Archives for May 2016

Content Marketing Engagement: Gone in < 20 Seconds

May 18, 2016 by Christine

Alarmingly, marketers have very little time to gain the attention of their site visitors and potential customers. In fact, 85% of visitors to content never return, and 40% spend less than 20 seconds on that blog article you spent days crafting to perfection.

Content marketing engagement is quickly becoming an art form. Or is it?

Marketers broker awareness and day-trade attention, according to Gary Vaynerchuk. It is increasingly important to know what visitor passed the stage of awareness and moved on to engaging with your content. It is a must to use tools that measure intent. Knowing the difference between a passing fancy and actual purchase intent takes not only a great tool but also an educated mind.
With that being understood, let’s look at ways to measure on-site visitation, engagement, and lead generation for small-business owners who need such data (also known as everyone)…

Identify Key Pages & Subsequent Behavior.Certain web pages are key to your online prospecting funnel. Those pages deserve special attention. Determine where your prospects came from to arrive at a specific page. Did they come from social media, your competition, or an affiliate page? Or, did they find it through your own advertising?When you have a strong page—from a content perspective—but it’s not performing as expected, then it’s time to employ the tactic of split testing on different content, images, headlines, and menu connection.Pro Tip: Headlines are the first textual element your visitor interacts with on your site. Finding out how they interact with varying headlines is a great place to start split testing.
Pixel, Track, and Shout:For those in the B2B market, understanding how a site visitor arrived is critical.Rather than just blasting out a tweet or picking a page and stapling that pixel on—like the tactics used by today’s virtual cold caller—do some research and backtrack the path of the page hitter who spent enough time and engaged in a way that shows intent.When you have a better understanding of how a site visitor ended up on a particular page, you can then determine the why and market accordingly.Pro Tip: Having a set of gated pages with protected content for “insiders” can be a great way to make them feel special.
Get a USP:If you don’t have a USP (unique selling proposition), your audience has no reason to think you’re a better choice than your competitors. But don’t make the mistake of assuming that your USP is all about you. The most powerful USP is one that digs deep into a prospect’s wants and desires to determine what aspect of your product/service will prove most valuable to them.Further, you need to not only have a USP but also highlight that USP throughout your content to engage your prospects.Pro Tip: A USP starts with identifying your ideal customer. If you and your employees can’t do that, it’ll be difficult (if not impossible) to develop a USP that resonates with those to whom you want to sell.

Here at Viral Solutions, we know just how important it is to both get and keep the attention of prospects. And chances are you’ve found that being successful at content marketing is no easy feat! So schedule a free consultation today to learn about how our team can offer the content marketing help you need to keep prospects engaged and moving through the funnel.

Copyright 2016 Viral Solutions LLC

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords and a Mobit Certified Partner.

Filed Under: Content Creation Tagged With: audience, content marketing, marketing tactics, small business tips, strategy, viral solutions

Content Marketing Engagement: Gone in < 20 Seconds

May 18, 2016 by Christine

Content marketing engagement is quickly becoming an art form. Or is it?

With that being understood, let’s look at ways to measure on-site visitation, engagement, and lead generation for small-business owners who need such data (also known as everyone)…

Identify Key Pages & Subsequent Behavior.Certain web pages are key to your online prospecting funnel. Those pages deserve special attention. Determine where your prospects came from to arrive at a specific page. Did they come from social media, your competition, or an affiliate page? Or, did they find it through your own advertising?When you have a strong page—from a content perspective—but it’s not performing as expected, then it’s time to employ the tactic of split testing on different content, images, headlines, and menu connection.Pro Tip: Headlines are the first textual element your visitor interacts with on your site. Finding out how they interact with varying headlines is a great place to start split testing.
Pixel, Track, and Shout:For those in the B2B market, understanding how a site visitor arrived is critical.Rather than just blasting out a tweet or picking a page and stapling that pixel on—like the tactics used by today’s virtual cold caller—do some research and backtrack the path of the page hitter who spent enough time and engaged in a way that shows intent.When you have a better understanding of how a site visitor ended up on a particular page, you can then determine the why and market accordingly.Pro Tip: Having a set of gated pages with protected content for “insiders” can be a great way to make them feel special.
Get a USP:If you don’t have a USP (unique selling proposition), your audience has no reason to think you’re a better choice than your competitors. But don’t make the mistake of assuming that your USP is all about you. The most powerful USP is one that digs deep into a prospect’s wants and desires to determine what aspect of your product/service will prove most valuable to them.Further, you need to not only have a USP but also highlight that USP throughout your content to engage your prospects.Pro Tip: A USP starts with identifying your ideal customer. If you and your employees can’t do that, it’ll be difficult (if not impossible) to develop a USP that resonates with those to whom you want to sell.

