This Is How Sales & Marketing Can Work Together To Generate ROI
If marketing is not leading to growth in sales… is it really marketing?
We all need to make money and we must find ways to measure our goals. But sometimes this makes us forget where we came from and where we want to go.
It is important that we don’t sacrifice what we really want… for what we want right now.
Right now, we might want a chocolate… but what we really want is to be healthy and fit.
Right now, we might want to put that book down to relax and watch TV… but what we really want is to keep growing in our personal and professional lives.
Right now, you might want to close a sale because that is something you can measure… but what we really want is to build meaningful relationships with our audience so that our marketing efforts create sales not just today but for years to come.
I get it. If you tell your boss that you didn’t close the sale but you definitely felt that the relationship is growing and that you created value for the client, he will probably:
Look at you like you are crazy
Laugh at all this relationship and value nonsense
Prohibit you from drinking coffee because coffee is for closers!
Sometimes being transactional is what seems to be effective, but only if we are thinking short term. In the long-term, thinking transformationally will prove to be the most efficient route.
On the other hand, some of you might already be great at the transformational aspect. You care about your prospects and audience, you are always creating value, you keep in touch in meaningful ways… but you never close because you are afraid of looking “transactional”.
You feel like a sleazy sales guy if you use tactics to close sales because you think it can damage the relationship.
The truth is that some of you are not closing because you are afraid. You are either afraid of rejection or afraid of failing.
At this point, you might think I’m crazy, or that I’ve been drinking too much coffee because I’m not making too much sense. I’m telling you to be transformational, and then I’m also telling you that if you are too transformational you are not doing it right.
So what is the answer then? It depends.
If simple terms, the answer is that you need to do more of what you haven’t been doing. If you are too transformational that is great, and because of that, you’ve probably built great relationships. Now it’s time to be a bit transactional and get to closing.
If you’ve been too transactional, you need to slow down, step back, and start thinking about the long term. Being transactional is the equivalent of working hard and not smart.
In this article, I’m going to share with you some specific steps that you can take to achieve a balance and invest in relationships that will then transform into sales in perpetuity.
Specifically, I’m going to share with you:
How to create content that can be used in your CRM efforts
Create Content That Lasts Forever
Tim Ferriss, author of 4 New York Times #1 bestsellers, has stated that the majority of his blogs peak (in traffic) about 1 or 2 years after these have been published. Talk about investing in something that will generate a long-term return!
At this point, you should not need much convincing that you MUST blog to get people to know you, like you, and trust you… so they do business with you. Yet, I’m going to give you another reason you should blog, and more ways in which you can extract value from your content.
The secret is: write blogs that you can use as an “excuse” to follow up in a valuable way.
I’ll give you a concrete example. Sometimes it is hard to justify an investment in marketing (we wrote this article to help marketing executives defend their budget). For this reason, not a lot of people might be willing to pay $100,000 or more on branding.
By the way, $100,000 is the amount Steve Jobs paid when he launched NeXT (the first company he started after he was fired from Apple). He did so because he understood how important it is to deliver a brand promise in an efficient and effective way given that we are always fighting for the attention of our audience.
Yes, for most people $100,000 is the total amount they have to invest in their business or sometimes even less. Yet, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest a considerable part of your capital in designing your brand.
To help people start understanding the value of a brand, and how to craft a brand promise, we wrote this blog. It shares some steps you can take to pick an epic name for your business to build a legacy.
We did so after we had to explain the value of a name to a potential client who didn’t want to spend money on branding. That is OK. We understand that it might not feel that important to pick:
So what do we do? We write blogs like the ones we are linking to and then we send these to the people who haven’t become clients… yet.
We put ourselves in their shoes. We understand that it is not easy to perceive the value of branding if you don’t know what we know.
At Elisha Consulting, we’ve read hundreds of books and research on behavioral psychology, behavioral economics, anthropology, neurology, and much more (we get it, we are obsessive about these topics). We’ve also put into practice all this knowledge to attain results (and we also have a couple of award-winning MBAs on our leadership team).
It is for this reason that we understand the value that the right font or color palette can create, and our clients trust and rely on us to elevate their brands. Also, for those same reasons we understand that we have to share this knowledge with our audience to help them understand and make the right decisions.
You should do the same!
When you find yourself explaining the same things over and over to your potential clients (or maybe even current clients)... When you find yourselves answering the same questions or objections over and over again… those are signs that you should write a blog about those topics!
Then, create a process where you drip that content to the people that have entered your funnel. This will allow you to be transformational and transactional at the same time. You are transformational because you are creating value for them, and transactional because you are following a concrete strategy of having several touch points to increase your chances of closing the sale.
Are You Ready For Coffee?
We’ve been transformational so far, now it’s time to get transactional.
To recap, here are some blogs where you will find valuable information about how to:
Pick an Epic Name for Your Business
Find the Perfect Font for Your Business
Choosing a Color Palette for Your Business
Here, you will find some of the brands we’ve helped elevate. If you are ready to elevate your brand, contact us.
