customer emails 3. Keep in Touch with Attendees Whether you’re sponsoring a networking session, attending a trade show, or hosting a webinar, you can leverage events to convert attendees into leads. Capture attendee information through: Registration forms (online and onsite) Giveaways and door prizes Networking exchanges Your CRM should be more than just a storage bin for customer data. Don’t let the big fish get away. Turn your website, store front, and events into consistent lead generators that keep the top of your sales pipeline stocked with fresh leads. Flickr Creative Commons Image by Agustin Rafael Reyes
3 Gmail Tab Realities and How They Affect Your Small Business Email Marketing Posted on February 7, 2014June 1, 2016 by Lindsey Stroud It’s been quite some time since Gmail introduced tabs to its inbox. While all of your emails use to land in one inbox, now they are automatically separated into multiple categories (Primary, Social, and Promotions tabs) via a Google algorithm. As a Gmail user, I – like many marketers – was taken aback by the changes that took place to my inbox overnight, and fearful of the dive my open and response rates would take. But here we are in 2014, and email marketing hasn’t taken the catastrophic hit that we may have anticipated. Here’s why: 3 Gmail Tab Realities and How They Affect Your Small Business Email Marketing 1) Gmail Tabs Don’t Actually Affect Too Many Gmail Users – While Gmail is the most popular email provider with 425 million users, the new inbox change hasn’t even affected a fourth of the overall user base. Why such a low number of email users affected by the change? It’s due to the rise in popularity of mobile devices. As of now, the tab feature is only supported in official Gmail apps for Android and IOS. This means that those who read email through the mail device on their iPhone or Android device are not affected by the email layout change. Litmus recently conducted a study on 5 million Gmail users and found that only 19% of Gmail users actually open their emails using Gmail. The take away? The new tabs feature might not affect as many Gmail users as we originally thought. 2) Relevancy is now more important than ever If you consider your email strategy blasting out a one-size-fits-all newsletter to all of your contacts, think again! Not only will this land you in the Promotions tab, but will most likely result in you getting disregarded all together. The key to Email Marketing is to provide relevant content over time that provides value to your contacts. The way to do this is by segmenting your contacts into identifiable groups and providing content that meets their interests or solves a problem they are facing. In small business CRMs, like Hatchbuck, you can segment leads in the sales pipeline or tag them by their interest category. 3) Ask and You Shall Receive If you have a large following of dedicated readers, supply them with the information they need to receive your content into the Primary tab with no problem! All a Gmail user needs to do is to take your email and drag it into the tab they would like to receive your emails in. Gmail will then pop up an alert and ask the user if they would like to this for all future emails from you. It’s easy for your contacts to do, and will guarantee you always land in the Primary inbox! This paid off tremendously for Gap when they sent an email asking their customers to move them back into their inbox. Sometimes all you need to do is ask and you shall receive! Make sure you continue to provide relevant and engaging content for your followers after asking them for a favor! As you see, the Gmail tab feature doesn’t have to be a detriment to your email marketing! As of a rule of thumb, make sure you are always sending to a list that has opted-in to receiving your content. Once you have a confirmed group of contacts, make sure to segment them according to their needs or interest and provide them content that is relevant to them. This is the easiest way to ensure you land in Primary tab, and continue to see high percentage of open rates and click throughs!
