Sales Archives - Page 8 of 9 - McLellan Marketing Group

Groupon: Winner or Goat?

January 22, 2011

The whole world is abuzz about Groupon. And who doesn't love $10 worth of Cold Stone Creamery ice cream for $5? But is Groupon right for your business?

Groupon and other social-coupon sites (like LivingSocial and SocialBuy) all work the same way — a specified number of people have to pre-purchase the coupon for the deal to be activated. In theory, that's how everyone wins. Groupon makes a prescribed amount, the buyers get a super deal and the retailer gets a guaranteed influx of cash and in theory, new customers.

But it's not always a bed of roses. You've probably heard the nightmare of a story from Posie's Cafe and their Groupon experience. Many businesses are declaring themselves "not interested" and as Chicago wine and cheese shop owner Greg O'Neil states — why replace full margin business with lower margin business?"

As with most things, there isn't a one size fits all answer. My Age of Conversation co-author and Texas based marketing guy Jay Ehret believes social coupons aren't smart for most businesses. On the flip side, Duct Tape Marketer John Jantsch gives it a thumbs up.

There are plenty of studies and academic opinions on the topic too. Check out what Harvard Business School and Rice University had to say.

But…is it right for you? Here are the big pros and cons, as I see them.

Pro:

Big advertising boost. Groupon subscribers number in the tens of thousands or more in most cities. This is a very efficient way to generate a significant word of mouth buzz, especially if you get creative in your offer.

Exposure to many new customers. It stands to reason that you're going to see a lot of new people coming through the door. Impress them and hopefully they'll come back again and pay full price.

A way to test a new product or service. Want to know if the market is interested in something new? If the Groupon coupon tips — you might well have a winner!

Con:

Does the math work? Keep in mind that Groupon takes a pretty good sized cut. Half the rate charged plus 2.5% interest per transaction. (Here's a Groupon ROI calculator you can use). So depending on your cost of goods and how many people actually redeem the coupon, you could lose your shirt like Posie's Cafe.

What does it do to your customer/vendor/employee experience? Can your business handle a huge influx of buyers? How will the increased traffic impact your loyal customers? Your vendors? Your employees? Be sure you take all of that into account before you sign up.

What does it say about your brand? Do you want to be seen as a deep discounter? Does offering a 50% off price say something about your quality, margin or pricing strategy? How will your regulars feel about the fact that they've been paying full price all this time?

Lots of opinions out there but really, it's something you need to examine for your specific business. Use the ROI calculator, weigh the pros and cons… and make the call.

The cartoon is courtesy of Tom Fishburne, the Marketoonist.

More

Learn how to really sell

January 14, 2011

Selling has always been tough. But with the economy, changes in buyer behavior, the web, social media, sales enablement tools, and increased competition — holy buckets!

To make 2011 a year of growth and prosperity, the folks at RainToday, voted the Top Sales Resource in the world in 2010, are opening enrollment to their popular Selling Consulting Services with RAIN Selling online course next week.

I have personally looked through the entire course, listened to the audio files, watched the webinars…and done some of the exercises. I can tell you — this is good stuff.

Special Drew's Marketing Minute Deal to Enroll in Selling Consulting Services

I’ve worked out an extra special deal for you. When you sign up within the next 2 days, here’s what they’re going to do:

~ Reduced tuition for the first month: Tuition for the program is $149 / month. They’re offering you the opportunity to try the program out for just $97 for the first month. For just $97 you’ll gain access to the first few lessons, forums, and February’s live Q&A coaching call. The entire program takes 4 months to complete.

~ Free copy of How Clients Buy Professional Services Benchmark Report: As an added bonus, when you sign up for the program, you’ll also receive a free copy of How Clients Buy Professional Services Benchmark Report (a $345.00 value), absolutely free.

Best of all — you get to check it out for 30 days and if you don't like it – Cancel with no obligation, don’t pay a penny, and keep all the content from the 1^st month.

To take advantage of this extra special early enrollment deal, you must sign up in the next 2 days. Click this link: Selling Consulting Services and click the “Sign Up Now” button.

Here’s just some of what you’ll learn in this comprehensive program:

How to keep the front end of the pipeline full with qualified prospects while maintaining your practice with active clients
Step-by-step how to lead masterful sales conversations in any situation
The real deal with objections and how to overcome them (often it’s not what you think)
Follow-up techniques that turn prospects into clients
The 4 things to do when clients pressure you for lower fees
3 keys to developing a winning value proposition and describing complex services in a non-technical way to get prospects excited about you and your services
Questioning strategies and techniques that allow you to uncover the full set of needs and provide maximum value
How to make the business impact of your services clear so you can sell more with less buyer resistance
Why buyers want to pay more for your services
Your step-by-step guide to creating proposals that win
How to bring in a predictable flow of profitable new clients

You too can start feeling more confident and comfortable with your selling by enrolling in this program.

