Marketing for Where You Want to Be10 Proven Ways to Strategically Grow

© 2011 ClearEdge Marketing

January 26, 2011

Leslie Vickrey, President & FounderClearEdge Marketing

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Our Agenda

� About ClearEdge Marketing

� Challenges and Opportunities

� What Marketing Can (and Can’t) Do

� Marketing for Growth Top 10

� Your Questions, Our Answers

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About ClearEdge Marketing

� About ClearEdge Marketing

� Founded in 2006, ClearEdge is an award-winning marketing firm

headquartered in Chicago, IL

� 95% of our clients are technology services firms

� Operate on a unique and flexible outsourced marketing model

o Become virtual department on a monthly retainer or project basis

o Special forces for internal marketing when bandwidth needs arise

o Offer small- to medium-sized companies an opportunity to invest in marketing without carrying the overhead of an entire department

� Team of strategic and tactical marketing professionals with

experience managing global marketing operations

o Strategists, Project Managers, Writers, Designers, Developers

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About ClearEdge Marketing, cont.

Outsourced Marketing: Our Unique, Flexible Model

� Branding & Messaging

� Competitor and industry analysis, brand development, go-to-market strategy and

messaging

� Digital/Interactive

� Website, search engine optimization, blogging, social media, video

� Campaigns

� Lead generation and Target Account Programs (TAP), Keep-in-Touch (KIT) programs,

customer care programs, recruiting and retention programs

� Sales Collateral

� Custom tools that fit strategically into the sales cycle, including: brochures, presentations,

proposals, surveys, business perspective articles, case studies, testimonials, introduction

and follow up HTMLs and letters, etc.

� Public Relations

� Press releases, rapid response programs, editorial calendar, speaking opportunities, media

training, articles, awards

� Event Support

� Seminars, conferences, roundtables, webinars

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Challenges and Opportunities

Grueling competition to win an audience.

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Challenges & Opportunities

Competition for Your Prospects’ Attention

Is Everywhere

In their pockets — Mobile devices

On their desktops — Web, direct mail, social media

Around the house — Web, TV, telemarketing, direct mail

When they’re with friends — Social media, events

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Challenges and Opportunities

Finding the money for marketing

programs today is not easy.

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What Marketing Can (and Can’t) Do

� Marketing Cannot…

� Make the sale – great sales

processes and teams still

required

� Work magically—like any

strategic process, it’s about

plans, hard work, smart insights

and creativity

� Despite those Challenges Marketing Can…

� Build your brand

� Get and hold the attention of

key audiences

� Influence sales

� Be affordable

� Help you better address the

changing marketplace

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Marketing for Growth Top 10

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#1 Turn Clients Into

Raving Fans

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The Goal: Raving Fans

A Secret Sales Weapon

Your clients are powerful resources with broad networks of…

� Colleagues

� Peers

� Friends and family

They are the smartest, most direct pathway to new sales success

A Client Fan Will…

� Give your business great referrals

� Spread positive word of mouth

� Provide marketing legitimacy (back up your claims)

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Got Clients or Fans?

� Do clients refer their contacts to your company?

� Do they participate in testimonials and case studies

that demonstrate your company’s value and

capabilities?

� Do they speak positively of your brand and become

an indirect yet highly effective component of your

sales and marketing strategy?

QUESTIONS?

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Tips for Client/Fan Conversion

Tip 1: Engage Clients

at Several Levels

�Executive sponsor

�Project manager and

team leader

�Peers (developer-to-

developer, tester-to-

tester)

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Tip 2: Conduct Client Satisfaction Surveys

You Want to Learn…

� If clients are satisfied and how to make them happier

� How their needs are changing

� If any accounts are in peril

Benefits

� Easy to implement

� More cost effective than ever

� Provides data for benchmarking your performance over time

Tools

� Online surveys (e.g. Survey Monkey, Zoomerang) and feedback tools

(e.g. NetPromoter, Inavero)

Keys to Success

� Surveys need to occur regularly

� Share results

Tips for Client/Fan Conversion

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Tip 3: Create Case Studies and

Gather Testimonials

Case Studies Work Because They…

� Demonstrate capabilities

� Underscore qualifications and experience

� Show a solution in action/help sales tell a story

� Reveal results

Testimonials Work Because They Are…

� Authentic

� Personal

� Distinctive

� Evidence

Tips for Client/Fan Conversion

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The Result?

An Organized Network of Fans

Who Refer Your Business

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#2 Compete for

Industry Awards

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� How many of you have applied for an award either

for your company, one of your staff members or one

of your clients?

QUESTION?

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Why Enter Industry Awards?

Worth their Weight in Gold� The “cool” factor:

“It’s a chance for everyone to rally around the company—which

is great for morale—and the application process raises questions

that opens the door for people to talk.”

— Jeff Miller, Founder and Managing Director of EdgeLink

� Clients are flattered

� Visibility in the marketplace

� Third-party validation

� Staff pride increases

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Awards in Action

Talon Professional Services

� 2010 Bronze Tower Award, Corporate Identity

� Business Marketing Association

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Awards in Action

� EdgeLink

� Award: 100 Best Companies

to Work for in Oregon

� From: Oregon Business

Magazine

� Broadcasting Channels:

o News

o Boilerplate

o Marketing

About EdgeLinkEdgeLink is a Portland-based, technology staffing firm that recruits the area’s best mid-to-executive-

level technology professionals on a contract, contract-to-hire and direct-hire basis. EdgeLink’s client

companies include Digimarc, Sharp Laboratories, RuleSpace, Ensequence, Biamp Systems, RNA Networks.

Since its inception in 2003, EdgeLink earned the 100 Best Companies to Work for in Oregon by Oregon Business Magazine three years in a row: 2009, 2008 and 2007.

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#3 Speaking

Opportunities

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Speak at Industry Events

Speaking Opportunities� Local business groups

� Local, regional and national

business and industry

associations

� Conferences

� Webinars

Benefits� Reach a diverse audience

� Gain industry validation

� Increase brand credibility

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The Value of Events

� Many legs

� Provides multiple avenues for building brand recognition, gives

you a reason to contact a client, you can be creative!

� Demonstrates thought leadership

� Gives you clout as an expert in a particular area

� Direct contact

� Allows you to get in front of prospects

� Insight

� Lets you learn more about a prospects pain points or business

needs

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Webinar Best Practices

� Target your audience

� Choose a great topic for

your audience

� Partner with an expert

� Promote it everywhere

� Offer incentives

� Communicate often

� Make it dynamic

� Follow up

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Webinars in Action

Harvey Nash Webinar Series

� Average of 60 attendees per

webinar

� 6-8 webinars per year

� 44 appointments to date

� 5 deals in the pipeline

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Market Validation

Harvey Nash

� 2010 Gold Tower Award, Best Webinar Series 2010

� Business Marketing Association

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#4 Pulse Surveys

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Multiple Touch Points

Do You Have

Marketing Tools and

Resources for All

Phases of the Sales

Life Cycle?

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� Do you currently have marketing tools that can be

used in all stages of the sales life cycle (reaching,

acquiring, developing, retaining)?

� If so, what are they?

QUESTION?

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Member in Action: SCS

� The Marketing Tactic

� Thought leadership on Business Intelligence (BI)

o Pulse Survey

o Survey Report

o Event – Panel discussion on survey results

� The Goal

� To connect with the senior-most IT leaders and/or the most

senior BI representative at client and prospect companies

� Networks Leveraged

� Clients: A narrow swath of 250 existing, former and prospective

clients for survey participation

� Staff: BI practice and thought leader

� Clients: A small panel of clients to participate in survey event

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How It Worked

� Clients asked to participate in

select survey and would receive

thought leadership insights and

opportunities (event invites)

� Survey report is developed and

delivered in person and by mail to

survey participants and prospects

� Panel event created to share and

discuss survey findings with SCS

thought leaders, SCS clients and a

network of clients/prospects

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Results to Date

� Survey achieved a 14% response rate, which is well above the widely accepted 10% mark of “a very good response”

� Panel event had a 63% turnout rate, which is on par with similar type events

� Three current clients participated as panelists; shared real world BI experiences; answered several audience questions

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Key Takeaway

Thought l

eaders ar

e as importa

nt as

cultivatin

g thought

leadersh

ip.

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What You Can Do:

• Identify internal team members

who can fill your channels with

great content—thought

leadership, industry insights, etc.

• Find ways to connect thought

leaders with your greater

networks: blogs, events, social

networking, etc.

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Pulse Survey Best Practices

� Narrow your audience

� Choose a great topic

for the media and

your audience

� Keep it short, 10-15 questions

� Get a substantial

respondent pool

� Incorporate SMEs in analysis

� Provide a report with good,

actionable insights

� Generate local (and national!)

PR

� Keep it going—write blogs based

on each key finding, link to

survey

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STAR BASE Consulting’s Annual Pulse Survey� 85 responses

� 5 appointments to date

� 8 requests for report without prior

appointment

� 1 new client

Pulse Survey in Action

“The STAR BASE

Consulting Pulse Survey

became a part of every

sales call we made.

The data we had was

relevant to our

prospects and helped

give us much greater

credibility in our

meetings.”

— Jeff Welsh, President,

STAR BASE Consulting, Inc.

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#5 Public Relations

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Public Relations

� Provide business updates and

introduce experts ― Buzz

� Build relationships with media

� Identify target publications

� Be on the lookout for newsworthy

information� Community involvement

� New hires/promotions/acquisitions/

mergers

� Pulse surveys

� Blogs (can turn into bylined articles)

� New business

� New services

� Events

� Awards

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Required for Success

� In-house experts

� Use your own expertise or that of your staff to

become a reliable resource for the media

� Awards

� Good PR topics that can be added to brochures,

company profiles and website to bring distinction

and credibility

� Places to look:

o Industry associations

o Clients and vendors

o Local media outlets

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Public Relations in Action

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#6 List Development

& Cold Calling

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� How long has it been since you updated your

prospect list?

� 1 – 2 months

� 6+ months

� 1 year

� More than one year

� Never

QUESTION?

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List Development & Cold Calling

� Focus: A well-defined list of prospects grounds your efforts

� Clarity: There is little guessing about who you are going after

� Results: An accurate list quadruples the effectiveness of

a cold calling campaign

� Appointments: You won’t have an opportunity to get a meeting if

you don’t call and ask for one

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List Development Best Practices

� Conduct an Internal Audit� Have a sales team list “spring cleaning”

� Send out “update your profile” e-mails

� If needed, hire help

� Find New Prospects� Conferences and events

� Online registration on your website

� Referrals and co-registration

� Carefully consider renting and buying

lists

� Maintain, Maintain, Maintain!� Have a regularly scheduled clean up

� Conduct regular evaluations of list

building tactics

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Cold Calling Best Practices

70% of the population need at least 5 contacts before they'll trust you enough to grant an appointment

� Increase cold calling activity to

increase sales

� Take time to measure activity and find

out what is working and what is not

� Have a precise value proposition

� Offer something (a demo, a prize)

� Use scripts

� Take good notes

� Follow up, many, many times!

DO YOU HAVE ANY COLD CALLING BEST PRACTICES WORTH SHARING?

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#7 TAP Your Targets: Target Account Programs

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Target Account Program (TAP)

What Is It?

� A scheduled, targeted weekly mail-based or drop-in

program for target accounts

� 4-8 weeks, depending on target and service/solution

(on average 10 prospects p/sales rep p/campaign for

drop-off; increases for mail-based)

� Branded Components: A weekly postcard and

giveaway tied into a campaign theme

Touch Item Follow up

Week One Mail note card and/or HTML Follow up call

Week Two Drop off #1Follow up call/e-

mail/LinkedIn

Week Three Drop off #2 Follow up call/e-mail

Week Four Drop off #3 Follow up call/e-mail

Week Five Drop off #4 Follow up call/e-mail

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Why TAP?

� Increase Customer Relationships

� Regularly get in front of decision

makers

� Push Your Sales Team

� Get your sales team out to “pound

the pavement”

� ROI is Easy to Measurement

� A simple way to measure sales and

marketing message effectiveness

� Engage in Direct Contact

� I one of today’s most successful

marketing approaches

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TAP in Action

IBS Results to Date� 28 meetings

� 20 requirements

� 5 new billable clients

� 6 placements

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TAP in Action

Consultis Results to Date

� 253 acknowledgements

� 155 meetings

� 61 requirements

� 9 placements

“The sales campaign broke down

client barriers, it set us apart from

all of the other competitors trying to

get in the door and significantly

increased our activity even during a

downturn.”

― Jamie Delsing, Managing Partner, Consultis

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#8 KIT ProgramsKeep-in-Touch

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Keep-in-Touch Program (KIT)

What Is It? � A scheduled program of tools and resources that keep businesses

connected with existing clientele, great coming off a TAP

What Can It Include?� Feature articles, blogs

� Team profiles

� Digital marketing� Webinars, social media activity

� Events

� Client case studies and testimonials

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Why KIT?