How to Build an Unshakable Business Online Posted on February 6, 2014January 7, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Let’s take a quick ride in the wayback machine. It was 2009 and for a hot minute, I had a store on Etsy. You know, that site for handmade goods. I sewed and sold handmade mittens. It wasn’t so much that I had a deep desire to make mittens (though I do like projects and making things). It was the platform. It was so easy to set up “shop” in this digital world. I loved every aspect of marketing my mittens on Etsy, from capturing the perfect photo and crafting a snappy product description to making my own packaging and sending my mittens on their way. It made me feel like I was running my own little shop. But I wasn’t. I didn’t have a brick-and-mortar storefront. I didn’t have a web presence outside of Etsy. I didn’t have an opt-in email list. I didn’t have a really business. What I had was a hobby. The problem was, I didn’t have any say in what direction Etsy took next, no real ownership. Etsy decided if they changed the pricing for a product listing or a featured ad. Etsy controlled the rules for what types of products could and could not be sold. If Etsy would have gone up in smoke, my nifty little mitten shop would have been gone, too. Poof! Now, I didn’t really have an online business on Etsy, but many thriving companies have presence there. These are real businesses with a website. They have an opt-in email list of contacts that they can take with them wherever they please. They are involved in commerce outside of Etsy. Their business model doesn’t rely on Etsy’s existence. That’s what makes them legit. Etsy isn’t bad. It’s just a platform. Things only get bad if you’re relying on a platform that you don’t own to generate business. In that case, you’re just not standing on solid ground. There are a lot of great platforms that can supplement your business, but it’s always a good idea to step back and make sure you aren’t leaning on them too heavily. If Google switches up their algorithm, will your business go kaput? If Facebook filters you out of their news feed, are you doomed? All of these digital platforms – from the niche-y Etsy’s of the world to the behemoth that is Google – can be part of our marketing mix. But they’re just another leg on our marketing stool. That’s why your opt-in email list is so important. It’s made up of your best customers. Your biggest fans. It follows you wherever you go, and with a little bit of email nurturing, it breathes and grows. If you don’t have an opt-in email list, there are a couple ways to get started: Capture emails from your website. Provide a sign-up sheet at your storefront. Send out a sign-up form on social media. If you have a good list, remember to give it the respect it deserves: Follow spam guidelines. Send relevant information that your contacts are looking for. Monitor your email frequency – sometimes sending a great email once a month is more effective than a so-so send every day. Grow your list by providing interesting, forward-able content with an opt-in link. Keep all of those handy platforms in your marketing mix, but don’t over-rely on their role in your business model. Instead, focus your energy on building an unshakable, owned platform through opt-in email nurturing.
5 Unmistakable Signs of a Broken Sales and Marketing Process Posted on February 5, 2014July 8, 2016 by Jessica Lunk Process – sounds boring, right? But it’s actually a valuable tool in scaling growth while maintaining the size of your workforce. For businesses on the the precipice of explosive growth, taking another look at your sales and market process can be the difference between impactful penetration into the marketplace, or faltering while you attempt to ramp up new staff to do things the old way. Missed opportunities, dropped balls, and lack of communication are all symptoms of a sales and marketing process that needs a little love. Is your sales and marketing process watertight? Or can you see any of these scenarios happening within your process? 5 Unmistakable Signs of a Broken Sales and Marketing Process from Hatchbuck
Want to Influence Buyers Better Than the Super Bowl? Personalize Your Approach Posted on January 31, 2014October 4, 2016 by Nicci Troiani The Super Bowl holds a unique excitement for me, as it does for most. There’s yummy food, an exciting game to watch and… the commercials! While many will be watching this year to see whether it will be Peyton Manning or Russell Wilson holding the Lombardi trophy at the end, there are plenty of you out there who watch solely for the commercial breaks. Superbowl ads have become as much of a tradition as the game itself. For small brands, watching the big guys’ ads play out on one of the biggest televised events of the year can make some envious. Who doesn’t want to be in a position where you can pay $4 million ( According to CNN Money, that’s the standard for a Super Bowl ad in 2014) for a 30 second slot without blinking an eye and reach millions of prospect’s TVs? So, for all of the money and all of those eyes, a Super Bowl ad must result in Super Conversions, right? — wrong! It’s well known that despite the hefty price tag and millions of viewers (last year a reported 108.41 million tuned in) Super Bowl ads actually