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords and a Mobit Certified Partner.

Filed Under: Content Creation Tagged With: audience, content marketing, marketing tactics, small business tips, strategy, viral solutions

Infusionsoft Secret Sauce: Part Three – Psychology of the Buyer

May 16, 2016 by Christine

Today's online buyer has a perceived advantage, called anonymity. Today's belly-to-belly salesperson still gets to read their prospective customer. In both of these situations, it pays to understand the psychology of the buyer. The online buyer has anonymity at their disposal, they get to check out and size up the core offer before they show their hand. The role of the physical salesperson now answers all the final questions just before they sign the papers. As a 35 year veteran of both the face-to-face and online sales world, I still see a huge need to understand the subtle buying phases that unfold in both environments.

What does this have to do with Infusionsoft?

Those who have perfected their home brewed Infusionsoft secret sauce never under estimate the psychology of a perfect prospective buyer as they move through the four phases. Effective and efficient use of Infusionsoft, as with many other similar platforms, requires an understanding of how your customer migrates through the phases of making a decision. In Infusionsoft you will be building campaigns that process your prospect through a funnel from a site visit, to a lead magnet opt in, to trip wire, to core offer and upward to your profit maximizer. At each phase, your process needs to know when to close – that close may be via an ask on a thank you page or a phone call from your sales team. Knowing what phase or stage your prospective buyer is at can be critical to how you build your Infusionsoft campaigns.

In our previous articles, we discussed that one of the keys to success was the demographic definition of your perfect prospective customer. See Identify your target market. In article two we discussed the pain, problem and solution.

In this article, part three of the series, we will identify the four phases of buyer psychology in the online world.

REMINDER: The secret sauce to successful use of Infusionsoft, or any other SaaS automated marketing platform, does not contain tactical marketing knowledge as its key ingredient. The most successful users of Infusionsoft are smart digital marketers that have a defined strategy. They do not start with a bunch of widgets, gadgets, plugins, API or other integration tools in order to succeed at digital marketing. They start with strategy, not with tactics!

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Here is how you avoid paying tens of thousands of dollars going to seminars, live events, paid webinars and corporate universities in order to be successful with digital marketing while using Infusionsoft as one of your tools.

Infusionsoft Secret Sauce: Psychology of the Online Buyer

Need help? WHAT HAPPENS AT AN INFUSIONSOFT® USER GROUP? – Meet with other Infusionsoft users in your area – Discuss using Infusionsoft, strategies and tactics – Gather new marketing ideas and share product feedback – Share helpful sales and marketing tips – Network with local business owners

Know your avatar's buying phase based upon their questions, actions and inaction: The best use of today's sophisticated sales and marketing automation software packages, such as Infusionsoft, is nurturing and educating a prospect. Moving your prospective buyer from the top of the funnel through to the bottom of the funnel. Sometimes that process is mechanical, but more often than not it is emotional – because that is the trigger for how the vast majority of prospects buy.

Here are the four phases of online buyers, and brick-and-mortar buyers, as experienced over 35 years.