� Maintain Strong Customer Relationships

� Keep Your Brand and Services in Front of Your Clients

� Build Credibility

� Warm Them Up for Future Sales and Recruiting Calls

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KIT Best Practices

� Share thoughtful, useful content� What does your audience want to know?� Create short, benefit-oriented subject lines (make it catchy)

� Time campaigns well� Send campaigns when your audience will open

o Tuesday/Wednesdays between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. tend to have highest open rates (some say Friday and weekends work well too!)

� Include sales teams in the process� Forward with personal note—easy, thoughtful touch point� Promote across everything you do, including social media

� Set goals, measure results� What open rates/click through rates to do you want to

achieve? Start at 18% with goal of 25%+� Set goal, measure, enhance and increase!

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#9 Get Social

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The Power of Social Media

The way people communicate is changing,

evolving…sales and marketing programs should

span as many mediums as possible!

�Power to easily edit and create content

�Tools to share and broadly distribute content,

opinions, insights, experiences and media

�Forums for easy, regular and low-cost

communication and congregation

�Clients can rely more heavily

on personal networks to make buying decisions:

� 78% of consumers trust peer

recommendations, only 14% trust

advertisements(Source: www.socialnomics.net)

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Social Media. What Should You Be Doing?

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Put a Plan in Place

SET A GOAL� Where are we?

� Where do we want to be?

� How do we get there?

Agree upon metrics…

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Define Metrics that Matter

Be Open to New Metrics

� INVOLVEMENT: Web analytics measure if a person is present through site visits, page views, time spent, etc.

� INTERACTION: Addresses more robust actions people take, such as signing up for an e-mail, posting a comment, etc.

� INTIMACY: The affinity that a person exhibits in the things they say or the actions they take

� INFLUENCE: Addresses likelihood that a person will recommend your service to someone else.

(Source: Forrester’s Four Components of Engagement)

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Identify Communities

Discover places where key

clients, candidates and

partners are meeting,

interacting and networking.

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Assign Some Voices

Identify internal team members that can help contribute

content—thought leadership, industry insights,

community knowledge, etc.

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Social Media in Action

Consultis

� 779 fans to date

� Targets candidates

� Highlights a “featured job”

on the wall nearly every day

� Candidates can apply for jobs,

take polls, watch videos, see

pictures and more…

“Social media is helping us

connect with candidates ... more

and more we are placing

candidates we find through

Facebook with our clients.”

- Jamie Delsing, Managing Partner, Consultis

“Cool man! Very innovative!”- Director of Corporate Information Technology

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#10 Website

Optimization

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Website Reminders

� Your website is still #1 marketing tool

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Website Best Practices

� A Website must be:� Functional

o Is it well organized? Attractive? o Does it convince people to take action?

� Well designedo Is the layout interesting and clean?o Does it grab users?

� Content smarto Is it clear what you do?o Are messages easy to understand?o Is it written to the right audience?o Does it promote action?

� Contain SEO!o At a minimum title tags, keywords and meta descriptions … make it easy to find!

� Make sure your site is always ready to win business

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� Do you have strong SEO best practices in place?

QUESTION?

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Why SEO is a MUST

� Without good SEO...� You can’t be found

� You give competitors a free advantage

� SEO Tips� Get your content SEO friendly

(title tags, key words and link rich)

� Link everywhere (internally and externally) - register your site!

� Use bullets

� Put most important content up front

� Add and create content regularly o Blogs

o News

o Multimedia (video)

57% of Websites are using Google Analytics

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Marketing for Growth Top 10

1. Create Raving Fans

2. Win Awards

3. Speak To and For the Industry

4. Survey and Report Your Findings

5. Increase PR Activity

6. Improve Prospect Lists and Cold Calling

7. Leverage TAPs (Target Account Programs)

8. Incorporate KITs (Keep-in-Touch Programs)

9. Engage in Social Media

10.Optimize Your Website

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Register for Next Webinar

Your Brand Matters! What Does it Say About You?

Tuesday, May 10

12:30-1:30 p.m. ET

Register: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/842058547

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Let’s Talk

Your Questions, Experiences & Thoughts.

Let’s Share & Learn.

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Thank You!

For More Insights, Contact Me AnytimeLeslie Vickrey, President of ClearEdge Marketing

Tel: 312.731.3149

E-mail: lvickrey@clearedgemarketing.comwww.clearedgemarketing.com

www.facebook.com/clearedgemarketingwww.twitter.com/clearedgemktg