MDS Resource — Digital Ad Agency

Tag: personality

Secrets Of Targeted Sales Leads Reside In Your Buyer Personae’s Eyes
Targeted Sales Leads Are Real People
I talk with a lot of business owners every week. One of the biggest problems I’m hearing over and over is too few targeted sales leads. We’re all facing extreme challenges in these trying times. Bottom line, there’s little going down that wouldn’t pale in light of simply finding more business. So long as we’re seeking more customers, why not aim for targeted sales leads?
Targeted Sales Leads Seek Benefits
First, we need to focus clearly on the best possible target. We’ve all had customers who gave us so much grief, never meeting another might itself be success. Why take on more troublesome customers? Remember, instead, the best customer you have ever had. You know, she came to you with the perfect problem, you proposed the perfect solution and she asked to become your perfect customer. Describe in minute detail the persona of your best customer. Profiling your buyer persona includes gathering many facets of her personality, background, daily activities and current solutions for her problems. Seeking a solution to her problem, knowing the solution, you have what benefits her. What’s in it for her? You.
Buyer Personae Represent Targeted Sales Leads
Start by seeing every interpersonal interaction with a prospect, whether on-line or in-person, as an opportunity to listen and identify patterns. Really knowing how buyers think, what matters to them and where they are when they’re ready to buy, you no longer guess what to say, where and how to communicate with them. Have you ever noticed how much simpler and effective it is to listen before you talk to prospects? They will tell you just how bad their problem is. They will describe in great detail just how valuable the solution to that problem is. Indeed, they will tell you how long they’ll endure the problem and when and under what conditions they will buy the solution. Profiling buyer personae gives you a prime opportunity to truly empathize with target sales leads.
See Through Targeted Sales Leads Eyes
Stop promoting a product and see through buyers’ eyes, see clearly the circumstances driving their decision process. A buyer persona is a person, a short biography of whom describes your best targeted sales leads, not just their job description. Break all of your buyers into distinct groups. Catalog everything you know about each of your best customers. Buyer personae make it easier to create content targeted to important demographics.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Real People
High quality, relevant online content is the best and most effective way to communicate with and persuade targeted sales leads. Remembering that great customers are also real people, with real people problems, ought to simplify your side of the conversation. Simpler, though, only inasmuch as your audience is truly in need of what you offer. An archetype of your ideal buyer is a buyer persona, an example buyer representing a real audience, an audience eager to listen to you the more they need what you offer.
Be Found By Targeted Sales Leads
I talk with several business owners every day and I’m hearing over and over that too few targeted sales leads is a major concern. Bottom line, there’s little going down that wouldn’t pale in light of simply finding more business. If we’re truly seeking more customers, why not aim for targeted sales lead? By describing your buyer personae in great detail, you paint a clear picture of exactly who really needs what you offer. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for exactly what you offer and you can place yourself in front of them everywhere they look. Sufficient targeted sales leads are as simple as knowing who they are and be found where they are looking.
Call Now
Answer Your Targeted Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
24 February 2011
How I Am Marketing Local Business Profitably By Anticipating Eager Buyers Shopping For What I Offer
Great Customers Come From Marketing Local Business
It’s no secret. Times are tough, job security is a thing of the past and there’s no free lunch. Never let it be said that you’re outdone and victimized by circumstances, right? You’re at the helm of a viable small business and you’re determined to make this work — er, determined to succeed! But, times have changed and marketing local business is not at all what it used to be. Nobody’s calling from the Sunday Classifieds or yellow pages. Few are answering telemarketing calls. Even you probably don’t open too much direct mail.
Marketing Local Business Is More Than Internet
Top it all with these young techies with their rocket science tales get-rich-quick on the Internet. Do you really believe that an award winning drop-dead beautiful website brings revenues in your door? Can it be true that simply appearing on Google Page One, whether pay-per-click or “free,” guarantees that online visitors will grease your palm? Where is common sense? You’re a consumer, too. Look at your own consumer behavior — do you buy from the first automaton that shows up on your phone or screen?