They Have Goals: These are usually subconscious and are rarely verbalized. Your prospect is in the planning phase. You will hear words and phrases that make you feel like they have no solid plan, they may just have an idea. In the online world this is where you use Infusionsoft to educate on what they have to gain from your offer, how your offer is a logical choice and how your offer can end their fears. It is easy for the salesperson to spend too much time with a prospective buyer at this phase. Your close opportunity is 10% at best.
Answers They Want: At phase two your prospective buyer has questions that have a deeper foundation than phase one. Here they want answers to their questions but not unsolicited advice. At phase two you want to answer their questions with a tone that exudes confidence – like you hear this everyday. When you speak to their questions it affirms they found the right firm. The separator here is that you not only have a solution but your solution comes with a plan. Again, your sales and marketing automation software can deliver your trip wire here, with the idea that you plan to break that mental barrier between prospect and customer for very little money. Your sales team at this phase can probably close 25%, but would best spend their time playing the role of professional educator.
Fear, pain and problems: At this phase their is something in your prospect's life or business that they do not want. They are seeking relief. When you market to this phase you make it hurt. However, please understand this critical point, they are not moving to phase four until they are assured they cannot fix it themselves. Know that their ego is often in the way and it has to be set aside. Your sales team needs to be prepared to move along. If they bought your trip wire online but passed on your core offer, you will use your Infusionsoft platform to move them on too. Take them back to another topical engagement series. Your sales team can most likely close 50% of these prospects, however that may take pressure and often leaves you with a skeptical client.
No Relief in Sight: This pain will not go away no matter how hard they try to solve it themselves. Matter of fact they may have gone to your competition in phase three above – you want that to happen by the way! They are now seeking professional relief, they just came from the amateur. At phase four you must communicate a solid plan while also in compassionate control. Your true value is in removing frustrations. You know that any information you give at this phase is worthless with out implementation. Your sales team can close over 80% of these. Infusionsoft can close with your core offer at an equal rate, unless your core offer has to be hand delivered. Be ready to immediately grab your profit maximizer!

Infusionsoft is an amazing tool. However, without the complete understanding of marketing strategy and the four psychological phases of a buyer, that tool can overwhelm you and leave you frustrated as you wait for it to deliver customers. Those who have perfected their home brewed Infusionsoft secret sauce never under estimate the psychology of a perfect prospective buyer as they move through the four phases. Effective and efficient use of Infusionsoft demands this knowledge. The platform can outsell your seals team, if you train it like a professional sales team.

Reference Links for Infusionsoft Secret Sauce Articles:

by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.

Filed Under: Tools & Technology Tagged With: audience, automated relationship marketing, business, email marketing campaign, entrepreneur, Lifecycle Marketing, marketing strategy, marketing tactics, small business, small business needs, small business tips, strategy, thomas von ahn, viral solutions

Infusionsoft Secret Sauce: Part Two – Pain, Problem and Solution

May 13, 2016 by Christine

Infusionsoft is an excellent tool if your goal is to get organized, be more structured, be more effective, sell more, earn more, educate your audience and close more deals. WHEW! Disclosure: That is not as easy as it sounds and takes more than a piece of software to actually achieve. The key here in part two of Infusionsoft Secret Sauce, is to empathize with your audience. By that I mean: Their problem. Their pain. Their needs. Their goals. Their chaos.

See a common thread in that list?

Most people seek solutions to problems they cannot solve themselves. However, the best customers cannot only solve their problem without your solutions, they also have a need to get rid of the problem and the pain that goes with it. Sounds logical right? Not so fast! Without the pain your offering is just a product or an implementation service.

Here we talk about your need to identify those pains in advance. How to tie that to your buyer persona / avatar, which you identified here.

In our previous article, we discussed that one of the keys to success was the demographic definition of your perfect prospective customer. See Identify your target market. This blog article is part one of this series.

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Infusionsoft Secret Sauce: Pain, Problem and Solution

We have helped clients in a number of industries to dramatically improve their digital marketing results over the years. Since our founding, we have been featured in the New York Times and the Huffington Post and have become a certified partner of both Infusionsoft and Digital Marketer. Feeling overwhelmed? We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be FUN again.

Know your avatar's pain, problems and solutions – the solutions ‘they' believe are in line with their objectives: All successful large corporations, that have a great marketing message, do not create a product or service and then go find an audience to sell it to. They start by rigidly defining their target market, then they know what that target's problems are. They fully understand that these problems are so painful to their prospects organization that they are seeking an outside solution. One that will help them achieve their objectives.

Answer these four questions from the perspective of your perfect prospective customer.

