by Chris Waszczak | Jun 27, 2017 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
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 are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART TWO:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: The Perniciousness of Persuasion
My dear Wormwood,
How have you progressed with influencing the Patient to pitch his goods and services? I have heard rumors that your intended victim has learned from “the Enemy” (www.Salesfish.com) to focus more on the needs and problems of his prospects, instead of on the features of what he’s trying to sell. If this is true, it spells potential disaster for our plans to destroy his business. I will expect a full report…
But before you fall into melancholy over what may prove to be a wretched first stab, I do have another sweet strategy to sabotage the Patient’s sale. You remember we talked about how so many salespeople are still trying to wring the juice out of dusty, old sales techniques—how delightfully pathetic! One of the best ways for a sales strategy to stagnate is to inject it with an unhealthy dose of persuasion.
Don’t get me wrong…there is an art you might call “persuading without persuading,” and we must steer the Patient away from that skill set. It involves being genuine and other-person centered—but, more on that later.
No, the kind of persuasion I want you to inspire in the Patient is pushy and based on the assumption that the prospect before him is a good fit to begin with. We want the Patient’s eyes to roll back in his head and his mouth to engage with all the reasons why the prospect needs what he’s selling. Have him lead with persuasion before he even determines whether his audience is the right one. Fill his head with rank quips about how the ultimate salesperson could “sell catsup to a person with white gloves,” or a freezer to an Eskimo. To mention more clichés, this will have the Patient banging his head against a wall, trying to squeeze blood out of a turnip…etc.
Should the Patient get the notion of qualifying or disqualifying prospects and audiences prior to continuing his efforts, then we are in trouble. (And by “we,” I mean you. Rest assured, I will place the blame on you, my beloved Wormwood.)
Persuade the Patient to persuade their prospects and we will be that much closer to our objective to kill the sale.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
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 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
by Chris Waszczak | Jun 21, 2017 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation, Uncategorized
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 are right and wrong ways to go about marketing, and the pitfalls are many. A lot can be learned by seeing how not to manage your marketing. This original blog series weaves together an entertaining story that will help you navigate 21st-Century marketing with a view from “the dark side,” as “Screwtape” teaches his apprentice “Wormwood” via email how to sabotage your marketing. Enjoy…
PART ONE:
To: Wormwood
From: Screwtape
Subject: Old School Pitching
My dear Wormwood,
In your glorious mission to sabotage the plans of the business owner, whom we are calling the “Patient,” let us focus on sales. Sales and marketing are the lifeblood of any company, and the greatest threats to your success (I need not remind you that you are being watched, and failure on your part has consequences). Let us discuss, then, the art of “closing the deal.”
By all means, fill your Patient’s head with all sorts of outdated sales principles. You might be surprised to know that many sales trainers are still teaching old-school sales techniques, dating back to the late 1800s and early 1900s. Tired, regurgitated and woefully out of date, these can be powerful tools in our hands! Convince the Patient that what worked yesterday will work today.
I must emphasize that you must not allow the Patient to awaken to the fact that today’s consumer is much too sophisticated to fall for “push” sales techniques. Back in the day, companies spoon-fed their brand to the masses, shaping their thinking and perceptions. With online reviews, social media discussions and other information available today, consumers largely define brands. As author and marketing consultant Faris Yakob writes, mass media has given way to “the media of the masses.” Today’s sales prospect comes into the pipeline armed with a knowledge of what they want and don’t want, and they don’t want to be sold.
We can use this reality to our advantage. Have the Patient focus on “pitching” their product. Convince him that prospects actually care about his product or service, rather than the problems he can help them solve. If the Patient peddles the wonderful features of his offerings, we’ve got him right where we want him—but be sure he gets just enough lukewarm response from this to feed the delusion that this approach will pay off in time. (In this case, we can use the “Power of Positive Thinking” to our advantage.)
Under no circumstances can you allow the patient to begin with a customer-focused approach! If the Patient asks effective questions about the needs and frustrations of the prospect, our Cause may be lost (and you will be held responsible, my dear Wormwood, so let’s just not go there).
Yet, there may be a way to salvage even this disaster by transitioning the Patient from customer focus to persuasion—and this is what I will cover in my next training email. The so-called “power of persuasion” can kill a sale faster than a moth flying into a flame (an apropos metaphor for you, if you should fail us.)
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
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 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
by Chris Waszczak | Jun 19, 2017 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Event Marketing, Lead Generation
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!
So the Greeks, being pretty smart folks, came up with this thing called the Muse. The Muse, as you may know, was a goddess, nymph or spirit that embodied inspiration, or creativity. Ever since then writers, artists and others of their ilk have been sitting around, waiting for her to come by and make something happen.
