This blog will explain why the Stanley Cup Quencher is so popular, how Stanley used the cup to expand into a totally new target market, and our top takeaways from the Stanley Cup marketing strategy.

Stanley Cup Marketing History: The Quencher Launch

More than a century old, Stanley was founded by William Stanley Jr. in 1913, who invented the steel vacuum insulated bottle technology that maintains hot or cold temperatures for hours. The brand has been popular with outdoor enthusiasts and the construction industry thanks to its durability and practicality, the focus of Stanley Cup marketing for decades.

The Quencher was launched in 2016 but didn’t find much success with Stanley’s mostly male audience, so it was close to being discontinued forever. However, that changed when a different type of consumer discovered the product — and loved it.

What Is the Target Market for Stanley Cups?

When a co-founder of shopping blog The Buy Guide discovered the Stanley Quencher, she found it offered several features that made it a better choice than any other cup she had. She recommended the cup on the site and included it in promotional curated boxes sent to influencers. When a Stanley employee saw Bachelorette star Emily Maynard promoting the cup on social media, she was surprised that the cup appealed to a market completely different from the outdoorsy males Stanley Cup marketing typically targeted.

Stanley executives began leaning into and embracing this new target market, creating cups with different color ways and finishes that consumers could coordinate with their outfit or mood. For the first time, Stanley wasn’t just useful — it became a trending status symbol. Paired with Stanley’s incredible durability and effectiveness, the Quencher is one trend that’s likely to stand the test of time.

Why Is the Stanley Quencher Cup So Popular?

What makes the story of the Stanley Quencher cup so unique is the way the brand was guided by consumers to tap into their desire for a sustainable, stylish, and practical travel cup option. This alignment with customer values didn’t happen by accident. It was the result of Stanley’s willingness to listen to its users and make updates to its product based on direct feedback. Here are some lessons growing businesses can take away from Stanley Cup marketing.

1. Listen to Your Customers
The first step in creating a product that resonates with your market is understanding where the true value lies for your customers. This goes beyond surface-level desires or the initial feedback loop and involves deep dives into customer behavior, preferences, and unmet needs. Stanley’s success with the Quencher was largely due to their ability to discern not just what customers said they wanted but to understand the underlying needs and preferences that drove those statements.

2. Test and Learn
Adopting a lean startup approach, characterized by the MVP (Minimum Viable Product) concept, is crucial. This method emphasizes the importance of rapid prototyping, testing, and iterating based on real user feedback. It’s about being agile enough to pivot when certain aspects of the product don’t meet customer expectations and doubling down on the features that do. For Stanley, this meant continuously refining the Quencher’s design, usability, and marketing approach to better align with consumer demands.

3. Devote Resources Wisely
When you hit on a product or service that gains traction, it’s essential to devote significant resources to scaling it. This doesn’t just mean financial investment but also dedicating time, talent, and technology to ensure that the product can grow without losing the quality or essence that made it popular. Recognizing the Quencher’s potential meant ramping up production, enhancing Stanley Cup marketing efforts, and ensuring supply chains were robust enough to meet the surging demand.

What Is the Stanley Cup Marketing Strategy Today?

Today, the Quencher story is more than just a tale of a product becoming a hit; it’s a blueprint for Stanley’s growth in the modern business landscape. By listening to customers, embracing a test-and-learn philosophy, and strategically allocating resources, companies can navigate the complexities of market demands and consumer preferences. As the Founder & CEO of a marketing agency, I see these principles as fundamental to guiding businesses through pivots and scaling efforts. The Quencher’s journey underscores the importance of agility, customer-centricity, and strategic investment in innovation.

A critical component of being able to pivot as quickly and effectively as Stanley has is the agility and open-mindedness of the members of the C-Suite. Stanley’s President through this successful blitz was recruited from Crocs, where he was the CMO, so had a marketing mind. While not all companies need a full-time CMO at the helm, it’s crucial to have one to turn to for marketing leadership and strategy.

A fractional CMO can help you choose the best strategies to grow your business. Download our overview to learn more about our fCMO services, our deep bench of specialized CMOs, and our unique matching process!

The post Lessons any growing business can learn from the Stanley quencher appeared first on &Marketing.

Premier Roofing Company leveraged fractional CMOs to rapidly establish a marketing department, generate significant leads and revenue, and transform company culture from door-to-door sales to a multi-channel marketing approach.

Business Challenge Summary

Premier Roofing, a PE-backed company, faced the challenge of increasing revenue quickly under new CEO Luke Marklin. The mandate was clear: achieve rapid growth and scale operations efficiently. The company needed to establish a strong internal marketing team. Transitioning from a traditional door-to-door sales strategy to a comprehensive multi-channel marketing approach was essential for achieving their ambitious goals.

Hiring a full-time Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) through a typical executive search process would take 4-5 months—time Premier Roofing didn’t have. They required immediate expertise to drive their marketing strategy and execution.

