Good Content Marketing Will Boost Your Revenues

By David Ronald

By some estimates each of us is exposed to 5,000 ads each day. It’s not surprising, therefore, that your buyers are becoming increasing immune to traditional marketing techniques. In this post I will explain why content marketing should be a key component of your promotional strategy.

(Click here to read our white paper on content marketing: http://bit.ly/1GHDSxB.)

Consider this: 57% of B2B purchase decisions, and 72% of B2C ones, are made before a buyer contacts a vendor, according to McKinsey & Company.

Content marketing alters the way you sell—it shifts your focus from hyping your products to adding value to prospects’ decision making. Content marketing is about creating relevant, informative and unbiased content that attracts buyers and converts them to loyal customers. 

The objective of content marketing is a “light bulb moment” when a buyer understands how you can help them, and reaches out to you for more information about your product or service.

Although typically associated with B2C selling, content marketing is ready to have an impact in B2B environments.

Your long-term goal should be to create a sustainable content marketing engine that helps build your business. In order to accomplish this, consider mapping content to the different stages in the buying process of your prospects. The key stages in the typical buying journey are shown in the following diagram:

You could, for example, target the awareness stage of the buying process by creating a brief video that describes the most popular applications of your product. You could, for instance, target the comparison stage of the funnel by commissioning a third-party research agency to write about you and the competitors in your market space.

By assigning content to the most appropriate buying stage, you ensure that your content will resonate with your prospects. You will discover gaps that need to be filled, and make the best use of existing content.

Keep in mind that if you fail to embrace the content marketing paradigm you are creating a gap that your competitors will be happy to fill.

I hope you found this information to be helpful.

Email me at david@alphabetworks.com if you'd like to explore how good content marketing can boost the revenues of your business.

Too Many Product Launches are Unsuccessful

By David Ronald

About 95% of new products launched every year fail, according to Professor Clayton Christensen at Harvard Business School. 

This is an astounding statistic.

What does failure look like? Well, in simple terms, it means that the revenues attained from a new product failed to have any positive impact on a company’s income.

The number one reason why products fail, according to the Harvard Business Review is that companies become too engrossed in product development. Consequently, they don't adequately prepare to go to market.

Let’s look a little deeper. 

Here are five types of failed launches and the reasons behind them:

• Product in "sales limbo"—the product lacked a compelling value proposition and failed to sway buyers.
  
• Product is revolutionary, but there’s no market for it—insufficient attention was paid to ensuring product-market fit.
• Product defines a new category—there was a lack of planning and execution around buyer education.
• Product falls short of claims and gets bashed—the product was over-hyped and the marketing claims could not be substantiated.
• Company can’t support fast growth—there was inadequate forecasting of intense customer demand.

I’m willing to bet that you’ve experienced at least one of these in your career. They’ve happened multiple times in the past and will, undoubtedly, occur many times in the future.

In this post we'll look at ways to increase the probability of a successful product launch and examine metrics that can be can use to improve product launch planning.

Planning is Priceless

There are around 300,000 product launches every year, according to Harvard Business School.

Unfortunately, it’s all too common for businesses to sleepwalk through product launches. There are two major reasons why: 

• In some instances the product marketing team has too little advance notice about a product release and simply does what it can to launch the product on time.
• In other instances the marketing team is too overwhelmed with multiple other activities to agree to more than a few checklist items.

A successful product launch requires planning in coordination with multiple stakeholders. The launch plan should describe the goals of the launch and list key activities, owners, and deadlines.  

The launch plan should also provide key performance indicators. One obvious benefit of including metrics is that they can be used to evaluate the efficacy of the launch—another, more significant benefit, is that they may identify opportunities for improvement when the need launch rolls around.

Obviously a product launch has a start date, but it should have an end date also. Why does this matter? It's crucial to have an end date because the efficacy of the process can only be measured once the launch has concluded.  

The Customer Journey

One of the primary goals of a product launch is to take a prospect on a journey that ends with them becoming a customer. Ideally, however, a launch goes further and converts that customer into a raving fan who brings additional business through word-of-mouth referrals. 

We’re all familiar with the concept of the buyer journey, especially since we’ve all been buyers at one stage or another.  

