SCORE: How to Create More Effective Email Sign-Offs Posted on March 2, 2018June 12, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick If your email inbox looks like mine, you’re bombarded with generic email after generic email every day. I get it — it’s hard to make emails sent by the hundreds or thousands feel personalized. Nonetheless, nobody wants to feel like a number. While it’s hard to avoid inserting a generic salutation before hitting send on a batch email, segmenting according to audience and personalizing your sign-off for each is key. People expect some emails, such as newsletters and form completion emails, to be formulaic. But if a sales pitch comes across as cold and impersonal, you’re doing something wrong. Even when you use a template to construct important emails, personalizing whenever possible can leave a lasting impression. The sign-off section of an email provides a ripe opportunity to add a unique touch to automated messaging. The best types of sign-off reminds the recipient of a prior shared discussion or interaction — in short, they show that you’re a real person. Goodbyes are hard, but not if you can manage a well-executed sign-off. Read Jonathan’s full article on Score.
What is ABM? An Introduction to Account-Based Marketing Posted on March 1, 2018June 12, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick “Account-based marketing,” or ABM, is all the buzz these days around sales and marketing land. But it’s not a new concept. It’s a spruced-up version of basic key account marketing-a strategy used by enterprise organizations for decades. So why all the hoopla around ABM now? Since 2005 inbound marketing has had the spotlight, enabling marketers to cast a wide net, drive traffic and fill sales funnels based on pull through marketing tactics. But with better access to data and insights and the ever-increasing need for personalization among consumers, key account targeting or ABM is becoming a super effective B2B sales and marketing strategy. But let’s back up. What makes ABM so special? In a nutshell: ABM streamlines your sales and marketing teams, focusing their attention on highly-targeted prospective customers. So instead of blasting a free whitepaper out to thousands of leads hoping that a handful of potential buyers will engage with your business, you’re specifically looking to give your free whitepaper out to particular decision-makers at key accounts. If that sounds like the exclusive domain of big businesses, you’d be right—it once was. But the Internet has been the great democratizer, and small and midsize businesses have turned out to be winners in the game. It’s easier than ever to identify target accounts to engage with your content, social media and paid advertising efforts. How do I start with ABM? ABM relies on hyper-targeting, so it’s best to begin with a smaller amount of accounts. So how many should you start with? Well, that all depends on key variables such as your average deal size and time to close the sale. A general rule of thumb would be to start with a few hundred accounts and scale up if you see early success. Because this will be a team effort, you’ll also want to gather your sales and marketing teams to get them on the same page. Start by selecting the accounts you’re targeting and brainstorming some ways to get their attention. Some examples might include: Engaging with them on their strongest social media channels by retweeting their content, liking their posts or leaving comments and replies that pose thoughtful questions or statements (e.g., not just “Awesome!”) Focus on getting a personal meeting or phone call with targeted content, such as a free business analysis, whitepaper or evaluations. Use remarketing to find who’s interacted with your content and keep your brand top of mind with digital ads (software such as Terminus can help with this). Create customized landing pages for each client you’re targeting—specific enough to compel them to act, but not so specific as to give off a creepy, we’ve-been-waiting-for-you vibe. Who are you targeting in the account? While some businesses contain only a few key decision-makers, many have grown beyond that. ABM takes into account that a B2B sale will likely require more than one company member signing off, and so investigating various buyer personas at your target company is the best idea. Each will require a different type of content marketing, so work on a cleverly designed and multifaceted approach. Because it’s so tightly honed, you may find you’re able to focus quite literally on a few people you can research, really filling out your buyer personas. ABM is the area where it’s good to go down this rabbit hole because more research will lead to greater results. But, again, don’t get creepy. Nobody likes being creeped on too hard. If you’re looking for a place to start, don’t feel you need to begin ABM with new accounts. You can start by looking into your old accounts, engaging key personas you know there and ironing out your company’s kinks. ABM works best when you’re targeting the right potential buyers, so using pre-existing accounts as a trial run to dial in your strategy. What does ABM success look like for you? For most companies, it’s simple: conversions. Not leads, but hard-won conversions. The most important conversion is of course the sale, but looking at smaller conversions works also. You’ll want to know whether people are filling out your forms, downloading your content, engaging with your platforms. If not, you should revise your strategy, focus on new leads and split test your approach. The good news is, when you qualify your leads to the point of bringing them into an ABM funnel, you are simultaneously increasing your odds of conversion. Be sure to check your engagement rates, too, to cross-reference whether your social strategies have overlapped with your content marketing at all and whether your engagement rates are growing. Hopefully, this is also a useful way to help grow your own social following and increase your social clout. Once you’re finding success with a few accounts, you might want to expand your reach and keep going. The traditional urge here would be to start spraying and praying, grabbing as many leads as possible and using your past victories as case studies. Don’t do that. That’s literally the opposite of what we’re doing here. Instead, track which new accounts you’re generating through your ABM campaign. Have your sales and marketing teams meet to analyze the data and decide which are worth pursuing the most. Identify your new target list of prospects and agree on qualification benchmarks for new leads together and you’ll waste less time. After all, that’s what account-based marketing is about: wasting less time spinning your wheels with the wrong opportunities and more time closing deals.
