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The Center for Sales Strategy Blog

Which Is More Important—Product Training or Sales Training to Drive Digital Sales?

sales training to drive digital salesProduct-focused training and sales skill training - both are important to increase the knowledge and expertise of a sales team, but which is more important? Which has the larger impact? Before I answer that question, let me define the differences between the two to make sure that we are all on the same page.

Topics: Digital

Selling Digital Advertising: The Magic of the Digital Needs Analysis

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Over the past couple of weeks, I have had several account managers ask me questions surrounding a digital client needs analysis. Everyone wanted to know those three or four questions that would magically give them everything they needed to put together a fool-proof digital solution. The truth is: there are no magical questions.  

There is nothing special about a digital client needs analysis. When selling digital advertising, you need to learn about your prospect's business, their competition, and their primary business challenges.

Topics: Digital selling digital advertising

The New Word of Mouth

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Personal recommendations are a powerful thing. Good or bad, they have the power to persuade us in one direction or another. Think about it—when most of us have little to no knowledge about a particular company or product, we typically ask those whose opinions we trust: family, friends or coworkers. As we all become more and more connected, most of us have also begun to rely on digital reviews.

Topics: referrals Digital reputation management

The Fastest Way to Lose a Sale

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Yes, it’s a strange question to be asked, but it led to a great conversation. I remember the workshop so clearly. Someone once asked me what I felt was the easiest way to lose a sale.

Topics: Digital

5 Tips to Building a Strong Social Media Strategy

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The average American social media user spends an average of 3.2 hours a day with social networks according to research by Ipsos. With that much time being spent on a social network, businesses who have not developed a social media plan as a part of their marketing strategy are missing out on a lot of opportunity.

What’s the solution? Use social media! Sounds easy enough, and building a page on social media is simple. But posting once a day and tweeting is not enough. To effectively use social media for marketing, marketers need to build an audience and create engaging content that resonates with that audience.

If you are currently using social media to market your business, or you offer digital solutions and are looking to help your clients build and enhance their social strategy, here are five things to consider:

1. Start by determining which social media network(s) is the right social network.

Social networks are not all the same. They all have different audiences that engage with the content in different ways. To understand which social network(s) you should be active in, first identify your target persona. Learn how they use social media, which networks are they most active in, and which content they engage with most on your website.

Topics: Digital

Three Dirty Words of Digital Marketing Campaigns

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When digital marketing campaigns fail, typically there's something dirty going on. Marketers and business owners often miss the point of digital advertising. You need to think beyond the inventory being presented and focus on marketing needs and solutions that deliver on set expectations. So I have defined three of the most dirty words I hear used in digital advertising and ways to clean them up.   

Topics: Digital

The Power of Face-to-Face: Is Technology Hurting Your Sales Strategy?

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How you conduct business, whether you are an owner, operator, manager, or sales executive, has become increasingly dependent on social media, but are we beginning to depend on it so much that we don't communicate productively?

Topics: Social Media digital marketing Digital

Three Easy Steps to Effectively Sell the Results of Your Campaign

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Campaign recaps are the norm when it comes to digital marketing. In an integrated marketing campaign, those results are usually separated out even though we design the campaign to work together. All too often, the digital portion of a campaign recap is simply a beautified spreadsheet or PowerPoint that includes creative images and a handful of metrics like impressions delivered, clicks, click-through rates, and sometimes view-throughs. These types of reports do very little to show how the campaign is actually achieving the goals of the client—and when that is the case, they can result in a cancellation or non-renewal.

The goal of a campaign recap is to sell the results back to your client so that you can retain and grow that piece of business. You want to make it clear that you are driving results—making the connection between the numbers and the emotions of your client. So how do we move beyond the simple delivery of numbers, to effectively sell the results of our integrated campaigns?

Here are three easy steps to get you there:

Topics: Digital selling digital advertising Sales

Three Must-Know Social Media Practices for B2B Lead Generation

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There is a plethora of research out there on why social media is such an important component of your inbound marketing, but what I want to share with you today are some specific ways to get started engaging and connecting with your social media audience. These will help you increase your B2B lead generation, and ultimately convert more customers. 

Topics: Social Media digital marketing Digital integrated media solution Inbound Marketing

5 Things Every Business Person Needs to Know About Digital Media

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When it comes to digital media expertise, it's easy to feel like an expert and a novice all at once. This is mainly because there are so many advancements in digital that it's hard to know what you should be focused on with respect to digital marketing.

Topics: digital marketing Digital integrated media solution media snacking Inbound Marketing