Never forget that you’re selling to people.

Sales are the backbone of every successful company and it’s always a good idea to study up on how to improve your sales ability through one to one communication.  In order to thrive, sales must engage personally though not necessarily in person – this concept is not always easy to grasp.  You can create personal engagements with the use of specific content that is relevant to the folks your sending it to.  This information could be in an email, tweet, landing page, text, or phone call.  Your not communicating to a company, your conversing with a person who has their own fears and concerns that you need to address.  Just because they aren’t sitting across from you doesn’t make the fear disappear.  It’s in you best interest to find out what their concerns are so take the time to do so.

Learn to say no

All leads are not created equal – not every customer is a fit. The sooner that you learn this and put it into practice, the quicker you will be able to move on to clients that are going to help you produce references and generate flows of revenue. Marketing will qualify through lead scoring in an attempt to let you know which targets have higher probability for you. Actionable insight is key for one to one sales communication. You need to learn to decipher who is a prospect in the market to buy your product and who will just waste your time. Look for the trigger event.  Just because they downloaded a paper does not make them a lead. It might sound harsh but time is money and yours does matter. Do not get clogged up with prospects you know cannot or will not be interested in your product.

Close the Right Thing

Have you ever been asked for a commitment way to early in the process?  I always think of car sales asking me – “how can I get you to buy today?”.  Instead of using a static tactic, try getting a smaller commitment instead. Not a commitment to buy, but a commitment for more of your prospects time for one to one communication, in return you give the prospect more of your time. Use this time in a persistent manner to show them more of your value, customer successes, or examples of your services that they care about. The less pressure you put on them, the more likely they are to want your services. There is no excuse to not ask for a commitment – just make sure its the right one.

Timing is Everything

They may be the right prospect however they are not primed to buy. You may think it’s a bad idea to push them back to Marketing to include them in a nurturing campaign and that you need to control the flow. Talk yourself out of it, control is an illusion and the prospect is already searching the web for data points.   You (may) run no risk at this stage of pushing back to Marketing with a request to nurture. I always felt its worth the risk as you need to be focused on time management.  You have prospects that are primed to buy and you need to be talking to them.  This point is VERY specific to the prospect and you need to be very conscious of what you are doing. Marketing groups will electronically communicate with the prospects until they pop up again with a more specific interest that you can personally address.

Skip the Company History

Prospects do not necessarily care about how your company was founded and how much of a profit you made last year. Keep your presentations relevant to the them and their concerns. Get the prospect emotionally involved with personal stories relating to the benefits of your products of services. Mention their competitors and or friends on Linked In that are using your products. Make your prospect feel like they have to have your product or they will be left out. It’s about them – not your company.

Give Them a Laugh

No one wants to buy a product from someone who is not excited or enthused about what they are trying to sell. People can tell when you’re passionate – it’s hard to fake – so relax with them. Do not focus on how you are going to sell your prospect, but instead focus on the value you are delivering and how you can motivate them to understand your services and the fit between you both – one to one.

Sales One on One Communication

Most people want to feel like they are special and indeed, every prospect is unique and special in their own way. Let them know how you can provide one on one personal service through tailored messages based entirely upon their requirements and interest characteristics.

Building Trust through Content

Before you can sell your services to a customer, you need to build a relationship. In business, the relationship between the salesperson and the customer is based on a foundation of trust.

One of the easiest ways to generate profitable publicity and to build a foundation of trust is to establish yourself as an expert in your niche. The point is to create a reputation as being the source for information about your product or service. – and the best way to provide information is via content.

Here’s six ways to use content to increase sales:

Be the Expert

First impressions are everything, and chances are your customer will first ‘meet’ you on your website. In a study by FOCUS two-thirds of a prospects mind is made up prior to engaging a sales rep. So be sure to fill your site with content that establishes you as a well-informed authority on your product or service. Your website should not be a supermarket of content with relevant  information buried under layers of lingo and buzz words.  Creating landing pages which are specific to the individuals you are trying to converse with is important.  This is the cornerstone of trust.

