Larson's sales & marketing blog

Social Media is like the wind. It blows here and there. You really can’t control it. You can’t tell it where to blow. Can’t tell it how softly or how hard. If you have ever flow an airplane or at the lease flown in one, you need to realize that 99% of the time you are not headed to the exact spot you want to be going to. No really, you are always or seemingly off course yet, 99.9% of the time you get to the airport you want to arrive at, safe and on-time, and hopefully your baggage does as well.

That is sort of the way Social Media and Social Media Marketing works. Each day the channel(s) of Social Media Marketing get blow around then BAM, some new app hits the Cloud world and we are all scrambling to figure out how to access it better and faster. So let’s look at a few simple basics

1: Know your goals and objectives. It is so important in this ever changing online marketing world where it is so easy to get blown well off the course to know and remember where you are going, not necessarily how you are going to get there. Then ask how is Social Media Marketing helping (or dare I say hindering) you in your efforts to get there? We are talking everything here form desired results, to over all broad brush strategy, to specifics such as software and organization structure to take you to the next level.

2: Think quality not quantity. I am the first to say don’t get all wrapped up in the numbers game. The 3 F’s I talked about 2 blogs ago. You want quality in those numbers but how do you find quality? Numbers. The more you have the better chance you will find the people you need to connect with. Yet when you are looking for connections of Friends Followers and Fans search out the kind that will buy what you do.

3: Build and work an attractive compelling interaction page. Make and use a page that is interactively social, after all that is what we are here for. Don’t talk at your F’s talk with them.

4: Social Media is your (new) Marketing Tool. Starbucks, Dell Computers, Coleman are using Facebook as a tool for finding out quickly what their users and fans want and like. So should you.

5: Use the tools. They might be analytics but put any kind of data about customer behavior and preferences to good use in your companies marketing attack. Create and use polls. Then balance your results off of one a professional organization like Forrester might have run. Are your results similar of different? Why and what does that mean, to you?

Larson Notes & Satire:  the 3 F’s: What do they want and Where are they and When do you get to interact with them And How do they want this interaction and Why do they want to interact with you and Who the heck are they? The answer is Blowing in the Wind

Is this springtime a gentle breezes or a raging tornado?

Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Social · Media · Marketing · LinkedIn · Facebook · Twitter

You have a great service or product. Who cares? You have wonderful customer service. As if I cared. You on time delivery is impeccable. So what?

Sorry Charlie but for today’s marker you need to be bottom up, and I don’t mean a stiff drink although if you’re doing it backwards which is (traditionally correct) you might need one.

In today’s creasy world with all the new and changing marketing channels you need to sit down with your strategy team and first decide which tools you are going to use to achieve the results you need and want. 

People, Objectives, Strategy, Tactics, Tools. These 5 words need to be the focus and order your marketing now needs to be done in.

It’s a very Social world and people come first. Remember my last blog, the 3 F words, Friends, Followers, Fans. If you do this right you can put a plan together that you can tweak and change but won’t have to totally abandon later on.

You start with your audience which are your 3F’s. What are their needs wants and goals? Does your company fit into what they want? Yes it is all about them. If you choose to ignore them, it your sites give no motivation to what they want, you get put on the sideline. You sites need to be showing how you can help your prospects your 3F’s achieve their goals, needs and wants. If you can do that you might just get to achieve yours.

You still want to educate them. You still want to answer their questions. You want to walk with Rudyard Kipling’s 6 honest serving men: “I keep six honest serving men, (They taught me all I knew) Their names are What and Where and When And How and Why and Who.” If you do your site becomes more valuable. Rudyard knew why back then so maybe we should all take a hint.

Enter Social Media Marketing. Now you have the tools to keep customers and prospects engaged. If you are or can use bottom up thinking and engagement you will not be missing the opportunities that are right in front of you. Good content, consistent content is important, but more so is engagement.

Larson Notes & Satire:  the 3 F’s: What do they want and Where are they and When do you get to interact with them And How do they want this interaction and Why do they want to interact with you and Who the heck are they?

Now take some time and think about it. Preferable with a pencil and pad of paper.

Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Social · Media · Marketing · LinkedIn · Facebook · Twitter

The 3 F words, Friends, Followers, Fans. Do they mean anything or affect your business at all?

Last count my Facebook Fan Page had 232 fans. On LinkedIn I was standing at 613 and on MerchantCircle 1504 Connections, and Twitter at a massive 3106 and all growing. Does it do any good? Does it bring me business? Sales? Qualified leads?