Marketing Local Business In A Consumer Paradise
What is the secret to marketing local business today? Whereas, ten years ago we still paid attention Sunday football commercials to see the latest features of the 2011 Chevy Malibu, today consumers don’t care to be told what’s available. The world is, indeed, your oyster. When you have a need, fill it. When you crave, seek satisfaction. When you are in pain, relieve yourself. The Internet is for consumers the universal mail order catalog. It is so easy to simply search for what you desire, shop it from thousands of vendors everywhere in the world and buy it when you are ready. This is a buyer’s world, a consumer’s paradise.
Inbound Marketing Local Business Is Not Intrusive
Inbound marketing local business is unlike any intrusion marketing. Render yourself findable and prepare to tell your story just like you do face-to-face:
1. Anticipate eager buyers shopping for what you offer. This is the inescapable first and necessary step. Drop that silly idea that your market is everybody in the world. Your very best customer has a specific personality. Before they buy they have a problem. When you fully understand the problems you solve best, then you know very well those best prospects with whom you ought to speak. More to the point, now you know exactly how they are searching for their solution.
Marketing Local Business Offers Solutions
1. Put your company in front of them everywhere they look. One foot in front of the other — you learned that and toddled. Only after you fully understand how, what, where, when and why they are searching … only then can you know exactly where to stand to be seen. Offer them a sip of water to quench their thirst. Allow them to see for themselves that you have a solution to their problem. Be found by standing directly in front of your best prospects.
Court Prospects While Marketing Local Business
1. Court them, nurture them and never let them forget you. Once found, they have ample opportunity to get to know you. Marketing local business online makes you a publisher. Carve your best stories into the Internet. They will be there available to be heard forever. Although, you cannot know if you and a prospect met at the right time. You may not be a good fit for each other. They may not appreciate your business model. Respect them and allow them to get to know your company.
Great Customers Come From Marketing Local Business
It’s so easy online to facilitate the gathering of wonderful customers and prospects in your virtual place of business. Honor them and encourage them to openly discuss the solutions to real problems that you offer. When time is right the right prospect will step forward and convert into a great customer. Inbound marketing local business means that they found you, they partook of your hospitality and many of them like what they found enough to ask to buy from you.
Call Now
Answer Your Marketing Local Business Question: 612-235-6060
13 February 2011
How I Targeted Sales Leads And Burned Down The House With Sale After Sale To Eager Buyers
Targeted Sales Leads Burn Down The House
Wanna hear a story of how one entrepreneur easily attracts targeted sales leads and creates a sales inferno? There’s no rocket science in duplicating this story and its success. If qualified leads are a means to your serious business growth in 2011, this is an outline of examples.
Share Your Story With Targeted Sales Leads
Reread the first line of this article. I bet you’re pretty good with your story. Put a good business owner eyeball-to-eyeball with a qualified prospect and odds are good they will hammer out a deal. Great stories have long been among the most effective sales tools. Why? Stories are an effective way to establish rapport and to build a relationship with your prospect. Take great care in crafting your story about you, your business and products and service. Your story adds personality, depth and substance to your brand. Good, bad or otherwise, you are building your brand in the prospect’s mind and what she remembers when you part is her brand recognition.
Your website, social media and other interactive online gathering places are opportunities waiting for your story. A big difference between the Internet and offline media is the window of opportunity. Tell your story in a journal article, tell your story over the phone, tell your story at a seminar — how long is your story available to be heard? Next month’s journal has new stories. Only those on the other end of the phone line can hear you. When you and everybody leave the seminar, your story leaves, too. Tell your story in a blog post, tell your story on Youtube, tell your story on Facebook — now, anybody any time can stumble across your story … today, next month or ten years hence.
Give Targeted Sales Leads Reason To Return
Even better, divide your story into chapters and publish them over time. Cliff hangers work on television and they’re great for breaking your story into bite-sized pieces. This will keep those most interested coming back time and again for more and more and more of your compelling story. Consider also repurposing your story properties into different online media such as video, podcasts, audio, articles, blog posts, etc. Some of your best prospects prefer video, some prefer audio, some prefer text … some may digest it all. Furthermore, syndicate each of these various story properties across multiple sites. Remember Hansel and Gretel? The more bread crumbs you scatter across the Internet, the more likely that a great new customer will find one and follow it back to you.
