Love in Your Ring Wizard, the First-of-Its-Kind Online Ring Designer, Has Launched

Sales Renewal is pleased to announce the launch of Minter + Richter Designs’ new ecommerce site, http://www.MinterAndRichterDesigns.com, and the custom-built Love in Your Ring Wizard that seamlessly lives within it.

The site and unique App are great examples of Sales Renewal’s JointSourcing Solution at work: key business challenges were identified in the client’s JointSourcing Blueprint (e.g., streamlining customizations for millennial customers, increasing average sales price (ASP), lowering cost of sales). The sales-enabling technology was designed and developed as part of JointSourcing’s Build Services and is now being publicized and marketed as a key differentiator during the JointSourcing Sell Services step.

Our Client and Its Customers

Minter + Richter designs and handcrafts custom titanium wedding rings with a variety of inlay materials, from the well-known to the exotic. The typical Minter + Richter customer makes a single purchase, buying rings for that special, one-time occasion: their wedding.

The Sales Process

Each wedding or engagement band is hand-crafted and individually made based on the purchaser’s preferences. This means that clients have to provide information about ring sizes and choose the type of edges, finishes and interior colors for each ring, as well as care options (polishing and cleaning), and shipping and manufacturing times (standard, rush, shotgun rush) before the ring is made. This customization process was originally very involved and required hours of offline phone consultations and email exchanges, as well as missed opportunities for point-of-sale add-on purchases and upgrades.

The Sales and Marketing Challenges

Minter + Richter originally approached Sales Renewal because they wanted their site to rank better when their millennial buyers searched for wedding bands in Google. As we worked through our SEO planning process (Sales Renewal’s Blueprint phase), however, we both realized that while improving SEO was a worthwhile thing to do, there were more even important things to tackle first. For example: enhancing the selling capabilities of the website; creating an integrated marketing strategy (read more about the benefits of comprehensive, integrated marketing here) and overcoming some key business challenges (streamlining the customization process for their customers while simultaneously increasing the ASP and lowering the cost of sales). We knew that once these challenges were met, the other marketing tactics, like SEO, would be easier to put into place.

The eCommerce Solution

Our efforts focused on the redesign and optimization of the company’s Shopify-based website to increase per-transaction revenue and to streamline the sales process. A key piece of this was designing and building the Love in Your Ring Wizard. The Wizard is able to handle all the most popular customizations online in four streamlined, user-friendly steps. Ring sizing, finish options and even rush manufacturing are all clearly laid out, making it easy for customers who want to customize their ring to do so without jeopardizing the sales of customers who aren’t interested.

Early Results Point to Financial Success

Minter + Richter’s new website launched in mid-July, and from the first Wizard sale, the company has seen increased per-sale revenue as well as incredible time savings. The business – and Wizard – was recently publicized by Boston’s WCVB Channel 5 in their Made in Mass series. As reporter Doug Meehan says, Minter + Richter is “taking design in a brand new direction. [Minter + Richter] are the first in the country where you can completely design your wedding ring online.”

Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from July

We regularly update our Growth Spurts blog with actionable marketing & technology advice, news and information. These articles are often hand-picked to address issues and projects we’re working on with our clients, but they are relevant to most business owners involved with any aspect of marketing their business. Here are our 5 favorite posts this month:

On SEO
How to Get Past the Dreaded SEO Plateau – You’re not alone if, even with strong content and high ranking through SEO, your organic traffic may not be growing at the same rate, or your keyword rankings are stagnant. This plateau is actually a good sign that your SEO program is working. But, you can take various steps to improve your SEO performance. Find out more here. And if you don’t have a clear SEO strategy in place, contact Sales Renewal to help you get one established.

On Website Marketing
10 Tips for Making Pop Ups Go the Extra Mile for Your Business – Popups – if you are still from the school of “pop ups on my website? never!, ” it may be time to rethink your position.

We admit, they used to annoy us so much that we would never recommend them to a client. But today, when it comes to growing mailing lists, Sales Renewal has evolved to a new best practice for e-commerce clients and any service client with an active content marketing program. So rather than counting on visitors noticing a “join our list” link somewhere on a page, we proactively pop up a dialog asking if they want to join. And subscriptions have skyrocketed. Read all the tips here.

On Email Marketing
Ecommerce Email Marketing: 10 Tips to Boost Product Sales – This article reinforces the importance of supporting your e-commerce efforts with email marketing and can be used as a helpful checklist of things you can put into action today. Read more here.

