6 Instagram Marketing Tips for Businesses

instagram

Over the past couple of years, Instagram has become a power house in the realm of social media. With over 700 million monthly active users, the platform has become a great place to share content with your audience.

Whether your strategy needs an update or you’re a newcomer to this social media network, you can use these 6 tips to help your improve your Instagram marketing. 

1. Your profile is key

As a company, don’t get too caught up in fitting all of what you do in 150 characters. Focus on your most important description or your next big thing – be it an event, promotion or product launch. Since the only clickable link is in your Bio section, make a habit of updating it frequently. Think about promoting more than your website. You can include the link to event registrations, app downloads or even purchases links.

2. Get Creative

Focus on the solution you provide to your audience, not the products you sell. On Instagram, it’s necessary to show value to your customers and look great while you do it. Never underestimate the fact that the most important asset on this social media network is visual content.

3. Stop, collaborate and listen

Instagram is one of the strongest social media channels for highlighting collaborators and sharing customer success stories. Take into account that not everyone is monitoring hashtags on social media, so tagging an account is usually a better choice if you want to get noticed.

4. Analyze your Instagram ventures

Without taking a step back and analyzing what worked and didn’t, marketing becomes a guessing game. Make sure to regularly measure your follower count, engagement, and clicks, all to refine and improve your strategy.

5. Show them the business behind the curtain

Customers have a natural curiosity about where their products/services come from, and you can use Instagram to show them the whole lifecycle.

If nothing comes to mind, you can share something that everyone has – sketches, notes, and filled whiteboards or blackboards. You may find that it’s best to try out different post types until you strike gold with the one that will engage the audience.

6. Use hashtags wisely

Use hashtags to expand your reach. These can be campaign specific or general – all that’s important is that they are relevant. This makes it easier for people to find content related to you as well as your main account. It’s best practice to use between three to five hashtags and consider how you add hashtags. Whether they’re added at the end of the post, in a comment or in the actual post.

Have any more questions about Instagram marketing or about any other social media? Contact us here!

4 Simple Marketing Tips for The Local Business Owner

local business

It’s easy to get caught up in the latest and greatest marketing tips, but it’s important to take a step back and make sure that you find advice that works for you and your local business.

In local marketing, businesses put a lot of effort at the start and then let it fall by the wayside as the year moves on.

Check out these marketing tips for your local business:

Facebook Advertising

Social media networks aren’t always the first thing companies think while building local marketing strategies, but Facebook advertising is an exception.

It’s an inexpensive way to advertise your business to the target audience. Like Google, Facebook also knows buying and click patterns of all their one billion plus users. They are experts in putting the ads in front of a relevant local audience.

Ask for Reviews

Reviews are a must-have for all companies who focus on local search marketing.

You should get your business listed on all of the major reviews sites and then make sure that you’re managing those websites. Sites like Yelp, TripAdvisor, OpenTable, Consumer Reports, and even Amazon are great places to start.

Keep your information up to date and complete, and be ready to tackle any negative reviews in a healthy way. By putting a “Review Us” link on your homepage, talking with your loyal customers, and urging your social community to get involved.

By putting a “Review Us” link on your homepage, you can talk with your loyal customers whose opinions matter most.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Local SEO means you’re optimizing your website for the local web search so that your business shows up in a location-specific query. For example, “Laundromats near me” or “best coffee in New York City” would both be considered local searches.

How do you get started with local SEO?

It’s a big topic, but it mainly has to do with making sure you have local accounts on all of the major search engines (Bing, Yahoo!, and Google) and use of right local keywords for the target audience and area.

Attend, Speak, and Host Local Events

You should try to get involved in the community as much as possible. You could Join your local Chamber of Commerce,  advertise in the local papers, and or host a local event.

Need help with your marketing ventures? Don’t hesitate to contact us here!

6 Reasons You Need To Switch to Inbound Marketing

inbound marketing

Today now more than ever, Inbound Marketing is important for any business.

Inbound marketing is the process of earning a forefront place in your customer’s mind rather than spamming them with paid advertisements.

Here are 6 reasons your business needs to switch to the inbound methodology.

1. Inbound Plays the Long Game

With outbound, as soon as you stop paying, you stop seeing results. With inbound, your content is always there and if you’re in the right business, so is the need.

Leads are drawn over time, and the longer your article gets traffic, the higher it will rank, making it even more likely to gain traffic. That’s why blog content creation is the number 1 priority for a majority of marketers.

It’s a gift that keeps on giving.