Don’t Sell, Teach

People love to buy stuff, but they hate to feel sold. Avoid this turnoff and focus your content as providing information. Fill your website with educational, tutorial-style content that will decrease sales resistance. Create content that allows the viewer to self direct their education. Consider using Video, PDF’s, Slides, Pictures, Lists and anything else that will speak to them about their concerns.

Don’t Just Tell, Show

Video is an excellent way to provide engaging content to your potential clients in a unique format. Consider making a how-to video. If you make a demonstration video, the content should focus on the benefits of the product or service.  Video does not have to be overly produced consider – business casual video.  Clean and clear recordings with good audio conveys and honest and direct approach which will be appreciated.

Engage

Follow blogs and social media sites that deal with your product or service to see what customers are talking about. And then engage with them in a conversation by offering pointers, answers and advice.

Write for Others

Chances are there’s a trade publication, blog or site dealing with your sector. Why not write a guest article for it? Just make sure the article doesn’t preach but provides valuable information to the reader.

Don’t Forget SEO

When writing your content, don’t forget to make sure it’s search engine optimized. Customers will only find you if you show up on the search engine results!

David Meerman Scott just launched his revised & updated book The NEW RULES of MARKETING & PR (Click to buy).  If you haven’t read it you should.

In it David talks about the creation of a video category called business casual (page 252). He explains that video in all its forms need not be the high production difficulty and cost you’ve come to expect from “formal video”.  David goes on to make several points

1. You can produce simple low cost engaging content that works/converts.
2. Do not create poorly shot video, with bad lighting and editing – there is a baseline.
3. He is “convinced that the trend towards casual content means that consumers want to get closer to the organizations they do business with”.
4. Informal “telling it like it is – will make us more efficient”

One additional learning that David and our customers have stressed is -

Trust.

Business Casual video is honest. You’re standing out there on your own with no fancy backgrounds nor teleprompter.  People love the directness and the honesty that comes through the simple format.  We find that people appreciate it and are therefore willing to advance to conversation with such a forthright individual that’s focused on the content delivered.

Never forget that no matter how produced your video is – the content must be authentic and engaging. That is what converts visitors. The business casual content is easily produced on small high definition capable cameras (Cisco Flip, Kodak Zi8) that are simple to use and cost less than $80 to purchase. The quality is fantastic and as of this post Flip cameras are still online for sale.

Here is an example of business casual video content –

Today, when visitors see this business casual content they find it genuine and engaging. The results are excellent and the more you do it the easier it gets.

Bad First Date

There are many companies out there that provide the ability to create drip campaigns in marketing automation platforms (see: Eloqua, Marketo, Pardot, Silverpop). Supporting this capability are many sources that will refer to statistics.  These statistics say that anywhere from 7 and 20 repeats are required for any communication to gain consideration access.   Interestingly enough a personal dating stat from VIDA (Virtual Dating Assistant)  gave an “estimate of between 5 and 15 emails” before a meeting in person was accomplished.

After all thats what we are trying to do right?..get that first meeting (date)?

More often than not drip campaigns are still created in an impersonal way and its difficult to “fake” an engagement attempt.  Marketers are considering it a time saving device as opposed to a conversation with people. Most marketers will try to change messages based on profiles, activities with varying offers creating more and more as the campaign progresses.  Drips need to be thoughtful and comprehensive based upon participants within the actual campaign in a well thought out manner.  If your just going to link a bunch of templates together, don’t – you won’t win a lot of fans – nor get a second date (unless your lucky).

I speak from personal experience (names are not used to protect the guilty).  I received an email after I requested a download from a site that I was interested in.  I have no problem filling in a form for a company that I would like to stay linked to.  The first email was the obligatory “Thanks” and was totally expected.  The second arriving a day later was way off topic to anything I was interested in.  The third (arriving the next day) was an offer I’m not ready for yet. The forth got annoying as I’m unclear if they really understand what I was looking for.  The fifth made me opt out as it had nothing of value.  As a consumer and a seller its on both of us to uncover whether we are a match. Sending a generic marketing mail is not going to help me make a decision unless you address MY concerns. One to one communication will work as long as it’s specific, relevant, and timed properly.