2016 Email Marketing Metrics Benchmark Study – Measurable, flexible, and affordable, email marketing is one of the most effective digital marketing tactics available, and one Sales Renewal recommends for all our clients. Reviewing your email marketing on a regular basis is important to be sure your emails are working the best they can. This annual report of email marketing benchmarks from IBM is a helpful resource that offers 25 open, click- through, list churn and mobile metrics that you can use to gauge the effectiveness of your email program. Read more.

If you have questions about how you can make your email program work for your business, contact Sales Renewal today.

On Content Marketing
Brands Need to Focus on Content or Risk Failure – Ever stopped and wondered why you were ______… Fill in the blank with any marketing tactic: blogging, emailing, interacting on social media, “doing” SEO, advertising, sending direct mail.

We continually review our clients’ marketing programs, from quarterly plans to monthly reviews to day-to-day changes, to be sure we are addressing the clients’ needs in the most effective manner.

Content marketing can be one of your biggest investments and yet one of the more fluid, changing programs to manage. This article brings it back to the basics: Understand your audiences; have a plan; create quality content; and focus on integration, not silos. Read more here.

Sharing the Rewards & Risks in JointSourcing Works: Client Revenue Goes Up and Costs Go Down

Given that Sales Renewal’s JointSourcing is truly one-of-a-kind-there are no other Marketing General Contractors that shares the risk and reward-it is not surprising that it requires a bit more explanation than the familiar, fee-for-service, single-marketing-strategy (like PR, inbound marketing, advertising, direct mail, tradeshows, …) approach every other agency takes.

But numbers have a way at cutting to the heart of a matter, so here are three simple charts that show that JointSourcing increases leads and revenue (bar graphs in the charts below) while decreasing the per lead or sale cost (line graphs below). Note: To ensure client confidentiality, all chart data is expressed as relative to their initial period.

Manufacturer Client Performance Over 2.5 Years

During the 2.5 years from 1Q13 through 2Q15, JointSourcing increased qualified leads by 380%, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 87% per year.

Because of JointSourcing’s increased productivity, while the client’s marketing budget did grow somewhat, it grew far, far slower than their leads did. As a result, JointSourcing decreased cost-per-lead by 74% (-42% CAGR).

Our strong, long-term relationship with Sales Renewal has been critical to Metro Sign & Awnings’ accelerating growth.

Because I wasn’t familiar with it when we first began almost 4 years ago, I was a little unsure of the JointSourcing “partnership, ” but I’m a big believer now.

Sales Renewal really treats the marketing of my business as if it were theirs – whether it’s going to bat for us with a vendor on their own or how proactive they are in analyzing and continuously optimizing our marketing.

This saves me time and allows me and my team to focus on sales. In fact, we have been getting so many leads that we are hiring more sales people to close all the new business.”

— Tom Dunn, Owner and VP of Sales & Marketing

eCommerce Client Performance Over 4 Years

During the 4 years 2010 to 2014, JointSourcing increased e-commerce sales by 170% (28% CAGR)

At the same time, JointSourcing decreased cost-per-sale by 33% (-7% CAGR).

Working with Sales Renewal is a real partnership, I know the floral business and Sales Renewal knows technology, marketing and sales.

I’ve been a small business owner for 26 years and I appreciate having someone who, thanks to its financial interest in my success, is almost as motivated as I am to grow my business.

— Helen Halloran, Owner

Different Levels of Marketing Investment Lead to Different Levels of Revenue Growth & Cost Savings

While from the accounting perspective marketing costs are considered an expense, an equally important way to view them is an investment: if you want your business to grow you have to invest in growing it. While the Concord Flower Shop has grown its web sales 28% per year while lowering its cost per sale 7% per year, Metro Sign & Awning has blown past even those impressive numbers, increasing its leads 87% per year and decreasing its cost per lead 42% per year.

These differences arise from the growth vs cost goals each business had which during the JointSourcing Blueprint, translated into the breadth and depth of their JointSourcing Solutions. Metro’s is more comprehensive and includes all of the important digital and real-world strategies for their business with each strategy nicely elaborated. The Concord Flower Shop’s JointSourcing Solution is focused just on online marketing and as you can see from the figure, invests about ¼ of what Metro does in marketing. It is this difference in budget, scope, resources and strategies that leads to their different growth & savings rates.