From a company’s perspective, the mirror image of the buyer’s journey looks like this:

• Unknown—a prospect is unknown to the vendor.
• Known—a prospect becomes known to the vendor, perhaps as a result of visiting the company’s website and providing their name and email address in exchange for a lead magnet such as an eBook.
• Engaged—a prospect signals a greater degree of interest in the vendor’s product or service by, say, signing up for a webinar or a free trial, or even better, a demo.
• Converted—the prospect becomes a customer by exchanging money for vendor’s product or service.

Key Product Launch Metrics

At this stage it’s worth highlighting that not every product release is significant one—many software companies have a goal of releasing new functionality monthly, even weekly.

In these instances, the associated marketing launch may only require an updated webpage, a refreshed marketing collateral, an email to customers, and a webinar.

Be proactive in defining launch tiers and ensure everyone at your company is aligned around the difference.

So, with that out of the way, here are five metrics to track during a major product launch:

1. Awareness

• Downloads / Invitation Signups—a lead magnet on your website (such as an eBook) can be used as an early signal of interest in your product. You can also consider using an invitation to preview the upcoming product during the pre-launch phase as early indicator of awareness.
• Website Traffic—measure traffic to your website throughout the launch timeframe to learn which specific launch activities “move the needle”.
• Promotional Channel Metrics—look at promotional channels metrics, such as click-through-rate in your advertising, email, and social campaigns, to gain an idea of the effectiveness of your positioning and messaging.
• News Coverage—news coverage can be an indicator of awareness but be mindful that this is a signal of the effectiveness of your public relations, not necessarily an increase in awareness of your potential buyers.

2. Engagement

• Free Trial Signups—a free trial is a great way to assess interest in your product and provide opportunities for prospects to discover value. It can also be the beginning of a nurture campaign that exposes prospects to more functionality in the product and offer opportunities for in-person engagement.
• Product Demos—a product trial that involves engaging with someone in your sales or sales team is a strong indicator of interest and intent.
• Community Involvement—tracking the participation in your community be prospects can be a good signal, if a strong and active community is a component of your go-to-market motion. 

3. Acquisition

• Conversion Rate—the ratio of leads that convert to customers is one of the most important metrics to track as it provides insight into the efficacy of the entire product marketing effort.
• Time to Close—the average time that it takes a deal to close can be a valuable metric to track, even if isn’t truly an indicator of the success of a product launch.
• Customer Acquisition Cost—the amount of money that it takes to acquire a typical customer is an important metric and indicates how challenging it is for your business to acquire new customers.

4. Retention

• Customer Usage—tracking customer usage over time, such as monthly active users, is a is a good signal of how much customers perceive value in your value. Some companies excel at acquiring new customers but do a less excellent job of keeping them coming back.

5. Referrals

• Net Promoter Score—determining evaluating how many customers are likely to recommend your product to others is a valuable metric for product markets to track. Although it doesn’t measure the efficacy of the launch itself it does signal the effectiveness of your product marketing overall.

Another great way to assess the efficacy of your product launch is with qualitative feedback that can be obtained through surveys, one-on-one interviews, and focus groups. This should be both internal and external:

• External feedback—collect feedback from customers and prospects to get reactions and constructive notes about the positioning, channels, and other launch elements
• Internal feedback—collect feedback from internal audiences, including sales reps, marketers, executives, and product managers.

You can use this feedback to identify opportunities for improvement. You can even consider using these opportunities as KPIs for your next launch.

Conclusion

Launching a product successfully can be challenging, as the high failure rates described earlier demonstrate.

By setting clear goals around launches, aligning your product, sales and marketing teams around these objectives, and ultimately measuring performance against these metrics will help increase the probability that your next product launch will be your best ever.

If you found this article helpful be sure to read my other posts on Five Steps To Creating a Marketing Plan for Your Business, Advice on Creating Your Unique Selling Proposition, and The Most Neglected Concept in Marketing.

Plus, keep an eye open for a future blog post on how to develop and execute a successful Go-To-Market Strategy.

Did I leave anything out? If so, get in touch with me at david@alphabetworks.com letting me know what it is.

Crucial Advice for Every Entrepreneur Wanting to Stay Motivated

By Sharon Lee

Do you sometimes struggle to stay motivated? I know that I do.

Staying motivated is crucial for every entrepreneur—funding concerns, long hours, team-building worries and an apparent lack of traction are just a few of the issues that can quickly lead to disenchantment and even burnout.