2. You Can Learn More About Your Audience

Inbound marketing is all about communication and dialogue. By engaging in content and social conversations, you can learn useful things about your audience that will help you convert.

This will enable you to ask the right questions on your landing page forms. Social media listening will enable you to pick up trends and anticipate what content you should be producing.

Actively listening to your customers is a huge key to success in inbound marketing.

3. Outbound is A Dying Practice

A few years ago, it was easy to create a piece of content or an outbound message and grab the attention of your target audience.

In 2017, white space is GONE. People are bombarded with advertising everywhere, on every device, at home, and at work.

Consumers have become incredibly skilled at narrowing their attention to focus only on what they want to see.

4. Inbound Focuses on Growth

Inbound marketing takes time. You can grow sustainably, instead of perpetuating the boom and bust culture that has caused so many problems in the world economy.

As the inbound marketing snowball gets bigger, in turn bringing in more leads. It should pay for itself, and always deliver more than it costs. Content will gather momentum with less and less energy required from you for it to grow. It will grow itself.

5. Inbound Can Save You Time AND Money

Time spent on inbound is time spent on strong leads. Time spent spamming emails to hundreds of people who don’t know or care what you offer is time wasted.

Inbound allows you to focus your time effectively. Which means less time on marketing and more on building your business.

6. Inbound Builds Trust

Inbound Marketing is like building a friendship with your audience. What are the qualities you want in a friend? Trustworthiness, reliability, a sense of humor, basic competence, and a unique perspective.

When customers see that you are creating useful content, that you’re professional, that you’re knowledgeable in your field, they can’t help but have more respect and trust for you.

If someone trusts you, of course, they are more likely to buy from you. This is the essence of inbound marketing. If you remember nothing else from this article, remember this.

Have questions or want to learn more about inbound marketing? Don’t hesitate to contact us here.

SEO Basics Every Business Owner Should Know

seo

You may have seen it somewhere before. On LinkedIn, in an article somewhere or in a free webinar you joined. The word SEO is commonly heard in the realms of marketing, website design and a multitude of others.

But do you know what it stands? You know it’s important but…

What is it?

SEO is a noun and stands for Search Engine Optimization. But that does not really answer the question. Let me put it this way, go ahead and Google your name, now count how many hits lead back to you. Generally, your hits are Facebook, Linked-in, Instagram, or maybe you’ve had a news article written about you: these results are your personal SEO.

Now apply the same concept to your business. The more times your name pops up in an organic search, the more likely your website is to be clicked. This is simple psychology. The more something is right in front of a client the more reliable it seems.

How does it work?

Search Engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo comb through your website looking for keywords and phrases. Go back to Google and type in, “Two houses divided.” I’m willing to bet most all of your search results had to do with Shakespear and Romeo and Juliet. Weird, right? You were not looking for either of things.

In order to make this work for your business, you need a clear picture of what people are looking for when they need your services. Keywords are worth their weight in Antimatter (the most expensive substance per gram). Once you discover what words and phrases people use in their searches, embed them on your website. Every page should its own list of keywords for search engines to locate.

Why do you need it?

That’s the easy part! The majority of website traffic comes directly from search engine results. This is because search engines represent the most popular way of navigating through the World Wide Web. With proper SEO optimization, the flow of traffic will lead directly to your web page.

Interested in learning more about SEO? Or improving your own? Don’t hesitate to contact us!

Twitter Best Practices for Local Businesses

twitter

As a little fish in the big pond of industry, it’s important to strategize and market yourself correctly to help your business stay afloat. Fully understanding how to communicate on Twitter is essential to fully utilize it.

Consistency is Key

Setting up a social strategy, and posting consistently is one of the best practices you can do as a business.

Twitter is about short, frequent, click-worthy or read-worthy updates.

Use Images and Videos

Visual content is king. Adding images and videos to your tweets will lead to big increases in your engagement and retweets.

#Hashtag Sparingly

Be careful with how many hashtags you insert into your tweets.

Using too many hashtags will make your tweets hard to read. Though, adding a couple will help increase the scope of your tweet and engagement.

Keep Conversations Going

It’s important to keep conversations open with your audience. Make sure to stay on top of comments, mentions or replies.

If you show that you are responsive, people will be more likely to engage with you in the future.

Promotions

As a local business, you can use Twitter to promote special promotions, deals and or coupons to your followers and audience.

There are a lot of different strategies to use for promoting deals or coupons on Twitter.

You can use it promote the daily drink special or highlight a coupon you’re running that week on pest control.

Each industry and business will use this tip in a different way.