For a more detailed understanding of Sales Renewal’s unique JointSourcing Solution, please see these JointSourcing™ in Action case studies:

• JointSourcing: a Breakthrough Solution with Stellar Client Results – a more detailed explanation of JointSourcing’s results
• Collaboration Leads to New Strategies, Brand, Site, Marketing Programs and … a Blue Ribbon
• Sales Renewal Corp. Wins Battle Against Google Adwords on Behalf of Its Client Metro Sign & Awning
• How the Concord Flower Shop More Than Double Its Online Sales and was Ranked in the Top 1% of Local Businesses by Google

How to Grow, and NOT, Grow Sales: SalesMemes 43 – No, Really, It’s Your Fault

Why Use Semantic Markup? Because Making Google Smarter Lets You Stand Out From the Competition

If you’re like most people, the standard markup language of the web-hypertext markup or HTML-is hard enough to learn and master. So the realization that there is a new, powerful kind of markup-semantic markup-gaining traction might make your eyes glaze over. This Growth Spurts blog post, however, will explain what semantic markup is and why you should very much care about, and start using it, now.
When you’re designing an HTML page, you are essentially telling a computer how to present or display your information: how many columns there are on the page, what font size, what words are italicized, and so on. So for example,

$9.99 is an instruction that tells the browser to italicize all the characters between the begin and end tags when it renders the page.

When you are using semantic markup on the other hand, you are telling a computer the meaning, or semantics, of your information, something ultimately much more powerful and valuable than simply how the info should display.

$9.99 is an instruction that tells a search engine like Google that the 5 characters between the begin and end tags should be definitively understood as the price of a specific product.

Without this markup, a search engine will likely use heuristics (i.e., using common formats or conventions to make educated guesses) to try to discern meaning, but this causes difficulty and errors when confronted with uncommon formats and ambiguous situations (e.g., $9, 00).

How is Semantic Markup Used Today?

Once the meaning of information is accurately known, there are nearly unlimited possibilities for how that may be constructively used by search engines. For example, if on Monday you ask Google the following question, it replies with a very appropriate, intelligent answer:

Notice that Google’s answer appears in a large font, right above the natural search results and below the ads-and this prominent placement, which very much draws your eye on the search result page, is completely free (unlike the pay-per-click ads).
The reason why Google can appear to respond so intelligently to this natural language question is because Sales Renewal has put the semantic ‘openingHours’ markup (from schema.org) on the Concord Flower Shop’s About page indicating to Google the meaning of the string of letters “Mo-Fr 9:00-17:30”

Hours:

 
Monday-Friday: 9:00 – 5:30

More competitive advantage from using semantic markup

Another real world example of the advantage you can gain from semantic markup involves e-commerce.
Another Sales Renewal client, MATsolutions, sells lab refurbished test & measurement equipment online. If you search for Agilent 53181A (a popular device manufactured by Agilent), the MATsolutions listing stands out as the only one that includes the price.
As in many other used markets, price is one of the first things prospects want to know and is an important buying criteria. And MATsolutions is the only firm conveniently supplying this info right on the search result page!

Now you might think you could put the price in the last two descriptive lines in the snippet, but Google builds these lines itself and you really don’t have any control of what Google places there. By semantically marking up the price on MATsolutions.com, you are guaranteed that Google will display price on its own, incremental line … which also results in the client’s snippet being a little bit bigger and a bit more noticeable than the rest.
And in case the above reasons haven’t convinced you of the advantages of semantic markup, a recent research report finds that helping Google understand your pages improves their rank: pages with semantic markup rank four positions better on average, compared to pages without semantic markup!
So do Google and yourself a favor: start using semantic markup to help Google get smarter and your snippets stand out from the crowd.

About the author: Keith Loris is currently the president and CEO of Sales Renewal but before he went over to the dark side of sales and marketing, he had lots of fun researching natural language understanding and neural networks, being awarded U.S. Patents 5, 642, 435, 5, 239, 593 and 4, 876, 731 along the way.

Client’s Collaboration with Sales Renewal Leads to New Strategies, Brand, Site, Marketing Programs and … a Blue Ribbon

It is generally rare for two different companies, let alone a client and its vendor, to work together so thoroughly, on so many levels, that the resulting whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

However, thanks to Sales Renewal’s revolutionary JointSourcing Solution (a unique hybrid combining elements of joint venturing with elements of outsourcing, in which shared risks and rewards align Sales Renewal’s economic incentives with those of its clients), such synergies are the norm.