Motivation, thankfully, comes in many different forms.

Here are seven ways that I use to keep myself motivated at all times.

1. Visualize your future
From Thomas Edison to Steve Jobs, every great entrepreneur has had a vision of what they wanted to achieve. Be clear about what you want to accomplish and the steps you’ll follow to get there. If you haven’t already done so, consider writing your goals down on paper and review them frequently—ask how your daily activities are enabling you to achieve your goals. 

2. Find an inner strength
Although the pressures facing entrepreneurs can be fatiguing, they don’t have to be damaging. Convince yourself to welcome challenges and use them to make you better–after all, the muscles in your body become stronger through repeated exercise.

"I personally prefer to turn those entrepreneurship pressures around and use them to push me and my business harder, faster, farther." Aaron Schmitz, CEO and President of Equity Technology Partners explains that, "I've seen how a lack of motivation in entrepreneurs can affect their mental and physical health and, while it's an easy trap to fall into, it's also avoidable."

3. Exercise regularly
Exercise is a great way to release stress and become reinvigorated. By nature, exercise is similar to entrepreneurship—both involve hard work, excuses are not welcome in either, and they're all about personal development. The dedication and motivation that comes from exercising carries over to entrepreneurship—so don't skip that workout.

4. Mediate frequently
Find some time every morning or evening to meditate. It doesn't really matter what it takes to clear the mind, but finding a calming process to wipe the mental slate clean is a great tool for staying motivated. It invigorates and refreshes, allowing you to see each day as a new opportunity.

5. Delegate decision-making
Although you probably have a lot of tough choices to make each day, too much decision making can take a toll. Try to limit your decision-making as much as possible. Delegate to your co-founders and employees in your work life, and significant other, family and friends in your non-work life, as much as possible—doing so will help you motivated because you will be confident that, when it comes time to make those important decisions, your ability to do so will be as strong as ever.

"You can become exhausted by decision making and the day-to-day activities," says Mary Ferguson, President of Concenter Services. "Delegating as much as possible can be a crucial factor to staying motivated."

6. Appreciate your progress
If you feel yourself becoming demotivated, take a little time to realize how much progress you have already made. Make of a list of your accomplishments—it's a great way to appreciate your personal progress and it can be pleasantly surprising, too. Put your mistakes into perspective. Don’t look back with regret and, instead, view every mistake as an opportunity to learn and become better.

7. Take time off
Sometimes, a break is all that's required to feel reinvigorated. We are are human, after all, and we get tired. Spending some time with friends or family, or perhaps embracing a hobby, provides the refreshing mental break that allows for a proper return to form the next day.

Lastly, motivation comes from many places, and not just mental ones. With the unbelievable range of cultures, values, and regions across the world, inspiration and new ideas are virtually limitless. Find time to explore. There are endless ways to find motivation in the world, so don't hesitate to expand those horizons.

Remember that starting a successful business is easy; running a successful one takes confidence, flexibility, innovation, passion, tenacity, tolerance, vision and more. Find ways to keep yourself motivated and you’ll increase the likelihood of meeting the requirements of the job.

5 marketing metrics every entrepreneur needs to know

By David Ronald

There are metrics, and then there are metrics.

Metrics need to be measurable and actionable—if you are going to select your marketing programs based on data, those data need to correlate directly to the success of your business.

Web and marketing analytics tools such as Google Analytics, HubSpot Analytics, and KISSmetrics enable you to delve into the metrics that will help you to understand the customer journey and identify what sort of content and which channels are contributing to the bottom line.

But what, exactly, should you be measuring?

In this post I will examine five key metrics that provide insights into how your marketing is performing.

1. Customer acquisition cost
Add up all money you spend on marketing programs and divide it by the number of new customers. Track this over time to determine and observe if the cost is increasing, decreasing, or staying constant (ideally the cost should decrease as the efficacy of your marketing programs improves).

2. Marketing contribution to revenue
Quantify all of the new customers you signed up and look at what percentage of them started with a lead that marketing generated. This is much, much easier to do when you have a marketing analytics systems, but you can do it manually by contacting each new customer by email or phone.

3. Revenue per channel
Identify your most effective channels (organic, ads, social media, direct email, referrals and so on) by looking at how much revenue each one generates and compare it to the cost of running the channel.