Remember, when you sign up you’ll immediately gain access to the first lesson, the members-only forums, 8 months of instructor-led coaching teleseminars, and RainToday’s popular How Clients Buy Benchmark Report (a $345.00 value). Check it out now: Selling Consulting Services.

Full Disclosure: While RainToday has offered to pay me a small commission if anyone signs up for the course, I am sharing this with you because I think you’ll find tremendous value in it. Otherwise, I wouldn't put your trust on the line.

More

Something all wrapped up for you!

December 27, 2010

No matter which holiday you choose to celebrate in December — it seems like it's a season for sharing, for hanging with the people we care about and for giving gifts.

I don't want to get all mushy — but I am so grateful that you keep coming back to the blog to share your ideas and thoughts on the blog posts, I value your friendship and collegial spirit and look forward to exploring 2011 with you.

To that end, I've rounded up some gifts I'd like to share. I think you'll find them both well worth the time to unwrap!

Junta42's annual Content Marketing & Social Media Predictions for 2011: Joe & his team reach out to marketing folk and ask them to contribute their predictions for the year.

With over 100 participants — there is plenty to read, chew on and use as you plan out 2011 for your organization. (click here to download the PDF)

RainToday's Research Excerpt on Lead Generation: As you know, I am a huge fan of RainToday.com. They provide lots of very pragmatic, B2B focused research, tools and how to advice. They just finished up a new study on best practices for lead generation.

If for no other reason that reading more about Best Practice #3 — it is worth the download. click here to download the PDF)

I hope you find value in them both!

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

More

Marketing tip #38: Beware of unintended consequences

December 13, 2010

As business owners, we often make decisions that at first blush serve the business well. But, as things roll out, there are consequences that we didn't anticipate and don't want.

The airlines are living this out as we speak. A while ago, to boost themselves out of the red, most major airlines instituted bag fees. A passenger must now pay an additional $25-$35 per checked piece of luggage.

I'm sure that when the airline executives came up with this plan — they were elated. I can envision the equation on a big white board somewhere. X million bags times $25 = a TON of money.

But what they didn't think through was the consumer's reaction. At the same time they were trying to boost their bottom line, so were traveling families and business people. So rather than pay the $25 fee, people simply ignored the carry on bag size regulations and more and more people bypassed the checked luggage option.

The baggage fee has generated income ($2.2 billion for the industry combined in 2009) but it has also created these headaches:

Longer lines in security as people take more through the check point (and have no idea how to manage it all)
A jam up in plane boarding (everyone wants to get on early in hopes of snagging some overhead bin space)
Adding significant staff time in gate checking many, many more bags
Disgruntled customers who are now being forced to gate check bags with computers and other valuables that they thought they could carry on
More broken overhead bins due to people shoving bags that are too large into them
Delayed flights because people board with bags that won't fit — and have to swim upstream to the front of the plane to do a late gate check
Increased dissatisfaction ratings from frustrated fliers

Maybe the money is worth it… but imagine the brand position some airline could take by renouncing fees and putting some of the convenience and comfort back into flying.

Bigger picture for us — we need to think past the first blush advantages. Ask yourself these questions before you make a major shift in how you do business:

How might our customers act differently, based on this change? What are the consequences to those shifts?
How might this change the way we are perceived by our customers? By our employees?
What hidden costs come along with this decision?

What do you think — if they would be candid, would airline executives tell you that baggage fees are worth the extra hassle, staffing, and customer dissatisfaction?

More

What if you just talked like a real human being?

November 26, 2010

I began my career as a copywriter and at the core, it's still how I think of myself. I love creating emotional responses, telling stories and drawing pictures with words. (This could be due to the fact that I cannot draw them any other way!)

But I've always believed that many marketing writers have missed the point. We're not supposed to be so clever and so fancy that we confuse people. We're not supposed to use inside jargon or bloated words (empower, paradigm, etc.) that have been so badly overused that they are meaningless.

We are supposed to talk like regular human beings.

Sure, you can be a remarkable storyteller like the folks at J. Peterman's catalog or fire people up like Steve Farber can — but you do it in language they can understand and relate to.

Check out this black Friday sales e-mail from the StoryPeople organization, located in my home state of Iowa. (click on the link to see their cool building!)

Sure, they're announcing a sale but listen to how human they sound.

Subject: Happy Bright Friday! Yippee! (because calling it Black Friday is just too bleak…)

OK, we were hanging out at the studio this morning & for very good reasons, we started a game of Let's Pretend. Why? you may ask…

Because, we would answer, given our usual balmy Iowa November weather, outside there was ice coming down in sheets the size of billboards. We HAD to pretend that it was all a bad dream & that it was happening SOMEWHERE ELSE. Somewhere else where we weren't. Like Narnia, or the South Pole, or someplace like that, where they like ice coming down in sheets.

