5 Steps to Carve Out a Niche for Your Business in a Crowded Marketplace »

There’s a lot of noise out there in the marketplace! Regardless of your product or service, your company likely has many competitors targeting the same market, offering similar solutions for similar pain points. Positioning yourself in a lucrative, distinct segment for your business in a crowded market is key to long-term revenue growth and business success. Here are five ways to better define your segment, courtesy of Business Success.

Read the full article at: businesssuccess.com

Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar

We’ve all seen our share of tire-kickers – those would-be buyers who take their time in making a purchase decision, evaluating every detail because they’re in no rush to pull the trigger. This problem becomes especially prominent when your company’s main service or product is a comprehensive, all-inclusive solution since there’s that much more to evaluate.
Good marketers know all this time sitting in the sales pipeline hurts revenue growth, and that’s why it is important to get prospects to buy something as quickly as possible. Sales Renewal has worked with clients in different industries to minimize this so called “Time to First Dollar” by various means ( such as “unbundling” a comprehensive service to create smaller, easier-to-buy services). Learn more about reevaluating your offerings through Sales Renewal’s “Crafting Products and Services to Reduce Time-to-First-Dollar”  webinar. You can also read more about specific case studies and our proven track record for putting this and other revenue accelerating marketing strategies into effective action.

Don’t Overlook These Email Marketing Fundamentals

In a world where every marketing plan is competing for attention with thousands of other messages, email marketing is one of the best ways to get YOUR message directly into your audiences’ hands. While other digital marketing strategies rely on the audience to visit or view your content, emails land in their inboxes, and recent data shows people check their email an average of 15 times per day! Whether you’re already using email marketing, or are just starting to add this tactic to your overall strategy, make sure you’re building a solid foundation to maximize your reach and your impact.

Read the full article at: www.clickz.com

The Power of Empathic Storytelling: How to Make Your Customer the Hero of Your Story

Modern consumers have evolved beyond the scope of traditional “buy this product” advertising; these days, your customers and clients are as interested in the why and how of products and services as they are in the what.  Creating purposeful narratives that connect with your target audiences on a deeper personal or emotional level will help you stand out amongst your competitors and build a lasting bond that keeps your clients coming back.  Discover how to focus your storytelling content on your customer in this article from Entrepreneur.

Read the full article at: www.entrepreneur.com

Don’t Just Hire Freelancers – Outsource Your Management

Navigating the gig economy as a small business owner can feel overwhelming. Freelance and contract workers are more available than ever before, and can prove highly effective in maximizing both your budget and your company’s output – but hiring contracted help introduces a difficult maze of understanding, communication, and management that may be more draining for you than it’s worth. Fortunately, at Sales Renewal, we’ve become the experts in building and managing outsourced marketing teams designed to meet your business’ specific needs and goals!
When you attempt to hire freelancers yourself, you’ll likely encounter a very common barrier almost immediately: understanding the scope of their work to a level that allows you to make informed decisions. You may not have an extensive knowledge of marketing strategy, tasks, and tools to know if you are hiring the right people for your needs. Working with an outsourced management company puts years of experience and expertise at your fingertips, ensuring you’ll have the right team with the right skills to advance your goals effectively and cost-efficiently.
A single point of contact simplifies development and coordination of your marketing strategy, and increases accountability through organization. Having an expert manager at your disposal also means your needs and asks can be clearly communicated to the right personnel at the right time, streamlining strategy processes and producing higher quality results more quickly. When your strategy needs to pivot to a new tactic, your marketing manager can shift your outsourced team around the new goals without forcing you to start over with new hires and new relationships.
So when is the right time to reach out to an outsourced marketing manager? Generally, when you are facing a short term project or a very limited number of tactics to handle, traditional freelance roles may be sufficient. Once you’re looking for a longer term strategy incorporating numerous complementary tactics, though, juggling numerous freelancers becomes more difficult. This is the perfect time to bring in an experienced outsourced marketing agencythat can take your goals and run with them. Start-up businesses, for example, often hit a point in their development where adding an official marketing department is a stretch, but a freelancer or two can no longer keep up with the business needs. Building a relationship with a marketing management team can grow with the company and remain consistent throughout the lifetime of the business.
Outsourced management is also ideal at the end of a company’s lifetime, when you’re beginning your exit planning. As you prepare to sell your business, running marketing investment analyses can help you determine whether you’ll achieve the financial balance you’ll need to retire comfortably. You can ramp up your marketing to hit those numbers without adding or maintaining a marketing staff, which makes your business more appealing to potential buyers that won’t have to consider layoffs or employee integrations after acquiring your company. You’ll also offer your buyer the benefit of consistency and knowledge transfers, as your management team bridges the gap as you transition out of the company.
Freelancers can enhance your business in many ways, but to truly make the most of contracted marketing help, consider working with an experienced, outsourced marketing agency; especially one that shares the risk & reward! Learn more about the unique JointSourcing Solution to see how our team can build your business in a smooth, effective, and results-driven way!

