Tag: Marketing

Let’s face it—it does no good to build a funnel and spend zero time optimizing for conversion. That’s a no-brainer, right?

But, how many of you are working closely with your head of sales to ensure that the opportunities you help generate actually convert into paying clients? Ultimately, if you want to be seen as a successful marketer, you’re going to have to show that marketing is driving sales.

Now, the challenge is that in today’s commoditized world, sales teams often struggle to stand out from the crowd. As a result, closed won rates plummet, and organizations find it challenging to demonstrate to prospects how their total value proposition is the clear winner against all of the other competitors.

To make matters worse, many organizations rely on “super hero” sales people or even the founder to close deals. This approach is not sustainable or scalable. You can’t build a successful sales team if you’re constantly relying on a select few individuals to bring in all of the business.

The solution to this problem is a sales process that follows a standardized approach while also creating clear differentiation with prospects at the same time. By implementing a systematic sales process, you can scale your sales efforts beyond just the founders and “super heroes.” This will lead to higher closed won rates and higher gross profit margins, as you’ll be able to win at premium prices.

The benefits of a systematic sales process are clear. You’ll be able to scale the process beyond founders and “super heroes,” achieve higher closed won rates, and enjoy higher gross profit margins as you’re now able to win at premium prices.

When I implemented a systematic sales process in my former agency, I was able to consistently have 60-70% closed won rates, even when I had zero involvement in deals. This is the power of a well-designed sales process. In fact, I standardized this process and called it the Systematic Sales Process™.

So, what does a Systematic Sales Process™ look like? Here are the five stages:

Stage 1: Evaluation

In this stage, you’ll have a 30-45 minute call with your prospect. The goal of this call is to point your prospect in the right direction—it’s not to “make a sale.” The reason we want to take this approach is that many prospects are likely not a good fit for your firm, so let’s not assume that every first call is an “opportunity.” That’s why we call this call the “Evaluation”—you want to evaluate whether or not you can help your prospect, whether or not they align with your requirements, and whether or not they are ready to move forward. We call this “two-way qualification.”

It’s not uncommon to reach the middle-to-end of the call and determine that your prospect, in fact, needs someone or something else other than you!

IMPORTANT: You should…

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Before we dive into the second way to assume power in your business, let’s revisit Part 1. 

Who informs your marketing strategy? 

YOU, with your carefully curated strategy informed by data and deep knowledge of your brand and audience? Or any of the 3 Cs below? 

• Competitors: Their advertising and digital presence and seemingly never-ending budgets consume the landscape.
• Colleagues: Their tried-and-true proven tactics or lessons learned.
• Customers: Their calls, requests, and ideas. 

Considering any of the above is not bad, in fact, it can be very wise! However, listening quickly becomes devastating if it lends to their running our business or marketing department. 

It’s time we move from defense to offense, sitting in the driver’s seat rather than allowing any of the 3 Cs to control. 

It is one thing to learn from and entirely another to be controlled by. 

In Part 1, we explored how knowing what we want is critical to regaining power.

1) Knowing what you want protects the bottom line.

2) Knowing what you want protects you from the 3 Cs. 

3) Knowing what you want protects you from running on auto-pilot.

You can read Part 1 here; in the meantime, let’s dive in! 

How to Regain Control of Your Business: Knowing Who You Are

Vertical alignment is a favorite concept of mine, coined over the last two years throughout my personal journey of knowing self. 

Consider the diagram below.

Vertical alignment is the state of internal being centered with who you are at your core. 

Horizontal alignment is the state of external doing engaged with the world around you.

In a state of vertical alignment, your business operates from its core center, predicated on its mission, values, and brand. It is authentic and confident and cuts through the noise because it is entirely unique from every competitor in the market. 

From this vertical alignment, your business is positioned for horizontal alignment to fulfill the integrity of its intended services, instituted processes, and promised results. 

A strong brand is not only differentiated in the market by its vertical alignment but delivers consistently and reliably in terms of its products, offerings, and services and also in terms of the customer experience by its horizontal alignment. 

Let’s examine what knowing who you are looks like in application, as well as some habits to implement with your team to strengthen vertical alignment. 

1) Knowing who You are Protects You from Horizontal Voices. 

The strength of “Who We Are” predicates the ability to maintain vertical alignment when something threatens your stability. When a colleague proposes a tactic that is not aligned with your values. When the customer comes calling with ideas that will knock you off course as bandwidth is limited or the budget is tight. 