convert less than other ads. Why is that? Even though the reach is huge, the impact is small. These giant ads are designed to reach everyone, not speak to the individual. While they will get a lot of views, they won’t make a lot of sales. There are two things that your small business can do do influence buyers better than the Super Bowl: Personalize Being a person, a real person, is by far, a huge benefit that the small guys have over the big ones. You have the ability to personally respond to comments about your company and you can personally reach out to your customers and prospects. Adding a personal touch and letting your customers know you are grateful for their business can help greatly with retention. Prospects also respond better when sent personalized emails. Marketing Sherpa found that in email marketing, a personalized subject line has a 17.36% higher average click-through rate than others. I know, I know…sending personalized emails to all of your prospects? Sounds Super Time-Consuming. Using a sales and marketing software can help you to automate all of this and send communications to all of your contacts that are still personalized. Segment Segmenting your prospects means that you can send them more relevant information. This goes hand in hand with sending personalized information. You should know what your prospects are interested in. Why did they opt-in to your list? Did they request information about a certain product? Then don’t send them generalized information about everything. Your click-through rates, responses and ultimately customer conversions will be much higher if you target them with info that they want! While we are all glued to our TVs this Sunday and chatting at the water cooler about our favorite commercials at the office on Monday, you can breathe easy knowing that the millions of dollars spent on Super Bowl commercials are more for your entertainment than anything else. Your personalized, small business efforts are more effective at bringing in the Super dough.
Working with a Lean Crew? Get Shipshape with a Better Sales and Marketing Process. Posted on January 30, 2014June 1, 2016 by Jessica Lunk When you started your small business, you scrambled to stay afloat – stomping out fires and reacting to immediate challenges. With a bare-bones team, everyone pitched in and wore as many hats as needed. As your SMB has grown, you’ve been able to add more team members and normalize some of your processes. But you aren’t quite the well-oiled machine you’d like to be. You could add more employees to decrease the overlap between roles – but new team members are a big investment for small businesses. Your challenge is to continue to serve and grow your customer base without adding hefty expenses. For small businesses teetering on the edge of hiring more employees or doing more with less, intelligent growth is vital. It’s all about putting together the best people, process, and technology to help your business run at its highest efficiency. When you’re pushing your resources, but not ready to add extra workforce, a better sales and marketing process can help fill in the gaps. Start by defining roles within your team: Marketing: Marketing feeds your database with quality leads and opportunities through engaging campaigns. Sales: The sales team divvies up sales opportunities between them, qualifies leads, and converts opportunities into customers. Fulfillment: Fulfillment delivers upon the agreement made during the sales cycle. Service and Support: The support team handles customer issues. In many small business scenarios, the same people may fill more than one of these roles. That’s why defining roles and responsibilities is even more imperative. When everyone on your team knows their part in the bigger picture, they can prioritize their day and less stuff falls through the cracks. Next, define your process: Marketing: What qualifies as a lead? How can marketing warm up prospects through lead nurturing? When does a lead become an opportunity? How are opportunities handed off to the sales team? Sales: How are new opportunities qualified and assigned to team members? What is the process for following up with opportunities? What does a needs analysis look like? Fulfillment: How do implementation or order teams receive the information they need from sales? Support: How is sales and marketing alerted to customer issues? Ironing out your process helps identify areas where tasks are being duplicated, and sets the stage for implementing technology to further automate processes. Now, automate your process with the right small business CRM: Can you automate or eliminate manual tasks to free up resources for revenue-driven activity? Can you add value to customers through organization and personalization, keeping them engaged without draining your resources? Can you score leads so that the sales team is engaging with prospects who are ready to buy, instead of spending lots of time trying to sell to people still in research mode? Can picture your sales cycle as a whole so you can see if you are hitting your targets? For small business owners, the goal is always growth. With an optimized sales and marketing process powered by CRM, your small business can really open its sails, growing your customer base without growing your team.