Cross-marketing

For smaller business especially, it’s important to promote your Twitter profiles on your other social channels.

This will not only help you boost the visibility of your profile but can lead to more engagement from your audience.

Have any question about marketing on Twitter or any other Social Media? Don’t hesitate to contact us!

Microsoft Paint: Discontinued After 32 Years

Microsoft Paint

Today Microsoft announced the discontinuation of the Paint application in the coming Windows 10 Autumn update.

Why we are sad:

Microsoft Paint was a much-beloved pastime during the childhoods’ of our creative team. Our Graphic Designer, Marla, discovered her love of manipulating images. And creating digitally on Paint which she developed into her career. In this, she is not alone. Many of today’s digital imaging/designing specialists started out on nothing other than Paint. The end of the Paint ERA is just another nostalgic memory for many Millennials. Therefore, joining the ranks of PBS and flip phones.

A brief history of Microsoft Paint:

The legend that is Microsoft Paint began in November of 1985. With the release of Windows 1.0 under the name Paintbrush. In Windows 3.0, Microsoft redesigned the application to the format we all know and love. And shortened the name to Paint. In-depth color wells were released with the ’95 version. And allowing for images to be saved in JPEG, GIF, and PNG formatting. The Windows XP update allowed the user to import images from a camera or digital scanner. While Windows 7 featured the new art brush set. The most notable change in Windows 8 was the correction from previous versions which disabled the scroll bars when zoomed to 100%.

All is not lost:

Finally, the release of Windows 10 (Autumn) brings about the rebirth of Paint called Paint 3D. Though the name is familiar, this is not an update and will not behave like its predecessor. Therefore, it allows the user to merge 2D aspects with 3D image making tools to create interactive scenes. The capability to print on a 3D printer is one feature we are excited to see used.

To read more Killerspots blogs – click here.

3 Insights to Improve Your Social Media Marketing

social media

In today’s market, you can’t go to any marketing blog without them telling you the importance of having social media, and using it for marketing. How do you get the most from your social media? Sure, it’s great to have it, but you’ll lose money if you’re not using it correctly.

Today we’re talking about 3 main insights on how to use social correctly.

Visual Content is Key

One major point of your social focus should be in visual content.

As humans, we are much better at remembering pictures than words. When you post a text-heavy post, your customers will only remember 10% after a couple days. But if you add in a picture, they’ll remember 65%. Your posts will have much more impact if you included a relevant image or graphic with it.

Keep it Consistent

As with most things, consistency is key with social media marketing. Having a consistent and quality strategy will keep your current customers more engaged, and help you attain new followers, leads and customers through your social media pages. People will be less likely to follow your page if you go weeks without updates, and then bombard your audience with updates. If you infrequently post on your page, it’s shown that people will likely lose enthusiasm for your page, and could even unlike it. This is the same effect that posting too frequently could have.

Strategy and Analysis

One of the most important tasks to do on your social media is to always have a strategy, set goals and analyze your pages to see if you’ve hit those goals. One the best things about developing a strategy are that it gives you direction. It’ll help you define your goals and objectives you want to achieve using your social presence.

You should set SMART goals in your strategy. These are goals that are:  Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-based. Setting goals will help you intelligently use your social media to its full potential.

If you’d like more insights or need help developing a strategy for your social media, don’t hesitate to contact us.

3 Reasons Why Radio Commercials Boost Sales and Leads

Radio Success

Think video killed the radio star? And YouTube killed the video star? Think again. Radio is still a compelling marketing medium and has the power to target consumers who don’t use the Internet. Here’s why you need to incorporate radio commercials into your digital marketing strategy. You’d be a fool not to.

1. Radio Commercials Target Lucrative Markets

 

You hear a lot about millennial, the so-called lucrative consumer segment that most brands spend all their money on. However, the over 50’s are one of the fastest-growing and richest demographics in the United States, according to research [1]. And with a great radio commercial, you can target this group effectively and generate more leads to your business. It’s not just the over the 50’s, however.

All age groups listen to the radio at some point, providing you with ample marketing opportunities.

2. Online Radio is Big Business

 

Online radio might play second fiddle to more dominant digital marketing platforms like video streaming, but it still provides a hefty return on your investment. In fact, studies show that the number of Americans over the age of 12 who listen to online radio has skyrocketed in recent years, and was the highest it’s ever been in 2016 [2]. Online radio offers customers more choice and lets you get your message across in mere seconds. The result? More customers, higher sales, and greater revenue. Use radio as the basis of your lead generation strategy.