5 Reasons You Shouldn’t Hire Non-Vetted Freelancers

Recruiting freelancers for your business can be a headache, especially when you’re trying to fill and manage positions you’re not always familiar with yourself. For Sales Renewal’s JointSourcing Solution, we routinely need to find and manage subcontractors (freelancers and other marketing agencies) as we assemble our client’s virtual marketing departments staff, and over the years we’ve gotten pretty good at vetting, verifying, and managing them. Here are some tips on how to carefully vet freelancers to prevent missed deadlines, communication issues, security breaches, and more.

Of course, we’d still be happy to help you not only build, but also manage, an outsourced marketing department that’s perfect for your business!

Read the full article at: www.smallbizdaily.com

Six Ways Going “Green” Can Boost Your Bottom Line

We’ve heard it over and over again: it’s important for the environment to work “green” or eco-friendly initiatives into our lives whenever we can. For individuals, the path to a greener lifestyle is simpler, but for businesses, an eco-conscious approach may seem difficult to integrate at first.  We think there are plenty of green initiatives your small business can adopt – and they’ll also be great for your bottom, and sometimes top, lines.
 
1. Grow your business by marketing your eco-friendly products, services and expertise
In every industry, there’s a largely untapped segment of buyers that values and is willing to pay for green products, services and expertise. Metro Sign & Awning (a Sales Renewal JointSourcing client), for example, wanted to cultivate new Partners who’d recommend their signage products and services in the Partners’ new construction projects. With our help, Metro created a series of white papers that helped Architects and Property Developers become more knowledgeable about green signage.  The idea was that by making these prospective partners more knowledgeable about something Metro was expert at (eco-friendly signage), the partners would come off as more knowledgeable in front of their customers. This brought more business back to Metro as well, creating a clever – and successful – marketing campaign that not only built their own business, but also enhanced their partnerships while doing double duty for sustainability.
 
2. Share the knowledge.
Do your products and services have a long-term environmental impact? Let your customers know how working with you can impact THEIR green initiatives and bottom line! Outline both the financial and ecological ROI on a sustainable product. Generate content that discusses how your eco-friendly products can reduce your customers’ carbon footprint or eliminate their waste over time. By leveraging your own environmental consciousness into a marketing campaign, you’ll encourage your customers to invest in your products and services, while also doing double duty for sustainability! You can also grow your partners’ businesses by sharing your own green expertise, helping your partners win more customers through the wisdom you’ve passed to them.
 
3. Think outside the (recycling) box.
Green initiatives at your company aren’t limited to benefitting ONLY your company. Get creative with your business’ approach to environmental friendly decision making. Understand your carbon footprint and consider participating in carbon offset programs to supplement and enhance any company policies you have already implemented. Use your business voice to align with policy initiatives that align with your company’s values. Customers in the modern era are heavily attracted to purpose-driven businesses that publicly share – and take action on – their values. You’ll not only be doing the earth a favor, but you’ll be gaining favor with and growing your customer base!
 
4. Assess your energy needs.
Are you leaving equipment or lighting on overnight? Are you heating a conference room you only use once per week? Minimizing wasted energy sources will not only help the environment, but will also put a nice dent into your energy bills. Switch to LED lighting in place of incandescent bulbs, and put your lights on motion sensors to ensure lights are turned off when not in use. Set computers and other office equipment to hibernate or switch into sleep mode during periods of inactivity. Consider switching to laptops, which are more energy-efficient than desktops, whenever possible. You may also be eligible for rebates on your energy costs if you’re upgrading to eco-friendly equipment, so contact your energy supplier to see what incentives they may offer!
 
5. Assess your physical office needs.
Your business’ office footprint is your own piece of the environment, and needs as much care and consideration as the great outdoors. Find an office that is the right size for your needs to prevent wasted energy from heating and lighting spaces that are unused. When upgrading equipment or furnishing your office or workspaces, shop secondhand when possible (something Covid has made a lot easier with all the office downsizing going on now). Look for energy efficient machinery, or for sustainably built furniture that will outlast other construction. Or, consider eliminating your rent bill completely by allowing your employees to work remotely! Remote offices reduce pollution from commuting to and from the office, and reduce your employees’ gas and wear & tear expenses, so it’s a win all around!
 
6. Assess your paper needs.
Printing and paper use is a prime target for small businesses to make an impact with a few simple changes. Printing on both sides of each sheet will cut both your paper waste and your paper cost in half instantly. Or, use the back side of printed papers as scratch paper for note taking instead of purchasing sticky notes or other notepads. Or, consider going paperless completely! With the proliferation of cloud computing, records storage and document sharing can be done without a single sheet of paper; marketing can be managed online through email campaigns, social media, and websites; even sales and accounting can be migrated to online payment programs and bookkeeping software. Never buy another ream, nor another clunky printer or copier, again!

