Robotic Marketer Blog Posts from May 2020
How To Use Live Broadcasts For Your Company
Source: Marketing Eye Australia
Implementing a live video experience for your brand is an incredible opportunity to bring your audience together. Whether you are filming product demonstrations or a roundtable interview, your audience can use your live broadcast as an opportunity to stay informed on what your business is doing. There are plenty of platforms available to produce your live broadcast, so it’s easier than ever for companies to do this. Below, we have a few pointers for businesses to consider before implementing a live video experience.
Content creation
Live streaming is an opportunity to establish yourself as a thought leader in your industry. While a professional, polished video is certainly a good look for your branding, live video requires you to be creative on the fly. It’s a raw and off the cuff experience that’s a great showcase for your authenticity. Deciding what you want to talk about is the crucial first step. An easy way to get started on creating your live content is treating your broadcast like a case study. Pick a common pain point in your industry and discuss how your company has navigated situations like this. Whatever topic you choose, it needs to be accessible to current customers and prospects. Effective videos don’t alienate any segments of your audience.
Content promotion
Once you’ve done the hard work of creating your live video content, the next step is making sure that people see it. If you’re broadcasting on social media, the option to share that content is already built into the platform. After you’re done recording, take the time and effort to reshare that video content to grow your audience. Organically, you can share your live broadcast via social posts, your website, or even an email campaign. It’s typically best to announce that you’re going live with the date, time and appropriate links, but it never hurts to share after you’ve gone live.
Engagement
When you’re choosing a platform to broadcast your video, make sure that there are features that allow your audience to be a part of the conversation. Audience engagement is a massive opportunity for companies who choose to use a live broadcast, and your viewers may want to weigh in on the ongoing conversation. Engagement goes both ways, so it’s important to respond to the questions and comments as they come in.
Data collection
The biggest advantage of using a platform for your live video broadcast is the ability to track and collect data. With a basic platform like Facebook or LinkedIn, you can observe metrics like views, shares, and comments to give a better idea for how your video is performing. But if you want the good data, invest in a live video platform that will find you deeper insights about your audience. With a platform like this, you can track each viewer and know exactly when they have tuned into your broadcast. Deeper insights can help to push your audience to make purchases down the road.
Source: Marketing Eye Australia
How to Up Your Inside Sales Capabilities
Unlike traditional forms of sales, inside sales representatives are highly trained individuals who are required to identify, nurture, and convert leads into customers through remote systems.
This virtual form of selling is made possible with the rapid evolution of technology and is becoming highly dominant within B2B, technology, and high-ticket sectors. However, to remain competitive in this emerging system of sales, inside sales representatives must be educated on the tools necessary to drive favorable results.
Just like you wouldn’t attempt to repair your car without the relevant tools, you shouldn’t try to take on inside sales without the relevant skills.
There are numerous strategies that all successful inside sales reps employ to close more deals and create more satisfied customers.
All of these skills can be quickly learned and implemented into your toolkit to help you achieve better results.
Below we’ll cover our top 5 tactics you must include in your inside sales strategy.
-
Develop a mastery of product knowledge:
Contacting a prospect and gaining their interest is the most difficult step of the inside sales process. However, if a product related query is asked and the sales rep cannot answer it, the prospect will almost instantly lose interest.
All successful inside sales reps must develop extensive knowledge of their company’s products. Through in-depth training, sales reps should have the ability to answer any question, whether basic or advanced; technical or practical.
Deep product knowledge enables sales reps to transform their pitch around each individual prospect, by specifying how the product’s features will provide value and satisfy the unique needs of the potential customer.
Knowing how each product works, the value it can provide, and its strongest features separates the top 1% of sales representatives from the rest.
-
Learn how to listen:
Inside sales revolves around the needs of the prospect, not the sales rep. Better results will be achieved once the representative focuses on the unique needs of the prospect, rather than their own desire to close the deal.
Inside sales reps should begin by listening attentively to their prospect’s needs and difficulties. In doing so, they can delve deep into the unique issue and develop personalized questions and suggestions that cater to the situation.
By putting yourself in the shoes of the prospect, you can determine which features and benefits are most important to highlight, based on what will provide them with the most value.
Rather than listing off all the product features and capabilities at once, this approach allows representatives to deliver a more ‘customer-centric experience’.
Since the benefits sought by each customer will vary, basing the value of your product on the needs of the individual will build a more favorable relationship.
-
Embrace the marketing team and research your prospects:
Marketers work to generate interest and demand for a product. Once leads begin appearing, inside sales representatives take over to close the deal. Clear communication between marketing and sales teams is crucial in finding qualified leads that are likely to be converted into customers.
Drawing insight into prospects enhances your ability to dictate the likelihood of closing a deal. An effective strategy to uncover these key details is to utilize social media platforms such as LinkedIn to research your leads. In doing so, you can learn about the prospect’s position in the organization, their capacity to make decisions, and other valuable information that can assist the sales process.
With this insight, inside sales reps can tailor their conversation around the prospect, providing for a more personalized and customer-centric experience.
-
Communicate clearly and responsively:
It’s not about what you say, it’s how you say it. The way you communicate your message is a vital sales skill and can help prospects relate with you when conversing.
We can make others feel comfortable by mirroring their actions – the same goes for their tone and style of voice. Matching the way in which a prospect communicates can go a long way. If they are speaking in a serious tone, do the same. Conversely, if they are using informal language, the same principle applies.
Actively listening and responding with follow-up questions shows that you are focused on the needs of the prospect, rather than concentrating only on what you are going to say next.
Base the conversation around the prospect to emphasize that you are not selling them a product, but rather, trying to provide them with a solution to their problem.
-
Remember to follow up:
It’s awfully easy to send the first e-mail or make the first phone call, however, following up can be daunting. One week passes… no response. One month… still nothing. Should you move onto the next prospect?
Research by The National Sales Executive Association showed that 80% of sales are made after the fifth call and 92% of salespeople give up before that.
To succeed as an inside sales rep, you must be persistent and confident. Eliminating the fear of rejection will differentiate yourself from 92% of people competing for the same position and will put you in a better position to gain the client’s attention.
How Companies Use AI To Improve Brand Management
Source: Jeff Bullas
Ideally, your brand illustrates who your organization or company is and how it’s perceived by your customers. This means both marketing and product managers need to work closely to protect the overall brand value.
Brand management, at its core, is all about sustaining, positioning, defining, crafting, and ensuring a good brand reputation. All in all, brand management is vital as it helps your company influence purchasing behavior; reassuring clients that your company values them; achieving customer loyalty.
This is where Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make all the difference. Improving customer experience, guarding online reputation, monitoring brand reputation, or leveraging brand engagement, to name a few. AI plays a key role in enhancing a company’s brand value.
Source: Jeff Bullas