If you’ve been wondering how JointSourcing and its three, Blueprint, Build and Sell steps actually works in practice, in the real world, this latest installment of our JointSourcing in Action Case Studies series is for you.

This issue provides a detailed, step-by-step view of how Sales Renewal partnered with our client MATsolutions to overcome their business, marketing and sales challenges to produce a marketing & sales system neither company could have developed as quickly or efficiently on its own. One result of the collaboration: MATsolutions receiving the prestigious Blue Ribbon Small Business of the Year for 2014 award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

As Steve Wedler, VP Sales and Marketing, MATsolutions has said:

“Over the last year with Sales Renewal’s critical assistance, we’ve rebranded the company, launched a new e-commerce site and introduced marketing programs and supporting technologies that truly distinguish MATsolutions from its competitors. Having two highly dedicated and bright teams responsible for this transformation has allowed us to deliver something far superior than either team alone could have. This award is a great acknowledgement of the advances we have made.”

Read the JointSourcing in Action case study.

What is ‘Heartbleed’ and Why Does it Matter to Me?

So what is it?

Without getting too technical, Heartbleed is a software bug with a product called OpenSSL. Some sites use OpenSSL to provide a secure connection between themselves and your computer, and they use those secure connections when you are sending or receiving sensitive information. Normally, when information is communicated over a “secure” line, it is encrypted so that anyone who might be snooping around in cyberspace can’t read things you don’t want them to. Exploiting the Heartbleed bug, a less-than-scrupulous person could trick the server into giving up a chunk of its coveted secure data which could possibly include parts of its recent transactions.

The OpenSSL group has already fixed the problem, but affected sites have to install the fixed version of the software in order for the problem to be solved.

What does this mean for me?

Suppose you purchased a case of shiny new widgets from the online retailer of your choice. Suppose also that this retailer relied on OpenSSL for its secure communications. You put the case of widgets in your cart, and you check out. During the checkout procedure, you fill out a form that includes your credit card number, expiration date, security code, and the name (“as it appears on the card”). Maybe for good measure the site also asked you for your billing ZIP code.

When you click the “Purchase” button, all of this information gets sent to the retailer’s server where it gets stored in the server’s memory.

So what do I do about it?

The first thing to do is, to quote Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “Don’t Panic”. There is no guarantee that an affected site has been compromised. And unless an attacker has exploited the bug shortly after you have been active on that site, there is only a tiny chance that he got access to any of your information.

With that said, there is something you can do. You can spend some time and try to find a list of affected sites on which you have important accounts. While a comprehensive list is hard to find, there are some decent places to start:

The Heartbleed Web Site

A partial list of affected sites

Once you find an affected site that means something to you, you can check with them to see if they have fixed the problem. Most reputable sites should have already reached out to you with their own notices about the issue and information on when you can expect them to have installed the fixed version of OpenSSL. If the site has been updated, then you can safely log in and change your password.

If not, then changing your password will do no good since the bug makes the new information as easy to get as the old. In this case, you might consider logging in and removing your sensitive information. One possibility is to delete your credit card information so that the attacker can’t get it.

If you can’t delete it, replace your card numbers with test numbers. You can search online for a list of test credit card numbers which are numerically valid, but have been set aside for testing credit systems. Use one of these numbers in place of your real number until the site in question installs the fixed version.

As always, the best practice is to be vigilant with your online life. This applied to internet commerce before the Heartbleed bug made news, and it will apply just as much after the hype has faded away into history. You should always be scrutinizing your credit card statements, bank balances, and other account summaries very carefully to spot things that don’t belong there. If something appears, contact the vendor immediately and let them know to minimize the damage.

What if I have a secure web site?

If you are a Sales Renewal customer and your site is hosted with us, you have nothing to fear. None of our sites use OpenSSL for their secure connections, so we can categorically say that none of our customers’ sites are affected.

If you are not hosting with us, then you need to contact your hosting provider to find out whether your server(s) are affected by the issue. Most reputable providers will have taken a pro-active stance on this issue and applied the necessary fixes already. If not, then it’s time for a priority support request to fix the problem. If that doesn’t get it done immediately, then it’s seriously time to think about switching hosting firms.

Shareable Content Isn’t Easy, It Just Looks That Way

Face it: Shareable content is more than what you see

If you’ve ever used Adobe’s Photoshop, you know why you have to pay top dollar for a good graphic designer. The tools they use to create even “simple” images are anything but.