Benefits of Gender Diversity

With International Women’s Day happening this month, you may have seen your news feeds filled with appreciation, support, and celebration of women everywhere. Though that hasn’t always been the case for women in the workplace, the gender gap is rapidly closing – and the economic benefits of gender diversity has become readily apparent. Study after study has proven that the inclusion of women in business environments has direct and indirect financial benefits. In the US alone, gender equality practices and policies could inject over $4 trillion into the economy in the next five years, with gender-diverse businesses in some sectors showing up to 14% higher average revenue and up to 19% higher average quarterly net profit than less-diverse counterparts. 
Why does gender diversity return such large economic benefits? One reason is that prioritizing gender diversity within the workplace allows businesses to draw from a much wider talent pool. With women typically obtaining college degrees at a higher rate than their male counterparts, this opens the door to more hiring options with a wider variety of experiences and viewpoints, while still maintaining a high level of knowledge and ability. Inclusivity has been flagged as an important employment decision factor by 85% of women, so not only does gender diversity grow the available hiring pool, it also actively attracts those highly capable workers away from other companies, giving your business the marketplace advantage when seeking talent. Increased diversity of opinions and viewpoints also enhances your business’ opportunity to think outside the box while simultaneously providing a better internal representation of your external market.
Once women are on board, incorporating gender diverse policies further increases creativity, retention, productivity, and loyalty. A culture of inclusivity boosts morale and promises greater opportunities for advancement and overall job satisfaction. Women are more likely to feel heard and able to safely communicate their ideas and feedback, making them more likely to stay invested in their work with a positive mindset. Additionally, gender diverse policies addressing issues like family leave and affordable childcare can facilitate a fusion and balance of family and career (which benefits men too); under such policies, women have experienced lower stress levels during pregnancy, were up to 93% more likely to return back to the workforce within one year of giving birth, and were more likely to increase their working time by up to 17% within three years. Building a more inclusive workplace keeps your talented employees working at higher efficiency and output rates for longer, while staying happier and more loyal, contributing greater long-term ROIs on your hiring practices.

Inclusivity in the workplace has been proven to provide businesses with clear, measurable advantages and successes over less inclusive organizations. Companies are more likely to hit financial goals, generate innovations, be considered high-performing, and experience better business outcomes when diversity is present and embraced through company culture and policy. Creating a gender-diverse environment in the workplace has also demonstrated large-scale economic boosts in many ways, as well, documented in a 2016 report from the United Nations.  When plotted against the gender inequality index, data consistently shows the most gender-equal countries are the most developed, have the highest income per capita, are associated with faster economic growth, and experience stronger national competitiveness. Gender diversity and inclusivity are key building blocks to business success and directly impact your business’ bottom line.
Assess your company’s diversity and inclusion levels, and learn how to enhance your current office culture and policies to produce greater business benefits, with this simple checklist from Glassdoor.
 

Sales Renewal Launches Strategic Marketing Consulting Practice

Businesses Turn to Sales Renewal to Create Strategies that Drive Success

Concord, Mass.—Oct 20, 2020—Sales Renewal, building on the success of its outsourced marketing offering, the JointSourcing Solution™, is pleased to announce the launch of its new, standalone Strategic Marketing consulting practice.
Since its founding in 2009, Sales Renewal has been offering JointSourcing (“joint venture” + “outsourcing”), a unique, one-stop marketing solution that shares risk & reward and provides everything a small business needs to grow its revenue and brand. This includes a fractional CMO for marketing strategy, a VP of Marketing for day-to-day marketing management, and all the people and technology required to create their custom marketing plan and then implement and manage it under one-year contracts.

Strategic Marketing Is in Our DNA

Resolving critical, strategic challenges has always been a focus for JointSourcing clients and overcoming them, a key driver of their success. Due to recent market demand, Sales Renewal is pleased to offer its Strategic Marketing expertise and experience to any business whether they are interested subsequent JointSourcing implementation and outsourcing or not.
Strategic Marketing is challenging because it overlaps many diverse disciplines that have their own consultants with narrow, specialized expertise: marketing tactics for marketing agencies, business strategy for management consultants, sales strategy for sales consultants and product/service strategy for product marketers.
Marketing agencies, for example, are usually ill-equipped to address deep strategic questions because they are more experienced working on short term, tactical projects where such questions do not often arise. Management consultants, meanwhile, have the opposite problem: they tend to focus on devising strategies without much consideration of the cost effectiveness of the tactics required to implement them.
“Sales Renewal has always been a bit unusual because the core of JointSourcing has always been about getting the fundamental strategies right,” said Keith Loris, Sales Renewal’s president & CEO. “We have always understood how critical the underlying strategy is to determining ultimate marketing success. That’s why Sales Renewal has developed the diverse expertise, wide ranging experience, and well-honed processes that Strategic Marketing demands. It is also important to realize that our recommended strategies are not Big Enterprise strategies; instead, they have always been informed by our real-world experiences running marketing programs for small business clients with small business budgets.”

Strategic Marketing Can Assist Clients With:

About

Since 2009, Sales Renewal has been offering JointSourcing, a unique, outsourced marketing solution that shares risk & reward while providing everything a small business needs to grow its revenue and brand: a fractional CMO for marketing strategy, a VP of Marketing for day-to-day marketing management, and all the people and technology required to develop, implement and manage your custom marketing plan. Importantly, JointSourcing employs a shared risk/reward business model, which, thanks to its pay-for-performance aspects, aligns its economic interests with its clients. Sales Renewal’s Strategic Marketing Consulting practice builds on JointSourcing’s many years of success.
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