One common mistake I made was limiting where my business can be found. By publishing content only on my website I was dependent on the search engines to find enough of it before they ranked me high enough for me to be found. It’s easy to promote your story to a larger audience by writing guest posts on other blogs, participating in forums and webinars, being interviewed online and contributing to social media Q&A. Your story reaches an audience you wouldn’t normally reach through your website alone. In the case of online interviews, you have the opportunity to answer questions and focus on your solutions to real problems in the real world.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Searching For Solutions
Highly targeted sales leads are interested in you because they have a problem and they come to know that you have a solution to their problem. They are interested in you and your company to solve their problem. What can you do for them?
Let your story tell them how you have solved similar problems for real people. Tell them how your customers have benefited from your product and service. These case studies build credibility and kindle the first sparks of trust in prospects. Outline the struggles you went through, the experiments and the successes you’ve had with great customers. Give away How-To articles that help people with the basics. Mention similar situations that might also benefit from what you do best. Refer to testimonials and endorsements made by your best customers regarding this success.
Targeted Sales Leads Are Hot For Your Story
How easy is it to attract targeted leads online and create a sales inferno? There’s no rocket science in telling your story to eager buyers. Put you eyeball-to-eyeball with a qualified prospect and odds are you will close the deal. All you need to burn down the house is to gather targeted sales leads around your bonfire and tell a great story.
Call Now
Answer Your Targeted Sales Leads Question: 612-235-6060
21 January 2011
Who Else Wants Location Based Social Media?
Location Based Social Media Is Where We’re At
Connecting with others regardless of proximity is one of the strongest values Social Media brings to the table. My blog may be read in earnest around the world and I appreciate that. LinkedIn has brought business to table with people I’ve not met nor am I likely to meet (e.g., China, India.) Exchanging tweets across the universe is fun and rewarding. So, what is all of this hoopla about Location Based Social Media?
That being said, I do in fact live here, in this specific place, and not only to I reside here, but I shop here, I eat here and I come face-to-face with hundreds of people every week — right here in Minneapolis, MN USA. Most businesses I see do not benefit from ecommerce and shopping carts. Somebody in Afghanistan on the Internet can go to target.com and order a 4-slice toaster; Target will do the currency exchange and ship the toaster to them the next day — everybody wins. On the other hand, my dentist in Plymouth, MN is not likely to benefit from that Afghani shopper. My dentist has a service area outside of which he’s not likely to profit.
Location Based Social Media are the darlings of 2010. New social media platforms, known as Location Based Services, add a contextual layer of movement and proximity to our relationships online and offline. Location Based Services are smartphone applications utilizing GPS to provide information and social networking relevant to our current location. Location Based Social Media are our interfaces to these applications. We are exploring our community online, tracking our friends whereabouts, recent activities, opinions and we shout out to our world where we are and how we want to be found.
What does Location Based Social Media mean to you? ABI Research estimates, “By 2014 global LBS revenues will have surpassed $14 billion.” The more detailed information we have on prospect behavior patterns and social context, the better we find something truly valuable to offer them. We can also provide more specific, directed information based on the location of our best audiences. Location Based Social Media is particularly valuable for brick and mortar store front business who need to drive local traffic to their store, and for anyone promoting an event at a physical venue.
Basic Types of Location Based Social Media
Kate Shaw categorizes the main types of Location Based Social Media in a blog post “Comprehensive Guide to Location-Based Social Media.”
Social Check-in Sites
Social Check-in sites enable users to access information about businesses in the local area. At the same time, Social check-in sites encourage users to develop location based relationships with other users, with their other social networks and with local businesses.
Offer incentives to users to check-in and frequent your establishment. Compelling offers bring new customers to your location and build loyalty with your existing customers. Encourage users to check-in on any and all Location Based Social Media. Honor incentives you offer across any Location Based Social Media a user may use.
Listen to your guests! Review sentiment. Comment on posts. Acknowledge Testimonials and Referrals. Most Location Based Social Media have Facebook and Twitter connections that allow your guests to promote your business to their entire social network.
Some Location Based Social Media have search options facilitating keyword and brand term searches. Look for opportunities to promote special offers to users checking in to a nearby locations. Some Location Based Social Media have advertising platforms that enables marketers to purchase advertisements based either on category or location.