Hatchbuck Recognized as a 2018 Top Rated Marketing Automation Software by TrustRadius Posted on February 28, 2018June 18, 2018 by Jessica Lunk Reviewers have spoken, and TrustRadius has awarded Hatchbuck as a 2018 Top Rated Marketing Automation Software by TrustRadius The TrustRadius Top Rated awards are unique in that they are an unbiased reflection of customer sentiment, based solely upon user satisfaction scores. In order to earn a Top Rated badge for Marketing Automation Software, products must be in the top tier of the category with 30 or more reviews and ratings. Every reviewer is verified and every review is vetted before publication to ensure buyers can make truly informed decisions. According to positive reviews from authenticated users, Hatchbuck is living up to their promise of helping small businesses automatically reach customers and prospects with its all-in-one sales and marketing platform. Ease of use, excellent customer service, and the drag and drop email composer, are commonly praised features across Hatchbuck’s 36 reviews and ratings. Read on to see what users had to say. “Our team uses Hatchbuck in a variety of ways to support our sales, marketing, and customer service team members. We use their forms, automated campaigns, and tasks to follow up and nurture sales leads. Additionally, we use the automated campaigns, email templates, and their drag and drop email builder as tools to onboard new customers and follow up with existing customers. […] As a small business with limited staff and resources, Hatchbuck helps us ensure each of our customers gets the attention they need.” – Director of Marketing, Computer Software | Read the Full Review “Hatchbuck is perfect for the small company looking to get a CRM but doesn’t have a lot of money to spend. It’s a very useful system that lets the user better manage internal resources that are limited (like sales staff), and has helped us get much better organized.” – CEO, Pharmaceuticals | Read the Full Review “Hatchbuck is being used throughout my organization across product lines as our primary CRM and marketing automation tool. As a small business, the needs for automation are great. It permits nurturing of leads and managing customers at various points in the funnel without a full-time staff operating around the clock.” – Executive in Corporate, Management Consulting Company | Read the Full Review “The online forms capability has been amazing. I’m able to connect my landing page to Hatchbuck and a prospect’s information is automatically transferred into a record, eliminating data input time, once they click submit.” – Director, Education Management | Read the Full Review “Hatchbuck helps us engage people searching for our kind of marketing automation expertise and then educate them until they’re ready for human contact with us. Hatchbuck’s tracking system allows us to tag new prospects with their interests so we are smarter when we have those warmed-up conversations.” – Marketing Automation, Management Consulting | Read the Full Review
Five Questions to Ask Customers Before You Onboard Them Posted on February 27, 2018June 12, 2018 by Katie Culp Think about the customers who really make your day—the ones you’d rate a 5 out of 5 if you were an Uber driver. They’re probably some combination of nice, generous, fair and prompt in paying you…not to mention quick to sing your praises to other people who need what you sell. Wouldn’t your life be a lot easier if all of your clients were just like them? The good news is it’s possible to build a customer base made up of gems like this if you ask prospects the right qualifying questions before onboarding them. Here’s what to ask. Why did you reach out to us? Understanding why a potential customer is motivated to buy will help you assess whether it makes sense to start the onboarding process in the first place and build your business around people you will be able to serve successfully. Let’s say you offer diet and nutrition coaching. When you ask why a prospect has called you to set up an appointment, he tells you, “My wife said I need to lose weight.” You know from past experience that someone has to be motivated from within to make lifestyle changes to succeed. Although it might be tempting to try to sign up this client for a package of 12 coaching sessions right off the bat, you might be better off, in the long term, if you book one session with him, ask him to make some small lifestyle changes in that first meeting and then see if he makes a second appointment. That would demonstrate he is committed to moving forward and would benefit from ongoing coaching. There’s a chance, of course, that he might not move forward, but isn’t it better for your business is you only take on clients who will truly benefit from your services. Those are the customers who will give you the word of mouth recommendations you need to build a thriving business. What is your timeline? A client who mentions a specific deadline will, understandably, be more motivated to move ahead and work collaboratively with you than someone who has no particular time pressures. Once you know someone’s timetable, you’ll also have a sense of whether he or she has a realistic understanding of how much time a project might take you and engage in an honest dialogue, so you can set clear expectations. For instance, if you’re a bookkeeper, you may not be able to clean up a B2B client’s sloppy bookkeeping for the whole year in a couple of days. However, you may be able to tell the client you can confidently get the first quarter done in that time period and see if that would be amenable. Doing what you promise will help you build a strong relationship from the get-go. And if you really can’t deliver according to someone’s schedule, you’ll build a better reputation by being honest about it. Do you have a desired budget in mind? Whether you cater to business-to-business clients or consumers, they probably have a certain amount of money set aside to cover an intended purchase. Knowing what that is will help you weed out those who cannot afford your services at the moment. You don’t necessarily have to turn away clients who can’t afford your premium services. For instance, if you run a marketing firm and normally charge a $5,000 a month retainer but a client only has a $1,000 a month budget, you could offer to provide ala carte services for a flat fee, instead, on an as-needed basis. Do a great job on those projects, and she will very likely consider you when she has grown to the point she can afford to put someone on retainer. What other solutions are you considering? If a client is looking other options you consider worthy, that’s a good sign. For instance, if you run a professional services firm and the client is talking to other respected professionals in your field, at least you know he or she values high-quality professional services. Then you can point out what differentiates you from these competitors. If, in contrast, the prospect is comparing you to an ultra-cheap, automated solution, you’re talking with the wrong type of potential customer—someone who doesn’t fully understand the value of working with your type of firm. Keep the conversation brief and devote the time you save to other prospects who truly need and value what you offer. When can we get started? Some clients tend to do a lot of advanced legwork before they do business with anyone. They might, for instance, start their hunt for a dentist in August if they plan to move to a new community in January. Others may be a lot closer to engaging with you. Knowing how ready someone is to buy will help you shape your communication rhythm accordingly. There’s a fine line between being enthusiastic and pesky, and by asking the right qualifying questions, you’ll be able to understand exactly where that line is so that you start off relationships with customers on great footing.
4 Ways to Create More Meaningful Connections on Social Media Posted on February 26, 2018June 12, 2018 by Allie Wolff If you’re only using social media to share promotional content about your brand, you’re missing out on the tremendous opportunity that exists. In fact, while there’s nothing necessarily wrong with using social media to boost sales, the real value in these online communities lies in the ability to develop and nurture genuine relationships with your customers and prospects. Here are four simple things you can start doing today that will help you make more meaningful connections via your social channels. Take them behind the scenes. Your fans and followers on social media already know your brand. What they don’t know is what goes on behind the scenes. Social media is a great tool for breathing life into a logo or putting a personality to a picture, so use it to your full advantage. Share images or video footage of the people who are behind your products or services. Showcase the passion and enthusiasm that is alive and well in your workplace. This will make your customers feel more like insiders, which breeds loyalty. Highlight the causes you support. If your company is active in supporting certain causes, social media is a great place to share that passion with the masses. Not only will doing so be good for the underlying cause, but demonstrating your commitment to social responsibility could very well lead to a boost in business. In fact, 90 percent of consumers say they’d be more likely to purchase based on a company’s responsibility practices, and 80 percent would share that information with others. Make them laugh. One of the best ways to connect with your customers in a more personal and meaningful way is to tap into their emotions. Social media can be a great vessel to deliver light-hearted content that entertains and engages your audience. For instance, you could share a link to a funny article or video that is relevant to your brand. Or, you could create comical (and share-worthy) memes that your fans and followers can relate to. They’ll appreciate it and the engagement you’ll get in return will be worth it. Ask questions and gather feedback. To get the most out of social media, it’s important to remember that it’s a two-way street. Not only should you be sharing relevant content, but you should also be listening to what’s being discussed and participating in the action. Don’t be afraid to start the conversation by asking a few thought-provoking questions. Go through and read the comments, answer inquiries and respond to discussions. Being active and present will help you form a stronger bond with your audience, which can translate to more business for you. Social media can be a powerful and highly effective tool for reaching your target audience, but it will only be effective if you’re making an effort to turn those fans and followers into loyal, long-term relationships. The steps above should help you to create more meaningful connections which will, over time, help boost your bottom line.
5 Simple Ways to Incorporate Video into Your Marketing Strategy Posted on February 23, 2018December 15, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Cisco predicts that by the end of this year, video content will account for 69 percent of all consumer internet activity. What does this mean from a marketing standpoint? Simple. If you want to reach your audience and connect with them in a meaningful way, you need to start investing in video content. Here are a few ideas to get you started: Show your personality. Your customers may already be familiar with your brand, but what about the people behind it? You are more than just a pretty logo, so show your audience your human side with the power of video. Try filming some behind-the-scenes footage or doing a weekly employee showcase. When people are able to see the personality behind the brand, they’ll feel a much stronger connection. Film demos and how-to clips. People love to see products in action, so give them what they crave by filming how-to and product demos. Why are these so effective? Because people are busy. They don’t have the time or desire to page through endless lines of text to figure out how to use your product. Video content is visually appealing, easy to digest and best of all, super shareable. Tap into your customer base. What better way to tell the story of how stellar your product or service is than to have a happy customer demonstrate it on video? User-generated content can be valuable for a number of reasons. First, it provides you with content to share that is, in and of itself, also shareable. Second, it serves as social proof, a powerful marketing motivator. And third, it’s a fabulous way to engage with your audience on a more personal level. Bring testimonials or case studies to life. Speaking of social proof, nothing boosts the confidence of prospects more than an existing customer singing your praises. Written testimonials and case studies are great, but bringing them to life with video is way more powerful. Ask your biggest brand advocates if they would be willing to share their positive experiences with your product or service via short video clips and then share away! Go live. As much as you’d like to, inviting every single one of your customers to join you in person probably isn’t feasible. Thanks to today’s technology, now you can do the next best thing – invite them to join in via live streaming video. Facebook and Instagram both have super easy to use and effective live broadcasting features. You can stream an event, or do something more intimate, like hosting a live Q & A session. The key is to promote your live broadcast in advance so that people get excited to join in. Given the fact that 85 percent of US internet users are watching videos on a daily basis, the opportunity for businesses to reach more prospects and connect with their customers through video content has never been greater. The five simple strategies above should help you start leveraging this powerful marketing tool for your own business today.
4 Tips for Promoting Positive Work Culture in a Small Office Posted on February 22, 2018January 7, 2020 by Guest Author A guest post by Meredith Wood, editor-in-chief at Fundera. A positive work environment is a safer, speedier, and more successful one. In fact, keeping employees in a perpetual pressure-cooker costs U.S. businesses $500 billion each year. A negative company culture doesn’t just make your employees cranky—it takes a toll on their physical health as well. As a small business leader, you’re uniquely positioned to create a positive work culture. How you walk into work each day is one of the biggest determinations of the success of your business. If that sounds like a grave responsibility, it is! That’s why we’ve put together four of the simplest ways to build and maintain a healthy, happy company culture while working in close quarters. Make Gratitude a Habit How often do you thank the human beings on your team, beyond a quick “Thanks!” sign-off at the end of an email? A sincere, verbal “thank you” for a job well done is the simplest way to foster a culture of gratitude. Thank employees for their deliverables. Thank them as they leave the office after a hard day’s work. Thank them for their time and attention at the end of meetings. These tiny gestures cost you little but earn you so much. Gratitude can manifest in larger, material ways as well. Reward employees with a treat, an afternoon off, a gift card, or an in-office celebration at the conclusion of a big project or launch. Bonuses and monetary gifts have obvious value, but these other gifts let your team know you appreciate them in more personal ways, beyond their ability to drive your bottom line. Champion Wellness It’s not difficult to support wellness passively—no boss wants a slew of employees out sick. Actively championing their physical well-being, however, takes effort and intention. Long nights at the office may be inevitable in your industry, but praising—or even simply permitting—habitual overwork can do profound damage to the health of your team. Championing wellness could mean encouraging your team to leave the office, or at least get outside, for lunch. It could mean adjusting the physical environment to better accommodate their needs, or even just their preferences—things like accessibility, sunlight, or furniture. It could mean re-examining how you communicate with employees when stressed, to see if you’re tacitly encouraging unhealthy work behaviors. Wellness culture will look different for every team, but the end result is the same: a thriving team that suffers from less burnout. Make Space to Be Social Unscheduled social time will—and must—happen organically. As your team’s leader, you have the opportunity to make time for scheduled, optional social events as well. Whether it’s karaoke, kickball games, movie nights, or cocktail hours, these off-the-clock activities help build the kind of teams that go the extra mile for each other. These spaces to be social don’t have to be physical spaces, either—they can be digital as well. (And if your team is partially or even fully remote, they have to be.) Set up a private company Facebook group, a GIFs-only Slack channel, or some other digital watercooler where employees can let their guard down. Keep in mind that as the boss, you may need to keep a respectful distance from some of these spaces, depending on your team’s size and dynamic. The goal, after all, is to blow off steam. Publicize Your Core Values How well does your team understand your company’s values? Would any team member, if asked, be able to articulate what you stand for? Your company’s core values may live on your website, but that shouldn’t be the only place those values make themselves known. Make them a visible part of your workplace. Publicizing company values holds you, the boss, accountable for upholding them, too. It grants your team a glimpse at what drives company decision-making. It sets the tone for interactions with clients and customers, and it gives members of your team something positive to rally behind. The example you set, behaviors you encourage, and policies you implement have a tremendous effect on the well-being of your team. Your employees also play an important role in maintaining this positive work culture. They’re rowing the boat, after all. But as the business owner, you have the responsibility—and the honor—of steering that ship. AUTHOR BIO Meredith Wood is Editor-in-Chief and VP of Marketing at Fundera, a marketplace for small business financial solutions. Specializing in financial advice for small business owners, Meredith is a current and past contributor to Yahoo!, Amex OPEN Forum, Fox Business, SCORE, AllBusiness and more.
3 Memorable Networking Introductions to Stand Out From the Crowd Posted on February 21, 2018June 13, 2018 by Jonathan Herrick Many people dread networking. Whether it’s at in-person events or on social networking sites, it’s hard for many of us to approach people we don’t know. The good news is that if you can get over that aversion, the rewards can be considerable. Recent research by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) found that informal professional networks and communities were more important to entrepreneurial success than participating in formal programs such as accelerators and incubators. Many business owners are well aware of this. More than half of 1,000 entrepreneurs in the EIU’s survey took part in business-oriented social networking groups on platforms such as LinkedIn and Facebook. And in some cities– among them New York and London–meeting fellow entrepreneurs face to face in informal settings was the single most important source of support. Being prepared with some memorable approaches can help you build confidence and make the connections you need to grow your business, whether you are meeting people online or in person. Here are some networking introductions that will help you stand out from the crowd. Say thank you One of the best ways to make a great impression when you’re networking is to show you’re interested in someone. Before you go to an event where you hope to meet a particular person who might be able to help your business or reach out to an influencer on a social networking site, Google the folks you would like to approach. Do a little homework on the work they’ve been doing lately and look for ways to show your appreciation for it (assuming you truly do value it). Let’s say you’re hoping to connect with a local Realtor, and she writes a regular blog on her firm’s website where you’ve found a post that is spot-on. You might introduce yourself at an in-person event by saying, “So you’re Sally Holmes? Thank you for writing the blog on your website about all of the parking problems we’re having downtown. I was hoping someone would speak up about it.” Pretend you’re a reporter Many of us do more talking than listening, so showing you’re interested in what someone has to say can go a long way toward making a lasting impression. Thinking like a news reporter and interviewing a new acquaintance can be a good way to make a positive impression. Let’s say you’ve just met a forensic accountant at an event. You might say, “Wow—I’ve never met a forensic accountant. You must have experienced some incredible situations at work. Is the field as interesting as I’ve heard?” Listen closely to the accountant’s responses and ask a few follow-on questions before you chime in with information on what you do. Everyone loves talking about himself or herself, so the more interested you are, the more memorable the conversation will be for your new acquaintance. Offer to help If you’ve met someone who is facing a challenge at work and you have a lot of experience in that area, step up with an offer to help. For instance, if you’ve been chatting with someone who says he’s been having trouble finding a great bookkeeper and you have found a fantastic pro, offer to make an introduction. Or perhaps you’re a social media marketer, and a new friend mentions that she’s not sure what type of social media she should focus on in her business. Consider offering a little free advice. She is likely to remember your generosity and consider you if she later decides to outsource her social media. A final word No matter how great your approach, a new business friendship won’t go anywhere if you don’t take the next step and keep in touch. Sending a brief emailed thank you with a link to an interesting article about what you discussed or an invitation to continue the discussion over coffee can be a fantastic way to extend your network. If you’ve been writing back and forth on a social media site, suggest a phone call as a next step. Most people never follow up, so if you actually do, you’ll no doubt stand out from the crowd—and hopefully form some lasting relationships, too.
5 Reasons Sales Automation Is So Important for Small Business Posted on February 20, 2018June 20, 2018 by Tegan Arnold What is sales automation? It’s what gives your superstar sales team more time to talk to prospects. If there’s one thing a good salesperson dislikes, it’s administrative tasks that cut into the time spent calling and talking to potential customers. As a business owner or sales manager, your job is to ensure salespeople are using their time doing what they do best: generating sales. Automating your sales process is one way of the best ways to do so. You’ll enjoy these benefits, and they are only the tip of the iceberg. Follow Up Reminders Fail to follow up in a timely manner, and you risk losing a sale. Following up isn’t complicated. It’s just something you have to remember to do. But with incoming leads and quarterly targets to think about, it’s hard to remember that prospect who said “they’d think about it.” Well, guess what? That prospect who needs to think about it is low-hanging fruit. All they may need is a nudge in the right direction. This could come in the form of an email with some sales enablement content or a follow-up call. Your sales team can set automatic reminders to follow up after chatting with someone. Email Marketing Is Simpler After chatting with someone, a sales rep may determine that: They’re close to making a purchase and just need some follow-up They’re probably not going to make a purchase anytime soon, but they fit the buyer persona and may want to make a purchase down the line If they fall into that second category, they probably don’t warrant a follow-up call. Now, this is where that prospect might fall through the cracks. With an automated sales process, you can set them up to receive a stream of spaced out emails that supply product information and useful content. They continue to be nourished until they show serious interest and once they do, your sales team can work its magic. Painless Demo Scheduling No one has time to play scheduling tag. Is a prospect interested in a demo of the product? Your sales software can link directly to your schedule so that a prospect can pick from one of your available time slots. Making the scheduling process easier also increases your chances of the prospect actually booking a time. The more cumbersome scheduling gets, the more likely plans are to fall through. Easy-To-Use Templates Whenever you communicate with clients via email to book a demo, send a helpful video, or pass along a detailed whitepaper, you have to write a message. An abrupt message won’t do since you’re trying to build a rapport. But writing something thoughtful takes time and effort in addition to even more time spent proofreading, so you don’t make a bad impression. Sales reps typically send out variations of the same email multiple times. Creating email templates for different stages of the sales process allows anyone to quickly and easily send out detailed, pre-edited emails. They can simply insert the name, customize the intro to reflect a recent conversation, and hit send, saving ample time. Transcribed Sales Calls with Key Insights If you speak to several people a day, five days a week, it’s hard to remember every detail of every conversation. But you better believe that prospects remember what you talked about with them. What if you could review the key takeaways and action items from each of your calls? Select sales automation tools transcribe sales calls and pull out key insights. A sales rep can quickly skim over the main points of the last call, and easily pick up where they left off on the next one. Sales automation tools are a smart way to eliminate many of those irritating but necessary administrative tasks. Of course, even the best sales tool can never replace a friendly and knowledgeable sales team. With this in mind, give your salespeople the tools they need to be as effective as possible.