&Marketing’s Approach

After engaging with &Marketing, Premier Roofing realized fractional CMO services would provide a faster, lower-risk solution. This approach allowed them to quickly build a marketing team and start executing their new strategy through:

• A Quick Hiring Process: In less than four weeks, two fractional CMOs, Andrea and Bruce, joined Premier Roofing. Andrea took the lead in building the marketing team, while Bruce focused on developing their digital marketing foundation.
• Customer Research: Andrea and Bruce conducted extensive customer research to inform upcoming branding changes and ensure the new marketing strategies aligned with customer needs and preferences.
• Multi-Channel Marketing System: A robust multi-channel performance marketing system was developed from scratch, transitioning Premier Roofing from reliance on door-to-door sales to a diversified marketing approach that included digital, social, and traditional channels.

The Results

1. Integrated Seamlessly with the Leadership Team

Andrea and Bruce became integral members of Premier Roofing’s leadership team. They attended key meetings and collaborated closely with leadership and staff across the company, ensuring alignment and buy-in for the new marketing initiatives.

2. Increased Lead Generation and Revenue

The new multi-channel marketing strategy generated hundreds of new leads per month. Premier Roofing projected a significant revenue increase, estimated at $3-5 million for the year.

3. Experienced a Cultural Shift

The company experienced a cultural transformation. The sales and operations teams embraced marketing-generated leads, adapting to new processes and ensuring they could handle and convert the influx of new leads effectively.

The post Premier Roofing Company Transforms with Fractional CMOs appeared first on &Marketing.

• The Value of an updated LinkedIn profile to you and your company
• How to create an authentic and influential LinkedIn profile
• Key areas to improve and optimize your LinkedIn
• & more!

The post Value-Centric LinkedIn Profile Checklist appeared first on &Marketing.

When you face reality head-on (without dwelling or sounding defeatist), your brand earns more authenticity among those looking for a solution. They’re more likely to give you their time when they can see that you understand their challenges.

If brands want to cut through the noise to capture their audience’s attention, empathize with their struggles, and differentiate themselves, it’s time to get more comfortable with a little negativity.

The Power of Bonding with Your Audience Over a Problem

It may feel counterintuitive to risk stirring up negative feelings in your audience by drawing on negative experiences. But when done correctly, it can help with reader retention and engagement by creating a shared experience and tapping into emotion to make the reader feel seen and understood. For example, an electronic lock brand may reference the frustration of losing your keys or getting locked out, a common negative experience that most people understand and can bond with the brand over.

When incorporating the StoryBrand framework into their strategy, marketers must understand that “every story is about somebody who is trying to solve a problem, so when we identify our customers’ problems, they recognize us as a brand that understands them.” (Donald Miller, Building a StoryBrand)

If we want our audience to pay attention, we have to position ourselves as offering a product or service they can easily use to solve that problem. To do that, we have to clearly identify and articulate that problem so they can see that we understand what they’re dealing with. StoryBrand marketers turn that problem into a personified villain so we can tell the audience a story about themselves as a hero, overcoming the villain using our products and services. Stories are only compelling because they include a struggle, a challenge to overcome. If we limit ourselves to only discussing the positive, we can’t create as effective a story.

A great example is a Rug Doctor campaign that showed people “steaming mad at dirt,” angry at their soiled rug. While most people aren’t enraged by a dirty rug, they certainly don’t like it, and this makes for a more interesting story than simply offering the benefit of a clean rug — the audience’s aversion to dirt is more powerful than their appreciation of cleanliness. Starting with a clean rug doesn’t make for an interesting story, because there’s no problem for the hero to solve. A clean rug is a nice benefit but a poor attention-grabber.

4 Examples of Useful Negativity in Marketing

Personify problems as villains.

Personifying the audience’s central problem as a villain is vital in marketing storytelling. For example, the medication brand Mucinex has done a great job of personifying mucus as nasty little monsters living in your sinuses — and positioning their product as your best defense against the invader.

Try a “negative” headline or title.

Refer to the title of this blog as an example of a negative headline: Is Fear of Negativity Holding Your Marketing Team Back? This headline introduces doubt and the potential that the reader may be doing something wrong — but there is also the implied promise of a solution. The important thing to remember when using this tactic is to provide solid content that offers a solution or a way to improve.

Take a stand.

Take a stand for something your brand believes in. This might involve something controversial, possibly a social or political issue, but it doesn’t have to be that serious. You could have what constitutes a ‘hot take’ in your industry but is low-stakes for those outside your audience — like an audio/video company stating that the industry should have chosen the Beta video format over VHS. Some may disagree with you, but it could be worth it if it gets people talking and associating your brand with a specific position on the topic, especially if you have the data and experience to back it up.

Poke some fun at yourself.

A little self-deprecation and self-awareness can go a long way. For example, Domino’s Pizza acknowledged that many customers thought their crust tasted like cardboard and pledged to improve the recipe. This helped to humanize the brand while proving to customers that they not only listen to their feedback but also take it seriously enough to take action.

Tips for Using Negativity Effectively in Marketing

Referencing negative experiences or audience problems is essential, but requires practice and diligence to ensure it’s done effectively. Here are a few tips to help you maintain balance and avoid alienating the audience:

• Be sure you truly understand the audience’s problems and the negative emotions those problems cause.
• Be subtle — it’s best not to be heavy-handed or extreme when referencing negative experiences.
• Once you’ve formed an emotional bond over a shared negative experience, shifting the mood quickly to a solution is important. Don’t dwell.
• Show the reader that the solution is simple — there’s an easy way to escape from this situation, and we can show you how.