It was fun for a while, but the ice didn't want to play along. Boo, ice! So, we decided to play something else instead. Ben suggested a game of Rename The Day After Thanksgiving. Because really, who likes the name Black Friday? We don't know who called it that in the first place, but obviously, they were having a really bad day.

Once we got started, of course, we got all happy & chirpy again (as long as no one looked outside). After much lively discussion & laughter, we voted to call it Bright Friday instead.

(But don't worry. We're not like the government, where even if it's a stupid idea, you're stuck with it. We think of it as a temporary name until someone comes up with something better. To be honest, we didn't have a lot to work with. It was one of two suggestions. The other was Rainbows & Unicorns Friday. See? Bright Friday doesn't sound so bad after all, does it?)

Because it seems like just the kind of day that demands a celebration, we're doing a StoryPeople special in honor of Bright Friday. Woo hoo! For the entire month from now until, well, a month from now. (We first thought it'd make sense to keep with the whole 30 days in a month theme & give you 30% off of all purchases of 30, or more, things. But that didn't seem all that bright, being that it was Bright Friday & all…)

So, we went with 30% off of all purchases of 3, or more, of everything. (Ok, except for individual greeting cards, furniture, holiday ornaments & our create-your-own products. Because we're swamped right now & that would push us completely over the edge. But that still leaves tons more stuff & all the rest of it is fair game.) So pick any three things- a sculpture, a book, a print, you name it & we'll give you 30% off for 30 days. Hooray for Bright Friday…

Oh yeah, one more thing…

Don't forget that you have until November 29th to nominate your favorite Princess for the only-one-in-the-whole-world StoryPeople tiara. If you haven't heard yet, the tiara was done by Lynne the Jeweler who does all the StoryPeople holiday ornaments. (Which, by the way, are only guaranteed to arrive in time for the holidays if you order by November 29th.) So, if you haven't done it already, nominate your favorite Princess (since we're running out of time, be sure you send it via email to Annette@storypeople.com) by telling us who they are & why they should be crowned this year's StoryPeople Princess of the Known Universe. Heck, if you want to make it really easy, just add it to the comment at the end of your order when you stock up on this year's limited edition StoryPeople holiday ornaments… 🙂

No matter what, make sure you get everything in by November 29th (because, no kidding, this once-in-a-lifetime chance at the tiara ends then. We're putting our foot down. Even with Bright Friday dancing into sight, ice is still coming down in sheets. So, don't even think about messing with us on this… 🙂

We look forward to seeing you at StoryPeople.com soon (& even if we don't, let us know how your Bright Friday goes. We have a feeling with a name like that, it's going to be fabulous…)

With love,

The Crew at StoryPeople

Did they make their point? Sure… they're having a sale. But they did it in a way that sounds quite human. And also very true to their brand. Can you imagine seeing an ad that says "because we're swamped right now & that would push us completely over the edge?" I'd like the company that had the courage to do it.

How about you? Could you copy use a little humanization?

By the way… thanks to reader Rebecca (love that Rebecca!) for sharing the e-mail copy. I'd never h eard of the StoryPeople before, despite their Iowa location.

But, I see that they're selling a book by Twitter sensation Tim Siedell (twitter name: BadBanana) who I knew way before he was twitter funny and he guest blogged here while I vacationed. Tim and I share a love of branding, Disney and David Ogilvy. He blogs too. He is a twisted sister of funny, so check out the book.

More

Marketing tip #71: Upsell with the choice of 3

September 20, 2010

Gold, silver or bronze? Best, better, good? Economy, standard or premium?

Is it just an odd coincidence that we as consumers are often presented with three tiered choices? Actually it's no coincidence at all.

They have proven scientifically that in most cases (I can't find the study or I would be more specific) the consumer will opt for the middle choice.

Here's how our brains see the options:

The lowest choice seems bare-bones.
The highest choice seems extravagant.
But the middle choice… now, that's pragmatic. Not too little and not too much.

If you want to earn more revenue from your existing customers — package their choices differently. Be sure there is an actual value difference (both in what they get and what they pay) in the tiers…but then, give them 3 options.

And stock up on whatever is lucky #2!

More

Is your loyalty program missing a critical factor?

July 29, 2010

I'm a fan of loyalty programs…if they're done right.

The truth is, most companies aren't willing to make the reward equal to or worthy of the effort they're asking from their best customers.

But when you do (when the juice is worth the squeeze) — they can be potent. But what if yours is missing a key ingredient? What if it could have an even more significant impact on your bottom line?

