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The sales journey

June 2, 2015 By Nigel TempleNo Comments

Customers go through a journey with you, before they buy: 1. Suspect An individual or enterprise that you want to do business with. They will fit your marketing criteria and they will probably belong to a target market segment. A reasonable number of them should be stored in your database. How do you figure out who your suspects are? By doing a market segmentation exercise. This involves thinking about groups of people who have similar needs, for whom you have solutions. You should have specific solutions for specific needs. 2. Unqualified prospect An unqualified prospect is someone who has uttered the three magic words: “Tell me more.” However, before we proceed we need to qualify them, by considering whether we can satisfy their needs. 3. Prospect Someone who has gone through the qualification process. 4. Customer Someone who has bought from you once. Money has changed hands on a single occasion, therefore, customers are 'transactionally based'. 5. Client The next stage is to turn customers into clients (through repeat business). 6. Advocate A...

The first time people look at any given ad, they don’t even see it

May 8, 2015 By Nigel TempleNo Comments

In 1885, Thomas Smith wrote a guide called Successful Advertising. He wrote: The first time people look at any given ad, they don't even see it. The second time, they don't notice it. The third time, they are aware that it is there. The fourth time, they have a fleeting sense that they've seen it somewhere before. The fifth time, they actually read the ad. The sixth time they thumb their nose at it. The seventh time, they start to get a little irritated with it. The eighth time, they start to think, "Here's that confounded ad again." The ninth time, they start to wonder if they're missing out on something. The tenth time, they ask their friends and neighbors if they've tried it. The eleventh time, they wonder how the company is paying for all these ads. The twelfth time, they start to think that it must be a good product. The thirteenth time, they start to feel the product has value. The fourteenth time, they start to remember wanting a product exactly like...

What is anchor text?

May 7, 2015May 7, 2015 By Nigel TempleNo Comments

Anchor text is the text within a hyperlink. This is important, as the search engines analyse this. For example www.marketingcompass.co.uk …or… The Marketing Compass small business marketing advice. Search engines examine anchor text, in order to figure out what the destination web page is about. They are doing their best to be helpful to the searcher. Think of it this way - Google would like to know as much as possible about the subject of the page to which the link points. Therefore, inserting keywords into anchor text helps search engines such as Google, Bing and Yahoo to do a better job. Have you noticed how Wikipedia uses anchor text? One topic leads to another and yet another. Wikipedia is at the top page 1 for millions of items and I have no doubt that its extensive use of anchor text has helped it to get there. Here is a tip: if someone wants to link to your website, send them a pre-prepared...

Unravelling IT Jargon

May 5, 2015 By Jacqui-HoganNo Comments

~Navigator member Jacqui Hogan is a management consultant ~ I’ve worked in IT for over 30 years and take it for granted that everyone understands what these terms mean. This works fine during the day, as most of my clients work in IT. But when I get home, my husband, who is a retired Architect (a real one who designed buildings), just looks at me blankly. Here is some of the IT Jargon he says he finds confusing - and an explanation. The Cloud No, not that fluffy thing up in the sky. ‘The Cloud’ often refers to the Internet in general. Strictly speaking, it refers to where you store data and use software applications that are not on your own computer. Whereas you used to get a CD or DVD, install it on your PC in the office, now you can go onto the Internet, and just start using software there. This means you’ll always be using the latest version of the software,...

Is Google PageRank still important and are backlinks still a good idea?

May 1, 2015May 1, 2015 By Nigel TempleNo Comments

Is Google PageRank still important and are backlinks still a good idea? This is a question that is still often asked. PageRank was the first algorithm used by Google. It is a link analysis system that gives a 0 - 10 score. It figured out the relative importance of a website, based on the number of in-bound links. The name comes from Larry Page, one of Google's founders. Google stated: "PageRank works by counting the number and quality of links to a page to determine a rough estimate of how important the website is. The underlying assumption is that more important websites are likely to receive more links from other websites." At the time of writing (May 2015) PageRank would appear to be still used by Google itself. However, the thinking behind backlinks has moved on as they are far less important than they used to be. Personally, I have always thought that backlinks are a poor indication of page quality because it is relatively...