5 Social Media Myths Small Businesses are Being Sold Posted on January 21, 2014August 25, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Social media is often touted as a game changer for small business. But the fact is, many owners are still scratching their heads when it comes to the real impact social media is having on their small business. Are you being pressured to buy into these social media fallacies? 1. Social Media is Free. Technically, it is free to set up an account on most of the social media channels that small businesses use. However – beyond claiming your profile – building a following and generating engagement can cost quite a lot. Either you’re paying in house talent to manage your social networks, or outsourcing, which can cost in the ballpark of $4500/month just to manage your Facebook and Twitter presence. That doesn’t even include the cost of refining your strategy or generating social-friendly content like blog posts, infographics, and videos. Small businesses should be prepared to approach social media as they would any marketing channel, and allocate a portion of their budget to building and implementing an effective strategy. 2. Small Businesses Should Tackle Every Channel. Every business has different models, different prospects and different customers. What works for you might not work for the next guy. Instead of spreading your efforts over every channel, focus on the ones that fit your business model and resources. For instance, if your target prospect is a 20-something female, you may find you get the most mileage out of a presence on Pinterest rather than Facebook or Twitter. 3. Social Media is a Sales Wand. The fact is, many small businesses simply don’t have the resources to dedicate to the level of strategy, management, and measurement that social media requires to effectively generate ROI. Consider these stats from Intuit: 42% of small businesses dedicate $0 spend to social media efforts, with the majority spending less than $100. 74% of small businesses employ no one to exclusively manage their social media. This is definitely a luxury left to big business. When it comes to Facebook, 51% of small businesses say that wall posts are the best way to reach customers. On the contrary, 37% of consumers cite special offers and discounts as the best way a company can reach them. This demonstrates a disconnect between small business owners and their customers when it comes to social media strategy. While small businesses are testing the waters of social media, many have not been able to transfer the potential of social media into real results. Implementing the talent and technology needed to make an impact is costly. Even the majority of big businesses – with access to many more resources – are still in the process of developing best practices to consistently monetize social media. Small businesses are bound to innovate ways social media grows their business over time, but tried and true methodology is still being developed. Social isn’t the miracle worker that it’s often proclaimed to be. If you’re feeling confused about the measurable value social media is adding to your small business, you are not alone. That said, don’t let them tell you… 4. Don’t Bother Measuring Social ROI. Like I said, this social media thing is still relatively new. Even the world’s largest social networks haven’t found a way to truly monetize their platforms. That doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable, it just means that we are still figuring out how to measure and cash in social currency. Instead of hiding from social media ROI, small businesses can track its effect on customers and prospects. Nichole Kelly makes a great argument for using your CRM to track which customers are engaged in social media, and which ones aren’t – then measuring each group against one another. You may not be able to tie a specific ROI to a specific social media action, but you can measure how conversion rates, cost per opportunity, cost per customer, customer retention, and lifetime value compare between the two groups. 5. Social Media Killed Email. Email isn’t dead. It’s alive and well. And it is a revenue producer, especially for B2B. How about capturing interested buyers on social media and nurturing them with targeted email campaigns? That’s where investment in social can really pay off. With the rise of mobile attaching customers to their email 24/7, email marketing isn’t as old school as you may think: For every $1 marketers spend on email, the average ROI is $40. (Direct Marketing Association) For every $1 marketers spend on social media, the average ROI is $3. (Internet Advertising Bureau) B2B marketers listed email as one of the top three tactics for lead origination. (Forrester) Email open rates are the highest they’ve been since 2007 growing year-over-year and month-over-month. (Epsilon) More people are reading email on their phones than on the desktop or on webmail (and 85% of them are using an iOS device). (ReturnPath) Should you give up on social media? Heck no! Social media is an awesome distribution channel! It has allowed small businesses to move the needle on brand awareness, reach, and engagement. And businesses are slowly discovering how to sustain and maximize ROI. Small business shouldn’t abandoned social, but they don’t have to buy into all of the hype.