Social Review Sites
Social Review sites encourage users to publish online reviews, referrals and Testimonials based on their experiences at restaurants, hotels, shops and wherever you and your business are found in Location Based Social Media. Quality scores can be assigned to each comment based on this user-generated content.
Not all Social Review sites are Location Based Social Media.
Social Review sites are critical for brick-and-mortar business — do not skip your strategy here. Utilize Social Review sites for the free market research they offer — make the changes your customers ask for as appropriate.
Social Review sites enable businesses to publish local business content. Many Social Review sites facilitate offering coupons and discount offers to loyal customers.
Make absolutely certain that your guests remember that you exist on Social Review sites. Ask them for their Testimonial. Acknowledge customers that take time to post the positive reviews. Respond to your negative reviews with tact and consummate professionalism.
Local businesses need to listen closely to what their customers say about you, and respond to their suggestions and complaints.
There is no more effective marketing than Testimonials. Every review, every referral, every comment is a Testimonial to the quality of your business. The more positive Testimonials you accumulate, the greater your authority and credibility in your community.
In real life you cannot please everybody. Everybody cannot be your best customer. Some customers cannot be satisfied. The minority negative review is real life. Occasional dissatisfaction is more believable than saccharin drivel, and builds your online personality.
Social Scheduling Sites
Social Scheduling sites facilitate sharing your “social calendar” with your social networks. Individuals can find out about upcoming events. Networks of people can plan anything from birthday parties to movie dates.
- Loopt
- Plancast
Rather than publishing to the world where you are at at this moment, Social Scheduling sites facilitate sharing where you will be. Like a public calendar, you publish where you’re going, which events you will attend and with whom you are going.
Social Scheduling sites often include comment and review functionality. Other users comment, share information, and they can publish their own intent with a “count-me-in” button.
Social Scheduling sites can facilitate keyword searching, so customers and Location Based Social Media can find out about your events. Any marketing involving conferences, meetups, parties, or other get-togethers will benefit.
Conclusions About Location Based Social Media
Carefully examine the list of Location Based Social Media. Explore the pros and cons. Determine which platforms will best help you communicate with your customers. Marketing Local Business Online demands that you go where your customers are. Be found everywhere they are looking for you.
Listen carefully and learn from your guests. Self-reporting your location has a value in itself. Declaring your current location is more than just a piece of information — your intention is behind it. Suppose you’re in a bar and the name of the place is broadcast to your colleagues. That’s both a statement about where you are and an invitation to others. They can infer about your availability or your willingness to interact socially.
Engage with your guests — communicate — bring something of value to the conversation.
Remember that Location Based Social Media is very new. You are marketing to early adopters with voyeuristic tendencies and enormous digital mouths.
Be genuine. Engage your guests with open arms, a big smile and kind words. Offer them the right incentives at the right time. Your Location Based Social Media community will become your most loyal customers and loudest evangelists. Location Based Social Media is where we’re at.
26 September 2010
Top Ten (10) Excuses NOT To Write Your Blog
Blog Writing Is Marketing Local Business Online
Blog Writing Is Marketing Local Business Online
Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses Of Excuses …
Truth be told, all of the excuses listed below I have used myself. Yes, I’m as guilty — perhaps, more guilty because of my vocation — of irregular blog writing as many of you dear readers perusing this post. Writing my Blog is Social Media. For my Blog to be found I must publish. Search Engine Marketing assumes that my online marketing words can be found; therefore, blog writing is essential to my business success.
Knowing that it is human nature to avoid the unknown, those things in life and business that we do not understand, I, too, have procrastinated and equivocated. Today, Labor Day here in the USA, I want to take a few precious minutes to explore the very best, World Class excuses for not sitting down once or twice each week and scribbling to the world why, O why, are we in business?
Without Further Ado, Here Is My Top Ten List Of Blog Writing Excuses:
1. I don’t have anything to say.
  Really? How do you sell anything? What do you want to say to your Best Customer when she’s sitting eyeball-to-eyeball with you? I know that you are passionate about what you offer; and I know that you will have a great deal to say to every eager Prospect ready to buy what you do best. Suppose you said some of this online. Furthermore, suppose somebody new reads your online words. Is it beyond reason that some of them will be influenced by your words, and ask to buy from you? Blog writing is nurturing your relationship with your marketplace.
