Using Content to Drive Conversions

Using Content to Drive Conversions

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

No matter how much content you may be generating to promote your business, you also have to think about the bottom line. Is your content driving a sufficient level of conversions? Here are some tips on creating content, which will be powerful in achieving this crucial aim!

  • Focus on one thing. Content usually is more effective if it is emphasizing a single call to action, rather than multiple goals. You will increase the probability of conversions if you guide the readers along a journey towards taking just one critical step. Don’t distract them in a way that dissipates their energy in multiple directions.
  • Practice balanced link building. This point of keeping a proper focus with your content is prominently displayed when it comes to the important topic of link building. While it is recognized that lots of links can often be a factor in building a strong SEO rating for your website, don’t overdo it! When link building gets out of balance, conversions rates tend to go way down. Readers have too high of a chance of being taken away from your site before they even reach your primary call to action!
  • Tap the power of association. In some cases your readers may be further convinced of your legitimacy and take your call to action if they see you associating with someone they already recognize. If is often valuable for a growing business to try to work with name brands while their own brand is not yet well known. Equally effective can be personal communications, such as interviews with prominent people within an industry. Although they are not always so easy to obtain, these types of relationships can be effective at increasing brand awareness and a higher conversion ratio. If you are fortunate enough to have some of these valuable connections, keep an appropriate amount of energy focused on maintaining them.
  • Speak to needs. You website calls to action will be more effective when readers feel that you deeply understand their needs and wants. The public tends to more strongly trust people who are genuinely empathetic with their day-to-day problems. So establish a genuine rapport! What issues might they be struggling with, and have you had any similar challenges? If so, how did you more successfully navigate the hazardous terrain?  It might even be possible for you to describe how one of the products or services that your company currently offers helped you with your own tricky situation! This could be a great opportunity to engage in some compelling story telling based on real life. A story which closes with a convincing call to action in a timely manner!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
How Content Marketing Makes (or Breaks) the Sale

How Content Marketing Makes (or Breaks) the Sale

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

Getting on page #1 of Google or having 20,000 Likes on a given social media platform won’t get you anywhere. Email newsletters are destined for the trash, and all your efforts will be in vain—all of this will be true IF your content is stiff, boring, stale, lifeless. Without great, living content, even the most well-funded marketing efforts will fall flat.

You’ve probably heard it before: Content is king. ANY marketing medium is only as good as its content, including the way you use the written word, images, audio, and video to tell a story.

Ever hear someone say something like, “He was good looking, but boring as a cardboard waffle,” or “I thought she was cute till she started talking”? It’s easy to focus your marketing on being seen, but form without substance won’t get results. WHAT you say is even more important than where you say it. HOW you say it is paramount.

According to the Content Marketing Institute (CMI):

“Content marketing is a…technique of creating and distributing relevant and valuable content to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined and understood target audience—with the objective of driving profitable customer action. Basically, content marketing is the art of communicating with your customers and prospects without selling. It is non-interruption marketing. The essence of this content strategy is the belief that if we, as businesses, deliver consistent, ongoing valuable information to buyers, they ultimately reward us with their business and loyalty…Consumers have simply shut off the traditional world of marketing. They own a DVR to skip television advertising, often ignore magazine advertising, and now have become so adept at online ‘surfing’ that they can take in online information without a care for banners or buttons (making them irrelevant). Smart marketers understand that traditional marketing is becoming less and less effective by the minute, and that there has to be a better way. Thought leaders and marketing experts from around the world…have concluded that content marketing isn’t just the future, it’s the present.” (What is Content Marketing? If You’re Not Content Marketing, You’re Not Marketing)

If you’re constantly pitching your products and services without offering something of value or interest to your audience, you are going to turn people away. However, if you’re educating, entertaining and engaging people with great content, you will see returns.  Here are a few stepwise tips, based on the “AIDA” model to help you understand how content marketing leads to a sale, without giving the appearance of selling:

A: Get Attention—right away!

You will either catch or lose your audience within a few seconds. Don’t start your website, advertising, posts or updates touting your features or explaining who YOU are. Start with a gripping headline and an introductory paragraph that answers the question, “Why should I care?” Why are people searching for your services or products anyway, and what is their emotional state? Meet them at that place. Someone searching for “specialty coffee shop” is going to be in a very different state of mind than someone searching for “off-road vehicle repair.”

I: Draw the reader in and generate Interest.