Overcome the Fear — We Can Help

From learning how to effectively use negativity in advertising and marketing to building a content marketing calendar and measuring its ROI — and more — we can help! Contact &Marketing today. If you want to DIY your brand’s messaging, download our narrative marketing outline as a guide.

The post Is Fear of Negativity Holding Your Marketing Team Back? appeared first on &Marketing.

But the good news is, we now have access to data that can help us answer that question. So, when is the best time to post on LinkedIn?

Well, the TLDR version of the answer is – it varies based on your audience. However, we at &Marketing don’t particularly love that answer. We also like to dig a little bit deeper and have some fun by leaning into data and building fun dashboards. So when we were posed this question, we decided to create something new that could give us an answer and potentially add to our Business Intelligence services. Here’s what we did and learned.

While you might generate some leads and back into your business goals with this approach, you’ll likely just be wasting time and money when you could be working smarter, not harder.

However, with all of the tools and data out there, it can be overwhelming or down right impossible to even know where to begin and how to leverage all of these glorious resources. Therefore, we’re going to help you find the elusive needle in the hay sack and show you three tools &Marketing leverages to save time, stop guessing, and still generate big results for our clients (and ourselves).

Business Questions to Answer:

1. When is the best day to post on Linkedin for audience engagement?
2. What days drive the most users to our website?
3. Which days generate the most goal completions on our website?
4. What type of posts generate the most engagement?
5. What days have the best goal conversion rate?

Data Used:

We gathered three years of LinkedIn data from a combination of sources.

1. We used a combination of Supermetrics post data (posts, post date, images, outbound URLs, likes, comments, shares, etc.) (Sidebar: Supermetrics is a tool that aggregates data from multiple sources and brings it to your go-to reporting, analytics, or storage platform.)
2. We took our own LinkedIn acquisition source data from Google Analytics (LinkedIn traffic, pages, goal completions, users, etc.)
3. We used LinkedIn data from LinkedIn itself (Post content, engagement, etc.) to gather information about our audiences (unfortunately, LinkedIn doesn’t break down post data by audience demographics which would’ve been super cool. Get on that LinkedIn)

Methodology:

Taking all of this data, we built several dashboards via Microsoft Power B.I. to help us mine through the 500+ LinkedIn posts and the thousands of website sessions from LinkedIn. These dashboards helped us easily uncover insights that could apply to our business questions.

Pro Tip: Do NOT use Bitly links with your LinkedIn posts. It makes it harder to match up the data with your Analytics.

What We Uncovered

After sifting through 500+ posts and all of our LinkedIn analytics data, here is what we uncovered:

• When is the best day to post on LinkedIn for audience engagement?
  For us, it is Wednesday. 38% of our most engaged posts occur on Wednesdays, encompassing roughly 33% of all our LinkedIn engagement. Interestingly enough, only 16% of all of our posts are released on Wednesdays. The day we post the most? Tuesday, closely followed by Thursday. Our least engaged day? Sunday. However, we don’t post a lot on the weekends, as both Saturday and Sunday only make up about 8% of our LinkedIn posts. The weekday with the least engagement is Friday.
• What days drive the most users to our website?
  Since 2019, LinkedIn has driven about 5% of all our website traffic. Based on the above, one would assume it would be Wednesday. However, Tuesdays barely eked out Thursdays and Wednesdays for the most traffic to our site. Even though our Wednesday posts generate more clicks, it’s the type of post that is driving those clicks (more on that in a second). Tuesdays are generating 20% of all of our LinkedIn traffic, which means posts on Monday and Tuesday are driving the most people to our site. The post that received the most traffic was our work culture post. However, the most engaged users are users who come to our site from LinkedIn on Wednesdays, as they have the lowest bounce rate, visit the most pages, and have the longest time on site.
• Which days generate the most goal completions on our website?
  Since 2019, LinkedIn is responsible for 9% of all our website goal completions. The day that drives the most overall goal completions is Tuesday, followed closely by Monday, which shows that the information we’re posting on Mondays and Tuesdays is more geared towards our audience taking an action on our site. 67% of all the goals generated from LinkedIn on our site are job submissions, which means our audience is highly engaged with our company and is passing along our open positions. Tuesday is also the day most responsible for non job related goal completions, think downloads or contact us.
• What type of posts generate the most engagement on LinkedIn?
  As we stated before, Wednesday drives the most engagement, but not necessarily the most users to our site or overall goal completions. This is due to the type of posts we’ve generally posted on Wednesdays. Our most engaged LinkedIn posts are cultural posts. Our post on Women’s History Month generated almost 3 times as many clicks as the next post, which was also cultural and focused on Martin Luther King Day and our volunteer efforts. Our three most engaged posts on Tuesdays deal with inviting people to our webinars or a webinar recap, which serves to drive people back to our site.
• What days have the best goal conversion rate?
  Though only making up 14% of all goal completions, Saturday posts have the best overall goal conversion rate of 8%. But these users only make up 8% of our LinkedIn traffic. Sunday is around 7%, but again, users only make up 7% of our LinkedIn traffic. What does this mean? We simply just don’t post enough on the weekends. Mondays make up 16% of our LinkedIn traffic and have a 6% goal conversion rate, which is the highest conversion rate for a weekday.

What Does All This Mean About the Best Day to Post on LinkedIn?