Please end the torture, treat me like a human being not a notch in you sales/marketing belt. I want a relationship not a date and if its a fit, great… otherwise move on.

CHALLENGE: GETTING MORE WEBINAR REGISTRANTS

As we all know, breaking through and getting prospects to respond to webinar invites is getting harder given the inbox overload that most people are experiencing.
For Building Engines, they were looking for new ways to draw people into webinars and adding video seemed like a cost-effective solution. The goal was simple and easily tested add a short video promo to their traditional webinar promotion (through email) and see if it converts more attendees.

SOLUTION: SEND A WEBINAR PROMOTION APP

Building Engines used the VisibleGains webinar promotion application with coaching and best practices for one of their campaigns. In just a few hours, Sarah was able to script, shoot, and build a webinar promotion video app to include in her campaign. She featured the video app in her email and on her landing page.

Click Here To See How IT Worked

RESULTS: LARGE GROWTH IN WEBINAR SIGN-UPS

For this campaign, Building Engines was able to generate an immediately measurable impact. The key results were:

• 13.8% click-through rate for the 11,000 email send which was almost double the prior webinar*s click-through rate of 7%
• Quadruple the number of registrants over the prior month with the second highest total registrants in a webinar to date
• 65% of the audience was Highly Engaged during the webinar

Since this first video app with VisibleGains, Sarah has created a number of other VisibleGains videos for her webinars with continued success.

CHALLENGE: GENERATING MORE ACTIVE LEADS

As Jill Konrath says, “Today’s buyers are crazy, busy people” and the impact on webinar attendance has been one of the casualties. So how can content be leveraged in other ways that are more consumable by an audience? At byallaccounts, Barbara Kotlyar was looking to use a webinar in new ways to achieve two primary goals:

1. Generate net new leads for her sales team to call into
2. Warm up leads already in her funnel

SOLUTION: INTERACTIVE VIDEO FAQ AND ON-DEMAND WEBINAR

Click Here To See Barbara’s Solution In Action

Joe Chernov from Eloqua says that people these days prefer “pre-digested content” and byallaccounts used a combination of the VisibleGains Teaser Interview and On-Demand Webinar formats to provide this to the people in their funnel.

Working with VisibleGains coaches and the easy-to-use VisibleGains builder, byallaccounts created interactive video apps that allowed the viewer to navigate to short segments they were interested in from a GotoWebinar recording and a related video interview with the presenter.

RESULTS: GROWTH IN WEBINAR SIGN-UPS

By using interactive video before and after her webinar, Barbara achieved the following:

• 20% increase in live webinar attendees by including interactive frequently asked questions with presenter
• 4x additional On-Demand webinar viewers with simple quarterly re-marketing of interactive webinar segments

After this success, byallaccounts continues to use video to promote webinars and for on-demand webinar assets. In addition, byallaccounts experiments with FAQ interviews and Highlight reels as promotional assets to increase the long-tail nature of the content.

I recently sat down with Ann Handley of MarketingProfs and CC Chapman of Digital Dads , Co-Authors of Content Rules.  What a fun time we had getting their perspective on the key themes of their book, which is a great guide for all marketers and especially honed in on the use of video as a part of of an organizations content strategy.  They address easy ways to get started with video for marketing and key concerns, including I have a face for radio syndrome – where people are scared to be on camera.

Click Here To Check Out The Book

I had the chance to sit down and have an interview with Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman, authors of the new book “Content Rules.”  I wanted to share a clip of what Ann Handley and C.C. Chapman cover about using video.

This article was originally posted on Constant Contact’s blog

Last week I presented six great reasons to use video in your email marketing and social media efforts. After reading that blog post, you may have asked, Is my business or organization the type that should use video? The simple answer is: Yes. Video works well for every type and size of organization — from single proprietorships to large companies, nonprofits, agencies, and clubs.

The other part of the question is who should be involved in the creating of video. Again, the simple answer is anyone and everyone. Don’t think it is just the leaders; everyone on your team can be part of communicating your message — and should be. It’s important to involve a mix of people at different levels and functions.