I don’t do strategy

March 26, 2015March 26, 2015 By Jacqui-HoganNo Comments

How many times have you heard that? Maybe you have even said it yourself. Imagine what would have happened if the Greeks had said that when they were contemplating how to seize the city of Troy. There would have been no Trojan horse and many more years of misery for both them and the Trojans. In case you may be thinking that the strategy WAS the Trojan horse, here is the probable thinking that went on in the Greek camp. “Dimetri, how long are we going to sit outside Troy then? Our supplies are running low, and some of the soldiers are pretty fed up with army rations. Having boiling oil poured on them every day for months is taking its toll on morale too” “Lord Paris says we have to stay here until Troy gives Lady Helen back, you know, the one with the really pretty face. I think he wants to capture Troy too, so they can’t steal her back’ “Yeah, but our strategy...

English please not Business Jargon

February 26, 2015 By Jacqui-HoganNo Comments

Professionals in every field have their own words to describe what they do as a short cut to communication within their own expert group. Unfortunately, we often assume everyone else understands these terms. No one will own up to it of course for fear of sounding stupid. No one likes to question a term or say “Sorry, I don’t understand.” Business is no different. These are some of the jargon terms even business people may not understand. For non business-speaking people i.e. most small businesses, this may help you to understand what that 'smarty pants' consultant or coach is telling you! Balanced scorecard. A tool that measures financial, customer, internal business process and growth. Most small businesses do not use it, preferring to use an excel spreadsheet, which is both easier and more useful. Cash flow forecast. An assessment and understanding of the expected cash coming into and flowing out of the organisation in specific periods. Contrary to belief, this is a mystery...

How to use the phone for business sales calls

February 19, 2015February 19, 2015 By Walter Blackburn2 Comments

Nigel Temple @nigeltemple asked me the following question: "Do you have any tips for using the phone in business? What is the earliest time of day that is acceptable to start calling? Do scripts still work? What is the right way of calling a LinkedIn contact and what would you say in the opening 10 seconds? Is it OK to call prospective clients from mobile phones?" Earliest time to start calling: 8am if you’re calling someone in their office on their landline. If you’re calling their mobile I would leave it to 8.30 or even 9 because you don’t know if they’re working from home and most people don’t want to be disturbed there if they’re getting the kids off to school or whatever else they might be doing to get ready for the day. I would be careful calling mobiles if you don’t know them. Most of us are quite protective of our mobile numbers - but I believe it’s ‘fair...

Recipe for success in 2015

January 7, 2015January 20, 2015 By Jacqui-HoganNo Comments

2015 is upon us, so you are probably thinking about what to do to make your business more successful in 2015. If you liken your business to a great meal, you will need to get all the right ingredients together and then mix together using an effective recipe. For a well risen business, you’ll need: Your own unique recipe ingredients in a small plan Large spoon fulls of talented people 1 leader, zested A small quantity of well ground new ideas Small number of processes, well trimmed Plain or self raising finance (as needed) Well seasoned managers Customers to taste Business recipe method: Prepare your plan, checking that sufficient unique ingredients are identified and available Mix together spoonfulls of people and well ground ideas, adding a spoonful at a time until well mixed Chop your processes until small. Select only those that are fresh and fold carefully into the people mixture. Make sure your leader is well zested, and add to the mixture. Watch out for curdling – where the people and leader mixtures...

Marketing video tips – part 6

November 21, 2014May 17, 2019 By David StrelitzNo Comments

In this 6th and final part of marketing video tips, here are some general points to tidy up. Allow plenty of time for any video shoot you are involved in. Generally, it will take a lot longer to get things right and that’s before you start working with the things that move, AKA the talent. Horror stories abound where the super efficient PA to the CEO has graciously allocated 10 minutes to film a 5 minute piece, of which CEO has barely had sight of or it is being rewritten and not even ready for the tele-prompter or the talent insists they will do it on the fly... and then like a recent keynote political speech, their most important point gets forgotten. Agree any costs and specs to carry out all work to completion. Make sure you know what likely extras have not been agreed, i.e. music licensing, stock footage and specialised animated graphics. This will upset many pros but if you...