We’d be silly to look at all of this data and just say, “we’re doing great!” We now have actionable insights that will help us optimize our organic LinkedIn strategy. What can we do based on the above is:

• Take advantage of high engagement days. Post more content that drives people back to our site on Wednesdays, Tuesdays, and Mondays, as these are the days that:

1. Our audience is most engaged with our LinkedIn content and engagement with our site.
2. Have the best conversion rates on our site.

• Shift our cultural posts to lower engaged days like Friday and make sure we’re driving people back to our site via a blog post or video.
• Experiment posting on the weekends more often to take advantage of high conversion rates. Though there is not a lot of traffic from LinkedIn on these days, the quality of traffic is clearly strong and engaged. Our assumption: those who are getting on LinkedIn during the weekend have the spare time to actually explore and engage a little.

As we mentioned in the beginning, everyone’s audience and social presence is different, so this data may be vastly different than what you uncover. The important takeaway is that all of this data is FREE and available to you via LinkedIn and your Google Analytics. When thinking about and crafting your organic social strategy, don’t neglect these valuable insights. Lean on them to make your LinkedIn presence felt by the most people. Don’t waste your valuable time just posting randomly without actually figuring out what works.

Want &Marketing to perform a free analysis of your LinkedIn? Contact us today! 

The post When is the Best Day to Post on LinkedIn? appeared first on &Marketing.

LinkedIn grew to over 740 million active users in 2020, and in Q2 of 2021, their revenue increased 23% year over year. Also in the second quarter of this year, hours spent on LinkedIn doubled compared to 2020, indicating that the rise in popularity isn’t just a pandemic novelty, With the addition of features like LinkedIn Stories, the platform has grown beyond just a networking site to a full-blown social media platform.

Utilizing LinkedIn to build rapport and sell authentically through developing relationships, providing value, and gaining potential customer’s confidence can make you a leader in your field.

Bill McCormick of Social Sales Link has been teaching people like you how to grow their business by leveraging the power of LinkedIn for social selling so they can start more sales conversations. Bill joined &Marketing’s Founder and Managing Director, Rajat Kapur, for a webinar on “Keys to Authentic Social Selling on LinkedIn”.

Keys to Authentic Social Selling on LinkedIn

During this interactive webinar, Bill and Rajat talked about:

• What exactly social selling is and why it’s important.
• What selling authentically through social media is, and what it is not.
• How to “earn” the right to have a conversation on LinkedIn.
• How to build the know, like, trust factor with a new connection.

Catch the recap of “Keys to Authentic Social Selling on LinkedIn” below!

About Bill McCormick

Bill McCormick discovered the power of LinkedIn and social selling when he and his wife started their advertising specialty company. After successfully and consistently bringing on new clients by leveraging LinkedIn to build relationships and deliver value, he joined Social Sales Link as their CSO to teach others how to grow their businesses the way he grew theirs.

About Rajat Kapur

As the Founder and Managing Director of &Marketing, Raj strives to provide growing businesses of all sizes unparalleled marketing strategy and execution services. Raj brings two decades of professional experience in marketing, sales, and strategy development experience spanning B2B and B2C Fortune 50, mid-sized, and startups.

 About &Marketing U

&Marketing U is a modern marketing course for busy solopreneurs and one-person marketing departments. This course provides all of the marketing tools, education, and accountability you need to grow your business, all in one place and for a fraction of the cost of hiring an agency or new employees.

About &Marketing

In today’s fast paced world, many growing businesses are struggling to modernize their marketing approaches because either they don’t have the expertise or the bandwidth to do it themselves.

&Marketing provides seasoned marketing strategy professionals and a nimble execution team to help our clients achieve their goals. Our unique partnership model allows us to augment our client’s existing teams or outsource the entire marketing function in an affordable, flexible, and transparent way.

The post Webinar Recap: Keys to Authentic Social Selling on LinkedIn appeared first on &Marketing.

We’ve all faced a situation like this on LinkedIn: You encounter someone on LinkedIn and you want to connect with them. Maybe they posted something you identified with or you share a similar position in your industry. Maybe they’re a potential prospect and you want to build a digital relationship. In any case, you want to connect with this person that you haven’t actually met.

However, you don’t want to just ‘reach out’ given the amount of SPAM or overly “salesly” message requests we’re bombarded with on a regular basis. It’s understandable for people to be wary of a request from an unknown person.

How do you create a LinkedIn invite for a virtual stranger?

Since there’s no hard-and-fast rule of etiquette surrounding these types of requests, we went straight to the source by asking our own contacts through a LinkedIn poll, and the results were quite revealing!

Overall, we found that about one-third of people will either accept every invite, or not accept an invite from someone they don’t know.

Under what conditions do you accept LinkedIn invites from people you don’t know?

• 20% NEVER accept unsolicited requests
• 68% accept some
• 12% ACCEPT all invites

This leaves about ⅔ of people in the “gray zone,” that space where there is no black or white answer and it really depends on several factors. Some people prefer a tight network of close contacts and to avoid strangers online, while others prefer to explore new contacts and discover the unknown potential networks in their industry.

After reviewing the 150+ comments, we created some guidelines when approaching your next potential LinkedIn contact:

1) Always customize the invite (and don’t use AI!)

