Dead Sales Leads? Revive Them with Strategic Lead Nurturing.

When we’re making a purchase, most of us shop around for the best deal—or the best quality, or service, or all of the above. Which is why most leads don’t immediately convert to sales, regardless of where they enter the sales funnel.

According to MarketingSherpa, 73% of leads are not ready to buy when they first give you their contact details. This is where lead nurturing comes in: These strategic campaigns work to create relationships and encourage consumers or businesses to become active prospects, and eventually, customers.

Now more than ever, we’re finding that people don’t want to feel like they’re just a number; they want a personal connection. And above all, they want content to be relevant to them. 

A recent article in Entrepreneur magazine concurs: “You can no longer create a single funnel or lead magnet and expect success. Your audience are at different stages, and your job as a marketer is to give them the right content at the right time.”

Again, it’s about getting personal: It’s important to first build intimacy with your audience—you can’t sell 24/7. Work to create relationships by providing value and quality, not quantity. Do that by considering where your contacts are in the sales funnel. The Entrepreneur article explains that scenario, placing prospects into three buckets:

• The Sidewalk: Those who are not aware they have a pain or problem
• The Slow Lane: Those who are aware they have a problem, but don't know enough about the process or methodology to move forward
• The Fast Lane: Those who are ready to commit to a solution, but need more information about what the solution is

After you identify where your leads fall, create specific messaging for each: This brings intimacy into your lead generation and becomes relevant to the right people at the right time:

Click to view infographic

• People in your sidewalk are not aware of their problem, so you need to produce micro content that illuminates their pain.
• If they're in your slow lane you need to educate them of your process, which means more in-depth content (articles, guides, longer videos, etc.).
• Once they enter your fast lane, you can share intimate and detailed content with them, such as webinars, training sessions and phone calls.

Shamrock helps our clients manage lead nurturing campaigns—making meaningful, personal connections (with the right message, at the right time) using an automated marketing platform. Click on the image to view the infographic on the importance of using lead nurturing.

How do you nurture your sales leads? If you’re interested in learning more about content strategies and automated tools for lead nurturing campaign management, connect with me on LinkedIn.
 

Ellen Moriarty

 

Marketing with Alexa (and other smart speakers)

Artificial intelligence has made its splash debut—and clearly, it’s here to stay. Given the popularity of voice-activated speakers like Amazon Alexa and Apple’s new HomePod, most of us are familiar with the power and influence of AI technology.  

One in six Americans own a voice-controlled smart speaker (up 128% from January 2017, according to an Edison Research poll). And more than half (57%) of smart speaker owners have used the devices to complete a purchase. Clearly, these smart speakers and similar devices hold enormous opportunities and implications for marketing.

The key to successful marketing lies in the ability to deliver the right message, to the right audience, at the right time, using the right channels—and AI can drive that process. The intuitive, voice-activated software gives us smarter searches; more personal, targeted touches; and refined, more relevant content delivery.

Because most owners use their smart speakers for voice searches, the devices greatly increase the importance of voice search optimization and audio content marketing. Before you jump in, first do your research to find out if your target audience is using these AI devices: Learn what questions they ask and how they interact with their speakers.

Next, it’s important to optimize your content so that they can find it: Because most people use questions to search using their smart speakers, research what the most common questions are for your industry or product line. Include those key words and phrases in your online content (website, Facebook page, blog, etc.)

 

After you align your messaging, how do you use that smart-speaker-optimized marketing content to promote your brand? Here’s a few ideas:  

• Advertise targeted content during daily flash briefings
• Establish your brand as a thought leader regarding topics relevant to your customers by releasing podcasts
• Place ads on Spotify or Pandora: Sixty-eight percent of users listen to music on their smart speakers

Many industry experts believe that as technology advances, AI will continue to manage the rote mechanics of marketing, making sense of big data and providing the analytics that we need to make more meaningful customer connections, while leaving the creative content work for us humans. 

 

One thing we know for sure: This is only the beginning. It will be exciting to see where AI takes us.

 

All the best,

Tim Connor

Pick A Winner: The Perfect Tournament Bracket

Who’s in? Who got left out? The excitement of March Madness is here! At this point in the NCAA tournament, we all have perfect brackets—but that will likely change on day one. At least for the majority of us: The odds of picking a perfect bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (or 1 in 9.2 quintillion). Wrap your mind around those odds!

Our friends at Alta Partners host an annual March Madness Bracket Challenge in which they designate funds for a charity. At this time last year, I was working to lead a team for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society's (LLS) Man & Woman of the Year Campaign to raise money for cancer research. Alta Partners donated their proceeds to that campaign, which made a huge impact on my team’s campaign—and a life-changing effect on those who are bravely fighting blood cancers.

This year, Alta Partners is at it again: The Malachi House is the charitable recipient of this year’s bracket challenge. If you’re not familiar, Malachi House is a Cleveland-based ministry that serves people who are terminally ill—all genders, races, religions and national origins, and without cost to the resident or family. This Home ministers to individuals who need an available caregiver, who have limited or no financial resources and need special home care in the final stages of their life. Malachi House is a very special place, and one that our Shamrock family has supported for many years.

So, if you’re looking to pick the perfect bracket, you can’t go wrong by jumping in on the Alta Partners challenge, because the residents at Malachi House win, no matter which teams end up in the finals.

ENTRIES ARE DUE BY MARCH 21st. To sign up ($25 entry fee) and fill out your bracket, follow the link below:
http://www.altapartnersllc.com/tt/2018tourney/default.html

Good luck!
Tim Connor

Use Promotional Products to Make Brand Impressions

In this digital age, so much of our everyday business is managed online. But as with any other aspect of our lives, balance is essential to success. Promotional products are the ideal source for equilibrium in your marketing program because they make a brand impression offline. 

Think about it: How many logoed t-shirts do you have in your closet? I’ve got a stack of them—and I’m not alone: Statistics show that, on average, Americans keep t-shirts for 6.3 months, tallying 2,450 impressions. It’s a great example of how a promotional item makes a tangible, lasting brand statement.

These recent statistics from the Promotional Products Association International (PPAI) 2017 Consumer Study speak to the resonating power of promotional products in marketing:

• 89% of consumers received a promotional product in the last six months. Of those consumers,
• 79% researched the brand, and
• 83% are more likely to do business with the brand

Are promotional products part of your current marketing program? Consider that promotional products are the most highly regarded form of advertising (Advertising Specialty Institute 2016). Here’s a few additional statistics to consider as you review and refresh your marketing plan for next quarter:

Which premium items will provide you the best return on your investment? 

• Pens + Impressions = Best Value:
  The cost per impression is less than 1/10th of a cent in the United States

Which items generate the most impressions?

• Bags generate more impressions in the U.S. than any other promotional item;
  50% of U.S. consumers own promotional bags

Looking to influence opinions about your brand? The top 5 influential products on opinion of

advertisers:

1. USB drives
2. Outerwear
3. Drinkware
4. Writing instruments
5. Performance wear

At Shamrock, our value is not merely sourcing highest quality promotional items at the best price—it’s our ability to connect online and offline channels to complement each other and work together to deliver the message in the most powerful and effective way. The result of that integrated marketing effort is a memorable brand impression. 

If you’d like to talk about integrating promotional products as part of your next campaign, email me at tberry@shamrockcompanies.net

Tim Berry