Searching for Love, Locally
Is it possible we scooped The New York Times? Well, not exactly. However, we must point out we’ve broached this subject before – and we also know from personal experience – when you’re searching for a local florist, you want a local florist. Unfortunately, a quick search online may not deliver what you’re after.
Times readers dished up a few tricks for getting a local florist – not a floral wire service – in an article last week. But we’ve got an even better idea, for florists, and it is: get found!
When you want to get found, by folks looking to find you locally, we humbly suggest you look to us. Why?
Ask The Concord Flower Shop. The locally-owned business ended its contract with Teleflora in 2009 and hasn’t looked back. In fact, same-month sales have been up for each of the past 34 consecutive months! Up how much? Concord Flower Shop is seeing an average increase of 45% each month.
How can an independent business afford the services of a sales and marketing technology firm that gets results like that? That’s the beauty of JointSourcing and its shared risk/reward model. And we’ll save that for another time.
If you’re in a hurry to find out more, we’d love to hear from you.
Until then, we’d like to remind you that if you didn’t pick up flowers for Valentine’s Day, you probably should. Which means it’s time for you to find a local florist.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
Is it possible we scooped The New York Times? Well, not exactly. However, we must point out we’ve broached this subject before – and we also know from personal experience – when you’re searching for a local florist, you want a local florist. Unfortunately, a quick search online may not deliver what you’re after.
Times readers dished up a few tricks for getting a local florist – not a floral wire service – in an article last week. But we’ve got an even better idea, for florists, and it is: get found!
Going Big by Going Local
At Sales Renewal, we work with a number of clients who have a national presence and others who are strictly interested in the local market. Each requires a different set of online marketing strategies, services, and tools.
Local business can be tough to promote, as they need to stand out from the crowd in order to gain traction with their online presence. And there are so many listings options to keep track of. For this reason, we use Yext to manage much of our local efforts, as it provides single-entry access to over 45 listings, along with an easy-to-use, consolidated interface for updating and promoting the business across all the listings.
Earlier this month, I (reluctantly) agreed to attend a seminar that Yext was holding to demonstrate a new feature called Content Lists. Despite my reluctance, it turned out to be great. The premise behind Content Lists is that Yext customers can make their business listings stand out by taking advantage of any “extras” available – not only answering the basic “where”, but also the who, what and when of their business.
After the seminar, I immediately launched in to gathering the information, falling into four different categories, that I needed for our local clients and updating their listings. Here are just a few examples of what we can now do for our clients:
Products/Services – I was able to create a portfolio of a local business sign company’s work, showcasing some of the company’s specialties, which will now be displayed. What better way to show the quality of work they do than with photos of their products?
Bios – We can now display full bios of the dentists and other staff for our dental office clients – very useful since it will help them stand out when people do a search for dentists in their area.
Menus – Yum! Now we can tempt customers with (virtual) samples of your delicious fare!
Calendar – When our florist clients hold floral arranging workshops, I’m able to set up a “clickable” event to bring prospects directly to the sign up page on the businesses’ respective websites.
Now, almost all the “new” information I used for the enhanced local listings is also included on our clients’ websites, so it was very simple to gather. And we expect the benefits to be exponential – being able to also display the bios, portfolio, and calendar events in their local listings is sure to increase visibility and traffic, and it adds value to prospects and current customers. Stay tuned for the results!
Sales Renewal’s insight:
At Sales Renewal, we work with a number of clients who have a national presence and others who are strictly interested in the local market. Each requires a different set of online marketing strategies, services, and tools.
Local business can be tough to promote, as they need to stand out from the crowd in order to gain traction with their online presence. And there are so many listings options to keep track of. For this reason, we use Yext to manage much of our local efforts, as it provides single-entry access to over 45 listings, along with an easy-to-use, consolidated interface for updating and promoting the business across all the listings.
Nate Silver, Marketing’s Wake Up Call
We’re tempted to call it the Nate Silver effect: In the last few weeks a handful of industry watchers have suggested that what companies really need to succeed is a chief marketing technologist.It’s not a bad idea. Obviously, sales and marketing functions are increasingly dependent on technology. The technology choices available today are roughly double what they were last week – and some say they’ll quadruple by Thursday. (That’s a ballpark estimate, you understand – we didn’t run it by Mr. Silver.)
Our point is that while most organizations understand that they need to use technology and social media to grow their brand (and more importantly, sales) few can afford to add a chief marketing technologist to the staff.The problem that many companies fail to address is that embracing social media without employing all of the analytical tools available is a waste of time, and a sure way to misdirect your advertising and marketing budget.
You need to incorporate everything you know about your customers’ buying cycle into your online (and offline) sales strategy. It’s not hard to use Facebook, Pinterest, Reddit, and LinkedIn, and Adwords campaigns – but it is hard to use them effectively, honing them to reach and convert prospects that are in different places in the buying cycle.
We spoke about this last spring in our Concord Chamber of Commerce Series. The example we used highlighted our sales strategy for an electric fence company. (See the sample site here.) The company had a good understanding of its prospects, their decision criteria, and buying cycle, and they knew where to find those prospects – but it wasn’t enough. The company wasn’t using that knowledge effectively.
We helped by optimizing keywords for prospects at each stage of the buying cycle, tailoring content to meet them where they were – for example, identifying prospects even before they knew they were in the market for an electric fence. We reached out to those prospects differently than we did to those who were already shopping for fences. We optimized content for them and analyzed their visits to the company’s site. We tracked other prospects – those who came to the site through organic search – and adjusted our online ad campaigns to improve their impressions and interactions with the fence company. Merely posting a special offer on the company’s Facebook page wouldn’t have had the same results.