Capitalize on the attention you’ve gained with interesting, compelling, and educational content. “According to the Roper Public Affairs, 80% of business decision makers prefer to get company information in a series of articles versus an advertisement. 70% say content marketing makes them feel closer to the sponsoring company, while 60% say that company content helps them make better product decisions. Think of this—what if your customer looked forward to receiving your marketing? What if when they received it, via print, email, website, they spent 15, 30, 45 minutes with it?” (CMI)

D: Compel the reader to make a Decision.

Your content should be so compelling and informative that the reader will decide that they simply must know more, that your company has what it takes to meet their needs.  They may not yet be ready to buy—they may not even act for months—but if you can get them to decide that you are worth further consideration, then your content is working. You will have Top of Mind Awareness (TOMA), and they will act when they eventually need what you offer.

A: Lead the reader to take Action.

Provide your reader/visitor with a simple, non-threatening way to get more information, or gain access to an exclusive benefit. Make it easy and obvious, but don’t always go straight for the “Buy Now” button. Offer white papers, free consultations, free samples and other resources, along with the option to buy. Some people act in small steps, nibbling before they bite, so don’t try to set the hook too early.

Content marketing is a specialized skill; you may hire someone who knows how to build a gorgeous website or who knows Facebook inside and out, but if they are not a great content writer, then your marketing will fall short. Make sure that your sales and marketing team includes a Content Marketing specialist!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
Sales: It’s Not About You

Sales: It’s Not About You

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

There is one small word in the English lexicon that will kill a sale faster than any other. That word is “I.” Its close cousins me, we, us and our can also derail a deal faster than anything else. These short, but powerful, words will bounce visitors right off your website, hasten your mailer’s journey to file 13, compel viewers and listeners to change the station. No bueno.

It’s understandable that most businesses want to share THEIR stories, put themselves in front of the camera, hear their own voices online. But is talking about yourself any way to start a relationship? Dale Carnegie didn’t think so. In his classic guide, How to Win Friends and Influence People, first published in 1936, he outlined “Six ways to make people like you”:

  1. Become genuinely interested in other people.
  2. Smile.
  3. Remember that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.
  4. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves.
  5. Talk in terms of the other person’s interest.
  6. Make the other person feel important—and do it sincerely.

Technology has changed our communications media, but it hasn’t changed our basic psychology. If anything, digital media have made your prospects more self-focused since with social media, “all the world’s a stage.” Your audience wants to be heard, known and understood—they want to have their stories told and to have others say, “You’re interesting.” Put them into the spotlight first, and they’ll be more likely to stick around to find out about you and your business.

Since you generally have just a few seconds to grab someone’s attention before they divert it elsewhere, it’s essential that you immediately establish: “I get you. I understand what you want and need.” Before you start giving solutions, demonstrate that you can relate to how they are feeling in that moment. Once you make that connection and your prospects feel understood, you can start to show how your products or services are relevant to their lives.

Here are a few simple things you can do to put the spotlight where it belongs:

  • Whether you’re writing website content, an ad or a video script, start with the word “you.” It’s a good way to start a draft with the right focus.
  • Next time you go onto your social media pages, remember this mantra: “Like, comment, share.” Visit other people’s sites, “Like” their pages and leave them with a friendly comment. Share their content on your page. Social media may be 21st Century, but the principles behind it are timeless—it’s still all about how to win friends and influence people.
  • Become a student of marketing, a critic of ads. Evaluate all the marketing communications you run across today in the light of their focus: are they establishing rapport with their audiences, or talking all about themselves? You’ll soon find yourself paying attention to ads, rather than trying to tune them out. You’ll look at websites with a critical eye. It’s actually pretty fun to study other companies’ marketing and it will help you make yours better.

The truth is that it’s not about you. It’s about the customers you’re trying to win and the public you want to influence. Good salespeople know that every marketing communication—from print ads to website home page copy—needs to begin with telling their story, not yours. Put the customer in the spotlight and they will want to know more about you. The best way to get attention is to first give attention.

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
The River of Doubt

The River of Doubt

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

The great ex-president, a self-made bull moose of a man lay against a fallen log, his face gaunt and pale. “Leave me and save yourselves!”

In 1914, Teddy Roosevelt and his son, Kermit, were nearing the end of an epic trip to explore the most mysterious and daunting tributary of the majestic Amazon River. Originally named Rio da Dúvida (River of Doubt in Portuguese) before being re-christened the Rio Roosevelt, the river’s winding waters snaked through nearly impassable jungle, with imposing rapids and waterfalls.

