What Really Matters to the B2B Target Audience

I still see many Organizations and Marketers still blabbering about how good their Company is, What is their Skill Set, What they have done, What they do, Their CEO Speaks, Their Employee Speaks and What Not.

I guess by now YOU (the reader) have already got bored of just the first paragraph. Think what happens to the B2B Target Audience who is daily bombarded with such Content all over the Web and other Marketing Channels!

Do they really care about buying your Organization? NAAHH…

They care about buying a Solution to their Problem. They care about buying an advantage over Competitors. They care about buying a Trusted Partner.

For this they need specific information. VERY SPECIFIC INFORMATION

The kind of information any B2B Audience generally looks for

As the above Image suggests, a Marketer & even a Sales Rep shall be consistently sharing the above information to the B2B Target Audience in any form & many forms. Make sure they are relative to them and the maximum resources are used to communicate them.

I believe by now the Marketers might have started thinking many creative things in their Head. Would be Glad to read them in Comments section.

Amazing Jugalbandi / Tug-of-War between Determination, Perseverance & Motivation

– Our Determination keeps us Self Motivated to Persevere during tough times – Entrepreneur

– We shall be Motivated to stay Determined & Persevere – Employee

– Success through strong Perseverance, Motivates everyone & Determined to achieve more – Team

Business Networking: An Essential, An Irreplaceable – Part 1

Presently I am enjoying ‘Business Networking’.

It is an exciting event of knowing people, their business and their expertise. While, building a pool of resources for many needs

What kind of needs does ‘Business Networking’ cater?

• A very important way to keep in touch with your future prospective clients. Discuss & share important industry updates, your interesting experiences with clients, the benefits your clients cherish being associated with your organization, latest company updates & offerings, industry events & invitations. Refer them to their business prospects.
• Create a pool of future colleagues. Meet them, talk to them, follow them on Social Media and know their skills & expertise. Whenever your Organization demands such a skill set, you have a handy list of possible recruits to be hired on board. They can be of any vertical; sales, Marketing, finance, HR, engineering, development, operations, etc. And they can be at any level; entry, senior, middle level, top management level, etc. Even having HR personals in your network is a big advantage (do refer them too).
• Having a list of Vendor options is always a good situation to have. Whenever you or your organization is in a need of outsourcing any work or project, OR, need arises to purchase anything, you can be the Super Hero for the organization as you line up people from your Business Network for the job
• Businesses today are about smart strategies and fast actions. We know we can’t learn everything and do everything, we have limitations. So, what better than Business Partnerships. We meet so many people online & offline. Why not get connected to them and utilize their expertise during our Business Life cycle by partnering like sales partners, channel partners, HR partners, technology partners, R&D partners, referral partners, revenue sharing partners, research partners, etc.
• There are many scenarios, which are first time for us or our organization & we are in a dilemma of what to do next or how to come out of such situations? What strategy or actions shall help us take that plunge required for our business growth? What shall be done to stop employee iteration? What shall be done to create a profit unit? Having Consultants in your network is one big advantage. Float the news among them, choose the best to be taken on board & hope we know the rest.
• Knowing people of different countries & different industries would always help you & your organization to get feedback & knowledge for entering new markets, new territories and new countries, even new industries.
• And the best of the lot. Look at the above points again. You might be a vendor, a consultant, an expert, someone looking for new job, new ventures, new opportunities. Look at the kind of business you have got. Will it help you for getting hired or get an earning opportunity or an opportunity to showcase your talent? If not, you must start taking Business Networking very seriously.

So, I would highly recommend everyone to start Business Networking (if not yet started) for your own good. Get out, meet people, talk to them. “GIVE THEM TODAY TO GET TOMORROW”

I shall cover the essentials of Business Networking in my next article. Till then, Happy Networking

I would be glad to be in your network. Lets get connected:

FaceBook: https://www.facebook.com/PrasanjitBiz

Twitter: https://twitter.com/prasanjitbiz

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+PrasanjitDasBiz

LinkedIN: http://in.linkedin.com/in/prasanjitbiz

Attending the Social Media Now ‪#‎SMN2014‬ on Mashable’s Social Media Day

June 29, 2014

Today was a beautiful Sunday morning as I attended the Social Media Now ‪#‎SMN2014 on Mashable’s Social Media Day

It is not always that we learn by applying, we learn by listening to others and their success & failure stories too. Met with many interesting people and I must admit, the select Speakers were just the right ones for the event.

Mr. Sunil Kumar, the President of the exchange4media Group. Sir, I am not even close enough to speak about Industry Veterans like you. Your presence said a lot itself.

To Remember: “Look beyond the Big Four”

Jaimit Doshi, the Head of Marketing at Kotak Securities Ltd. Had a very unique approach of making us forget Sir Philip Kotler with his Quantum Physics and his unique style of live drawing and explaining along with his quick wittedness & control over the audience.