How Small Business Can Give Customers What They Want Posted on January 15, 2014June 1, 2016 by Jessica Lunk I hate shows with laugh-tracks. It feels condescending to be told when to laugh and what degree of laughter is appropriate. If something’s funny, trust me, I’ll know it. And if I don’t think something is amusing or entertaining, not only can I change the channel, but I can change the medium altogether. Goodbye cable TV, hello Netflix and Hulu. I’m pretty savvy I guess, and you better believe that small business customers are savvy, too. They see right through spray & pray messaging, and if your business, product, or message isn’t relevant, they have no problem tuning you out. It’s 2014, and the audience decides what they want, when they want it, and how they want it. Today’s landscape is ideal for consumers, who have lots of choices on what to buy, how to buy it, and how to share feedback. And, though it sounds a bit scary, it can be great for small business marketers, too. We have access to an unprecedented plethora of mediums and channels. With a more diverse landscape comes accessible, sophisticated insights that allow us to deliver the resources customers need before, during and after they buy. So how do you meet your customers at the intersection of what, when and how? What They Want Segment your database by interest so you can target your messaging. Send dog lovers the chew toy of the week, and cat lovers the best pick in kitty litter. Deliver a relevant message so that when the time comes to buy, your small business is top of mind. When They Want It Identify where your customers fall in the sales funnel. A new facebook like might just be a fan, while a blog visitor reading up on “the best hamster for your home” is in research-mode, and someone browsing the fishbowls section of your site is ready to buy. Feed your social media fans cute pet pics, email the researchers tips they can use, and offer your expertise to assist product browsers in making their purchase. How They Want It A social savvy customer may give you a shout out on Twitter to ask about water bowl pricing, while a more traditional customer may prefer speaking to someone over the phone about an accessory for their potbelly pig. Be available on the channels that your customers use naturally to provide a seamless customer experience. Just as we have conditioned ourselves to tune out the laugh-track, consumers are tuning out irrelevant jabs for their attention. Meeting customers at the intersection of the right message at the right time has never been more important. That’s why we are so passionate about helping SMBs to deliver their message into their customers’ hands at the perfect moment. We believe that marketing and sales automation that is simple for the user and seamless for the customer catalyzes growth. Check out our video to learn more!
Don’t Get Eliminated From Inboxes This Play-off Season – 3 Email Marketing Mistakes to Avoid Posted on January 13, 2014 by Nicci Troiani Email marketing can be a lot like playoff football. Or maybe I just compare the two because I see them a lot. Either way, here are some mistakes you may be making in your email marketing that get your recipients to hit “unsubscribe” or “spam” and eliminate you from their in-boxes, just like 2 teams will be eliminated from the Superbowl next weekend. 1. No game plan Can you imagine if the Patriots or Broncos came to the divisional play-offs next week with NO game plan? That would be ridiculous. You should always develop some sort of “game plan” for your email marketing. Ask yourself some questions to get started: – who are you emailing? customers? Prospects? – what action do you want them to take in your emails? – is the content you are sending interesting? Once you have an idea of who your are sending to, what you want to send them and what actions you would like them to take, you should write out a flow chart to visualize the sequence before putting it together. 2. Confusing plays One of my favorite things to watch is when you see a play obviously gone wrong, like this “Alex Smith hand off to nobody” (who was that going to??) Just like some plays might confuse players….confusing subject lines or email text will confuse your readers. Your subject line should be clear, concise and informative. In the email body, you should keep your text short and any call to actions need to be very clear. 3. Not putting in the work Whether you plan on winning the Superbowl or increasing your open rate- it takes work. Automated systems are great because they save you time, but this doesn’t mean they do the work for you- at least until we develop people-substituting robots to do that. Keep in mind, that creating email nurturing campaigns can be work up front, but using the right system, they can be automated after that. However, to REALLY optimize what you are doing, you should keep tracking your open and click through rates so that you can continuously test and analyze what is working for your list. This play-off season, make a plan, stick to it and make sure your plan involves testing and analyzing throughout the year. Do this and ensure that your opens and clicks increase for 2014!