Customers don’t buy what you sell

Customers buy emotions, not things. It’s not your product or service they really want. It’s the emotional result of the product or service they are after.

So although talking about the product features and the benefits of using those features is important – and is what 90% of sales and marketing people focus on – it’s not going deep enough. In order to really build a long term brand you need to understand the emotional requirements of your audience.

A decision to buy will be firstly based on emotion closely followed by a logical justification based on features etc. This is as true for business customers as it is for consumers.

This understanding of the emotional requirements of your customers is particularly important when you are setting the strategy and creating your marketing plans. It defines things such as positioning statements, product design and tactical communications.

Here’s some examples of some great taglines that are actually aimed at driving an emotional response.

‘Reassuringly expensive’ by Stella Artois. Although the price was actually relatively low for a premium beers – so customers always felt reassured that they had got a great deal.

‘Impossible is nothing’ – Addidas.

‘Because you’re worth it’ – L’oreal

Although clever taglines are only an expression of the emotional satisfaction you’ll get when the buy the product of service they are clearly aimed at your emotions not your logic. The logic bit comes in later.

So have a good think about how your product or service satisfies your customer emotions and put that front and centre. For example if you are a conveyancing solicitor you are not selling the legal legwork around buying a house you are selling ‘peace of mind’ that your new £200,000 purchase is not going to prove to be a huge mistake.

Understand and talk about emotions not ‘things’, no one is interested in things.

5 tips to optimise your Linkedin marketing activity and get more leads

Linkedin is driving the most and best quality traffic to corporate websites. So as a lead generation tool it’s the place to be. We can easily get a 10% response rate to ‘cold’ lead generation activity on Linkedin – which out performs pretty much all other forms of marketing currently. So here’s our top 5 tips for optimising your Linkedin activity – when you are trying to encourage new leads.

1. Prospects are not interested in you – they are interested in how you will help them. So make sure your headline and summary tell them this. Does “Managing director at ….” or “I have been in engineering for 20 years and pride myself on…” really matter to someone who doesn’t know you. This is not a simple matter, it requires some thought, and always ask someone else what they think.

2. Do your updates at lunchtime – this is when the most leads are driven from Linkedin. Also, first thing in the morning and at the end of the working day are good times to as this is when most people view Linkedin.

3. Use the ‘attach a file’ option (the little paperclip in the top right of your status update box. Use this to attach great pictures – make sure they are large (i.e large file size and pixel width) as they stand out much more than the standard pictures shown when you simply attach a link from another website. Pictures, and video, get much more engagement than text.

4. Use the advanced search functionality to find your target audience. This is key – you can’t do this as well on any other ‘social network’. Linkedin is the best database of the B2B audience on the planet. Find your audience then reach out to them – this can be via Linkedin (e.g use an inmail if you can) or outside of Linkedin (e.g pick up the phone) see here for another great tip that will help.

5. Go into groups regularly and find and engage with your audience. Especially if they are asking for advice and help that you provide. You would be surprised how many leads and customers we find in groups that other people just don’t reach out to. Honestly, it’s insane, we have a new client who asked specifically for marketing help in a large and active local marketing group and we were the only people who responded!

We hope these tips help – they help us get leads so we know they can help you.

Why your social activity should consist of stories – it can give a ROI of 2800%

There is a magnificant piece of research that went on a few years ago which neatly summed up a what marketing can do. It proves why marketing is so important for creating value, and profits, in business. It was called the Significant Objects Experiment.

In a nutshell they bought around one hundred near worthless items such as a plastic banana, golf ball piggy bank and a coconut shaped cup and paid $127 for them. They then placed them on ebay, but instead of a description they wrote stories that included the item. They didn’t pretend the items were the actual ones in the stories, they were just great stories written by talented authors. The results were outstanding. The items all sold for over $3,600 – that’s a return on investment of 2800%.

What went on here is that readers of those stories developed an emotional attachment to the product through the story. This created real value for them and they were willing to pay a lot more for the item. It’s this emotional connection that marketing is always trying to create. And before you ask, this is also true in the business to business sphere – people fundamentally buy on emotion. The logical head stuff goes on, of course, but in the end they buy because their heart tells them to.