Many respondents said that they wouldn’t accept invites from those who didn’t customize their invites with a message to make the benefit of connecting clear. So, take a few moments to customize your message to make the benefits of connection with you clear. Is it a common industry or geography? Common LinkedIn connections? A common former employer or university?

And besides being explicitly against LinkedIn’s terms of use, many users feel they know when automation is being used to automatically send invites.

2) Make the benefit of connecting clear to the receiver

“It’s not about you!”

Nobody wants a spammy sales pitch as part of the invite, so avoid the “unsolicited sales pitch” at all costs. Look from the perspective of the receiver and build a benefit into your message. If accepting the contact means you can both broaden your knowledge in your field or offer a new perspective on a situation or process, you are likely to have more success in getting new contacts. Any worthwhile relationship takes two to make the connection worthwhile. While you want to ensure you will benefit from adding the contact, let them know how they can benefit from a connection. If it appears a mutually beneficial relationship can develop from an unknown contact, many agree it’s worth saying yes.

3) Make sure the connection is relevant – common interests or connections

Another major benefit of making a request on a social network versus an in-person connection is the opportunity to do some research. Many respondents concluded that if the contact is a stranger and yet seems like a good match, some initial research can help with the decision to accept or decline. Many specifically said that they would accept invites if the person has common LinkedIn connections

If you’re still unclear on where you stand in networking, especially in the Post-COVID business environment, consider researching the importance of relationship marketing post pandemic.

4) Make sure your own profile is updated!

Many respondents will do their own research when reviewing an invite and deciding whether or not to accept it. So, make sure your profile is updated and reflects genuinely on your position and goals. Many believe that creating a virtual team of contacts from whom they can learn can be a valuable opportunity to make an impact or even just provide a better understanding of issues at play.

5) Interact with those you invite if they ask questions!

Some of our respondents specifically reach out to those who have sent them in invite who they don’t know. If this happens, always follow up!

Final Thoughts 

Remember: LinkedIn can be a powerful tool, but until you fully realize how to leverage it, you may need to spend some time learning how to best grow and develop a network.

Sometimes, no matter what you do, you may still get your invitation declined. The times to say no to an unknown contact are broadly personal. Some prefer to keep their contacts limited to their own industry, while others are hesitant to accept offers from anyone unknown in anticipation of sales pitches and unsolicited headhunters.

To summarize, it’s always a good approach to send a brief introduction with a LinkedIn request to someone you haven’t met to clearly show them the benefit of connecting with you. Identify mutual benefits of connecting, the relevance of your connection, and any mutual alignments. And always have your LinkedIn profile updated!

Is your business interested in learning more about leveraging LinkedIn to drive business? Download our ebook, “Powerful tips to increase and engage your LinkedIn company page followers” or contact us directly for an evaluation on how you can best utilize social media in your business.

The post Sending LinkedIn Invites to Strangers: Is There Protocol? appeared first on &Marketing.

Even the best sales teams have off days, but when those off days drag on longer than usual, it could be a red flag your sales training is stale. If you suspect your sales team is struggling, check out our list of six signs your sales force is in need of a reset. We even included actionable steps to help them overcome the sales slump.

6 Ways to Tell Your Sales Training is Stale (And How to Fix It)

1. Not Doing Enough Research

Prospecting is like fishing. A seasoned fisherman knows in order to catch a certain fish, they need to get a few critical questions answered first. Likewise, a good salesperson knows the value in getting as much information about their prospect as possible Just like a fisherman needs to know what type of bait to use and where the fish swims, understanding a prospect well enough to know what “bait” (i.e., call, email, in-person meeting, etc.) to use and where to use it is critical. If you suspect your sales team is lacking in intel, here are some tips for researching your target customer.

• Look up the company’s website and gather information from their About Us and Media pages. You can use this information as an ice breaker.
• Google the company to see if they have recently been in the news, good or bad.
• Look the company up on LinkedIn to see who you know that can connect you.
• Reach out to your network and determine the best person to make an introduction for you (this is ideal), or who will let you drop their name in your correspondence.
• Once on their LinkedIn page, try to determine their personality profile. This will inform your method and “bait.” For example, most CFOs and CPAs have a high element of calculation in their personality, so they will respond positively to an email that has details, research, facts, figures, spreadsheets, etc. Whereas a CEO or salesperson might have a high element of drive in their personality, so providing them with too much info will backfire.

Extra tip: Adding the app Crystal Knows to your Google Chrome LinkedIn experience is critical for salespeople today. This plugin will analyze the language on your prospect’s LinkedIn page and give their opinion as to the DISC personality profile of the prospect, giving you advice as to how to proceed with your communication tactics.

If your sales team is struggling to understand their target customer and how they behave, they are likely casting their net too wide, fishing in the wrong lake, or using the wrong bait. A smart salesperson understands the need to take a more targeted approach in order to catch the right fish.

2. Doing Too Much Talking

If you are presenting your value proposition before learning anything about the prospect, and essentially taking over the meeting, you will lose the deal almost every time.

In your initial discovery meeting, lead the conversation by allowing the prospect to speak first and explain their business. In addition to the questions you normally ask to uncover if they may be a fit for you, you should ask other interesting questions like, “Why do you do what you do?” and “What motivates you to get out of bed each day?” These questions will yield many clues to their personality and give you guidance on how to present your value proposition to them.