Every organization has an insight to share, a story to tell, or a product to talk about. As I discussed in the first part of this series, video is now easy and cost-effective to create, so it is within anyone’s reach. It also puts a face on your company and brings your story to life

So let’s look at how different types of businesses and organizations might use video:

Retail shops, restaurants, and other businesses that sell to consumers

• Create a video to introduce yourself. Ask your customers to say hello when they come in.
• Tell customers about a special item you have or a weekly special you’re featuring.
• Take a quick video of a customer in the store, and interview her about the item she purchased. Ask for a product review, or how she intends to use it.
• Share a recipe or how to cook a favorite dish.

Watch an example: Seattle Coffee Gear Crew Review: Saeco Via Venezia

Businesses that sell to other businesses

• Discuss a new product or service
• Introduce your team
• Talk about an upcoming event to get more attendees
• Highlight a customer success story
• Answer a question of the week

Watch an example: WellesleyWeston Magazine

Professional services

• Share a tip of the week
• Talk about a recent piece of legislation and how clients might be affected
• Demonstrate a strengthening exercise
• Introduce a member of your team
• Launch a new website or service offering

Watch an example: Borislow Insurance: BI Healthy Advantage

Nonprofit organizations

• Interview someone you have helped; include a call to action
• Speak with someone on your leadership team on a current topic
• Ask a volunteer why she is involved with your organization
• Highlight some relevant research you are publishing

Watch an example: LIFT

Religious institutions

• Educate about an upcoming holiday. Include interviews with children and adult members, as well as the clergy.
• Share a thought of the week
• Introduce congregation members, including new members to the community
• Share a teaching moment
• Make a more personal fundraising appeal

Watch an example: Trinity Lutheran Church

I’ll be back next week to talk about how to create videos like these, and others. Till then, I’d love to know your thoughts about why video works: Feel free to post them here or onConstant Contact’s Facebook Page. And if you’ve created videos of your own, please include a link!

This article was originally posted on Constant Contact’s blog.

Businesses and organizations of all types and sizes use email to communicate and share information with their customers, members, and prospects. Early on, of course, email communication was limited to text. Soon, many remembered the adage that a picture is worth a thousand words and began including pictures and images in their communications. The result of including these images was just plain more — more people opened the emails, more people read the emails, more people remembered what they read, and more people took any suggested action.

So allow me to propose a new adage: If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a minute of video is worth 1.8 million words (according to Forrester Research).

You may be asking, why video now? For one thing, it’s easy, it’s cool, and it works. But it’s more than that. Over the next four weeks, I’m going to share my thoughts on why use video, who should create videos, what kind of videos can you create, and finally, how to create great videos.

To start, here are six great reasons to use video in your email marketing:

1. Tell your story quickly. People don’t have a lot of time, so you want to get your message across quickly. Video can communicate a lot of information in a short amount of time. To repeat the adage above, if a picture is worth a thousand words, a one-minute video is worth 1.8 million.
2. Put a face to your business or organization. A video helps bring your business or organization to life, and it makes your communication more personal. Putting people on camera makes you and your team real to your customers and members.
3. Get your readers to remember your message. Let’s face it: In general we remember little of what we read. Our retention of a message is much better (estimates are three times better) when it includes pictures, sound, and motion. Your readers can only take action if they remember what you said.
4. People enjoy video. People like to read, but they really like video. We watch TV, go to the movies, stream video content to our computers and mobile phones, and more. In fact, according to comScore, the average U.S. Internet user watches 186 videos every month.
5. Videos are easy and inexpensive to create. The great myth is that video is hard and expensive. Video cameras are cheap to buy (many cost less than $125) and easy to use. Look at the Cisco Flip or Kodak Zi8. They both allow you to shoot with one button. If you have an iPhone or some other mobile devices, you already have a video camera. You can also just use images and add a voiceover. Creating video is very simple.
6. Get your readers to take action. Forrester studies have shown that email communication that includes video can double or triple your click-through rate.

I’ll be back next week to discuss what types businesses or organizations should use video. Till then, I’d love to know your thoughts about why video works: Feel free to post them here or on Constant Contact’s Facebook Page.