4. Inbound traffic mix
Determine how much traffic is coming into your website and which channels your visitors are coming from—you can do this manually using tracking URLs, Google Analytics, spreadsheets and the like, and marketing automation programs help too. Track how the total volume and mix changes over time.

5. Conversion rates
Track how well your website is performing. Better yet, monitor how specific pages are working. Adjust landing pages and see what changes. Test, for example, if the wording and layout can be improved or if the Download button should be higher up. or determine if your call to action is underwhelming or your forms too complicated. And explore which offer your visitors respond to.

Measuring these metrics with as much precision and consistency as possible should be an integral part of your marketing focus.

And, of course, statistics mean nothing if you don’t do something with them. Getting to the people and journeys behind the numbers delivers insights that help you direct spending to the most beneficial programs.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree with everything on this list?

Did we leave anything off?

Leave us a comment or question.

5 steps to creating a marketing plan for your business

By David Ronald

Every entrepreneur knows that a business plan is a prerequisite when starting a company. Many entrepreneurs, however, don’t realize that a marketing plan is just as vital.

A marketing plan describes what you will sell, who you want to buy it, how much you will sell it for and how you will bring it to market. A good marketing plan describes the tools and tactics you will utilize to achieve your sales goals.

In this blog post I will examine five key steps to creating a marketing plan that will work for your company.

1. Describe your company's situation
No matter your industry, from big data to fintech to internet of things, positioning your product or service effectively requires an understanding of your niche market. Not only do you need to be able to describe what you market, but you must also have a clear understanding of what your competitors are offering and be able to show how your product or service provides a better value.

Make your situation analysis a succinct overview of your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.

To determine your company’s strengths, consider the ways that its products are superior to others. What do you offer that gives your business a competitive advantage? Weaknesses, on the other hand, can be anything from operating in a highly saturated market to lack of experienced staff members.

Next, describe any external opportunities you can capitalize on, such as an expanding market for your product. Don’t forget to include any external threats to your company’s ability to gain market share so that succeeding sections of your plan can detail the ways you’ll overcome those threats.

2. Describe your target audience
Developing a profile of your prospective customer is your next step.

If you’re a B2B company, you may define your target audience based on their type of business, job title, size of business, geographic location or any other characteristics that make them possible prospects. No matter who your target audience is, be sure to narrowly define them in this section, because it will be your guide as you plan your media and public relations campaigns.

If you are a B2C company, you can describe prospects in terms of demographics—age, earnings, geographic location, in addition to lifestyle. Ask yourself the following: Are my customers conservative or innovative? Leaders or followers? Timid or aggressive? Traditional or modern? Introverted or extroverted? How often do they purchase what I’m selling? In what quantities?

3. Describe your marketing goals
What do you want your marketing plan to achieve? For example, are you hoping for a 20 percent increase in sales of your product per quarter? Write down a short list of goals—make them measurable so that you’ll know when you’ve achieved them.

4. Define your marketing budget
You’ll need to devote a percentage of projected gross sales to your annual marketing budget. Of course, when starting a business, this may mean using newly acquired funding, borrowing or self-financing. Just bear this in mind—marketing is absolutely essential to the success of your business. And with so many different kinds of tactics available for reaching out to every conceivable audience niche, there’s a mix to fit even the tightest budget.

5. Develop your marketing tactics
Your tactics are the actions you need to take to help you reach your target market and accomplish your goals. These include specifics such as direct mail, email marketing, print/radio/online advertising, blogs, social media, case studies, webinars, events, sponsorships and so on.

Never rely on one tactic alone. An integrated approach that delivers a consistent message across multiple, targeted platforms is the best way to ensure you reach your target market and get the most out of your budget. Refer back to who it is you are trying to reach, where they are, and what you want them to do.

Above all, be flexible. Track results and adjust your tactics and messaging as you go. I’ve seen many campaigns start out with one message and close out with a completely different one. Try out new email subject lines, test social media messages, and keep a close eye on what works and what doesn’t.

By applying steps 1-5 you will develop a powerful marketing plan that will help you grow revenues.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree with everything on this list?

Did we leave anything off?

6 word-of-mouth marketing tips for every entrepreneur

By David Ronald

Word-of-mouth marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote your business.

How do you do leverage word-of-mouth marketing? Keep in mind that word-of-mouth starts with your brand narrative—that’s the story you give your customers to tell on your behalf, based on their experiences of your product and company.

