SearchCap: New Google Logo, App Interstitials Penalty & Goodbye Search Queries Report

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: New Google Logo, App Interstitials Penalty & Goodbye Search Queries Report appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

How Burger King beat McDonald's with the McWhopper

What happens when you combine the "tastiest bits" of a McDonald's Big Mac and Burger King Whopper?

The world will apparently never know despite Burger King's attempts to unite its signature menu item with McDonald's most famous creation in "one delicious, peace-loving burger."

Read more...

The Old Demand Generation Model Versus The New

Many Companies still feel that the optimal approach for generating revenue is to have the Account Executive be responsible for managing the data, hunting for prospects, qualifying the prospect, presenting and closing. This outdated concept is not only ineffective but results in an anemic pipeline as well as lower revenues.

The main reason companies are hiring account executives is to close business. Often these AE’s come with extensive sales training in various methodologies, none of which is prospecting or qualifying. The unsuspecting AE is brought in and dazzled by the companies portrayal of their product and how “simple” it is to not only garner interest in the product but to sell it.

With dollar signs in their eyes the AE’s accept the position only to find out later that prospecting and maintaining a healthy pipeline is a lot harder then they anticipated.

The outcome is:

The AE does not utilize the internal systems, cleanse the Data, or adhere to the standard process. Why? Because they were not hired to be data managers or note takers and NO system will ever be good enough.

The AE focuses their time on the “hot” prospects as they feel that they have a better chance to get revenue. The Result? The “warm” leads receive no attention and fade away. The demand pipeline is low and cannot sustain the rep or the company growth.

The AE makes on average 15-20 calls per day as they have no scrutiny on their phone efforts only on their revenue and pipeline. Result? You are only prospecting to a small percent of your overall Database so you are missing deals that your competitors will gladly take.

The AE accepts any inbound lead and immediately looks for a “deal or no deal” situation. The Result? There is no true nurture stream so the only business you will receive are the “lay ups” which are very hard to come by in today’s world. In addition whomever generated the inbound lead (marketing) might not be happy with such a quick and final response from sales.

So what are companies to do? How can they enter the 21^st Century and deploy a process that is not only scalable but takes into account the expertise of the separate yet synergistic entities within their company. It is actually quite simple and has been proven time and time again in different Industries with different Products …………… Enter the BDR.

The BDR (Business Development Representative) is hired to perform a specific task, hunt, prospect and qualify leads to increase the pipeline and ultimately revenue. They have a special skill set which allows them to continually produce beginning stage, qualified pipeline opportunities to sales. With a very specific set of criteria and process, the BDR reps are able to very quickly shift the company from a “sales does all” method to a “BDR Tee up / Sales knock it on the green” practice.

The Outcome is:

BDR’s continually cleanse the data within the system and contact hot, warm and cold Accounts. Result? You will ensure that all companies are being contacted, nurtured, or qualified and passed to Sales as applicable.

BDR’s can be allocated to specific verticals or company segments. Result? You can supply different sales groups the amount of pipeline they need to hit their targets. Additionally the BDR will gain experience in that area and results will continue to increase over time.

BDR’s can provide specific feedback on the “market pulse” and campaigns. Result? The company will very quickly see efficiency increases and lower spend as a result of the “feet on the ground” feedback and direction the BDR can provide to Marketing.

AE’s can focus on their expertise, accelerating pipeline and closing business. Result? The company will see an increase in their Pipeline and ultimately their revenue

The first thing we have to understand is that we ALWAYS need a flow or a stream of Opportunities. We cannot focus on the Pipeline at the end of our cycle and forget about the beginning. The BDR allows for a simple yet fluid process whereby each group can hone their skills and expertise in a synergistic Program. The BDR handles a wide range of Tactics from Outbound Calling to Webinars to Events, and their customer is always Sales. This combination of talent will lead any Company to see greater Revenue and success in the “NEW” Future.

(Photo Source)

The post The Old Demand Generation Model Versus The New appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

3 Steps To Email Marketing That Nurtures Leads And Closes Sales

Are you worried prospects will think your email marketing is spammy? They won’t if your focus is on them, what they need and when they need it.

Email marketing has gotten a bad rap. Like other innovative technologies that marketers have gotten hold of over the years, it’s become the object of much derision.

Gary Vaynerchuk famously talks about how “marketers ruin everything.” In this excerpt from an Inbound Conference keynote (13:45-15:05), he singles out email. (Warning: graphic language.)

Because of this widespread contempt for email marketing, some companies are reluctant to fully embrace the power and effectiveness of email marketing.

That’s too bad, because email marketing is the connective tissue of all Internet marketing. According to McKinsey, email marketing is 40 times as effective at customer acquisition than social media.

Email drives increased website visitors, helps convert website visitors into leads, helps nurture leads into customers and, perhaps most importantly, helps deepen your relationship with customers.

If you can deliver the right content to the right audience at the right time, your email marketing will supercharge your lead generation, sales closing percentages and customer satisfaction (and upsales).

So how do you go about unlocking this mysterious power of email marketing? It’s no mystery. But it does involve some thought and planning.

Here are the three most important things to creating effective email marketing that your prospects won’t hate. In fact, they’ll love it.

