Transcript Tactics, Tools, Time

IEEE Consultants Network Meeting
Creating and
Implementing
Marketing Ideas to
Build Your
Business
Your Speaker: Lori Gertz
Does this describe the momentum of your
business?
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Ebb and Flow
Fits and Starts
Feast or Famine
Drought or Deluge
Abundance or Lack
Stop or Go
Overwhelmed or Underwhelmed
The Ten Million Dollar Question is…
How, as a solo practitioner, can you create
more consistency and growth in your
business?
What does your pipeline look like?
How do you build a business the most
effective way?
Goals of Today’s session
• Understand marketing
• Visualize your pipeline
• Pick the best tactics that fit to
your market and budget
• Identify measurements of success
The difference between marketing & sales
• Marketing is the activity, set of
institutions, and processes for creating,
communicating, delivering, and
exchanging offerings that have value for
customers, clients, partners, and
society at large. (Source: American
Marketing Assn.)
Selling is just a piece of marketing.
Stepping outside your comfort Zone
• Be your own Marketing
Department
• Skill set presentation
• Writing
• Teaching, sharing, working a
room
• Trusting those outside your circle
• Processes and templates
Marketing, what it’s NOT…
Human Resources
Crisis Management
Publicity
Product Support
Customer Service
Graphic Arts
Trade Shows
Marketing, what it is…
• Marketing, at its core, is about developing
the strategies and tactics that support
achieving an organization’s GOALS by
building relationships with prospects and
customers.
Strategy- Have a plan!
Tactics – Have the right tools in place!
Goals - Success in business building and
ROI!
Develop a template for the continuation of the
flow of S+T=ROI
Let’s talk Strategy for a split second
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Expertise
Target Market
Market Demand
Competition
Differentiation
Now let’s talk tactics
Yikes…Now let’s talk tactics with
consistent and accountable ROI
• Email
• Websites
• Technical Papers
• Social Media
Hooking them with Email
Did you know??????
• Emails that have been tailored to
specific audiences
through segmentation get 50% more
clicks than their counterparts
(Source: Marketing Sherpa)
Your customized email must include :
1. Your core business strategy
2. What you know about your typical
buyers' purchasing decisions
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Geographic Segmentation (or)
Industry/Role Segmentation (or)
Segmentation Based on Content Interests (or)
Behavior-Based Segmentation (or)
Segmentation by Brand Advocates (or)
How do you build an email list?
• Weave the email campaign into your white
paper offer (which you will build using
Social media)
• Offer a newsletter or other free download
in exchange for their email address on
website
• Build a database tapping geo, industry,
interest, behavior, etc from other digital
venues (eg; social media)
Professional Emails with ROI Tracking
• Constant Contact
• Mailchimp
• ExactTarget
Things to remember
Always use opt-in/out language
Never Spam
Link to your website or blog
Create custom lists within your account
Start Small- Segment with thought
Website
• The days of 10K for website development are
O-V-E-R!
• CMS and WYSIWYG platforms make designing,
launching and managing a website a snap!
• Responsive Design is key!
• Feeding the
– Get away from static content with blog and social
media widgets and applications
• Mirror sites, custom landing pages, etc.
• Database signup
• Aggregate content
Great places to start
• Godaddy.com
• Wix.com
• Shopify (e-commerce)
7 Steps to Creating your Website
1. Find a template that suits your needs, make
sure it’s RD
2. Determine the mission of your site
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Awareness- Drive traffic
Conversion – Lead generation
Download of White paper- Lead generation
Sale of tangible goods – Sales generation
Culling Emails – lead and prospect id and generation
Your Mission = Your ROI
3. Create your site’s hierarchy and
infrastructure
7 Steps to Creating your Website
4. Write the content using keywords that
people will search to find your site
5. Edit it for brevity
6. Launch it!
7. Then start playing with the apps, widgets,
and start blogging on topics related to
your expertise
Ok, You Built it, Now What?
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Register with search engines
Build in analytics (Google, etc)
Online ads and banners
Social Media ads
E-zine and newsletter promotion
Article submissions
Cross promotion with other businesses
E-Book potentials
Organic vs. Paid Search
– Keywords
Organic Search
• What is a page rank and why does it
matter?
– Video
– Keywords
– Backlinks
– Article submissions
– Amazon.com
– Rich content
– Social Media
Content Rich White Papers
How can a white paper increase
your popularity?
White Papers Work!
• In a recent survey of more than 1,400 IT
professionals, the majority of them said
they were more likely to download a
white paper than product literature!
• More than 50% of the same IT
professionals surveyed said white papers
influenced their decision to buy the
product or service. (Source: Whitepapersource.com)
Your expertise working for you!
• Your intellectual property has a huge value
in the e-marketplace!
• You gain credibility and loyalty
• The challenge is establishing what your
marketing objective is and then writing to
that objective
Differentiating your White Paper
• Picking a topic
• Call it something other than a white
paper
• Put a price tag on it
• Try alternative delivery venues
• Don’t go overboard
Social Media is…
What social media really is…
is a CONVERSATION…
That is powered by …
A few quick stats on Social Media
• Companies that generate more than 1,000
Facebook Likes also receive nearly 1,400
website visits a day.
• 43% of all marketers have found a
customer via LinkedIn in 2013.
• 52% of all marketers have found a
customer via Facebook in 2013.
(Source: HubSpot)
And how about these…
• 93% of marketers use social
media for business
• 56% of Americans have a
profile on a social networking
site
Identifying which social media to
embrace
Social Media Objectives:
What do you want to accomplish?
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PICK ONE OBJECTIVE TO START WITH…
MUST BE ABLE TO MEASURE*
*a specific measurable result expected
Drive traffic
within a particular time period
Meet new people
Find new customers
Build loyalty
Build awareness
Get Buzz and pickups
Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, Google+
ARE YOU
• Listening
• Participating
• Sharing
• Spreading Awareness, Generating Buzz
• Getting behind a cause for action
Online Participation
•Asking questions
•Commenting
•Complimenting
•Forwarding
Are you Generating Buzz
•Creating profiles on Social bookmarking and
crowd sourcing sites
•Promote others content through service like digg,
stumpleupon, if it’s visual…Pinterest, Instagram
Community Building
Your Peeps
•Create a network based on your objectives and
strategy for growth.
•Establish credibility with your engaged network of
followers and those you follow
•Once established, the group of people you are in
conversation with will begin knowing where your
expertise lies.
Twitter Case Point #1
Techcrunch is active, engaging and responsive in Twitter!
Twitter Case Point #2
Livestrong
Foundation uses
twitter for…
•Press releases
•Public relations
•Customer Svc.
Twitter Case Point #3
•Video on twitter
Linked In
• Every second 2 new members join LinkedIn
It attracts and engages new business like a charm
EXPERIMENT: Benchmark an article’s click thru’s and
conversions to your website traffic (Bitly/tinyurl)
• Leverage recommendations and thank your
recommenders
• Make the most of your product and service
section
• Filter in lead generating content
• Target your posts
Facebook
Over a billion people
& comment an average of 3.2
billion times every SINGLE day.
My best advice for B2B Marketing
• Be authentic!
• Be clever and creative but avoid pushy,
flashy consumer approaches
• No hard sells, no gimmicks, no slick ad
copy
• Highlight your expertise!
• Make relationships not sales
• Moderate your time on social media
Q&A
Thank you!