Check out my IowaBiz post to find out what you might be missing.

More

Are you hitting all the stepping stones?

March 10, 2010

I don't know who started the concept, but many authors attempt to sell their books by giving away their books. Charles Sheehan Miles did it. Wicked author Gregory Maguire did it. Cory Doctorow did it.

And of course, Seth Godin did it. (Click on their names to find out how you can get your copy!)

Crazy? I don't know. But smashLAB's Eric Karjaluoto is giving it a shot.

His new book, Speak Human, can be bought on Amazon for about $20 or you can download it for free (a chapter at a time) by visiting this site.

So how does giving it away encourage purchase? I don't think it's necessarily about getting someone to download the free one and then turn around (out of guilt or adoration) and buy the same book. It's more about:

Creating a fan base
Getting your ideas out to a wider audience
Creating buzz (through posts like this)
Encouraging word of mouth (free readers read it, love it, talk about it)
Securing clients, speaking gigs, etc.

The truth is, most business book authors aren't going to get rich off book sales. But they can get rich off of the consulting and speaking opportunities that their ideas/books can create for them.

The path to riches (a relative term) for most authors is not a linear one. You have to do many different things that are like stepping stones in a pond. You know where you want to go, but you have to hop from step to step to get there.

That's not just true for authors. I'm guessing it is true for your business as well. Are you sure you're hitting every stepping stone?

Maybe you can see where you want to go but can't figure out how to get there…do you need to add a few more stepping stones and just worry about the next step? Sometimes that's more effective than focusing on the vast chasm between where you are today and where you want to be.

Have you purposefully built your stepping stone path? Eric Karjaluoto seems to have his in place.

More

Relentless follow through

January 26, 2010

One of the biggest relationship killers is silence.

Do you know that most businesses lose the opportunity to get a new client simply because they don't respond to an inquiry? That's right…return a phone call, answer an e-mail and voila — you get a client. The percentage of businesses that fail to respond to a new business inquiry is staggering.

If you have a problem that the client is counting on you to solve…regular phone calls to provide updates will help you keep a client. Even if the solution is a sticky one.

The final deliverable of a big project is finally in your client's hands. Do you check in to make sure they're delighted?

When was the last time you just jotted a note or picked up the phone to say "thank you" for your business and your trust?

Chasing a perfect prospect who just isn't ready to buy? How long do you keep reaching out before you give up and just assume they're not worth the effort?

I can hear you now…I'm just so busy…I mean to call. I'm just not good at following up. Some people are just naturally better at that.

Horse Pucky. (I told you I was working on ramping up my vocabulary!)

Relentless follow through happens when it is planned. When it's part of your sales cycle. That's the head part of the equation. But it also has to be part of your culture. That's the heart part. It's about caring enough.

After all — we know that most buying decisions (and client retention decisions) come down to that. Caring. A buyer (and your current customers) really wants to look you in the eye and ask — do you care enough?

That's the differentiator. And that's what relentless follow through demonstrates.

Do you have a call to make?

Photo courtesy of Shutterstock.com

More

What are your sales mistakes costing you?

November 28, 2009

When you lose a client or are pitching business that you don't win — do you know why you weren't chosen?

Most business leaders, if they were being honest, would have to admit they don't.

RainToday wants to offer some insights from their new report Deal or No Deal: Sales Mistakes that Turn Buyers Away. (you can download it for free here).

The biggest sales mistake? We've talked about it before but apparently, you weren't listening. The #1 mistake…Not listening. Shocker.

But….the real shocker is when you look at the chart that shows both the biggest mistakes AND the "much more likely to buy if they improved" items. Then you begin to truly understand the cost of some of those shortcomings.

One of the mistakes I find most startling is the "did not respond to my requests in a timely manner." Seriously people — they're asking to buy and you don't get back to them? Apparently 30+% of businesses out there actually make this faux pas. A whopping 57% of respondents say that if a business was better about this — they'd be much more likely to buy.

Duh. Shame on any business who makes this sadly common mistake.

The entire report is eye-opening. Download it today. And don't forget to visit RainToday's blog. Check it out here!

So….you've realized that you're making some of these huge sales mistakes. What should you do? How about getting some new sales habitudes? That's right….a new set of attitudes and habits that will get your sales on the right track.

My friend Jeff Garrison has written an excellent e-book on sales habitudes and is offering it to you for free!

Chapters include …

A Business Owner's Biggest Challenge
The Genesis of Sales Habitudes
The Sales Habitudes Explained

Download it today….and get yourself on the right sales track!

There you have it…one report to help you learn what you're doing wrong and the another to help you get back on the straight and narrow! Download them both and then get out there and make some serious sales!

More