To Remember: “The Young mind best knows the Social Media. If a person older than me talks to me about it, I would never agree” And “Data is so important, it gives us insights”

Sapna Vyas Patel, the Weight loss & Fitness Expert. You Beauty.  You are already an Idol to many women around the world. The first thing that I did as I reached home was to inform about you to my Wife Annesha on the Lunch Table. Watching your video and getting connected with you shall be my only request to everyone reading this.

To Remember & Follow: https://www.facebook.com/sapnavyaspatel

Mr. Anurabh Kumar, Founder & CEO, #TheViralFever & TVF Media Labs. I just wanted you to go on & on. You are the perfect example of someone who follows his dreams and shows persistence & resilience until the dream comes true. Humor is on big part of our life and you have given us The Indians just that content via TVF. Sir, You are one big motivation to the Wannabe Entrepreneurs

To Remember: “To show the Truth/Fact we have to lie…” And “Find a Gap & think how you can add value to it.” And “You can even earn by cleaning SHIT in this country. So you would be doing a Shit Job”

And last but not the least, THANK YOU Nitu (https://plus.google.com/107602430660377267764) & your team (& your Husband ofcourse) for organizing such a beautiful conference, making it a day to remember to many

Cheers

Prasanjit Das

Brand & Branding

Brand & Branding

BRAND – A Thought. A Vision. A name. Potrayed by a Logo/image & a Slogan or even a Jingle, so it becomes an identity by itself

BRANDING – Promoting the Brand by ways of being present at where the target audience is. By being seen, heard, smelt, felt, tasted, engaged, unique, emotional, dramatic, funny, social, etc. By consistently delivering the vision via communication mediums, policies, processes, culture & products/services

Job Performance is Directly Propotional to The Level of Interest for the Job he/she has

Performance~Interest

Planning for your next Email Marketing Campaign? Try this

Try this approach to Email Marketing Campaign

• Build an Email List of Target Industry & Target Personal in the Organization (Specific set of Designations / Decision Makers/High impact Influencers)
• Research about the Business Critical Problems that can be solved by your Solution Or Services. Make sure they are critical
• Make atleast a list of 5-7 such Critical Business Problems. Anything less than that may not be of primary target for resolution by them
• This approach will potray you as an organization which is built upon the Sense of giving Resolutions to Organizations rather than just being a Seller or Vendor

The Mailer

• Introduction
  • Start the email marking them with their name or last name
  • Introduce them that you have done a research that most of the organizations in their industry face some common business critical problems like…. and list the identified problems
  • Ask them if their Organization faces all or many of the mentioned problems
• Your Answer & Call of Action
  • Now comes the important part where you give your response to the interest of the lead about how would you resolve their problems and set a call of action path for them. You can take 3 kinds of approach for it
  • Here’s the Solution to your problems
    • You straight away position your solution or service, the approach, the process that you have created to kill these problems
    • Make sure you point to each listed problem and your solution to it
    • Make sure it makes sense to them, so it has to be precise and realistic
    • Your next step is to make them get in touch with you as an Inquiry
    • I suggest to give as much one-to-one contact information as possible. Let them decide their best & easiest option
    • This approach makes sure that you get only those leads who are fully justified with your information and are interested to work with you
  • Enter the Door to know more
    • Make them go to your website’s landing page to know about the solution
    • Make sure that it has the precise knowledge they would want and inline with what you have generated the interest
    • Any small kind of diversion from your topic and they would be off your page increasing the bounce back ratio of your campaign
    • Do work hard on your landing page by keeping it very clean and to the point
    • I suppose you could have understood that at this point the call of action is to push them to your website, which would give them much much more information than an email
    • You can have many materials for them on the landing page like Brochures, Comparisons, flow Chart, Process Diagram, Videos, Client Testimonials, Case Studies, White Papers, etc. which would really make them a strong prospect
    • And the landing page, and all other related pages must have all the points of contacts where they can reach to enquire
    • This approach builds a strong relation between your offering and the prospect. They can relate, refer, foresee
    • And the lead becomes more precise and more confident on what you offer
    • So you might get less leads but the probability of conversion may increase drastically
  • Not that easy mate… Ask our Experts
    • Keep things open…very open
    • Tell them, that we have the answer and for the same we have hired experts to co-ordinate with you and provide you the right solution
    • This might keep them excited to know more
    • Make them get in touch with you with all the possible options
    • Now this is a two-faced approach. Many might feel that you would be making a fool out of them and consuming their time without giving proper solution, while you would start getting inquiries by many asking to tell them more about the solution you offer to their problems
    • The problem is that here you have to qualify the incoming leads, as you have kept the mailer so open that many leads would come and may not fit in. So a good qualification approach would be required
• Few important points to remember
  • Do avoid SPAM words and content style to make sure your emails are delivered in Inbox
  • Your Subject line is the first point of Client Interest. If it is not interesting, your email may not even be opened and read
  • Never write Subject Lines with more than 6-10 words
  • Use easy language and avoid jargons
  • Use Organizations Individual email for sending and receiving emails for this campaign especially. Also mention ‘Regards, Your name’ in the mailer
  • Track the campaign, open emails, link clicks, leads from the campaign, closings from the campaign