What are their challenges? Here you want to list how they perceive the challenges they have, not what you think they are, that comes later. Their challenges could be micro-economic, human resource, rapid growth or their offer is like a commodity – examples to draw from. The point being, you need to dig deep. When you ask this question, the initial responses will be surface answers. You need the root cause! Example: High employee turnover is their challenge. Keep asking why until you get to the root cause. Such as, the CEO is unreasonable or perhaps they only have a small rural market to draw from.
What are their pain points? When Viral Solutions spends a day on-site in a new client Strategic Planning Session, we often spend hours just on this question. Executing on great marketing strategy has this as the hub – you will find that as you follow this series. Back to finding those pain points. Again perspective is critical – make sure what is listed here is from the perspective of the prospective client you are trying to market. Examples: Cost of acquiring a new customer. Rejection by banks and capital markets. Sales growth has caused inventory control problems.
When the solution is presented what are the typical objections? Excuses are usually a cover. Here the typical list is cost, quality or timing. Those could very well be legitimate. However, thirty years of face-to-face and digital sales tells me they translate to – “I am not sure you are the solution we are seeking.” Instead spin the objection into a question. Connect the pain to a viable benefit that adds to their objectives. Yes – their objectives! What are they seeking? What do they expect for an outcome? Your marketing plan needs to call those out before you attempt to move them to BOFU (bottom of the funnel) status.
What role should your perfect prospect have in the decision? In a perfect world your perfect prospective client is the decision maker and can “write the check”. Does anyone still use checks? Anyway . . . sometimes your perfect prospect is the gatekeeper for the C-level executive. Unbeknownst to many, few CEO's make decisions without a team consensus. Your answer should be a mind map of decision maker process hierarchy.

In our next article, part three on t he secret sauce to successful use of Infusionsoft, we will discuss the psychology of the buyer. We will compare and contrast the online buyer from the face-to-face buyer. We will discuss those attracted to a brand or cause versus those who just want to move away from what they have. That article will summarize what to look for at every buying stage.

Reference Links for Infusionsoft Secret Sauce Articles:

by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.

Filed Under: Tools & Technology Tagged With: audience, infusionsoft, Lifecycle Marketing, marketing strategy, small business, small business tips, social media strategy, strategy, success, viral solutions

Customer Acquisition: Tips for Measuring Performance

May 12, 2016 by Christine

You've launched your marketing campaign and are gaining some customers. You think you are doing well but are you? Measuring your performance can show you where your marketing campaign is taking your business. Find out how you are standing in the market and make adjustments from there.

In this blog, we will discuss ways to measure your customer acquisition performance.

Your customers are your business. It can be your worst customers, mix of customers, or your very best customers. Knowing the what and why factors of your best customers helps you to segment, target, and position your key marketing campaigns to them. Let’s face it, with the best customer strategy approach you provide, more of what they want for the reasons why they want it. Your whole marketing model better be on that specific approach. In doing so, it builds a greater sincerity in your campaigns, your business, and your own reasoning of establishing a win-win environment for your best customers. Here are four tips you can do to get started today:

Tip # 1: Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)

As we've discussed in previous blogs, customer acquisition cost is the total spent on marketing over a period of time divided by the number of customers gained during that period. Obviously, you want this number as low as possible. The lower your CAC is, the more customers you have gained.

Tip # 2 Average Lead Close Rate

The average lead close rate is important data to keep track of. If your numbers are low, it may indicate that the lead being given to your sales team is subpar. The quality of your lead will need to be checked. Make it clear to your team what makes a marketing qualified lead, a sales accepted lead, and a sales qualified lead. Having everyone on the same page will help give your marketing performance a jump.

Tip # 3 Marketing Content Return On Investment

Studies show that companies are spending 16% of their budget on marketing content and only 30% of it is actually being used. The head of marketing should use marketing content tracking software that will send content directly to the sales team. The software should have a content analytic component that can track ROI that is associated with each piece of content. The more often ROI is associated with a sale or deal, the greater the performance of the marketing team.

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Tip # 4: Calculate Lifetime Customer Value

To get your lifetime customer value, multiply the average sale per customer by an average number of times the customer buys per year. Then multiply that number by the average retention time per customer. You can up the value of each customer by marketing products that tailor to their needs.

Tip # 5: Track Social Media Conversions

In today's business world one of the best marketing tools is social media. Many people are glued to their phones and laptops, receiving information constantly. There are three major metrics to keep track of lead conversions made on each different social media platform, customer conversions made on each social media platform and the percentage of traffic associated with a certain media platform. There are so many types of social media to choose from so knowing which ones are working best can save you a lot of time.

by Thomas von Ahn | Chief Elephant Slayer

We help overwhelmed small business owners duplicate themselves – so business can be fun again.

Viral Solutions LLC is a Digital Marketer Certified Partner, an Infusionsoft Certified Consultant, a Google Partner – Certified in AdWords.

Filed Under: Analytics Tagged With: Lifecycle Marketing, marketing strategy, marketing tactics, mobile marketing, small business tips, social media strategy, strategy, success, thomas von ahn, viral solutions