3. People Listen to Radio For Longer

 

Radio resonates for longer than other mediums. In fact, studies show that average radio listening times have more than doubled in the past five years [3]. While a YouTube ad or banner ad might be momentary, radio commercials continue to produce results. Consumers hear the radio on their commute to work, for example, making this a profitable marketing opportunity.

Radio advertising is known as the “theater of the mind.” This is because the images created by radio are ones that come from inside your mind. With only 60 seconds to convey a message compelling your otherwise distracted audience to act, you can see why radio commercial production is such an exciting challenge.

There are three main parts of creating a radio ad you must always consider. These include:

    • Casting is vital.

      • Without the right voice talent, you’ll waste a lot of time and money. For this, you’ll need to really understand the ad’s tone. Not only do you want the voice to grab attention, but it must also be believable and resonate with your audience.
    • Directing the voice talent towards creating an effective ad occurs in several steps.

        • It’s important that your pre-session consists of just one person talking to the voice talent so they’re not overwhelmed. You must also be ready to produce any sounds you’re envisioning. Make sure you can articulate this to your voice talent. In this regard, you’re acting as a coach.
      • Producing crisp, clear sound is important.

        • Loud music either distracts your audience or drowns out your voice talent. In either case, you don’t want this to occur. So, if it isn’t necessary, don’t include music in your ad. Once you have your ad created, make sure you save it as a .wav file so quality isn’t lost when you’re working on different drafts, which happens with MP3 files.

Killerspots Agency, specializes in radio marketing, creative creation and strategic media buying that is not only engaging but trackable.  ROI that turns listeners into traffic through your doors.

Hearing is believing. Click to hear some of the custom Radio commercials produced for businesses all over the United States in many different industries.  It may just inspire your creative juices for some effective radio to drive sales!

4 Website Design Tactics That Improve User Engagement

web design

The success of a website design is determined by user engagement. However, what does this mean? As a business, the ultimate engagement you are seeking is a product purchase or a quote request. Nonetheless, if visitors are not interacting with your website design, you are not making sales.

No matter the business, it is essential to create a user engagement strategy. You may have a beautiful website, but if it is not easily usable than engagement and the site’s effectiveness will be low. So, what website design tactics will improve user engagement?

Easy Navigation 

The longer it takes for a visitor to find the information they are looking for, the more likely they will become frustrated and leave. Easily understood navigation is a must. A visitor should find what they are looking for in 3-4 clicks. Once they leave your site, they will find what they are looking for somewhere else.

Stickiness 

Each time a user visits your site, it dramatically increases the likelihood of a sale. In marketing, this is called effective frequency. It takes repeated exposure to your marketing message to make a sale. Therefore, use a blog to share content valuable to visitors, creating a reason to engage and return.

Social Media Integration 

Social signals are an important form of user engagement, and search engines use this behavior to determine a website’s popularity and reliability. Ensure your site encourages following your social media accounts, and provide tools to share your content. Again, this goes back to creating content valuable to visitors.

Become Mobile-Friendly 

Smartphones are increasingly becoming the preferred method for accessing the internet. If your site is not viewable and usable on a mobile device, visitors will become aggravated and move on. A responsive website design will adjust your site based on the device while preserving the content and function.

What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like more website design tactics that will improve user engagement, or need additional information, please contact us.

Understanding Radio Commercial Production

radio production

Radio advertising is known as the “theater of the mind.” This is because the images created by radio are ones that come from inside your mind. With only 60 seconds to convey a message compelling your otherwise distracted audience to act, you can see why radio commercial production is such an exciting challenge.

There are three main parts of creating a radio ad you must always consider. These include:

  • Casting is vital.

    • Without the right voice talent, you’ll waste a lot of time and money. For this, you’ll need to really understand the ad’s tone. Not only do you want the voice to grab attention, but it must also be believable and resonate with your audience.
  • Directing the voice talent towards creating an effective ad occurs in several steps.

    • It’s important that your pre-session consists of just one person talking to the voice talent so they’re not overwhelmed. You must also be ready to produce any sounds you’re envisioning. Make sure you can articulate this to your voice talent. In this regard, you’re acting as a coach.
  • Producing crisp, clear sound is important.

    • Loud music either distracts your audience or drowns out your voice talent. In either case, you don’t want this to occur. So, if it isn’t necessary, don’t include music in your ad. Once you have your ad created, make sure you save it as a .wav file so quality isn’t lost when you’re working on different drafts, which happens with MP3 files.

Knowing how vital a radio commercial is for your business, isn’t it time you start creating them? When you’re ready, go ahead and contact us. We’re here to help!