The expedition was lost and running out of supplies; the situation was dire. Just days ago, Roosevelt had slipped on the riverbank and sustained a gash on his leg, which was now infected. He was weakened to the point of being unable to go on. But his son Kermit was forged of similar steel as his father and refused to let him perish in the “Heart of Darkness.” With Kermit half carrying his father, the intrepid pair limped their way back to an inhabited area, where Teddy was able to receive care for his wound.

There’s a good lesson in this fascinating story for your business: When you’re ready to give up…don’t. There’s always a solution to virtually any problem, even the solution involves reaching out for help. For example, you may have lofty goals but a humble marketing budget. Reaching those goals may seem out of reach, but what if you could find another business to go in on some advertising with you? Perhaps a print ad is too expensive for your business, for example, but could afford to split the cost on a co-branded ad campaign? Working together, companies can achieve more than they can alone!

After Teddy and his son returned to the U.S., some were skeptical about the River of Doubt account they shared. Teddy took on his critics in a presentation sponsored by the National Geographic Society and proved their doubts misguided. In 1927 American explorer George Miller Dyott led a second trip down the river, independently confirming Roosevelt’s discoveries.

Make your marketing an adventure and don’t be afraid to explore options that can take you further than you could imagine! Be resourceful, don’t give up and seek ways to collaborate with others, and you’ll navigate your way through the jungle of business success.

To read the full story of this adventure, you can read T.R.s account of the expedition, Through the Brazilian Wilderness or the excellent River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey by Candice Miller.

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
The Screwtape Emails  XI: Divide and Conquer

The Screwtape Emails XI: Divide and Conquer

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

To: Wormwood

From: Screwtape

Subject: Divide and Conquer

My Dear Wormwood,

Here we at a critical juncture. The pesky Patient has decided to kick up the level of his marketing. Not to worry—this situation can be the catalyst for a delightfully dreadful downfall. You must learn these three ways to frustrate even the most ambitious marketing intentions: The three D’s.

Divide: Influence your charge to enlist as many disconnected sources as he can find. I influenced one of my own patients to hire a freelance graphic designer, buy into a do-it-yourself website, use his sister to write content, and get a moonlighting “marketing expert.” This motley team had some decent individual talent, but could not form a unified team. Imagine taking ten pieces each from four different 50-piece puzzles, and attempting to fit together a unified picture. My patient “saved” a few bucks, but the ensuing brand message was predictably weak and disconnected; what she lost far outweighed any gains. (She also wasted a good deal of time trying to chase down each contractors to re-explain everything to each.)

Dilute: A coherent, unified team produces an effective, cohesive brand message capable of making powerful connections that lead the humans them to buy, buy, buy. Prevent this happening, at all costs! Just like the game of “telephone,” the more disconnected people that crafting the message, the more diluted, distorted and dissonant it becomes. See the how that works?

Discourage: The regrettable results of the first two D’s will always lead to discouragement. Plant a mixture of truth and error into the Patient’s mind. Make him believe the problem lies in the media platform. “YouTube ads don’t work for me,” or “social media must not produce any real returns.” The truth of such thoughts depends on whether or not he divides and dilutes his marketing message.

If we can portray truth as relative, we can really mess things up!

Your affectionate Uncle,

Screwtape

P.S. We now have the opportunity to guide the patient’s determination by perpetuating the insane idea that trying other media with the same thrown-together “team” will produce different results. Good luck with that one, human!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales
Is Remote Work Right for Your Company?

Is Remote Work Right for Your Company?

Welcome to SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales, the most strategically biased B2B Marketing Agency, telemarketing services, telemarketing companies (sales agency) and digital marketing companies, serving Orange County, Los Angeles, San Jose, Sacramento and the Pacific Northwest (Bend, Portland, Seattle). We gladly serve California and all 50 United States!

Technology has made it possible for more and more people to work remotely from home. Increasingly, companies are offering remote work options to attract talent and keep costs down, but what are the pros and cons? Where is remote work headed, and is it right for your company? Trending data add clarity to the question.