We know, because we measure those kind of things – and you should, too. Subscribe to our Growth Spurts blog, or contact us now to find out more.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
We’re tempted to call it the Nate Silver effect: In the last few weeks a handful of industry watchers have suggested that what companies really need to succeed is a chief marketing technologist. It’s not a bad idea. Obviously, sales and marketing functions are increasingly dependent on technology. The technology choices available today are roughly double what they were last week – and some say they’ll quadruple by Thursday. (That’s a ballpark estimate, you understand – we didn’t run it by Mr. Silver.)
Our point is that while most organizations understand that they need to use technology and social media to grow their brand (and more importantly, sales) few can afford to add a chief marketing technologist to the staff. The problem that many companies fail to address is that embracing social media without employing all of the analytical tools available is a waste of time, and a sure way to misdirect your advertising and marketing budget.
What We’re Thankful For…
‘Tis the season for giving thanks, and the Sales Renewal team recently took the time out of the hectic day-to-day activities at our busy start-up to reflect on the things that we have to be thankful for – our team, our clients, the families that support our venture, our daily breakthroughs, accomplishments and struggles. Here, then, in our own words:
Keith Loris (President and C.E.O.): I am thankful for Sales Renewal’s growth over the last year. Growth in the revenue we’re helping generate for clients (and therefore our own revenue too), growth in our client base and growth in our team (both in numbers and expertise). As a successful, serial entrepreneur (Sales Renewal is startup #4) I know how important the team is to delivering on a startup’s promise and we’ve been able to attract a great one and line up best-of-breed outside specialists too; great indicators of a lot more growth to come.
Bill Oncay (Chief Technology Officer): I am thankful for my family. Nine years ago on Halloween, my dad had a heart transplant. Every year on Halloween, after my son and nieces and nephews have gorged themselves on candy, we bring out one more treat: a small (re)birthday cake for my dad. This year, we were traveling over Halloween, so we plan to do the celebration at Thanksgiving where it really belongs.
Kim Wallace (Director Build Services): I am grateful for working with brave, funny, and smart people who come together to get the work done, although they can never agree on lunch plans. I’m thankful that I can be honest and get honest feedback in return in a discussion, marked with a little kindness and just the right tinge of snark. And I’ll be ever so happy once I’ve got these slackers on a project management system that auto-magically generates my status reports. Please Santa/Hanukah Harry/gift-giving deity of your choice?
Audrey Trieschman (Director Client Sales & Marketing): I am thankful for a varied work day. Sure, writing a newsletter for our florist client, developing web content for a medical office’s new website, creating PPC ads that promote a white paper for a B2B client, working with a designer on a company logo for a brand-new company, learning enough about test measurement equipment to write an informed quarterly marketing plan for one client and NYC real estate to prepare a social media plan for yet another, reviewing website analytics and sales statistics for all our clients, and contributing to our own company blog all in the space of one day does present its challenges and frustrations, but at least I know that tomorrow is another day, with another to-do list.
Akshay Masand (Online Marketing Specialist): I am thankful for my co-workers, modern day technology, and my family. As you can see, I have a lot to be thankful for but that’s because I’ve been fortunate enough to have so many good things in my life. My co-workers for giving me the opportunity to work a job that utilizes my seo, blogging & social media strengths while helping me improve by constantly challenging me with a variety of new and varied tasks. I feel like this day and age you have to be thankful for modern technology otherwise people like me might be stuck doing a boring and menial job. From link-building, to social media, to blogging and content creation and management, without modern technology, I wouldn’t get to do all the fun things I do. Last but not least, I’m thankful for my family which has helped shape me into the person I am today.
Diane Stresing (Content Manager/Writer): As the newbie of the Sales Renewal team, I’m grateful that my co-workers have been so welcoming and patient with me. (That said, I don’t expect it to last long – this is hard-working, high-expectations sort of group, so I know I’d better start pulling my weight soon!) In addition to working with the talented, dedicated folks at Sales Renewal, I’m also thankful for the opportunity to work with a very diverse list of clients. While learning about new B2B and B2C ventures and understanding each client’s unique sales challenges taxes my brain at times, I find the process extremely interesting. And of course, it’s very satisfying to watch a client’s sales grow in response to our efforts.
Sales Renewal’s insight:
How Well Do you Tell Your Story?
So you’re good at updating posts on Facebook and you’re targeting prospects on LinkedIn? Tip of the hat to you. Maybe you’ve even got 1, 000+ followers on Twitter and you’ve figured out how to connect with prospects on Pinterest. Congratulations; you’re in the minority of small businesses that use social media effectively.
So how well do you tell your story? If you’ve accomplished all of the above, storytelling is the next tool you should sharpen in your social media kit.
Author Jonathon Gottschall makes a convincing argument that storytelling is the ultimate weapon for small businesses. (And big ones, too.)
Need help managing your social media (or other marketing) activities? Let us tell you our story… our clients agree, it has a happy ending.
Free Social Media Blueprint
To celebrate the publication of our first Sales Renewal newsletter, we’re offering a Free Social Media Blueprint.
With a Social Media Blueprint, Sales Renewal can help get you on the right track with your social media efforts. The process includes two hours of meeting time with you to assess your current program and goals for future programs. We then prepare a plan that is customized for your business that will provide direction, make recommendations and offer tips and insights.
Contact us by October 12 to have your name randomly selected to win a Free Social Media Blueprint – a $500 value!