Essential Ways To Improve Your Website Design

website

Everyone understands the need for a great website design. Your website is a reflection of your company. Therefore, your credibility and authority rely on having a top-notch design. Moreover, a design must capture the attention of your audience not only to motivate sales but because user engagement is a major factor in search result placement. Therefore, a design must build trust, keep your visitor’s attention, and encourage clicks and social sharing.

There are hundreds of details and ingredients that go into successful website designing. However, not everything works for every type of business, Nonetheless, there are ways to improve your website design no matter what industry.

1. Diminish Clutter

An overly cluttered design can confuse visitors, create distractions, and make finding information difficult. Remove everything that diverts attention from your message.

2. Include White Space

This is the area left empty on your web pages. The great benefit of white space if making your content easier to read and make guiding a reader’s attention to a call to action more manageable.

3. Use the Power of Color

Marketing firms have long understood the psychology of color and use this power in everything from advertising to logo design. Whether your image is youthful, wealth, or trust, use colors that strongly conveys that message.

4. Stop Using Stock Photos

Your visitors know that those stock photos do not represent you or your company. Additionally, these images make your website look very generic. A better choice is using a professional photographer.

5. Improve Navigation

A visitor to your website should find the information they are looking for within a few seconds. Visitors will leave if they become frustrated. Moreover, primary menus should focus only on main pages.

6. Increase Speed

It is a simple fact that the longer it takes your site to completely load, the more likely a visitor will become aggravated and leave. Optimize your site to load quickly.

What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like to talk more about ways to improve your website design, or need more information, please contact us.

3 Common Myths About Social Media Marketing

social media marketing

If we look back 20 or 30 years ago, marketing was pretty simplistic. One would mail out millions of flyers, design an eye-catching billboard, and develop a memorable television advertisement. Today, your customers have moved to the digital world. Unfortunately, many companies try to apply old-school marketing techniques to social media. The results are marketing campaigns that fall far short of expectation.

Much of what companies believe about social media is just plain wrong. There are many misconceptions about how marketing can drive sales. However, these are myths that even some marketers have held onto. This is because marketing is an ever-changing landscape, and staying up to date is extremely difficult. Nonetheless, we are here to tackle some of the most common myths about it.

Common Myths About Social Media Marketing

1. My customers don’t use it

This is unlikely. Statista, a leading statistics company, reports that 72 percent of all U.S. internet users are on Facebook. Moreover, Facebook users share 684,478 pieces of content every minute. This doesn’t even touch Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Tumblr, and a whole host of other platforms.

2. If a post doesn’t go viral, it is a waste of time and money.

Untrue. Going viral tends to be the exception, not the rule. Social media is about the long game. Therefore, not everything is going to be a home run. Social media marketing is about growing your audience and building relationships. The question you should always ask yourself is, “Would I share this on my personal social media account?”

3. It’s only for attracting new customers.

Wrong. Finally, social media is also about nurturing customer relationships and building brand loyalty. Actually, One study found that 74 percent of customers providing feedback expect a response within 30 to 60 minutes. Therefore, your customers need to know the conversation is not one-sided.

What haven’t we covered yet that is important to you? If you would like to talk more about the common myths about social media marketing, or need more information, please contact us.

Video Production: Tips and Advice

video production

When it comes to video and television creative production, it’s important to remember that there’s not one aspect more important than the other. All of them play an essential role. With that said, what are some things you should take note of? How can your video production run smoother? Here are some things to take note of.

Plan Ahead

Whether it’s editing the video itself or preparing to write the script. Planning ahead is one of the most important aspects of video production. You should know how you want the production piece to play out, and be prepared for any changes you may have to make. After all, nothing is ever set in stone. For the bigger production pieces, for example, some things are still being edited down at the last-minute. By having a plan for your production piece, the process will go smoother, and it’ll be easier to meet the deadline.

Work as a Team

Regardless of if it’s a short film or a feature-length movie, you’re not a one man army. A successful video piece requires everyone to work as a team. After all, there are numerous aspects of the production process, and you certainly can’t juggle all of them on your own. From editing to shooting, to filming, these may seem insignificant when viewed individually. However, when you and your team put the emphasis on teamwork, these aspects come together flawlessly and are part of the bigger picture (no pun intended).

For more information in regards to video/television creative production, feel free to contact us today at Killerspots.com, Inc. A full creative production house, we’ve been doing radio commercials and video/television commercials in house since 1999.