I was on a call with a gal from my Mastermind when I mentioned a…

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Did you know there are about 200 Facebook Ad metrics? That’s way too much to keep your eyes on. A smarter approach is to focus on a few metrics and ignore the rest until you need them. But how do you know which ones are really worth your constant attention? Let’s find out…

Every Facebook Advertiser Struggles with Metrics

You are not the only one who is lost in the maze of Facebook ad metrics. Every day, my team at MeasurementMarketing.io answers dozens of questions from business owners and agencies about this topic.

• I read somewhere that metric X is important but is that true?
• Why would I even track metric Y?
• Can I really ignore metric Z? 

These kinds of questions are important, but they are often asked at the wrong moment. 

The key to understanding which Facebook Ad metrics matter the most to you, is to see them as possible answers to questions you have about Facebook campaigns.

Let’s dive in…

Are my Facebook Campaigns Profitable?

Paid ads are like an investment. You pour money into ads and hope that you will get more money back. 

But like any other investment, there is a difference between hope and reality. 

One metric in Facebook Ads Manager will partially answer whether your ads are performing as you had hoped.

Return On Ad Spend (ROAS)

This metric tells you how much money you get back from every dollar you spent on Facebook ads. 

It is calculated with the following formula:

Revenue / Ad spend

For example: (your revenue) $1,000 / $500 (spent on ads) = ROAS 2

That means that for every dollar you spent on Facebook ads, the platform  generated $2 revenue. 

All that sounds great, but keep the following in mind:

• Revenue and profit are different things. So, you will have to do your own calculations to find out if your Facebook ads are actually making profit for you.
• To calculate the real Return On Investment (ROI) of Facebook paid campaigns, you need to include costs for setting up and managing your ads. 
• This metric is especially useful to ecommerce stores because they sell directly and know for which price. For service providers, ROAS is harder to calculate because it is hard to assign a price for someone who, for example, signs up to a newsletter. 
• Facebook knows a lot about you, but you need to assign values to conversions. I cover that a bit further below. 

How Much do My Facebook Ads Cost?

Running ads costs money. To keep track of how much, you can use over 60 Facebook Ad metrics. Here are some interesting ones that can give you valuable insights.

Amount Spent

This metric tells you how much money you have already spent on a Facebook ad or campaign. 

Although you can set daily budgets to…

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As I considered the topic that would best serve entrepreneurs, business owners, and marketers alike — all of whom I am — I mused over what I needed most throughout the last year. 

I needed to take back control of my business. 

And I am charging you to do the same. 

While I have provided two strategic ways to do so, the first outlined below and the second outlined in this blog post, it is critical that we first identify the root issue. 

Why are you and I not operating in the driver’s seat of our marketing and/or businesses? 

Three fundamental core challenges come in the form of 3 Cs: Competition, Colleagues, and Customers.

Who Are You Listening To?

1. Competition

We know the feeling all too well.

We feel a pit in our stomach or a slight racing of the heart when our competitors’ ads or organic content seem to be taking over social media and the internet: Google Ads, YouTube, TikTok, newsletters, LinkedIn, programmatic…

And don’t forget traditional advertising.

Especially if you are in the home services or specialty services spaces where direct mail is 100% where you need to be, but don’t forget the QR code and UTMs and unique landing pages and geotargeted ads and email nurturing sequence for a holistic approach. 

Our competition’s budget appears never-ending, and their marketing team must be fantastic. 

Is theirs the strategy we should adopt, deviating from our carefully charted course agreed upon at the outset of the year?

2. Colleagues

Or perhaps it’s that of the peers in our Masterminds or networking groups or online communities. 

After all, within these groups resides a wealth of knowledge and expertise, tried-and-true insights, and wins. I am guilty as charged — my talk at T&C 2024 was chock-full of recommendations guiding marketers on their path to generating over 800% ROAS…
Should our marketing strategy or business’s bottom line deviate then?

3. Customers

Oh! But the power of our customers…when their phone call just after 5:00 PM because they saw their competitor’s ad and want to change course. 

Or when our customers’ higher-ups ask why you didn’t generate enough leads last month and how the bottom line is threatened if we don’t do something fast.

And how they joke about your job being on the line if numbers don’t change.

Do any of these resonate? 

If you are a human with a soul that cares about your business, team, and customers, I anticipate your hand is raised alongside mine. 

Friends, it is time we unbuckle the seatbelt of the 3 Cs and graciously escort them out. 

It’s time for you to regain control.