2. Nobody wants to read my blog.
  Rest assured, everybody is an authority in something — even you. Regardless online or offline, marketing your business requires you to build a relationship with each Prospect, nurture those relationships, and to service those relationships throughout your business life. Every relationship begins with a single conversation. Some will listen, some are not interested — that is the way of business. When you speak to a larger audience, what happens to the number of your listeners? What larger audience opportunity do you have than blog writing?
3. I don’t like to write.
  Do you like to write sales orders? Will you write a proposal for me? How do you feel when you endorse a check? Writing is an extension of what you have to say. When you are comfortable with speaking with great Prospects, the words drip easily from your tongue. Record your best sales presentation. Listen to yourself. How does that story you tell your Customers affect you? Put it down in writing a few hundred words at a time. Tell your story. Your Customers love your story and they’ll read your blog writing.
4. I don’t have time to write a blog.
  OK — time is of the essence. Do you have time to write orders? Do you have time to cash checks? If you find a simple method of attracting eager buyers who come to you to buy what you offer — will you find time to sell to them? Would you rather cold call or be found? I’m betting that when you sharpen your sales tools by honing the persuasive story you tell … I’m betting that blog writing will be well worth your time.
5. My industry/company does not allow self promotion.
  Actually, this can be one of the most challenging hurdles. For example, Financial Services professionals are subject to stringent regulations from the SEC and FINRA, and their broker/dealers and compliance departments may choose to restrict rather than interpret rules. Nonetheless, I find no shortage of commercials advertising one Financial Services provider over another. Find a way to express your personality, your trustworthiness apart from your limited business persona. When was the last time you bought from somebody you didn’t like? Blog writing is telling your story.
6. I’m afraid I’ll lose my privacy.
  Yes, it’s true. Those words you publish online are likely to live forever — and I do mean longer than your human life. You are a professional, and I’m asking you to keep professionalism in mind while writing your blog. Professionalism with personality … this is what makes your business better. This online universe is forcing us to be better businesses. Step up and be the personality for your business. Make your Customers so excited about you that they advocate for you in public, too!
7. My customers don’t read blogs.
  Really? Are you willing to bet your business on this assumption? Yes, it’s true, some people aren’t online often or ever. However, it’s very easy to demonstrate that millions of people are searching online for what your business offers. Google measures over One Billion online searches each month for products and services that the searchers can find locally. When was the last time you sold to a prospect from the Yellow Pages? One person reading your blog might tell ten people about you — but, only after your blog writing …
8. My business cannot benefit from a blog.
  Are you sure? If you want to be successful in this Online Age, you must step up and be a thought leader. The easier it is for Prospects to choose among competitors the better those competitors have to get to keep playing. Practice makes perfect — we’ve been told this forever. Your Blog is a tool. Blogging gives voice to the marketer inside of you. The more stories you tell, the better and more persuasive they become. Your blog writing shall become an influential book about you and your business.
9. I’m afraid of bad blog comments.
  Blog writing is a subset of Social Media, which, by definition, is social and public. Blogs are most effective as discussions. When readers actively participate, you have engendered a conversation — so much more than a one dimensional monologue. As in real life, you will disagree with some, and some will disagree with you. Focus more on gathering Testimonials, and less on trading widgets and widget services for money, utilizing widgets and widget services as a means to Testimonials. Won’t business be more fulfilling and everybody win?
10. Blogging Return On Investment is too low.
  Granted, measuring Blogging ROI is problematic. Measurement is your salvation. If you do not measure, how can you calculate ROI? If you do not know your ROI, how can you evaluate the value proposition? In this online universe, eager Prospects are already searching for what you offer. If they don’t find you, they will buy from somebody else. When you place your story everywhere they are looking for you, qualified Prospects will come to you. What will it take for you to be found everywhere they are looking for you? Writing your blog ensures your visibility.
Whether you agree with items in this list — or you find this all hogwash — I implore you to comment below. Tell us what you do — or don’t — get from blog writing. We want to understand what it is about blogging that does not work for you or your business. Furthermore, we want you to understand what you do not understand. Share with us — we will listen.
… Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!
“The New Colossus,” by Emma Lazarus
How Will Blog Writing Change Your Business?
6 September 2010