The Shortest Case Study Ever, Tips, W.I.P., News and a Wish
Friends and colleagues,
Most of you are really good at what you do. Some of you are true marketing ninjas. A few of you are wonderfully fascinating people who have no business doing business. And one of you is a dog whose owner gave him an email address. But all of you are members of our community, a group of people (and Borat, the black lab) who have the privilege of persuading others for a living. But to whom much is given, much is expected.
So let’s get to the stuff promised in the tantalizing subject line that got you to open this email. Upright and locked positions please
The Shortest Case Study Ever
VPSI (The World’s Largest Vanpool Service Provider):
Challenge: How do you get the sales and marketing team of a high growth company to consistently and systematically apply best practices (i.e., do more and better)?
Solution: Develop a “playbook” that provides step-by-step guidance on how to execute in specific situations (e.g., selling and messaging against lower-priced competitors, “upselling” current customers, after-sales customer care, etc.)
Results: Team members – old and new – have readily embraced the playbook and reference it from hard copies and online versions available on Salesforce.com
Tips
- Test retargeting. For those of you who haven’t tried banner ads that follow prospects based on their activity on your site, you should. Why? Because you’ll at least triple your click-through rate. And wouldn’t that feel good this holiday season?
- Use more white space. Yes, finally, white is the new black. I don’t know if this is the Apple’ing of America or an homage to Steve Jobs, but this has proven to be the “color” that makes communications most readable and visually accessible. And yes, we’ve tested this.
- Try Google’s “Ad Extensions”. This is the option that allows you to include 4-6 extra links when you are in top placement or including a trackable phone number or product images. We’ve seen huge increases (like 10x) in click-through rates on keywords where we are able to show the extra site links. So get your Google on.
- Develop playbooks. Here’s a radical idea (for the sarcasm-impaired; this is not a radical idea), instead of informally sharing best practices for frequently recurring marketing and sales challenges, write down and map out your most productive responses. Then present, publish and update these living documents. I think you’ll be surprised how quickly your team will literally get on the same page.
- Drive to phone for the complex sale. The prevailing wisdom has been to drive prospects to a web site or sitelet; it is supposed to be a less expensive way to convert to sale. But hard experience has shown that some products and solutions require not only a human, but a highly trained one at that. The higher conversion rate will likely cover the additional cost of the call.
News
- We’re proud to announce the launch of our latest pro bono effort – www.uhireus.org – founded by marketing legend and American patriot, Stan Rapp. The purpose: to stimulate and accelerate job growth in our great country. Please join us and help yourself.
- We’ll soon be announcing a couple of new practice areas and some new team members. Very exciting for us. More soon.
- The new Crossbow Group site will soon be ready for prime-time. Stay tuned. You’re gonna like it…
- Eggnog is now classified as a narcotic. Ok, no it’s not.
A Wish
We all embrace causes that are near and dear to us. Finding a cure for pediatric cancer and saving children from this life-threatening disease is just that for Crossbow Group. So this holiday season we will be giving gifts in your name to the tireless team at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the amazing folks at New York –Presbyterian Hospital. Our wish: that one day a diagnosis of cancer won’t devastate young families the way it does now.
Peace be with you,
Jay
P.S. If, for whatever reason, you’d rather not receive these occasional notes, please let me know.
W.I.P. (Work in Progress):