So we were amused by – and hundreds of thousands of viewers shared – a “video tribute” featuring “simple” illustrations and animations that represent some of the many faces of Photoshop filters.

Go ahead, take a look.

If you’re really interested, you can visit the Tumblr blog, also created by Barcelona-based Device, the studio responsible for the fetching graphics. It shows all the images as animated GIFs. See what they did there?

By making the images available in different forms, they’ve made them accessible to a wide variety of people, who are interested for a wide variety of reasons. Some Tumblr viewers will think, that’s what I’ve been talking about! We need those for our website! They may call Device for a quote. Other Tumblr viewers will think, cool! Why are my ideas for animations always dismissed in meetings? Those viewers might send their resumes to Device.

Both sets of images are shareable, and sell different aspects of the business to different audiences. But where’s the sales pitch?

If you answered “there is none, ” sorry; try again.

If you answered, “it’s behind the scenes, ” congratulations – that’s where it’s at.

Get Great Content That’s Shareable Online…

…but don’t stop there. When you create great shareable content, you may feel great – but you’re not quite done. What happens when your content is shared, and how well your prospects can connect to you and your product behind the scenes (hello, lead tracking and ecommerce) – that’s the brass ring.

We say, go for it.

Brass rings animation: Sales Renewal Corporation

Are you focused on increasing sales in Q3 2013?

We’ve recently conducted 3rd Quarter Planning Sessions with our clients.

Pssst – when was the last time you made a quarterly marketing plan and followed it?

In those meetings, they heard specific details about things we did during Q2 to improve SEO rankings, reach more qualified prospects at the beginning of the sales cycle, and stay in touch with customers after the sale. Next, we asked them about –

• new business opportunities
• progress on product development and strategic projects, and
• employee training programs scheduled in the coming months

Then, together, we agreed on a strategy to focus (our) Q3 sales and marketing activities to complement and enhance (their) internal sales programs and long-term growth plans. Other than a few emails and phone calls between now and next quarter, our clients are free from the day-to-day management of marketing activities like lead generation, blogging, newsletter and other content development, and ecommerce sales tracking.

As one of our customers put it, “I really like that you’re so focused on results: growing my sales.”

Now that third quarter sales plans are set, we’ll continue to focus on increasing sales while our clients have more time to develop bigger accounts, win new contracts, and – oh yeah – run their business.

Outsourced sales and marketing that don’t charge by the hour?

One of the reasons outsourced sales and marketing programs are attractive is that they offer a way to increase sales and save time. Time to invest in identifying strategic business partners, developing new products or breaking in to new markets.

And while outsourcing sales and marketing saves you time, you’re still paying for the time.

That’s why the JointSourcing model works for business owners who constantly grapple with the time-is-money conundrum. As one of our clients said:

“At first, I thought the pay-for-performance model would just be a great way for me to acquire expertise while keeping my fixed costs low … what I didn’t realize is how profoundly it stepped up my ability to execute. You’re not simply a vendor selling me something; you’re a partner pushing me to realize the growth that I am capable of… .”

An economical way to increase sales and focus your time

Want a partner who is accountable to you and your bottom line? See our website to learn more about JointSourcing. Just don’t wait too long. Time and money don’t grow on trees, you know.

Do You Need a New Website to Generate More Sales?

Many of our clients came to us because they thought they needed a new website, but they didn’t. Often, we’re able to incorporate enhancements into an existing site, improving the handling of online sales, or add features that provide the customer with a better experience. In some cases, the website is beautiful – but no one can find it. When that’s the case, we help the client get found by prospects who are looking to buy, and convert those leads into sales.

If you’ve been thinking about improving your website, or are worried that it’s just not doing its job for you (its job, by the way, is to increase sales) – contact us to find out what we can do for you.

It’s true that we focus on sales and marketing, but sometimes we forget to mention that we’re really into the technology that make sales and marketing programs hum. Here’s a partial list of the behind-the-scenes stuff we do for our clients:

• Analytics for clicks and calls
• Application development
• Blog design and construction
• Customer Loyalty Systems
• Database integration
• Internet infrastructure: hosting, domain names, SSL
• Online Product Designers/Configurators
• Review & Testimonial systems
• Social Media pages design and construction
• Systems Integration
• Website design and construction: Marketing, e-Commerce, Localized, Micro, Mobile, more
• Website integration into Point-of-Sale and IT systems
• Support & Maintenance for all of the above

How can we help you increase sales? Contact us to find out.