Copywriters, for example, court the Muse for a living, writing ad copy, websites, taglines and so on that creatively break through people’s cognitive filters and leave them wanting more. Chances are, you will find yourself chasing the Muse too. Problem is, she’s very good at playing hard to get. Seems like the harder you try to catch her, the more elusive she gets. The more frustrated you become, the more maddeningly she stays just out of reach, as if taunting you. How can you woo this little tease and make her work for you?
The Muse will only meet you in the dream-like world of your subconscious. Truly creative ideas do not come from the conscious mind. “A-ha!” You may say. “I have thought up plenty of ideas, consciously, purposefully.” True. But the ideas originated in the evanescent imagery, moods and symbols produced in the subconscious, and were then are organized and displayed in the conscious mind. Our subconscious minds are capable of making associations and connections that the conscious mind, with its rules and structure cannot. Perhaps this is why children and people with mental “other-abilities” (autism, bipolar, etc.) can be so creative—the conscious mind is out of the way. As Aristotle said, “There never was a genius without a tincture of madness.”
But, how do you delve into that place in your mind where dwells the muse, if you are not a genius, “touched by fire?” Let’s look at what Marshall Cook has to say in his book, Freeing Your Creativity:
“Creativity means getting out of the way…If you can quiet the yammering of the conscious, controlling ego, you can begin to hear your deeper, truer voice in your writing…[not the] noisy little you that sits out front at the receptionist’s desk and tries to take credit for everything that happens in the building.”
One way to quiet this “monkey mind,” as Buddhism calls it, the constant chattering stream of consciousness is to practice mindfulness. Be present in the moment. Let the world swirl around you in its haze of stress, clear your mind, breathe and truly experience all that is going on—engage all the senses. The Muse, who cannot tolerate stress and will not shout to be heard over your monkey mind, might just whisper in your ear.
Author, Luke Sullivan wrote, “Shake the Etch A Sketch in your head, start over constantly, and come at the problem from wildly different angles. Don’t keep sniffing at all four sides of the fire hydrant. Run through the entire neighborhood.”
Good advice. The Muse cannot be taken by force, or cornered in some dead-end alley of thought. Like the proverbial butterfly, you must follow her where she goes, which is not usually in a straight line; you must not grab at her, but let her come and rest on you. (See, I told you she’s a tease.)
James Webb Young describes the process:
- You gather as much information on the problem as you can. You read, you underline stuff, you ask questions, you visit the factory.
- You sit down and actively attack the problem.
- You drop the whole thing and go do something else while your subconscious mind works on the problem.
- “Eureka!”
- You find out how to implement your idea.
The key is to know when to let go—when to stop trying to catch the Muse, letting her sneak up on you instead. When your mind is trying too hard, go take a hike, hop on your bike or go sit in the garden. Stop thinking about the perfect tagline, marketing solution or typeface. Truly, truly let go your thoughts, still the conscious mind and trust the subconscious mind to do its work. The Greeks were right—the Muse is worth pursuing!
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 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
by Chris Waszczak | Jun 16, 2017 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
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!
I wish Captain America were real…sigh. I must admit that he’s my favorite Marvel Avenger. He’s not as strong as Hulk, or as invulnerable as Iron Man; he can’t summon lightning from the clouds, but he’s absolutely honest, courageous and has a heart of gold. That’s why all the other Avengers look to him to lead them in battle. (Yes, I know. This is all kind of nerdy, but you know you love it!)
If you’ve seen the recent Captain America movies, you know that he didn’t always have biceps the size of a basketball. Steve Rogers started as a painfully skinny little chap who looked like a piñata purchased off the clearance rack at “Bullies-R-Us” full of Nerds candy, “kick me” notes and handy scotch tape for hanging them. But then, one day, little Stevie got injected with some sort of superhero juice and came out so ripped that he triggered a second Big Bang expansion just to accommodate the cosmic mass of his new pectorals.
Unfortunately, there is no magic injection that will bulk up your business overnight. However, you can grow your firm to heroic proportions with a very Captain-y tactic called the Call to Action (CTA).
According to Pawan Deshpande at www.ContenMarketingInstitute.com, “These simple, yet targeted, phrases are directly responsible for encouraging your audience to take a next step toward becoming a loyal customer, such as downloading your white paper, following you on Twitter, registering for your webinar, or sharing your content with a friend or colleague.” He adds that, “Without a call-to-action, content marketing efforts amount to little more than writing exercises. It’s not enough to publish useful information; you want readers to engage with you and take an action that will provide value for your business.”
A CTA typically takes the form of a highly visible button, sidebar or highlighted text that asks a site visitor to take a specific action. Here are three CTA tips you can take into business battle today.
- Know your target. Captain America hurls his heinous spinning shield of hurtitude with unerring accuracy because he sights in on his objective first. Determine the specific objective of your CTA—Is it to increase your sales conversions? Do you want more social media engagement? Have your CTA match your marketing goal and make sure it includes a link to make things easy for mere mortals.
- Make it short and simple. Cappy’s not a complicated guy. Protect good; destroy evil. That’s pretty much it. Your CTA should be short and to the point—one brief sentence is best. For example, “Download our 10-page eBook,” or “Register for our free 1-hour webinar.” Specific, actionable language is just what the Captain ordered. “Sir! Yes sir!”
- Match the CTA with the context. Now, Cap-Daddy knows how to accessorize. Whether he’s sporting his retro WWII outfit, or the new star-spangled Avengers suit, he matches his wardrobe to the decade at hand. Your CTA should relate directly to the content it accompanies on a particular page. If your page talks about the merits of your company’s lawn care services, offer turf tips or a free soil test. Don’t offer a guide to indoor hydroponics. That would be like our hero wearing flip-flops with his Winter Warrior spandex suit.
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 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
by Chris Waszczak | Nov 21, 2016 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Digital Marketing, Lead Generation
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!
It’s a big world out there, and it’s full of competition. Google alone processes billions of search queries every single day, and all of them represent potential leads. With the constant addition of new technologies, how do you know that search engine optimization will work in your organization?
- SEO is Cost Effective
Search engine optimization is one of the most cost-effective investments you can make for your marketing strategy. It also offers a high return on your investment. Advertising in traditional media and many of the most popular digital channels can be quite costly.
SEO also offers a long-term investment if you consider that your exposure in print or digital media is generally limited by the time allotted for your contract.
When you put an AdWords campaign on pause, you will disappear from search results if you haven’t applied any organic SEO to your site. With an organic SEO campaign your efforts are longer lasting, especially when you hire a professional agency to manage your campaign.
- You Can Target Very Specific Traffic
Organizations like to have differentiators and that means there are a vast number of businesses offering very specific and niche services and products. An effective SEO campaign allows you to filter through the millions of online users and attract those who are looking for what you have to offer. No other channel can give you such broad exposure to such a specific target audience.
- Everyone Is Online; Everyone Is Mobile
Mobile traffic now dominates desktop traffic on every level.
When you optimize your site for mobile you can take advantage of local SEO targeting, which makes your business more visible to people close to your area.
- SEO Ranking Is Diverse
A diverse ranking means that while different mediums hold different SEO value, they all contribute positively to your online visibility. Ranking also ensures that you can monopolize on the media and channels that best suit your organization.
Blog articles and textual content do extremely well when developed in-line with an SEO strategy. Videos are well received and well indexed, with YouTube being the second biggest search engine in the world.
- Everyone Else Is Doing It
Competition is essential to survival and if you do not take advantage of current market trends, someone else will. Check out the strategies that your competitors are applying to their marketing efforts, and make sure your plan of action is more effective.
If you have comments or questions regarding your website SEO needs, get in touch with us today.
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 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
by Chris Waszczak | Oct 11, 2016 | B2B Sales, Brand Marketing, Lead Generation
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!
With the emergence of social media and digital marketing, it’s important that B2B marketing agencies remember the value of direct mail. Direct mail is an important component of any modern business marketing strategy. On average, customers and prospects receive less physical mail than they did in the past, which enables your marketing piece to stand out more.
In order to maximize your direct mail campaign here are a few tips to keep in mind:
- Consistency matters. Make sure your direct mail piece is consistent with your brand marketing message on other channels. For effective branding, use the same images across all marketing materials. Include your logo, social media handles, website addresses, as well as images from your current website and digital marketing. If you’re able to use the same font and type in your direct mail pieces, this will further help with your branding and continuity across all marketing channels.
- Personalize wherever you can. This may mean segmenting your list so that you can make minor adjustments in your copy depending on who the target audience is. Your list should ideally be separated according to where in the buying process the recipient is.
- Don’t underestimate the value of a sales letter. Studies have shown that a sales letter will yield a much better response than simply sending a postcard or flyer.
- Plan multiple touches. Remember that it will likely take multiple mailers before you can convert a prospect into a customer or get a customer to take action. Rarely will the recipient take action when receiving the first mailer from you. Have a plan that includes follow-up mailings or a courtesy phone call.
- Verify the accuracy of your list. Make sure you have the most accurate, up-to-date mailing list.
- Always test your direct mail campaigns. If possible set up A/B tests to help plan what your future direct mail marketing strategy will look like. It’s impossible to predict what types of responses you will get without testing.
- Have a plan for monitoring the responses to your mailings. The easiest and most effective way to do this is through coding the mailers.
Remember as you embark on a direct mail campaign for your business that the best list is always one that includes your current customers and those that have expressed an interest in your products or services. Target this list first and follow the steps above to ensure that you have a great response to your next direct mail campaign.
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 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