(Click here to read our white paper on word-of-mouth marketing: http://bit.ly/1jAM2Ct.) 

It’s a collaborative effort. You create a new version with each customer and each experience they have with you. They bring their story (their needs, the solution they want, their expectations, their frustrations). And you bring your story (your employees, the solution you provide, your expertise, your partners). The two stories meld, or don’t, each time you two meet.

Here’s a list of some, not all, the things you can do to create word-of-mouth for your business. And do it consistently.

1. Survey your customers. Find out if your customers would recommend you to colleagues and friends and, if so what they would say. Find out what your customers like, and what they dislike, about you. Are you generating Net Promoters or Net Detractors? You should find that out before you create a word-of-mouth campaign that will accelerate the spread of your story.

2. Do more of what they like. Your survey will tell you why and when and where they recommend you to their friends and colleagues. Do more of that which inspires them to tell more. And stop doing what makes them unhappy.

3. Ask your employees. Create a similar survey for employees. That will tell you why and when and where they recommend you to their friends. Do more of the things that impress them and stop don’t the things that are demotivate them. Ask you employee about the tools and resources they need, and then find better tools and resources. Your employees write your brand story every day. Help me make it a best-seller.

4. Motivate your employees with incentives that matter to them. Ask them what is meaningful—you may be surprised at what and how little it will cost, and how important that incentive is to their life. Then make it possible for them to achieve those incentives.

5. Use social media yourself. The operative word is yourself. Oh sure, it’s awkward and you may mistakes. There is, however, no message more unique and genuine than the voice of a CEO in their own blog, in their own writing. Consider writing your own blog, if time allows.

Or use Twitter. Join the millions of people who’ve looked like fools at least once in their life. It’s a party. And join them as they connect with millions of customers, prospects, partners, vendors, ideas, innovators solutions.

6. Know your community. What do they need? What solutions are they looking for? Find and deliver. Be a part of their lives.

These things, and more, form your story. Finish this list first. Then look at the story you’ve written. And if you consistently pursue and execute them, your story can be consistent.

Then see if you need outside help to accelerate the spread of your story through the mouths and communities of your customers. And employees.

There’s more, but this is a good start.

Let us know what you do to create word-of-mouth for your business.

Thanks for reading.

6 demand generation tips for your business

By David Ronald

Successful demand generation requires a strategy. Not just any strategy, of course, but one based on a metrics and processes.

In this blog post I offer some ideas on how to develop a data-centric demand generation strategy that works.

1. Buyer-centricity—strive to understand buyer prospects both in terms of their role as individuals and also in terms of their part in the collective buying process. A useful exercise is to develop personas that represent each buyer and include the influence vectors that inform the relationships between personas within the context of the buying cycle. It is then possible to structure the conversation threads that will inform the content strategy.

2. Content—“content is king” is only useful within the context and planning that make content relevant to the audience. Within the context of a demand generation strategy, this translates first into understanding the content consumption patterns of the target audience. Where do prospects consume information and at what stages of the buying cycle: search, social, peers, analysts? This understanding leads to content strategies with specific assets and media vehicles that are relevant and timely.

3. Research—reach out to current customers, including detractors and advocates, and interview them. Ask them about their influencers, buying processes, decision-making processes and so on. And you can also ask your salespeople the same about their customers to get additional insights.

4. Lead nurturing—with an understanding of the audience, relevant dialogue threads and business processes, and a content strategy in place, lead nurturing then comes into play. The process of building programs that successfully marry insights and operations is both an art and a science. The key success factors include the length, depth, and breadth of the content being offered; the logic that determines how a prospect moves through the buying cycle; the cadence of offerings; and, perhaps most important, whether the program is perpetual.

5. Analytics and optimization—analysis of the data gleaned from marketing efforts can provide real value to validate, refine, or change a demand generation strategy completely. Segmentation and testing are two examples. Consistent, results-oriented optimization of demand generation programs is a key factor in extracting the greatest possible value from them.

6. Sales readiness—work with your sales reps to develop frameworks that help them have relevant, highly targeted conversations with qualified prospects. The insights gleaned from the proceeding items on this list should also be made available to your sales team to use as part of these conversations.

Thanks for reading. Do you agree with everything on this list?

Did we leave anything off?

Leave us a comment or question.