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What’s The Right Mix Of Inbound And Outbound Marketing?
B2B Marketing and Sales, Financial Advisor Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Revenue Marketing, Social MediaAt Revenue Architects, we are big advocates of inbound marketing with leading solutions like HubSpot, Act-On, Marketo, and Mailchimp for email marketing but we also work with a number of industry sectors where a stronger outbound approach is still needed. For example at professional services businesses like consulting, law firms, financial advisors, the promise of “inbound” is a bit over-hyped and a more balanced approach is critical.
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Fixing a Broken Campaign: Finding the Red Flags
B2B Marketing and Sales, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Revenue Marketing, Social MediaWe recently conducted a review of a campaign that was underperforming expectations. Our team was contributing elements of the campaign and we were very disappointed in the results. What was going wrong? What were the red flags?
The campaign was focused on marketing a leading technology solution to a target market based on geographic named accounts. The client was following core principles of inbound marketing and digital marketing offering unique premium content for download and involving a number of components:
The content was solid and the program was being executed carefully with iterative updates to enhance content and offering language. On the surface, everything looked good. So, why was the client getting limited response?
To evaluate the program, we took a commercial end-to-end revenue perspective and looked at the revenue cycle. We divided the campaign into three elements: Top-of-the-funnel (TOFU), Middle-of-the-funnel (MOFU) and Bottom-of-the-funnel (BOFU). We looked for red flags.
Here were our findings:
Overall
TOFU- Top of Funnel
MOFU – Middle of the Funnel
BOFU – Bottom of Funnel
What did the red flags tell us?
The campaign needed to refresh its target universe/ marketing list and expand its exposure while also taking a deeper dive review of the value proposition by conducting a focused survey. Given the target market, budgets needed to shift from the top-of-funnel inbound and PPC lead gen toward more 1:1 tele-prospecting and sales engagement.
By taking a commercial focused approach and mapping the end-to-end revenue cycle from marketing to sales, it became more apparent where to focus attention and make improvements.
Emerging Revenue Technology: Relationship Intelligence
Revenue Growth, Technology & WebsitesCRM systems are notorious in their complexity and lack of success in many cases. Organizational and cultural dynamics play a big role. CRM systems offer a great deal of promise yet so often don’t deliver. With today’s economic pressures it is as critical as ever that firms increase sales without increasing the cost and complexity of selling.
One area getting more attention now is relationship management technology. Clearly LinkedIn has made a huge impact here and now new tools are emerging to help relationship-intensive businesses take better advantage of their enterprise contact and relationship assets.
New tools like Datahug, Gist and others are helping businesses manage information about the organization’s extended relationships (employee’s and firm’s) with individuals and customer/client organizations. They do this by mining the email database and social networks for connections and relationships. This can dramatically impact deal intelligence, qualification and positioning and drive up win rates.
Yet for many years, CRM deployments have consistently under delivered on the promise. The adoption of any CRM-related technology must be approached with a view of the people, process and technology impacts. Relationship intelligence is part of what we call “Revenue Systems” and selecting the right tools and embedding them effectively in the organization requires careful thought and planning.
Done well, these new relationship intelligence technologies can be a powerful ally in firm-wide deployments – helping to increase win rates, inform bid decisions and enhance the tailoring of winning value propositions.
Vermont Solar – A Professional Sales Process
B2B Marketing and Sales, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Revenue Marketing, Sales ExcellenceI am operating out of our Vermont Office – which is really a home office looking out over the mountains of northern Vermont including Mt. Mansfield and the surrounding hills a few miles from the pristine Caspian Lake in Greensboro.
Today’s highlight includes the installation of a solar energy system to generate sustainable energy for our home. In keeping with this blog’s focus on sales and marketing, I thought it would be interesting to reflect on the sales and marketing process that I experienced with the team from SolarTech in Vermont.
So, what was the marketing and sales cycle? Actually it was very typical of a “considered sale”.
The cost (before incentives) of the Solar Trackers are over $50k – clearly an investment that requires consideration. Incentives bring this down nicely and the payback is reasonable considering the local cost of energy. So, this was a very substantial investment and a classic “considered sale” – where content and the web plays a role along with an active sales process.
1) My first step was research. Of course I spoke with my social network – others in the area that had experience. After learning that I wanted a tracker to maximize power, I went to the web to search for trackers in Vermont and quickly found All Earth Renewables. They did great work on SEO – on the first page of my organic search results. Their web presence includes Facebook and Twitter.
