What Successful Marketers Know About Lead Generation

 

Professional marketers are more successful when they use integrated marketing automation to evaluate their performance and to become more competitive in the marketplace. This means they’re more sophisticated than their competitors in determining their returns on investments, according to a 2012 a study.

“Overall, the research found that companies taking a holistic approach to leveraging integrated marketing automation to drive effectiveness have increased key business and financial outcomes,” according to the report.

The “Lead Generation Marketing Effectiveness Study” was conducted by the Lenskold Group in tandem with The Pedowitz Group in Manasquan, NJ.

It reveals how integrated marketing automation, strengths in core competencies, and using ROI metrics affect lead generation and stimulate marketing success.

“This report provides key insights into the specific drivers that enable marketing automation to impact effectiveness and efficiency,” says Debbie Qaqish, principal and chief revenue marketing officer of Pedowitz Group.

“Best practice companies are reaching a strategic level of support, reinforcing the need for CMOs to begin or continue their revenue marketing transformation,” she explains.

My sense is that she’s right, as CMOs often have difficulty gaining support from CEOs who often see marketing as an expense vis-à-vis an investment. When profits decrease, CEOs usually cut budgets for marketing. That’s a mistake in my view.  (A secret to success in a weak economy is to expand marketing.)

By successfully documenting a marketing ROI, a CMO’s relationship with the CEO will improve. Then, it will be easier for a CMO to use the four keys to market ideas to the CEO.

“The survey results show that marketing executives focusing their organization on the key business outcomes and creating the environment to deliver will get much more value from their marketing automation,” says Jim Lenskold, President of Lenskold Group.

“There is great potential to improve marketing impact on sales, revenue and ROI when marketing automation generates greater alignment with sales, better measurement insights into lead outcomes and the ability to continuously improve both effectiveness and efficiency,” he adds.

Key findings:

• Marketing automation users that also use ROI metrics to assess effectiveness are much more likely to realize an increase in “total marketing revenue contribution” from their automation (69 percent compared to just 19 percent of marketers using only traditional, non-financial metrics).
• The best practice group of “highly effective and efficient” marketers is more likely to attain a strategic level of marketing support from their automation, with CMO support and sales team integration (46 percent vs. 19 percent of all others).
• Highly effective and efficient organizations are much more likely to report strengths in proactively managing the marketing funnel, measuring incremental sales and revenue, providing a pipeline forecast and being accountable for revenue goals. The differences were quite significant, averaging 70 percent for highly effective and efficient marketers vs. 30 percent of all other marketers.
• Lead generation marketing effectiveness increases with marketing automation. Marketers report an increase in six key outcomes as a result of implementing marketing automation, with 6 in 10 reporting increased quantity and quality of leads and close to half reporting increases in the “percent of leads accepted by sales and the total marketing revenue contribution.”

Respondents were drawn from a worldwide sample of 373 lead generation marketers. The full report is available for download at www.lenskold.com/LeadGenROI_2012.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are related strategies:

• Marketing Checklist to Measure Your Brand’s Personality
• Profits: How and Why to Align Marketing with Sales
• Tips, Plus Why it’s Never Too Early to Plan for Q4 E-commerce

“Marketing takes a day to learn. Unfortunately it takes a lifetime to master.”
– Phil Kolter

 

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

 

In a Slump? 11 Tips to Succeed in the Dog Days of Summer

 

Some businesspeople struggle to succeed in summer months. It’s as though they’re in a slump. It’s the hottest and most humid time of the year in many regions. Business seems to stagnate as the weather becomes hotter and sultrier.

Perhaps you can relate. Have you and your team been slumping? Have you lost motivation?

If so, you probably need a break, and fear a sluggish start to Q4. Yes, it will be here before you know it.

Get a pencil and paper for these 11 tips:

1. Consider the big picture. Write down what success means to you. What does it look like? Envision your success.
2. Assuming you’ve written goals for this year, review them. (Hint: If you don’t have written goals, that’s part of your problem.) Are your goals realistic? What’s changed? Are your goals relevant to the situation you’re in now?
3. Evaluate what you want to achieve by the end of the year. Focus on solutions, not the problems. Start doing the necessary footwork. Tackle the most difficult task each morning. This will help to prevent feeling overwhelmed. (See: Business Success Checklist to Work Smarter, Not Harder)
4. Review your mental and physical health. Do you need a physical? Start an exercise program, if only for long walks. Your exercise program might need to include pushing away from the table to avoid extra helpings or dessert. Changing your exercise program often means stop jumping to conclusions about trivial matters or threatening issues. Consider a new thought response: “No matter what there are no big deals; no matter what.”
5. Check your cash flow. Review what’s working and what isn’t. Stop procrastinating on financial decisions.
6. Remove all stress factors to the best of your ability. This usually includes getting rid of all clutter.
7. Spend more time listening to your employees. (See: Profit Drivers – How and Why to Partner with Your Employees)
8. Devote more attention to your personal life – your significant other, family, friends and pet. Read a good book, and spend time enjoying your forgotten hobbies to clear your thoughts.
9. Practice the principle of contrary action – change your routine in all that you do. For example, drive to work using a different route. When you go grocery shopping, steer the cart down a different aisle than you normally do. This will help you to become more open-minded, and you’ll more readily spot opportunities for growth.
10. Plan a break whether it’s for a week or a long weekend. Get the help you need so you can disappear from work. You can’t afford not to take a break.
11. Volunteer some time to help a charity or someone less fortunate than you are. Believe me, there opportunities everywhere. You’ll feel better and will have an extra spring in your step.

Do these things and you’ll break out of your slump.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are related tips:

• Four Tips to Motivate Employees When You’re Facing Adversity 
• 5 Tips If Your Web Site’s Traffic Slows in Summer Months

“Slump? I ain’t in no slump… I just ain’t hitting. “
-Yogi Berra

 

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is also a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

 

Football Lessons For Growth – 9 Steps For Strategic Alliance Success

 

En route to the first two Super Bowl wins in the 1960s, I recall three factors about Vince Lombardi’s Green Bay Packers – they were intense, skilled and balanced.

A fourth factor – they kept it simple. Even as a kid watching them on TV, I could almost anticipate most of their plays depending on the situations they faced.

Those days for me, they were the most exciting team to watch on TV. That was also thanks to the few words of minimalist sportscaster Ray Scott: “Hornung…touchdown…Green Bay!”

Paul Hornung was a complete player – a star halfback who also kicked field goals and passed for touchdowns.

Called the “Golden Boy,” he was a source for great metaphors in business. He was called to duty in the U.S. Army in the 1961 season. But somehow he was able to play on Sunday. In the NFL championship game vs. the New York Giants, he was named the game’s MVP.

Later, we learned why he was allowed Army leave on Sunday to play football. Coach Lombardi knew President John F. Kennedy. The legendary coach never seemed to overlook an opportunity in order to win.

Two years later, the flamboyant star was suspended indefinitely for gambling on games. But Coach Lombardi’s influence in the league and a contrite Hornung made his return possible the next season. Again, it was a lesson in networking for businesspeople.

As often is the case, sports offers lessons on strategic management and planning.

The NFL provides great metaphors for business success. Many businesspeople also know the importance of becoming stronger by teaming with others. By combining resources, companies succeed in meeting the needs of customers.

All such traits – passion, best practices, simplicity and strategic partnerships – contribute to winning in business. That’s why success stems from what you know – and whom you know – helps a business to be stronger in taking advantage of opportunities for growth via management, marketing and stability.

Naturally, to attract strategic partners, it’s important to be an attraction.

Here are nine steps:

1. Take an inventory. Evaluate your strengths and weaknesses, which have to be improved upon. You should demonstrate positive financials, stability, and vision.
2. Analyze your potential partner’s and alliance opportunities and threats.
3. Develop benchmarks. Determine in advance how you will measure success.
4. Be cautious and detached. Take baby steps – get engaged – don’t get married right away. As in marketing, remember this tenet about your prospective relationship, “test…test…test.”
5. Consider it an investment of your time and resources. Remember the Golden Rule. Take it seriously if your partner is to take you seriously.
6. Create a paper trail. Both parties must know what’s expected, how they’ll benefit, and if they do.
7. Leverage expertise of outside participants. That includes a mentor and professionals who understand the industries of both partners.
8. Make communication a key component of the relationship. Not via e-mail or telephone, but in-person visits.
9. Seek constant, ongoing improvement. Fine-tune as you go.

Oh, and make sure your strategic partner adheres to the nine standards.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are related resource links:

• Planning – Need a Game Changer? Ford, Seahawks Are Good Case Studies
• Helpful Career, Biz Tips from UCLA’s Longtime Broadcaster

Winners don’t wait for chances, they take them. 

 

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

 

Do You Want to Be a Ninja Innovator? Here’s How…

 

Every company wants to be successful in this worldwide downturn. But to achieve lofty goals, certainly innovation is the key in our new economy.

To become an innovative leader and to participate in turbo-charging the economy, it’s vital to continually evaluating your organization and strategizing for success. It takes involvement by members of your entire operation, and in most cases cultivating a new culture.

That means identifying your company’s assets, processes, resources and skills.

In a nutshell, here are the main points to consider in your analysis:

Human Resources – Completely review your capabilities in human resources with a focus on your competencies and weaknesses. Determine your abilities to achieve a competitive advantage.

Consider your recruitment process, training and development, and compensation systems.

Assess the strengths and weaknesses of your organizational culture, especially your leadership capabilities.

Products and services – Evaluate your offerings in terms of breadth and mix, quality and reliability.

Marketing – Take a hard look at your image, research, development, distribution channels, brand equity, sales personnel, customer-service quotient and market share.

Query your customers. What are their viewpoints? Evaluate your customer base to see if they meet your goals for growth.

Examine your potential marketplace with a focus on socio-culture – demographic trends and tastes, economic trends from interest rates to inflation.

Operations – Evaluate your productivity, quality controls, facilities, supply chain, technology, information systems, and management strengths and weaknesses.

Financial performance – Keep an eye on profitability. Forecast your revenue growth. Assess your asset utilization, debt-leverage position, liquidity and equity position.

Competition – Compare the missions, strategies, and competitive advantages of the competitors? 

Following your analysis, there are six steps to take. 

Here’s a checklist: 

1. Using your analysis, develop a big-picture strategic action plan.
2. Make sure you have a comprehensive human resources program that encourages collaboration among teams. That means maximum delegation, empowerment, training and succession planning.
3. Encourage blue sky planning sessions.
4. Continually evolve. Leverage the insights of your devil advocates with an eye on your company’s potential. Ask the right open-ended questions for optimal creativity.
5. Practice the “Principle of Contrary Action.” To learn how to keep an open mind, keep a mental note of all your activities but use a different approach each time. For example, even when driving to the neighborhood store, take a different route to-and-from each trip and alter your shopping habits inside the store. Dare to be bold. Consider all alternatives.
6. Keep chipping away.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are related resource links:

• Developing Trends, and Solutions for Manufacturing Success
• Study: Why Lean Manufacturing Principles Often Don’t Work
• Link between Financial Performance and Succession Planning
• Management Strategies for a Successful Turnaround

“When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.”

-Chinese proverb

 

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

 

Top 11 Tips for a Great Elevator Pitch

 

Whether you’re looking for a job or trying to land more customers for your business — whatever you’re trying to sell – one skill you definitely need is a great elevator pitch.

You need to prepare for any opportunities that come your way after diligent research and prospecting. Don’t be caught off guard. Create an introduction describing the value you provide, be concise, customize it for your target audience, and really know it – so you can deliver a flawless elevator pitch.

You have to be prepared to quickly answer the basic marketing 101 “so what” question – that all prospects subconsciously ask themselves.

To pique the interest of your prospective employer or customers, it’s important to succinctly summarize the benefits you provide. That’s the purpose of an elevator pitch – whether you’re seated for a formal appointment in an office or actually riding an elevator when you suddenly have an opportunity with a key decision-maker.

Here are 11 tips:

1. Know your talents. Take an hour or two to analyze and write down your strengths.

2. Forge a benefit statement or value proposition for each of you or your company’s strengths – a minimum of five reasons to buy from you. Then develop a succinct overall summary – less than 10 seconds – of the value you provide. Set the table so you get another 60 seconds of dialogue – you’ll want a green light that shows the prospect wants to hear more.

3. Avoid trite, over-used buzz words (The Best and Worst Business Buzzwords, Jargon, and Cliches).

4. If you mention data or statistics, keep it simple. Very simple.

5. Rehearse your pitch but don’t appear robotic or wooded, as we broadcasters used to say. You want to have a natural, smooth presentation. How you introduce yourself is just as important as what you say.

6. Keep your branding fresh and up-to-date for the changing marketplace.

7. Be flexible. Be prepared to switch gears if your prospect divulges valuable information regarding a need you think you can fill. It’s all about problems and solutions.

8. Don’t focus on giving your ideas to the prospect. Focus on your value.

9. Do your best to have a presence in the room before your pitch. In other words, develop a strong image online and in the community. That will enhance your chances in making your pitch.

10. Watch for cues to listen. The most persuasive people talk 10 percent of the time and listen 90 percent. If the prospect says something, treat like it’s an event for you and listen intently.

11. If you get an objection, be sure to respond effectively.

Here are the three steps to overcoming objections:

• Get the person to restate her/his concern. Then repeat the person’s words, for example: “If I understand you correctly, you feel…?”
• Empathize: “I can see how you feel that way”…or “You know, someone said the same thing last week.”
• Overcome the objection with facts.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are related resource links:

• Job Hunting? Tips to Land Your Dream Job with Style, Substance
• Are You Committing The Seven Deadly Sins of Selling?
• The Seven Steps to Higher Sales

“Your premium brand had better be delivering something special, or it’s not going to get the business.”
-Warren Buffett

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry. 

 

Seeing the Big Picture: An Often-Overlooked Trait for Sustainable Competitiveness

 

Sports can be a great metaphor for business. So occasionally I enjoy hearing broadcast analysts explain why they believe some teams are victorious. Some even become dynasties while others fail. Often the analysts’ conclusions are applicable for business. 

It’s also true, like businesspeople, sport analysts sometimes don’t understand the big picture. 

In analyzing successes and defeats, the announcers might stress playmaking, good defense, offense, or whatever. That’s all true. I don’t disagree. Likewise, a lot of businesses don’t dominate even though they have good sales or marketing people. 

But in analyzing sustainable competitiveness, it goes deeper than that – much deeper. 

Before I explain what I mean, let’s consider your company. How do you measure up, metrically? 

Try taking this simple quiz: 

1. Does your company operate at a high level of performance? 
2. Do you have big or small opportunities for significant improvement? 
3. Does your business use its resources effectively? 
4. Does your firm have a strong commitment to performance measurement? 
5. How’s your strategic planning for all tsunami-like contingencies? 
6. Are you best-in-class in your niche? 
7. How high is your customer-satisfaction index? 
8. How is your employee morale? 
9. How advanced are you in doing the green thing? 
10. Do you give back, or partner with the community? 

If you have positive answers for the 10 questions, it’s a safe bet your company has sustainable competitiveness – as a result of your bench strength from succession planning. 

Sure, just like sports teams, a typical successful business has superior game plans. It’s also faster and stronger than its competitors. 

But what’s an overlooked trait for sustainable competitiveness – the common denominator? Winners are No. 1 in bench strength from succession planning. Now that’s stellar management. 

From the Coach’s Corner, here are strategies for succession planning: 

• Link between Financial Performance and Succession Planning 
• Management — Why It’s a Mistake to Overlook Succession Planning 

“I have always advocated for funding and programs that increase our productivity and competitiveness.”

-George Allen

  

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.

Google’s Continuing Quest to Increase Page Speeds

 

Nov. 5, 2012 

You might want to check out a Google service. Google has been very concerned about page download speed to help it maintain its image as a search engine. So much so that in July 2011 they offered Web site owners a limited time offer.

It appears the offer is still available.

For higher performance, Google offered to complimentarily evaluate Web sites for download speed. They also offered to give out a new code that will made sites faster for enhanced user enjoyment.

This process enhanced Web sites; prominence on the No. 1 search engine, and it enabled Google to operate at a faster rate for users.

Google’s goal is to enable sites to download more quickly by as much as 60 percent.

“Page Speed Service fetches content from your servers, rewrites your pages by applying web performance best practices and serves them to end users via Google’s servers across the globe,” according to Google.

“The extent of speed up depends on a variety of factors such as content on your pages, browser, geographic location of access, bandwidth, etc.,” Google explained.

On its page-speed service page, Google also provided a link for publishers to test their site’s speed. Most tests took less than five minutes.

“The test involves rendering your website on the selected browser by directly visiting your site, and repeating the same test by proxying your site through Page Speed Service,” Google said at the time.

You can still test your site at Page Speed Service.

From the Coach’s Corner, here are resource links to help your site’s Google presence:

• In SEO, Your Site’s Download Speed Matters to Google
• Google Insights – 23 Key Questions about Your Web Site
• The Key to Internet Dominance: Think Integration

“The Internet is the Viagra of big business.”

-Jack Welch

 

__________

Author Terry Corbell has written innumerable online business-enhancement articles, and is a business-performance consultant and profit professional. Click here to see his management services. For a complimentary chat about your business situation or to schedule him as a speaker, consultant or author, please contact Terry.