3. Not Networking

In today’s world, the excuse that “networking events are canceled so there are no opportunities” no longer works. The world of virtual networking is on fire. There are opportunities to attend virtual networking events almost every day, and the organizations putting them on are getting really good at making them a valuable use of time.

I recently secured appointments with 100% of the people I did not know on a networking event held via Zoom. This is important to note because there is no way you can get an appointment with 100% of the people you don’t know at an in-person event.

4. Not Making LinkedIn Part of the End of Every Purchase

The most effective (and least expensive) marketing tool is a referral. Connecting on LinkedIn with customers who love you is a great way to generate an instant referral business. In your connection request, remember to write a message that addresses why you are connecting.

For example:
“Hi Ken, Please connect with me? I am looking to grow my business and knowing how happy you are with my service, I’m hoping you can introduce me to some of your friends who may need my services as well.”

5. Recycling Emails and Presentations

Nothing kills an opportunity faster than sending a prospect an email with the wrong company name, especially if a competitor. I recommend taking the time to write each email and each presentation with the prospect in mind. It doesn’t have to be completely from scratch, but care should be taken for each situation. If the prospect feels like they are just a number and are not individual or special, your odds go down.

6. Your Sales Team Does Not Know WHY Your Company Exists

If your sales team can not explain WHY your company exists, then there is a lot of work to be done. When given a choice between two companies who are identical in service and price, it comes down to the skill of the salesperson to educate the prospect on WHY they should choose us over them. The message is very powerful.

A great example is The Monkey’s Uncle, a simple T-shirt shop in Doylestown, PA. They do not outwardly communicate WHY their store exists, yet you instantly see WHY their store exists the moment you walk in the door.

A normal t-shirt shop’s elevator pitch sounds like this “Hi I’m Derrick Morgan, owner of the Monkey’s Uncle. We sell high-quality t-shirts with old logos of your favorite sports teams and retro concert posters for kids and adults. Want to buy one?” Not bad right?

Now if we lead with WHY they exist, the pitch completely changes. “Hi I’m Jeanell Morgan, co-owner of Monkey’s Uncle. We strive to always support our community, little leagues, and favorite local causes. One of our biggest passions is the ongoing mentoring programs for the special needs community. We partner with our local school districts to advocate and support students of all abilities and their access to obtaining real life job skills. We are a retro inspired sports boutique. We sell pretty amazing tee shirts from babies to babes, and dudes to dads – this is the most fun your closet will ever have. Want to buy a t-shirt?”

An easy way to find your why is to first ask your team “What do we do?” then “How do we do it?” Pretend you are a 5-year-old child and continuously ask “WHY” until you get to the answer.

Getting out of a sales slump takes an active, focused effort. If any of these red flags ring true for your sales team, it’s time for some honest feedback. Remember that even the most seasoned salesperson can find their process and training becomes stale. It happens. The important part is recognizing when it does so you can review your sales process and figure out where you’re getting stuck.

If you want to learn more ways to identify sales technique areas of concern, and ways to get the team back on track, reach out to John Durso of Brilliant Sales Strategies and schedule a short virtual meeting JDurso@BrilliantSalesStrategies.com

The post 6 Ways to Tell Your Sales Training is Stale appeared first on &Marketing.

Your Individual Profile

Let’s start with the basics to get your feet wet. These foundations are the most important to complete, and pretty simple. Don’t skimp on the easy stuff!

• 100% complete: Ensure that every section of your profile is complete. Try not to leave anything blank, but don’t add irrelevant details for the sake of filling in an empty space. You’ll know you are complete when you’ve reached All-Star status on your profile completion meter!
  
• Optimize your profile: Use the words you want to be known for. If you drive strategy for businesses, make sure that is included. Profiles are indexed by search engines, but you have to make sure your profile settings allow for search engine visibility via your public profile.
• Customize your URL: LinkedIn assigns a random URL by default. Simpler is better. You can update your personal URL to display whatever you want, but your name is typically the best option.
• Get endorsed for your skills: A personal referral can go a long way with both people you know and people you don’t know. Being referred by others shows they trust you and endorse you for your skills. Get endorsements, and be sure to give endorsements as well.
• Provide samples of your work: You can upload various pieces of media to show your work. Include things you are proud of and showcase your skills. It’s an easy way to demonstrate your authority to anyone who’s checking out your Page.

Your Posts

How useful could a networking platform be if you don’t actually network? Use posts to share and start conversations. Ask for advice or ideas. Give your POV on industry news, trending topics, and other major events. People you are connected with or those following certain hashtags will see your posts in their news feeds. There are a few basic rules of thumb you can follow to drive more engagement through your posts.

• Content and consistency matters: Share quality insights and fresh perspectives based on your knowledge, expertise, or observations. Use your analytics to see what’s resonating. Be sure to post regularly on timely and trending topics that get people talking. It doesn’t have to be daily, but commit to a schedule that works for you.
• Start a conversation: Engage your network by asking an open ended question or sharing a point of view. Don’t forget to respond to commenters and engage with other posts with a comment or share to drive the conversation.
• Use @Mentions: Invite specific people to participate in your conversations by using the @mention function in your post. This increases the chances your post will get shared and seen by people you want to hear from, along with people outside of your immediate connections.
• Use relevant hashtags: Use hashtags to indicate what your post is about and to get the attention of certain groups. Hashtags help your content get discovered and are searchable. Do your own search of hashtags to find ones that are relevant to your audience and have a strong following so you can reach more people.
• Include photos or videos: Posts with images or rich media draw people in and bring your post to life. LinkedIn also indicates that posts that have a visual element perform better and are more engaging, which leads to more networking.