  • Remote work is increasing rapidly. According to a Telework Research Network study, remote work increased 73% between 2005 and 2011 in the US; a recent Gallup survey found the percentage of US employees working remotely rose from 39% to 43% between 2012 and 2016.
  • Your competition offers it. According to GWA, 50% of the US workforce holds a job with at least partial telework; 20-25% frequently work outside the office. A 2016 Gallup Poll indicated that 43% of Americans spend at least some time working remotely, most industries embrace remote work, and Fortune 1000 companies around the globe are revamping their spaces around the fact that employees are already mobile.
  • It’s where you’ll find top talent. 75% of remote employees earn over $65,000 per year, putting them in the upper 80th percentile of all employees, home or office-based. To stay competitive in capturing the best talent, your company should consider offering remote incentives.
  • It’s attractive to employees. According to Global Workplace Analytics (GWA), 80% to 90% of the US workforce says they would like to “telework” at least part time.
  • Remote work resonates with Millennials. A Queens University study reports 49% of Millennials support social tools for workplace collaboration; 41% prefer to communicate via technology. The US Bureau of Labor predicts Millennials, already over 50% of the workforce, will soar to 75% by 2030.

Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s 2013 remote work ban and those by IBM, Facebook and others bolstered a persistent myth that remote workers are less productive and collaborative. However, these decisions appear to be outliers correlated with company-specific issues, not the overall fitness of the remote work model or the effectiveness of virtual collaboration.

In spite of these few isolated examples, “A variety of studies show that telecommuting and working from home is associated with higher productivity,” David Lewin, management professor at the University of California told Forbes.

The question that emerges is whether remote work is right for your company. A wealth of research strongly suggests net positive effects on team collaboration, productivity and profit.

Lewin cites a 2011 WorldatWork study indicating that companies with cultures of flexibility experienced lower turnover and increased employee satisfaction, motivation and engagement.

Harvard Business Review interviewed Nicholas Bloom on a study launched “to persuade some skeptical managers that flexible work arrangements wouldn’t hinder business performance—to have data that proved the case…We found that people working from home completed 13.5% more calls than the staff in the office did—meaning that Ctrip got almost an extra workday a week out of them. They also quit at half the rate of people in the office—way beyond what we anticipated. And predictably, at-home workers reported much higher job satisfaction. It estimated that it saved $1,900 per employee for the nine months.”

A 16-year study by Idea Champions, cited in a blog by Dave Evans entitled The Workplace of The Future: Connected, Collaborative, Creative, found that only 3 percent of people come up with their best ideas at work. The other 97 percent said they encounter great ideas throughout their day, at home, or even on vacation.

Bloom advises company leaders to test the remote work waters for themselves. “I tell executives all the time to exploit natural opportunities—for example, severe weather that prevents people from getting to the office—to measure how productive employees can be at home. Any disruption that offers a chance to have people work remotely is an opportunity to see how effective they are off-site.”

“Clinging to an old-fashioned fantasy that all work must be conducted in a central office puts companies at risk,” writes Mike Elgan for Computerworld. “We’re now entering an era where a majority of the workforce works remotely at least part time. If your company pretends this isn’t happening, you’ll fail to develop relevant policies and build secure remote infrastructure…The winning approach is not a blanket ban on remote or office work.”

Is remote work right for your company? Could it increase your company’s productivity? Perhaps it’s time to test it out. One thing’s for sure, it’s here to stay. Check out this article on How To Be a Digital Nomad and Work From Anywhere by Alliance Virtual Offices’s Ceci Amador.

Speaking of productivity, check out this guide: 13 Ways to Increase Business Productivity, enjoy!

Call SalesFish today and our high-touch, dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals, and the marketing and sales tactics best suited to your specific needs. And, yes, we will also advise you on the best A.I. tools that actually work and complement the real people in your business!


Stay tuned for more relevant content on creating world-class digital marketing strategies and B2B telemarketing sales strategies. We at SalesFish Brand Marketing & Sales thank you for joining us in our commitment to unwavering strategic planning, B2B brand marketing and B2B sales execution.

Call today and our “high-touch” dedicated team will assist you in assessing your strategic sales goals to tailor our marketing and sales tactics to your specific needs.

SalesFish B2B Telemarketing Services

SalesFish Net of Sales Services:

  • B2B Direct Sales, Channel Sales and Marketing Strategies
  • On-Site B2B Presentation, Negotiation and Sales
  • B2B Telemarketing and B2B Telesales Services
  • Cold Calls and Appointment Setting
  • Online Presentations and Webinars
  • Product Awareness and Announcement Calls
  • Primary Research: Quantitative and Qualitative Surveys
  • Experiential Event Marketing
  • Pre and Post-Event Calls
  • Audience Acquisition, Exhibit Sales and Sponsorship Sales