How to Regain Control of Your Business: Knowing What You Want

I cannot tell you how many times my question, “What do you want?” is met with blank stares. 

Such a simple question with such significant ramifications. 

To assume control, we must know what we want for the…

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The digital marketing software market is valued at $60.3 billion. And it’s expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 15.5% over the next decade.

With a plethora of digital marketing tools in the market, choosing the right ones can be a daunting task.

However, it’s essential to invest in the best tools to enhance your digital marketing efforts and help you stand above the inevitable competition from your peers.Competition is a significant challenge for 27.1% of digital marketers today, as revealed in a survey conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub.

So which tools should you use to get an edge? 

You don’t need to spend time researching the best tools. In this article, I’ll introduce you to five digital marketing tools that can boost your efforts and give you an edge over the competition.

5 Digital Marketing Tools to Drive Better Results

Here are five digital marketing tools that address different areas of digital marketing. 

They range from tools that enhance website speed to ones for improving landing pages and enhancing overall user experience.

1. TinyImage

TinyImage is one of the digital marketing tools you need to invest in. It’s an image compression tool that reduces the size of your PNG and JPG images online by over 75%.

You don’t have to worry about the security of sensitive image files as well. TinyImage uses a secure 256-bit encrypted SSL connection. It also deletes your images within a few hours of uploading them.

How can TinyImage improve your digital marketing ROI? 

Larger-sized images take up a lot of bandwidth, which slows down loading times for your visitors.

Research by Digital.com shows 21% of online shoppers are dissatisfied by slow-loading pages. Half will abandon their shopping cart if a page fails to load fast enough.  

This app is most helpful for agencies that provide custom app development services. It helps them to compress images in a few seconds and convert apps into fast loading for their clients.

Use TinyImage to:

• Compress images without losing image quality
• Compare the file size of the compressed images to ensure you have the optimal file size
• Save time by compressing multiple images at a go

Price

2. Sprout Social

Sprout Social is one of the best social media marketing tools in the market. It helps you manage all aspects of your social presence.

You can analyze the performance of your posts and Reels to find the best Instagram Reels to embed on your website. Also, you can also monitor your competitors, manage conversations with your audience, and plenty more.

Sprout Social boosts your social media marketing efforts. And according to…

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Page conversion rates have ALWAYS been a problem. The simple fact is most people don’t convert even on the most optimized pages. 

What’s why traditional retargeting on ad networks has been so dang powerful. While retargeted leads come cheap, they still aren’t free. Worse, you’re back competing against your competition in the ol’ ad auction system. 

For the last 6 years, I’ve been using a tactic called Inbox Retargeting to identify who lands on my key pages and directly reach out to them in their inbox. 

No more ads. No more auctions. Just a targeted contact that showed they were interested, but didn’t quite take the leap yet. 

Before I dive into the “What’s” and “How’s”, this tactic can only be used in the good ol’ US of A. If you aren’t in the states or don’t have clients in the states, you’re out of luck. Sorry! 

How It Works

Inbox retargeting doesn’t take a lot of heavy lifting. I’ll share the strategy next but I wanted to start with some of the logistics. 

DISCLAIMER: I am not a lawyer or coder, so keep that in mind if technical or legal questions pop up. 

If you have a website, you have tracking scripts, e.g.,  GA4, the Facebook Pixel, Heatmap software, etc…

To get started with Inbox retargeting, you just need to be able to copy and paste two scripts on your site: 

• A collection script: This fires and tries to identify the visitor

A suppression script: You’d fire this on your conversion confirmation pages, you don’t want people whole converted to land in your Inbox Retargeting campaigns.

The tech works off of a database of contacts in the United States that are eligible for emails, so it’s completely above board with your ESP. However, you’ll want to do a few things before you start treating them like a regular member of your email list. 

We initially tested this on one of our paid media campaigns. We already had a really strong campaign that we wanted to squeeze more leads out of…and boy did we. 

We were driving traffic from Meta (Facebook for the OGs) to this landing page:

This page converts at 58%. Yeah, that’s a humble brag…deal with it. 

Even with a 58% conversion rate, we’re still missing out on 42% of the traffic we’ve already paid for. That’s kind of a bummer. 

After we added the collection script to the page, they were able to capture a lot more leads. The conversion rate jumped from 58% to a very sweet 87% – that’s a 50% increase! 

That was the impact on a single page, that’s when we knew it was time to go bigger. 

The Strategy

Most of the tools out there, whether it’s Retention.com or Customers.ai, are going to…

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