So what practical advice can we take from this experiment? Basically you should be creating stories for your business, products and services that connect with your audience. This could simply be the story behind the companies growth, why it has that vision it has, a charismatic founder or the company goldfish in the corner of the office. It will also be telling the story of how the product or service helped another person or business to overcome the problems they were facing (these are called case studies!)

This is where social media is really useful – its’ a great way to tell stories which people can choose to engage with. The better the story and the more relevant it is for your audience, the more they will follow it. This is often called a content plan and can either be long term or short term. For example following the story about the research and innovation efforts of your company would be longer term. However, for an event you are running featuring a unique hashtag and videos and photos before, during and after the event would be a short term story. On this last point the hashtag gives your audience the means to follow that story, not just from your perspective but from others involved. This enables it to grow and take on a more compelling depth.

So remember, you need to unlock or create the stories that will give your audience an emotional response. Ask yourself when you are putting your content plan together “what’s the story here and would my audience care?”

What’s the vital ingredient in social media marketing?

Well the clues in the name – social….

Social does not mean… stand there and talk at me for hours on end and tell me how great you are. You may be great and I may buy your stuff but I can ignore you.

Although giving me some useful and relevant stuff (called content by the industry) is pretty good and I do appreciate it. It’s not really social is it?

Being social does mean having a conversation. It involves, at the simplest level, allowing me to say something and you acknowledging I’ve said it. In most cases that is all I need.

And please don’t wait weeks or months to acknowledge me, I respect that you may not be there all the time but if you are in the same place as me make sure you are listening.

In short if you are not prepared to have a conversation with me don’t be in social media.

Simples….

5 reasons you should give it away for free

One thing i’ve heard a lot, especially among professional service providers is, “If I give it away for free they won’t need me.”  It’s usually when we are discussing what they should be posting in social media – or to use the industry jargon – defining their content strategy.

The world is awash with information – in theory, with enough time, you could become an expert in almost anything based on the information you could find online or elsewhere – but businesses still grow and we haven’t seen a world develop where everyone does it themselves.

So the fear of ‘giving it away for free’ is unnecessary and one that will restrict your marketing efforts, especially if you want to embrace social media. Here’s 5 reasons why – and this applies to service providers and those creating physical products

1. You need to demonstrate you know what you are doing – so how do you do that without providing details of what you do know.

2. What else are you going to use to generate ‘content’ or ‘things to use in marketing’ – creating new content that doesn’t give away your ‘secrets’ is expensive and if you are not a comedian why are you creating a funny video. Use what you do have in abundance – your knowledge and expertise (and it feeds point 1.)

3. Its fulfills your customers needs. They know what they want. They have a specific need/pain – do your broad and unspecific statements about what you do (but don’t give too much away) answer those specific needs or pains. I bet they don’t.

4. “The more you know, the more you know you don’t know.” Aristotle. So by showing them  this it makes them want, or need, you even more. They realise they need the help of a professional, or a more premium product.

5. Humans like to reciprocate. If they have spent some time looking at your website to get lots of free information about their situation and then realise they need help – who do you think they will turn to? Not the other websites they have looked at which didn’t answer their specific question/need/pain.

So in social you should be looking internally to see what information and expertise you can give away. If it’s really clever it’s more useful and has greater value. For example my post about circumventing Linkedin restrictions using Google was by far my most shared post.

So don’t be afraid to give it away for free, it’s what your customers want until they realise it’s actually you or your product they really need.

How to stand out in Linkedin updates – for a limited time only

You may have noticed the recent addition of a paper clip to the update box. This will be familiar to those who have company pages but now they have rolled it out to personal status updates. (see my earlier post below about company pages where I highlighted the advantage of this for company updates)

This is a crucial change and for a while it means you can make your status updates really stand out. You do this by adding some great pictures. Previously when you attach a link the ‘system’ selects an image for your from the webpage. Now you can upload your own pictures – and they are presented in larger format than other images – so they can really stand out. Just think how successful Pinterest has been to highlight the power of great pictures. See what I mean when I did this for a charity event I am doing.