LinkedIn has a powerful tool for making connections and showcasing thought leadership within LinkedIn Groups. These groups provide a great platform for members to share their professional expertise, experiences, and advice with their connections, the larger LinkedIn community, and people who aren’t within their network. The people in these groups are there because they want to be, which allows for even more flexibility to highlight your expertise in a certain area. You can leverage groups in just a few simple steps.

• Find the right group: There are literally millions of groups on LinkedIn, with new ones being added all the time. Find one that would benefit from your expertise. Not only can you learn from the group, but you may be able to help someone else.
• Engage in conversations: You want to establish a presence without being too salesy. By driving thought leadership and subject matter expertise, the group members will see you as a knowledge base and take your guidance, which helps in making decisions.
• Offer solutions (when appropriate!): Once you have established yourself as a thought leader, you can begin to offer solutions for the problems the group members are facing, but not just any solutions— your solutions. It’s also an opportunity to gauge the problems people are facing and allow you to tailor your marketing to better serve your potential customers.

Your Company

Although many people view LinkedIn as a site for job hunters and growing your professional network, it is also an effective tool for generating new leads and nurturing referral relationships. A company Page is one advantage of using LinkedIn for business. It is an opportunity to tell your company’s story, engage with followers, drive leads, share career opportunities, and scale your marketing.

• Complete your Page: Just like your individual profile, the completeness of your company Page is important too. Even if you have had an active company Page on LinkedIn for quite some time, you should review it and make sure everything is filled out. Pages that are 100% complete get 30% more views than incomplete ones.
• Post regularly: Companies that post weekly see two times more engagement with their content than companies that post less often. Find a cadence that works for you and stick with it.
• Share valuable content: The foundation of any social media strategy is highly valuable content. Determine what types of information your audience needs and seeks and share content that answers their most pressing questions or solve their immediate problems.
• Introduce new products or services: You can use this space to not only introduce new products or services, but highlight what your company has to offer. You can explain how you and your products will help customers solve their problems and meet their business needs. Driving people to your website enables followers to easily find more information and convert your website visitor traffic into warm business leads.
• Optimize your Page and posts: Google and other search engines return LinkedIn company Pages and posts highly in the search results, so adding updates to your company Page and optimizing posts for SEO helps to improve your performance. As a result, your website may see an increase in referral traffic from LinkedIn, especially if your posts contain links back to your company’s website.
• Invite your connections: LinkedIn says that once Pages gain 150 followers, their opportunity for growth becomes exponential. You can grow your audience by adding a follow button to your email and website, but also as a LinkedIn Page Admin, you can personally invite your followers to 1st-degree connections to follow your Page.
• Review your analytics: With the data you gain through reviewing your Page analytics, you can see which content and topics your followers and audiences are engaging with across LinkedIn to help inform your content strategy. This data can be used to create content and posting cadence to drive more engagement and clicks to your calls to action.

All of the suggestions above are free and cost you nothing, but these are just the tip of the iceberg with the potential LinkedIn brings to the table. Many businesses are missing the free tools offered through LinkedIn by not taking advantage of all the platform has to offer as part of a comprehensive marketing strategy. A LinkedIn Company Page is essential and beneficial to your business growth. LinkedIn is a powerful platform for both professionals and the companies they work for. Check out our eBook that gives you the low-down on optimizing your company Page with both free and paid tools to maximize your opportunities on the platform.

The post Leveraging the Power of LinkedIn to Work For You: Tips and Tricks to Optimize your LinkedIn Presence appeared first on &Marketing.

Most mid-market companies have taken the right immediate actions in response to the coronavirus outbreak: They’ve followed health and safety guidelines in their workplaces, cut costs, and taken out loans and grants. However, the changes in customer and employee behaviors and attitudes are so deep that companies must reexamine how they do business, and ensure it fits the emerging “new normal.” 

For most mid-market companies, things will never go back to what they were, and strategies that worked in the past may no longer apply. Smart leaders will seize these changes as opportunities to become stronger and more competitive. 

Our last webinar focused on identifying and examining the new business trends that have emerged as a result of COVID-19, and how to leverage these changes as opportunities to adapt your business and sustain long-term growth. Amanda Cook hosted our panelists, who shared their valuable insights based on decades of experience in the trenches dealing with these issues:

• Rajat Kapur, &Marketing’s Managing Director

• Bob Olsen, who brings decades of marketing leadership and change management experience from DuPont, FXI, and Deloitte Consulting

• Rahul Kapur of Icon Investment Partners, who brings 35+ years of business transformation experience

During the webinar, we learn:

• The key business discontinuities and changes that have emerged from COVID-19 and the opportunities they present

• The key areas that require immediate attention from mid-market companies, and the actions they must take to sustain long-term growth:

  • Redefine the customer experience
  • Revive relationships with employees 
  • Restructure your supply chain
  • Rethink and reset your strategy 

Couldn’t make it live? Watch the webinar recording to hear the valuable insight on these business leaders shared on the emerging trends we are seeing today.