Social Media Management by Killer Spots Creates Time

Social Media Like

What does your social media audience want? How do you get them to tell you what they want? These used to be hard questions for businesses to get reliable real-time answers to. That just isn’t the case anymore. In fact, they will tell you more than you ever wanted to know if you let them. Too Much Information or TMI is a thing, after all. Today the question is how do you get the information you want and skip the pictures of what they burned for dinner last night? The answer is social media management.

Social Media Management

It is about what you share and how they respond. Whether they are your friends, your customers. Or hopefully both, they need to see your best face. If they are going to buy your products or believe the things you tell them. Therefore, they need to see you have standards and that you aim for reliability and good business practices.

They also need to know you care. That means reading their comments and responding to their posts appropriately, even the negative ones. If you are running a business or have your own content to produce this can take a chunk of time from your day you may not have to give, as much as we all want to hang out on social media hitting the like button for new ideas and defending our own positions from the occasional troll.

Social media management can take the reins of your online presence while you get some work done, building relationships with your customers and your industry as a whole. The people at Killer Spots have the time and the technical prowess to handle all of that for you, and to improve your position on top of that. Contact Killer Spots to learn more about social media management.

Radio Commercial Production: Cost Effective & Time Efficient

radio commercial production

As a business owner, you’re always looking for new ways to advertise your service and/or products. If you haven’t done so already, consider radio commercial production as a way to reach more people. Radio is an effective and efficient way to spread the word to a large number of consumers.

Advantages of Radio Commercial Production:

Cost Effective

Since you don’t need as much production time compared to some other forms of advertising. A radio commercial doesn’t take as long to create and is therefore less costly. Also radio spots are more affordable than many other types of media. So your ad can run more times, enabling you to reach additional people with your message. According to a report by Nielsen on the effectiveness of radio advertising, “each dollar of ad spend generated an average sales return of $6 from the listeners in the 28 days after they heard the ads.”

Time Efficient

Because of targeted radio stations, you have a wider variety of choices. You can reach your demographic easier and more quickly. Based on the type of listeners — such as a country station or a station that plays oldies. You won’t waste time advertising to people less likely to find your product of interest. Also, you only need a small amount of lead time in radio, so you can get your ad out and running more quickly. According to another report produced by Nielsen, “More than ninety percent of Americans listen to radio each week.” So don’t overlook the time efficiency of marketing to such a large audience.

Contact us for more information on radio commercial production. We’re a full service, digital marketing, production and media agency. We help clients to develop and grow!

Seven Sales Strategies the Best Reps Use Daily (and 9 Rookie Mistakes to Avoid)

sales strategies

Who are the superstar salespeople you admire?

Is it David Ogilvy, who literally wrote the manual on sales strategies, or Dale Carnegie, who convinced you it was possible to win friends and influence people?

Whoever your sales icons are, they weren’t born overnight. It took years of fine-tuning their skills to become the amazing salespeople they are. While there’s no shortcut for hard work, we do want to help you streamline the process to achieving sales success.  That’s why we gathered the most secret secrets from the best salespeople to share with you as you start on your path to becoming a master salesperson. But, as any good seller knows, what you should do is as important as what you shouldn’t do, which is why we’ve also compiled some of the most common, yet easiest mistakes to avoid.  If you’re ready to start to become like your sales heroes (or even surpass them), nailing down these sales strategies skills is the first step. Ready, set, go!

7 Expert Sales Strategies the Best Reps Use

1) Sell benefits, not features.

Research by Impact Communications found 70% of people make purchasing decisions to solve problems, while only 30% make decisions to gain something.

Although your product may have a lot of features that will add to a business, they are more likely to buy something that solves an existing problem. That’s why you want to present them with benefits that reduce the problems the company faces.

2) Set and stick to your ideal buyer personas.

Efforts spread too thin are inefficient and ineffective. Use ideal buyer personas to help you understand the “why” of your ideal customer.

Your buyer personas, which are detailed descriptions of different types of ideal customers for your product, should outline more than basic demographic information, and get to the heart of why a customer needs your product.

By setting clear ideal buyer personas and sticking to them, you’ll stop wasting time with supremely unqualified prospects that suck your energy away from people who could really benefit from your product.

3) Spend time wisely.

Time is money in the sales world, and beyond knowing your ideal buyer personas, you need to have a plan of action each day to maximize your productivity. In fact, the 2014 Sales Execution Trends by Qvidian found that 59% of a salesperson’s time is not spent selling, but is wasted with hunting for sales resources.

Start each day by understanding your goals, and have a clear plan for how you’ll accomplish them. Find a sales or project management platform that can help you keep a strict schedule to maximize productivity.