 As I read the article again, I realize I could have done better with my campaigns :-p

Things that make us Grow higher than where we are, are always difficult

 

Difficult to ACCEPT OUR MISTAKES | Difficult to STEP OUT OF OUR COMFORT ZONE | Difficult to CHANGE | Difficult to LET GO EGO | Difficult to APOLOGIZE | Difficult to TAKE RISK | Difficult to say ‘NO’ | Difficult to BE PATIENT | Difficult to SPEAK THE TRUTH

Lets remove the ‘Difficult to’ from our lives and see ourselves Grow higher ‘n’ higher

The Email Marketing Process

One thing we must always remember as a Marketer, if our email is informative, effective and most importantly relates to clients business anyhow, he will remember it and get back to us whenever required. I received a lead from a mail we sent 4-5 months ago, the prospect replied on the same Marketing mail to enquire.

The PROCESS  (Might work):

(a) Finalize your Target Audience

(b) Get email list from a good vendor, LinkedIn, Facebook, B2B Portals, Extract from Web, etc.

(c) Get it validated/Verified to be correct or your domain will get black listed (though 100% verification is not possible)

(d) Get an email service provider who won’t let your domain get black listed, avoid your personal accounts as Sender email

(e) Get a 5-7 words Subject Line that the prospect would like to read and get interested (Longer Subject lines would not be visible fully in Inbox)

(f) Email Format: Positioning, Challenge, Benefit/Features, Action plan to order, Contact info, Short about company

(g) Make sure the content of the email are not filled with words considered as ‘SPAM Words’ or else your email would get high SPAM ratio and will be blocked, surf google for more details on ‘SAPM Words’.

(h) The Mail Client which you would use to send Bulk Mails plays a very major role: (1) Make sure the Bounce Back mails, Unsubscribed Mails, etc get Black listed and never receive mails again; (2) It must show the ‘% Read Mail’ for your to analyse your Subject line, if there is any improvement needed.

BELIEVE ME: Its not important to send 100,000 mails and get 10 Inquiries, it’s sending 100 mails to the right Target Audience and getting 10 Inquiries. I realized it quite late…….

After sharing suchcha GYAAN,  I think if I can write this…… why can’t I follow this!!!!!

Am I ‘The Right Sales Guy’

Sales Guy

I always thought that I have all the traits of the right Sales Guy. When I say Traits…. I mean the following:

• Always have a Clean and Sharp face (i.e. Clean Shaven or no other hair on face except for your stylish Moustache, Soul Patch or any other fancy beard) while on a Visit or Sales Call
• Well Groomed hair, adjusted with hair gel or hair oil (Am an Indian)
• Meeting Prospects or Clients without any odour from your mouth (Smoking pre-visit PROHIBITED)
• Always remember names and pronounce them properly. If you don’t understand, don’t pronounce wrong, instead ask “How do you pronounce your name?”
• Whether a planned visit with an appointment or a Cold Call; always ONE Target in mind, have to meet the Decision Maker anyhow
• GROUNDWORK always done; every member of the company must know me, from the Watch Man to the Top Notch and of-course the Decision Maker
• Be the Consultant, the Guide, the Friend, the Employee, the only Hope, the Last Person on Earth or what ever you can think of for the Prospect, the case has to get Converted.
• One Rule: When you give time to someone, he must give you order
• The First and Foremost Target – Sales Target
• When In Office – Only Figures speak
• When On Call – Your Attitude Speaks
• Not having Full Product Knowledge can’t stop you from selling your product or service, what you need to have is that you reach the decision maker and for any kinda doubts you call the right person and give the resolution then and there
• The Positioning is the Key for entry
• The only way to Win the order is to understand his/her requirement to the fullest
• Never Ever position more than requirement, it can delay the decision. Take the order, fulfill the requirement and then position other things and get revenue
• Face Value and Trust Value are the only things you always carry, rest you always give away. Marketing Materials – to the Customer or Prospect, Money – to your Company
• Never speak of the competition, especially negatively. Competition is always good. Always emphasis on what better you can offer (not against the competitor but to the prospect)
• Never boast too much about your product or company. The customer is not interested. He just wants to know how his company will be benefited
• Every person you meet should have your Visiting Card and you must have his/her
• Look out for prospects, offices, hoardings, bill boards where ever you go, any one can become a customer
• Always give a quote, though if you know you won’t get the order. Atleast you will learn
• Always ask why didn’t get the order
• A SALES PERSON IS THE ADVOCATE OF THE CUSTOMER BUT FOLLOWS THE LAW OF HIS OWN COMPANY

After writing so many traits…… I feel when I can write these why can’t I adapt these!!!