The biggest thing on Social Media is for companies to go around and collect the 3 F’s. Some of them count the ROI on Social Media by how many F’s they have collected. Those of us that have been in the Social Media world for a while, know better, but still keep our eye on what is happening and changing with our numbers. It’s like, you never know who can or could turn into the bedrock account.

Why do I still do it? Eyeballs. I want more eyeballs on me. I want to be seen, not for myself gratification and ego but because the more eyeballs that are seeing me and my posts get a better shot I have at striking a cord that would make them want to buy some of what I sell.

Now, let’s be honest here just between you and me. The numbers game is simple, comfortable and so very countable. Yet research shows that fewer than 20% or your fans, my fans, every ones fans that go and “like”a page ever return to it. Ouch. Again, when I think about it, if I am honest with myself, I’ll take that 20%. If I could take that 20% to to the bank with 46.6 fans active on my page it would be a happy day with a better than not chance to get them become money paying customers. Some say likes are useless hits and wasted page views and an overall drain on resources. Again I disagree. I have my pages out there for all to see. I have no secret stuff. So what is the loss? ZERO!

There is no harm in spiking up your numbers of F’s. Just be ready to nurture them if all those companies and people decide to get active.

Larson Notes & Satire: When dealing with the 3 F’s think about the nurturing that you might want to be putting into it. Use the comments as places of interaction. Take those shares and engage your now broader audience. Remember this is Social Media Marketing so you need to be heavy on the SOCIAL …please.

Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Social · Media · Marketing · LinkedIn · Facebook · Twitter

Do you settle for too little, talk about yourself too much or rely on outdated and inaccurate data?

1) Channels: Most companies and marketers rely way too much on standalone channels that aren't focused on demand, that are not asking for a call to action. As a direct marketer needs to be committed to a well disciplined, programmed, result oriented approach while building a multichannel marketing attack.

2) Results: What kind of results are you willing to accept? If you only accept a 1%-to-2% response rate because that is the industry average you are making a big mistake. NO really if you want to be like everyone else and just as good as everyone else, ok be happy, but think about it, in what other part of your business do you accept 98-99% waist? You need to be expecting, getting, and insisting on double-digit response rates for you program.

3) Social media: As a marketer you are probably spending too much time talking about yourself and not taking enough time engaging in conversation with your friends, fans, prospects and customers. The main point of social media is to be social to be able to create a dialogue with people quickly putting aside the self-serving side of marketing.

4) Segmentation: As a Marketers I doubt if you are getting down into your lists deeply enough. Unless you are using a large enough segment of people or prospects you don’t have enough hits to know if you are on or off in your attack. Then again the smaller the nitch or audience the more pointed the message. This can work to your advantage. It is harder to create content for any particular audience but you can start using your experience and jargon words and knowledge if you are narrow enough.

5) Content: Are you one of the guilty ones who’s arrogance sticks out like a sore thumb? Are you one to the one’s that when it comes to creating relevant content you get lost in your own rhetoric and press releases? You need to be more humble about yourself and a little more engaging towards customers so they can tell you what they consider to be relevant and important to them! Get rid of the I’s and Me’s. 

6) Metrics: What do you measure? We should to be more focused on sales conversions, not lead creation. What good is a lead anyway? Try taking a lead to the bank? Lead creation is part of our job as a direct marketers but the real thing to be measuring is sales conversions.

7) Lead conversion: Marketers spend too much time focused on the wrong people. Here is where you need a sales person. A blood hound. The person who initially responds to you is more often not than not, NOT the buyer. But marketers go after them as if they were the VP of purchasing. Turn that lead over to your sale people they have a way to get to the heart of the matter quickly and fast.  That is after all their job specialty.

8) Lead nurturing: The problem in more companies is a lack of focus. Marketers spend too much time and money on lead acquisition instead of nurturing existing customers. I have been told (I don’t remember from who) that 66% of your advertising budget should be directed at existing customers, who already know you and love you. Thank about it. Do you only get excited about your customers at the end of their contract?  Customers will and should go with the company that has been good to them not just at signing time and sending a required Christmas card but all though the year.

9) Value: You need to improve how they demonstrate to the “Suites” in your company on the value of direct marketing. If you are the “Suite” take a step back from what you’re doing and ask yourself “Prove it!” Then using hard data write down the proofs and facts on paper. And you can only accomplish this with insight that can only come from hard data. Numbers don’t like.

Larson Notes & Satire: 9 things here and I know I left out lots of important things to really make your marketing hum. I guess you will just have to keep reading from time to time to find what I missed putting down. 

Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Direct · Marketing · Telemarketing · Mail · Social

I am one of the lucky ones. I have been in some form of marketing and advertising all my life and did not let all that get in my way of grabbing hold of Social Media Marketing and doing it as if it were a traditional marketing/advertising channel. Not so easy. Many of my comrades-in-arms cannot make the leap from formal channel advertising to informal.

But it is here, Social Media Marketing and it is here as a major player in many companies, be it B2C or B2B, be a player of a bystander. More that even in traditional Marketing SM is dog-eat-dog out here and its tough eating dog!

Social Medial Marketing is a living entity; it’s alive and changing almost daily. Clubs, groups, organizations, fans, prospects, clients, people all listening and making comments and responding to more marketing stimuli that ever before.

In as much as SM is making us change something my father once told me still rings true, “you need to know the rules to know how to break them”.  Yes, you heard me right, break them. So consider this, Social Media is in essence one big “Focus Group”. Here you can test to your heart’s desire, ideas, slogans, new products. Yes, test, test, test!

Message Testing: If social media is about conversation test your companies “conversations”. The major difference between traditional marketing and social marketing are really quite clearly drawn. Traditional marketing does not talk directly with the target person and it cannot talk back in real time.  So for Social Media Marketing I suggest that you make a message map that outlines the “message” and then keeps track of the direct messages to that “message”. When on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Merchant Circle, keep careful track of the flow of conversation revolving around what you have floated out.  If you get an increase in hits, likes, of feedback of any kind make a careful note pro and con. What should you be measuring?
a) Likes on Facebook
b) Retweets on twitter
c) Comments on your social network and/or blogs
d) fans/friends/followers grown in actual numbers or %
e) Average times spent on your blog site

Time Testing: When do you get the best results? Early am? Mid morning? Afternoon or evening or during the middle of the night? The experts will be telling you that am’s are best but they are not you nor do they represent your company. So, what is best for you and the kind of customers you want to attract? Again, test your posts! You might find out that 75% of your sales come on a Thursday. You might want to look or think about why? Are they getter ready for the weekend, or do they need to make a decision on a purchase before the end of the week? Why, why, why? Next consider time zones. If you sell to multiple time zones like I do, from the Eastern Time zone to the pacific, keep track of that as well. You could be surprised on who is buying from you and where which will lead to why.

Social Media Ads: It could be Facebook, LinkedIn or Merchant Circle, but there are proprietary advertising products that you can take advantage of. Depending on what your over all objects are doing a focused marketing could pay off in spades. If you have assembled your fans and friends with any kind of care. This is similar to a pay-for-click situation so there might be a cost. 

Promotions, Contests, Surveys: These are ways to create a call for action.  The idea again is to create a buzz around you and your company. Again test and measure and decide what you are trying to really achieve with each action. Be it an increase in your friend or fan size, feedback response, whatever? Just have a plan. See above (in Message Testing) for what you should be looking for.

Sales: Ya Sales. Sales are how we keep (real) score, isn’t it? At least that is how I keep score. If you’re not getting sales from your efforts change or go to something that starts to generate sales for your company. Different kinds of social media messaging drive sales. You can be blunt and straightforward in your buy requests of you can use the more subtle message. Either way it all comes down to needing, wanting people to buy something. Leads must lead to sales!

Larson Notes & Satire: Need help we are here to help you make money for your business all you need to do is call 847-991-0488.

In many ways social media marketing is the most extreme channel you can be using. On line, in your face marketing! I love it. (Ya, I’m an in your face kind of guy, what can I say.) Innovation abounds or can at every turn in your Social Media Marketing experience. Opportunity knocks and many times only once. When it does you need to be ready to spring into action, and that might require some old school tools like a business card and company brochure, and oh yes, we do those too.

Remember our 3 new programs for 2011
1st is our Virtual Sales Manager Program.
2nd our Sales Function Outsourcing Program
3rd our Virtual Business Consulting Program

Howard Larson
Larson & Associates
Target Marketing & Telesales Professionals for new account acquisition
Making good businesses great and great businesses even better
847-991-0488
howard@larsonassociates.ws
http://www.larsonassociates.ws
http://larsonassociates.blogspot.com
http://www.facebook.com/LarsonAndAssociatesFans
http://member.merchantcircle.com/larsonassociates

https://twitter.com/LarsonAssociate

P.S. We make telesales for small business affordable by offering programs down to only 15 hours a week. Maybe you could add telesales into your marketing mix call today and find out.

Tags: Social · Media · Marketing · Scoring · Cross-