1. Determine Who Your Audience Is

Think about your buyer persona. In Adele Revella’s “The Buyer Persona Manifesto,” she offers this definition of a buyer persona:

“It’s an archetype, a composite picture of the real people who buy, or might buy, products like the ones you sell.”

Buyer personas are like an avatar crafted from direct interviews with as many buyers as possible. And from their behavior observed at conferences, social media, etc.

If you don’t have one, do some buyer persona research to find out who your real buyers are (sometimes it’s not who you think).

When researching buyer personas, ignore extraneous things about them like hobbies and instead focus on what Revella calls “The Five Rings of Insight™” –

1. Priority Initiatives – What causes certain buyers to buy from a company like yours, and how are they different from buyers who remain attached to the status quo?
2. Success Factors – What operational or personal results does your buyer persona expect from purchasing from you?
3. Perceived Barriers – What concerns cause your buyer to believe that your company is not their best option?
4. The Buyer’s Journey – What process does this persona follow in researching and selecting a solution that can overcome the Perceived Barriers and achieve the Success Factors?
5. Decision Criteria – Which aspects of the competing offerings do your buyers perceive as most critical, and what do they expect from each one?

2. Segment Your List

Studies show that email lists deteriorate by about 25% per year. So, a list with 10,000 will have 5,625 viable contacts in 3 years. List deterioration is primarily because people change jobs (and email addresses) and unsubscribe for various reasons.

The way to keep your email list working hard (and on a net growth trajectory) is to segment it. In other words, don’t send the same message to everyone on your list.

Segmentation works. According to research by Lyris, Inc., email list segmentation helps drive results. When marketers were asked to indicate their top three results of using segmented email lists, 39% experienced higher open rates, 28% experienced lower unsubscribe rates, and 24% experienced better deliverability and increased sales leads.

Here are additional examples of segmentation you can do to improve your email marketing results:

• Geography – This is effective if the location of your recipient has an effect on the sale. For instance, does your business have geographic limitations? Is there an event within a certain geographic area that pertains to the recipients? Geographic segmentation can include IP area, time zone, area code and address.
• Industry/Company – If your customers or prospect are in different industries (and have indicated such), targeted emails about their specific industry will have greater relevance. Additional segmentation can include company type (B2B, B2C, B2G, etc.) or company size.
• Job Title (or Role) – Just like with your buyer personas, an email that speaks to the issues or concerns of a business owner might be different from a non-management employee.
• Behavior – One of the best segmentation approaches is to send email based on what someone has already downloaded from your site, which emails they’ve opened and which (and how many) pages they have viewed.

A word of caution about email list segmentation: keep it simple. With marketing automation software, the segmentation possibilities are seemingly endless. Don’t go too far in that direction, at least not at first.

3. Send The Right Content At The Right Time

The people on your list are at widely varying stages of the customer lifecycle. Are the people on your list researching how to solve a problem? Researching solutions providers like your company? Are they a customer?

The emails that you send to prospects need to overlay (as much as possible) with where they are in their buying cycle.

TOP – For instance, in the top of the cycle, a prospect is is expressing the symptoms of a problem or an opportunity. The problem doesn’t have a name yet and they aren’t sure what their problem is. They probably need more educational research to get their arms around the problem. They won’t be interested in information about your company.

MIDDLE – Once the buyer has given a name to their problem or opportunity, they then start to consider all the available approaches/methods to solving their problem. Content that is most relevant to the buyer at this stage would help him weigh his options such as comparison white papers, expert guides, webinars, videos, etc.

BOTTOM – Later, the buyer may reach that stage when they have defined their solution strategy, method, or approach. They are starting to compile a list of available vendors and products within their solution strategy. Here, they will need supporting documentation, data, benchmarks or endorsements in order to make or recommend a final decision. This is when they will be receptive to information about your company. The right content for this stage includes vendor (or product) comparisons, case studies, trial download, a live demo, product literature, etc.

Conclusion

Email marketing, when done right, can delight your prospects and help build a relationship with your company even before their first conversation with a sales person. But it needs to be all about the prospect – who they are, what information they need and where they are in their buying journey.

This article originally appeared on The Artillery B2B Marketing Blog (photo credit: The Bait via photopin (license) | Charts: HubSpot)

The post 3 Steps To Email Marketing That Nurtures Leads And Closes Sales appeared first on B2B Marketing Insider.

How Google defines ‘quality content’

Google is increasingly valuing ‘quality content’ when it comes to search rankings, according to a new report.

This isn’t exactly news to most marketers, but the way in which Google determines quality is evolving. 

Read more...

Mount McKinley Becomes Mt. Denali On Google Maps; Bing Stays With Old Name

Restored to its native name by US President Barack Obama, the transformation has yet to fully complete on the major search engines. The post Mount McKinley Becomes Mt. Denali On Google Maps; Bing Stays With Old Name appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

Expert Content Marketing Advice: 13 Tactics To Improve Your Results

Does your content marketing attract an audience and drives measurable results? Improve your content with these 13 pieces of expert content marketing advice.

The post Expert Content Marketing Advice: 13 Tactics To Improve Your Results appeared first on Heidi Cohen.