Another way to increase sales strategies productivity is to limit multitasking. It may seem counter-intuitive, but it takes you twice as long to get a single task done when your brain is pulled in a million different directions. Give yourself a time limit to finish one task at a time; you’ll be more efficient and have a better understanding of what actions are time sucks and when you can get the most accomplished.

4) Personalize your message.

The best salespeople know that developing a personal connection with your clients is the key to success. Start relationships off on the right foot by sending personalized messages to prospects and avoiding “one size fits all” scripts.

Identify the prospect’s unique pain points and tailor your message to address how you can solve those needs. When a prospect feels like you care, you’ve already made the greatest first impression possible, without even stepping inside the room.

5) Make your process measurable.

In order to learn and grow, your process should be measurable, which means you should have a process for collecting quantitative (useable numerical data) and qualitative (details that help you gain an understanding of underlying motivations) information about your process.

To gather both types of information, practice being obsessive about your process. Keep track of each move you make from initial contact to closing the deal and use that information to pinpoint weak spots. You should also keep track of how many cold calls, follow ups, and meetings you do each day. The goal is to document everything so you can optimize your process.

When you do find weaknesses, make improvement actionable, instead of just telling yourself to “do better.” This will give you specific direction on how to improve, and also help you monitor your success.

6) Take notes.

As smart as you are, you don’t have perfect memory (and if you do, we want to hire you). It’s important that you record the promises you make to clients so you can deliver. You also want to take down feedback and important information about their business; clients should never have to repeat themselves, so pay attention.

Additionally, taking notes does more than give you a hard copy of the conversation—it shows clients you care. Take notes using a pen and paper. This gives clients the impression that you’re more attentive and involved in them than if you simply used a laptop or your phone.

7) Tap into the buyer’s emotions.

Use emotion-centric language to address a buyer’s concerns, since our brains rank feelings above logic when making a decision.

Answer objections with the words “feel,” “felt,” and “found,” and work phrases like “I know how you feel…” and “When this customer used the product they felt…” into your presentation.

9 Rookie Sales Strategies Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make

Feel like you’ve got a lot to practice tomorrow? Well we aren’t done yet! Instantly jump from sounding like a beginner to a seasoned pro by avoiding these mistakes most new salespeople make.

1) Don’t forget to define a goal for meetings.

Every interaction with a prospect or client should have an end goal. Make sure you outline the purpose of every meeting and have a metric to measure your success at the end.

2) Don’t be your only advocate.

There’s a limit to how many bold claims you can make about you and your company to a client. Collect endorsements from objective advocates to back you up.

Additionally, don’t be afraid to ask for referrals from other clients. According to the Dale Carnegie Group, 91% of customers say they’d give referrals, but only 11% of salespeople ask.

3) Don’t make too many follow-up calls to unqualified buyers.

If a buyer is unqualified or clearly not engaging with you, drop it. Don’t waste time on impossible sells.

Master salespeople take the guesswork out of this step. Use 20 Miles to help you track when emails are opened, which attachments are viewed, and how long the prospect spent going through your files. You can use this information to follow up with the prospect with a targeted pitch, now that you know what about your product is interesting to them.

4) Don’t forget to listen.

If you listen to the prospect’s needs instead of overselling them you can directly answer how your product can soothe their pain points. Master salespeople believe you need to see, hear, and process that information before speaking.

5) Don’t leave a meeting open-ended.

Remember to set clear next steps that outline expectations and prompt action from both parties. If you leave a meeting unsure of what the next step should be, send a simple and straight-forward follow up email asking for clarification.

6) Don’t distract clients with irritating crutch words.

Practice pitches beforehand so you can cut out “umms,” “hmms,” “ers,” and “ahs.” These distracting non-words weaken your argument and lose the client’s attention.

7) Don’t bail on commitments.

Don’t develop a reputation as a salesperson who lacks follow-through. Build trust by keeping your word, or stop making promises you can’t keep.

8) Don’t ignore the budget question.

You can easily waste time pitching a service that’s way beyond your prospect’s budget. Ask questions about their budget upfront so you can determine how high they prioritize your service and you can better tailor your offer to fit their needs.

9) Don’t use statements instead of questions.

You want your close to be firm, but not ambiguous. After a prospect agrees to work with you, clarify the sale with a pointed question. Don’t assume you know the final deal without confirmation from the decision maker.

In truth, the secret to becoming the ultimate seller is practice, practice, practice. Understand your own sales strategies process as much as possible and educate yourself constantly.

For more details, visit Hubspot partner Killerspots.com, Inc.

CREDITS:  Written by Nicholas Little

HubSpot-certified-partner

Facebook Canvas Is Changing How We Do Advertising

Facebook Canvas advertising is no joke. I sincerely and somewhat aggressively recommend to all of my clients. That they use some form of their service as part of their marketing strategy because it’s game is THAT strong. And how could it not be? With approximately 1.5 billion monthly active users that spend 20+ minutes a day using the platform (DMR); it’s definitely an open audience that cannot be ignored.

But how best to reach that audience if everyone else is using the same ad service? Well first of all, it’s ALWAYS important to utilize Facebook’s very comprehensive audience targeting options. Pinpoint your exact customer, as specifically as possible. And then not only are sales more likely, but you’ll be presenting yourself right to them. Without competition from other less specific ads.

It’s obviously still also very important to make sure that your ad graphic (whether it be a static image or a short video) is engaging and interesting. This just means whatever form of image plus copy you use; should be well branded but also something you yourself would want to know more about.

Once you are running consistent engaging Facebook ads, you’re already going to see awesome results in your page engagement and also your product sales. But what’s next?

Facebook Canvas

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Image Credit: https://canvas.facebook.com/

Enter Canvas.

Facebook’s all new mobile ad unit that now takes your ad from a sponsored post pushing to an external site to a totally Facebook-hosted full page experience where you can scroll and explore all original content. Facebook Canvas is designed to be a way to break through all other ads, telling a fuller story of your brand, through an interactive fresh environment.

When using Canvas, customers will click on the ad, and then see a “fast-loading, full-screen experience where they can browse through a variety of products, before going to the retailer’s website to purchase”. The pro to this type of ad is that the customer doesn’t have to worry about waiting for a website to load. Having a mobile experience that isn’t optimized and having everything they want in a shopping experience using only one app on their phone.

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So how do you start using Facebook Canvas NOW?

Well, you join the waitlist. That’s right. Anything worth wanting always involves a waitlist right? But something tells this Marketing Director, this one is worth waiting for.

Contact Killerspots Creative Team for any media/marketing needs you may have. http://killerspots.com

Tips for Fascinating an overstimulated media market [part ii]

Person reading Digital Marketing book.
To read the first half of this post please visit here.

[TIP THREE]

A third tip to gain the attention of the social user is to understand the difference between personal online content and business content. I know I just mentioned that you need to post more than just information about your business. and you absolutely do. But say you are a health care facility and you want to share a post about migraine headaches. An inappropriate business page post would be a meme or GIF. With poorly composed graphics about the “horror of migraine headaches”. Sure it might be funny, but it doesn’t look professional. And is best saved for sharing on a personal account.

A more appropriate post for this topic would be an infographic detailing the signs and symptoms of a migraine headache. And a CTA (call-to-action) on how to find relief in your care facility. This type of content post is also appropriate because it not only gives the follower something useful in what to look for with their migraines. But also a way to solve their issue and that benefits you as a business. If they choose to share this content, that CTA will bring their friends or others in their circle back to your business as well. Which has just brought you new followers and in turn customers.

[TIP FOUR]

The next tip is simple and yet challenging. Keep your posts short and non-generic. It is recommended that Social Media posts stay around 80 characters or less for up to 66% more engagement. And being that engagement is what you are looking for, this is important to follow. However, just 80 characters is tough. As it is 60 characters less than the 140 you are restricted to already on Twitter posts. If you are able to succeed though, you will be posting your very BEST content. Because you will have thought it through enough to figure out how to get to those 80 characters in the first place.

And of course this doesn’t include your graphic– that you are absolutely posting along with those characters; as we know are necessary for grabbing attention of users today as well. And with a great graphic, you won’t need a great deal of words.

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[TIP FIVE]

The final tip for gaining attention in a busy world is to not overextend yourself as a business owner. Whether you are a public speaker and one-man show or a corporation with hundreds of employees (or most likely someone in between), know when best to hire outside help and leave the online media marketing to the pros. Your business will do best if you aren’t overextending yourself trying to wear too many hats at once. Social Media is happening 24/7 and is most definitely a full time job when done effectively. As an owner, you already don’t have time for that.

But it’s also something you cannot afford to ignore as in this present society it is now the bulk of your marketing without the cost. Using Facebook is free, so spend some money to make sure it’s done right, and save yourself the added stress. If you need help with Social Media Strategy or Management please don’t hesitate to check out what we offer here at Killerspots.

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Contact Killerspots Creative Team for any media/marketing needs you may have. http://killerspots.com