Or see it among the stream of other updates…

So have a selection of strong imagery you can upload when you do your status updates and they will stand out. Plus you can upload other files such as presentations etc.

But get on with it, as with anything, as others catch on the opportunity reduces. Users will become blinder to it over time.

 

 

 

 

Here is another example – see the smaller standard picture outlined in red above the one I have posted – the lion really stands out!

How to get your banner ads onto Linkedin profiles

The new rich media additions to the Linkedin profiles are a great opportunity to create much more compelling profiles than previously. I’ll show you what I mean and how to get a marketing banner onto your profile that drives traffic to your website. There are lots of ways of using these functions – i’m just showing you one that works. Importantly you can use them to drive traffic to your other online assets and social media platforms. For example you can use Twitter or Pinterest photos or YouTube videos to stand out and drive users to those assets. There are lots of third party websites you can use to feed the rich media into your profile from, for a list see here

Please note, you only can do this currently if you had the ‘applications’ on your profile before the recent changes. The feature is being rolled out to everyone, so if you can’t do it now, be patient.

But here’s one way to get a marketing banner onto your profile…

Firstly look at a profile without rich media… (this is in edit mode)

You are looking for the little square with the plus (circled in red) – if you have that you can add media – if not just be patient, it will come to you

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Now see when I add a couple of banners (sorry I’m not a designer – they could look a lot better, lol) …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Both of these banners have been inserted using Slideshare. Simply by creating a slide in  Powerpoint and uploading to Slideshare as a presentation and then copying the link and putting it into Linkedin. Also I know my banners above are not very creative! – but you get the idea. Most importantly make sure your slide in Powerpoint is linked through to your website – so users click and then go via Slideshare to your site… here’s how it works…

So have a play around and use your other online assets to make you profile look better. Also when you combine maybe getting some banners and photos onto your profile and you use some great images as updates (especially from your company page, see the previous post on this) you can start to make you profile really look different to everyone else’s.

Strategy tips for Linkedin Company pages – they’re not rubbish anymore

A year ago you would have been right to say to yourself “Why should I put effort into my company page, they’re rubbish”. Especially if you’re not a large company with hundreds or thousands of employees and the additional resource that brings. Because a year ago company pages were rubbish for marketing purposes. But Linkedin have been making a lot of changes over the past year and here’s some of the key things you should consider for your new and improved company pages

Company pages can leverage everyone in your company. Linkedin is very focused on individuals and their networks which means that it can be hard to tap into everyone’s networks at company level. So by encouraging more people in your company to post on your company page means the company can get in front of many more people. Simply make sure your chosen employees are made ‘admins’ of the company page. If you are worried about giving lots of people access to post updates on the company page then get your employees to follow the page and ask them to like, comment or share on company updates they see. The important bit is to make sure everyone knows what your positioning and hence key messages are as a company – tell them what’s OK to post and what’s not. It should be about empowering and leveraging them, not holding them back.

Get people to follow your company. You can put a ‘follow us’ button on your website. See this link for an explanation – it’s done via the developer pages, but is very easy. Also put a ‘Follow us on Linkedin’ message onto company email signatures with link to follow. Plus make sure your staff follow you.

Updates can be made to stand out with great pictures. On company pages you can choose what pictures are shown (as opposed to personal updates where it just pulls in a random picture from the webpage you share). Pictures make your updates standout and drive clicks so making them eye-catching is key. Have a stock of them to use, or simply make sure you download and use the image you are sharing if it’s strong enough. That way you decide what images they see – rather than relying on Linkedin to choose it for you. Plus you can choose who should get the updates e.g just send an offer to non employees, or vice versa.

Product or services pages can be targeted based on the audience. Putting your products or services onto the company pages is important so others can find them and see what you do. But you can tailor the message depending on who is viewing the products page. So you could create country specific product pages or simply tailor the message depending on their sector. For example I could create a message just for those in the legal profession or if they are based in the USA. Because being specific and relevant will dramatically increase your success rate. Like any good marketing.

So although there are quite a few other things you can do with company pages I think these are the key ones to get you going.

Worst kept secret about Linkedin

The ability to use Linkedin to search for and find almost every professional business person in the western world is why it’s great for marketing or sales. However, you can’t just see everyone you want to. Linkedin hides those people who are not closely connected to you and uses the fact as way to get you to upgrade to paid for accounts. For example you can’t see the full names of those who are 3rd connections, and you can’t see their full profile – unless you upgrade from the free account.

But there is a way around this – and it’s thanks to Google – you gotta love em!

Here’s how to see the full profile of anyone on Linkedin…

1. Find the people first using the Linkedin search facility (see previous post or my YouTube video for this)
2. If they are 3rd connections all you’ll see is their first name and company name – take note of these – its worth doing a few of these at one time perhaps due to point 3
3. Then log out of Linkedin – this is important, or it won’t work
4. In the Google search bar, put the first name and then the company name
5. Click search
6. Look for the Linkedin link in the search results – it will be near the top – click and you’ll see the full profile of the person
7. Then you can use that information to reach out to your target in a relevant and meaningful way.

Hope it helps!

If you are interested in more training on Linkedin For Marketing, please subscribe to our newsletter – or come to a training course in Bristol

3 key points about the new Linkedin profiles

One of the big Linkedin changes of 2012  – amongst a plethora of changes – is the recent profile change. I think Linkedin have done a good job with this and they are rolling it out slowly, so if you haven’t got it yet – you will soon.

I always think it’s good to look at other peoples profiles to get a feel for what works – so find some people you are not connected to and have a look at their profiles (especially competitors). This will also put you in the mindset of others coming and looking at yours ‘cold’ – so when looking at profiles ask yourself these questions…

“Does it grab my attention” – I’m busy and looking for a reason to do something other than look at your profile

“Does it say how they will help me? within a few lines” – because I can’t be bothered to read much text

“Are they making it easy for me to see what they can do” – simple and visual is good, see point above

“Do I trust the profile, and them” – they can say what they like on their profile, what do other people say

Then use what you learn for your own profile. Here are the key changes to note….

1. It’s more visual….

Your photo is larger – so make sure it’s a good one. If you don’t have a photo, shame on you – studies have shown it drives 30% more response. Plus don’t forget to make sure your headline tells your audience how you will benefit them – it’s what the vast majority of people will see, so make it work hard.

The layout is overall more graphical which makes it easy to navigate. Plus it draws in logos for companies you’ve worked for – so make sure you have a company page set up for your own company, with logo!

It’ really easy to bring in presentations, photos and videos into your profile from other sites such as Pinterest and Youtube – this will add much more interesting content to your page and help link your other online assets that tell your story better. For a full list of sites you can link to see here

2. You can’t hide your inactivity

Your activity is seen right up top – so make sure you are active – share useful stuff that your audience will want. Plus, think about when you view someone elses profile – i.e your target audience – if you can interact with their activity (such as ‘like’ a post) then they will know you have done that, which is a great way to get their attention.

Recommendations are much easier to see alongside your roles. So make sure you ask for recommendations when you can. And make sure you give them also. Previously recommendations didn’t appear on public profiles, not sure why, so Linkedin changing this is really great. Because recommendations are much more valuable than endorsements (see a previous post about this!)

3. It shows others what you have in common

You can see what others have in common with you – and vice versa. You can explore their networks easier via the graphical ‘circles’ on the right. Another ‘circles’ graphic highlights other commonalities such as location, or skills. Plus it’s easier to see who you know that knows them via the right hand box and the shared connections box at the bottom. All the better when looking for something to ‘break the ice’ on that  first communication.

Overall it makes exploring profiles much easier and hopefully more relevant. This is key when you want others to come and look at yours as research has shown that at least 3% of visits to your profile become leads – so increasing this figure has a clear benefit.