Are you ready to rethink and reset your business strategy to emerge stronger post-pandemic? We can work with you to create your own radar chart that is specific to your company’s goals, and develop the right approach to customize actionable steps for your business. Contact us to get started!

About the Authors

Robert Olsen is a Marketing Expert, Speaker and Consultant with a unique combination of Management Consulting and C-suite experience in chemicals and life sciences.  He is an experienced Chief Marketing Officer, and has also served as Corporate Marketing Director at DuPont and a Strategy and Operations Consultant at Deloitte.  Robert helps companies grow, utilizing his expertise in marketing, sales, and innovation to navigate major changes and new programs including M&A, brand building, and culture transformations. Robert is passionate about creating a better customer experience and employee culture to drive business results.

Rahul Kapur has 40+ years of successful business experience spanning a variety of areas. As a business consultant, he provides companies of all sizes with his expertise in strategy development, M&A, new products & innovation, and data analysis and modeling. His experience includes Unilever, Dow Chemical and Aearo Technologies (now 3M). He is Managing Director of Icon Investment Partners, Chairman of Guilford Group, Managing Member of Ark Capital Investments, LLC, and Senior Advisor for &Marketing, Crossroad Transactions, and Quest Safety Products, as well as on the boards of several start-ups.

The post Webinar Recap: How Mid-Market Companies Can Emerge Stronger Post-Pandemic appeared first on &Marketing.

Gone are the days where content is used just to build awareness. When backed by data and developed in conjunction with your overall goals, content can be used to drive your target audience to convert and generate concrete revenue for your business.

Content Manager, Beth McDonough, and Marketing Director, Paul Ferguson, recently discussed how data-driven content developed in tandem with your business goals can drive quick conversions and lead generation. They also covered:

• How to align your business goals with your overall content strategy.
• How to use data to influence your content creation and distribution.
• How to create content your target audience is actively searching for.
• How to leverage Business Intelligence in conjunction with compelling storytelling and messaging to drive lead generation.

Couldn’t make the live webinar? No problem! Watch the recording to learn how data combined with storytelling can be a powerful lead generation tool.

Ready to begin applying some of the methods we covered in this webinar? Download our latest eBook, “Cut the Fluff: How to Create Content That Actually Grows Your Customer Base,” to get our step-by-step process for gathering data, writing compelling and conversion-ready content, and distributing it to the right audience.

About Beth McDonough

Content Manager and Copywriter Beth McDonough brings nearly a decade of professional writing and editing to the team at &Marketing. With extensive experience in an array of fields that range from entertainment publications to a Fortune 500 energy company, Beth has the ability to produce written content that speaks directly to the needs of a breadth of clients and channel their brand personality into a compelling story. 

About Paul Ferguson

As a Marketing Director at &Marketing, Paul Ferguson uses his 16 years of B2B marketing experience to help clients develop fully integrated marketing solutions that make impressions and drive results. Whether it be design-oriented campaigns or digital market execution, Paul skillfully creates strategies backed by data, to effectively reach client’s desired audiences. Paul graduated from La Salle University with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication and a double minor in Marketing and Business Administration. 

The post Webinar Recap: How to Use Content for Lead Generation appeared first on &Marketing.

The foundation of an effective social media strategy is built with customer-centric content.

On Wednesday, May 20th, 2020 from 10-11:00 AM Eastern, Amanda Cook, Marketing Director for &Marketing, along with Beth McDonough, Content Manager for &Marketing, joined the Boone County Chamber of Commerce for an interactive webinar entitled “Social Media Best Practices for Small Businesses.”

During this webinar, attendees learned:

1. Why content is the key to any successful social media growth strategy
2. How to leverage and repurpose new and existing website content on social media
3. How to figure out what kind of content will entice and engage your target audience
4. Best practices for organic posting for each major social media platform

This webinar was originally open only for attendees who are members of the Boone County Chamber of Commerce. Fortunately, the replay is now available on their YouTube channel for anyone to watch!

Need an extra tool in your social media toolbelt? Download the &Marketing Social Media Playbook for all of the details about which platforms to use in 2020 and how to leverage each one for the most growth.

About Brynne Tillman

Brynne Tillman is the LinkedIn Whisperer and CEO of Social Sales Link. For over a decade she has been teaching Entrepreneurs, sales teams and business leaders how to leverage LinkedIn for social selling.

 As a former sales trainer and personal producer, Brynne adopted all of the traditional sales techniques and adapted them to the new digital world. She guides professionals to establish a thought leader and subject matter expert brand, find and engage the right targeted market, and leverage clients and networking partners for warm introductions into qualified buyers.

In addition, Brynne is the author of The LinkedIn Sales Playbook, a Tactical Guide to Social Selling.

About Amanda Cook 

Marketing Director Amanda Cook helps clients develop sophisticated marketing campaigns that drive brand leadership, increase sales and elevate the customer experience. With over 15 years of experience, Amanda has delivered successful campaigns with bootstrapped budgets to leading marketing organizations at $1B companies. Whether local or global, she enjoys the challenge of uncovering a client’s business objectives and helping them build a strategy to succeed.

The post Webinar Recap: Social Media Best Practices for Small Businesses appeared first on &Marketing.