2) I posted to the AllSun product on Facebook – seeking to learn more from my network about options for solar power and researched forums to see whether there were any comments. I later ended up connecting with an experienced solar expert who looked over the proposal and the technology solution.
3) I wanted to discuss a solution, so I filled out a form on the web site seeking contact with a sales representative. The conversion form online was clean and simple. I had an introductory email within hours.
4) I was introduced to a channel partner, SolarTech, who managed the sales cycle. Rich Nicol engaged professionally in all aspects of the sale from feasibility to economic ROI. He handled all the objections and concerns and mapped out a solution tailored to our needs – a classic professional sales process.
In order to get this sale, All Earth Renewables and SolarTech needed an integrated sales and marketing process.
The FeeOnlyNetwork.com: A Bid to Build Visibility for Fee-Only Advisors
B2B Marketing and Sales, Content Marketing, Financial Advisor Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Revenue Marketing, Social MediaThat’s the goal of NAPFA (National Association of Personal Financial Advisors) with the recent launch of the FeeOnlyNetwork.com for its more than 1,500 Fee-Only member advisors across the country. A parallel goal is to build the NAPFA brand and promote the benefits of working with NAPFA-registered investment advisors (RIAs) for comprehensive financial planning and fee-only compensation.
This comes as Fee-Only Registered Investment Advisors (RIA) have surged and changed the way Americans invest. This in a climate where investors are more risk adverse, want to be involved in the investment process and, for all generations, increasingly use the web to “self-sell” before engaging. Having a strong web presence — including a dynamic web marketing hub, social media significance, thought leadership content and digital marketing programs — is not an option, but an imperative for advisors to be relevant and competitive today.
With FeeOnlyNetwork.com, Individual NAPFA members receive a free, search optimized profile and those who wish to pony up $250, receive a more sophisticated profile with more content, enhanced optimization and linking features. The value proposition seems solid: members can piggyback on the broader branding effort around “Fee Only” with NAPFA and generate leads and SEO value at a reasonable cost per year.
There are a number of things for members to consider in maximizing the value and effectiveness of their profiles. (See FeeOnlyNetwork mockup)
Use the bulleted specialties adjacent to photo and paragraph beneath it, to provide more depth and breadth surrounding resources and investment options offered, akin to what you might get from a broker dealer.
Avoid “generic” messages like “specializes in financial planning and investment management”; be more sophisticated.
Make sure your profiles line up across all your channels – LinkedIn, Website, Facebook, Twitter, FeeOnlyNetwork, etc. – including key words, messaging and positioning.
This includes links to all of your social media profiles, recent articles, media mentions, welcome video and the like. If you have more than one location, be sure to include it as well. Also complete the company profile tab. There will be an ability to cross-link with other NAPFA members in your company.
The network is very “planner” and individual based rather than the firm… some investors may want to see that they can engage a firm with a broader set of expertise and specializations within the firm. This can be done with the company profile tab, but perhaps you can influence the site’s positioning if you want to highlight both you and your company more strongly.
Currently, the “Contact Me” button generates an email, however there are plans to enable a form. Be on the look out and perhaps influence its development. For example if it were a “Learn More” link instead of “Contact Me”, that could lead to a landing page on your website where they can further “opt-in” to learning without feeling the need to email you right away. Many “buyers” want to self-sell and learn about you (and others) without converting immediately to an email or meeting.
NAPFA says it has made a significant investment and allocated considerable resources to the FeeOnlyNetwork.com, a partnership with Advisorology, LLC, the parent company of the FeeOnlyNetwork.com and FinancialAdviceNetwork.com. The partnership promises to continue to enhance the FeeOnlyNetwork.com. Members would do well to actively participate in its evolution.
Thérèse Byrne is a Client Partner & Digital Strategist with Revenue Architects specializing in helping clients take advantage of modern marketing approaches to projects from the vantage of creative, innovative and agile solutions to growth. She works with a number offinancial advisor clients developing strategies and implementing compliant marketing solutions enabled by technology and inbound marketing.
Marketing Automation: Selecting the Right Solution
B2B Marketing and Sales, Inbound Marketing, Revenue Growth, Revenue MarketingSo, you’ve realized that you need Marketing Automation! What now?
With a variety of different solutions available – from enterprise to start up – how do you know which solution is right for your organization? Marketing Automation evaluations typically involve both a diverse stakeholder team and a myriad of potential solutions.
We recently published this eBook to serve as a guide to provide you with the information you will need to assess marketing automation vendors and choose which solution is right for you. Our view? The process should be objective and facilitative to align the organization around a clear choice. Need help? We can help you facilitate the process with our Objective Solution Selection (OS2) methodology: