 | 4 Rules to Giving Good Referrals Networking is not about "using" others. It’s about creating value for others. If you do that, you will see a return from your networking efforts. So, whereas many tutorials tell you how to get more referrals, I want to tell you how you can give more referrals. How can you be a valuable referral partner for someone else? |
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
New Whitepaper: 4 Rules to Giving Good Referrals
A new whitepaper has been posted to our Featured Whitepapers list:
Click Here to view all whitepapers.
Thursday, November 17, 2011
The Value of a Database to Small Businesses
Whenever I start talking about marketing, it becomes clear that most people equate marketing with advertising--attracting strangers. Marketing seems to have become synonymous with the influx of new, never-before-known-about leads who are ready to buy. And, to be clear, that is one part of marketing. But it's only one part. And, it's the most expensive part.
It costs up to 10x more to attract a lead than it does to close that lead, depending on your ad strategy and sales cycle. Getting someone to just click a link in Google Pay Per Click advertising can be $20, $30, or even north of $50 depending on how competitive your search terms are. And that's just a click. Now you need to get some portion of those to convert, which is often less than 5%. That makes even the most conservative estimates at $400 per lead. That's a lot.
But once the lead is yours, it's yours. IF you have a database, that is.
This is what many people fail to understand: the real value of your database. Your database could be the most valuable asset that your company possesses. It could have the greatest propensity to yield the sales you need to hit your goals for 2011. It could totally change your business, and it's sitting right in front of you.
If you think you need to get more leads to increase your sales, you might be heading down the more difficult (and expensive) road.
It costs up to 10x more to attract a lead than it does to close that lead, depending on your ad strategy and sales cycle. Getting someone to just click a link in Google Pay Per Click advertising can be $20, $30, or even north of $50 depending on how competitive your search terms are. And that's just a click. Now you need to get some portion of those to convert, which is often less than 5%. That makes even the most conservative estimates at $400 per lead. That's a lot.
But once the lead is yours, it's yours. IF you have a database, that is.
This is what many people fail to understand: the real value of your database. Your database could be the most valuable asset that your company possesses. It could have the greatest propensity to yield the sales you need to hit your goals for 2011. It could totally change your business, and it's sitting right in front of you.
If you think you need to get more leads to increase your sales, you might be heading down the more difficult (and expensive) road.
Two Dimensions of Influence
If you haven't ever visited our sister site: www.influenceofmarketing.com, you should take that opportunity now. AddressTwo is a powerful database marketing tool, but if you don't have a strategy for turning your database into business, then it's not going to be that helpful for you. You need to think through your plan for building a database and for marketing to that database.
In essence, those are what we call the two dimensions of influence. In the Influence of Marketing methodology, we focus on two dimensions: breadth and depth. Breadth of influence is how many people you have in your database. Depth of influence is how much influence you have over those people. Primarily: can you affect a buying decision or not?
Now, AddressTwo offers features to help in the expansion of both dimensions. First, with breadth of influence, we offer a free contact form for your website. This simple form can be created by logging into AddressTwo, and from your dashboard, click the "How?" link atop the "Recent Website Leads" box. You can custom design a form for converting leads from your website. Another handy tool that we've created is Addy's ability to add new people to your database when you email them. If Addy is CC'ed or BCC'ed on your outbound email and the recipient is not yet in your database, then Addy will automatically take two actions: (1) create a new account for that contact and (2) send them a verification request to fill in the blanks. You can find these Addy-created accounts on your dashboard in the box called "New from Addy."
Secondly, the real power of AddressTwo is the tools it provides for expanding your depth of influence. This is the real bread-and-butter of what AddressTwo was designed to do. I can't even list here all the ways that AddressTwo can help with this, but to name a few high-points, let's start with drip emails. Drip Marketing is the most important part of any Influence of Marketing methodology. Those contact forms that you install on your website can be configured to trigger an automated series of response emails (also called Autoresponders) from AddresTwo. Beyond that, you can also use the Task Manager to trigger a series of follow-up actions for sales people in your organization that is also queued automatically from a contact form. The list is endless of ways you can use AddressTwo to deepen influence. Just watch our tutorials. The program is full of them.
The most important part, though, is that you realize that these two dimensions are separate objectives. Create two strategies: one for increasing breadth, and one for increasing depth. Approach your marketing with this simple dichotomy and you will gain impressive results.
In essence, those are what we call the two dimensions of influence. In the Influence of Marketing methodology, we focus on two dimensions: breadth and depth. Breadth of influence is how many people you have in your database. Depth of influence is how much influence you have over those people. Primarily: can you affect a buying decision or not?
Now, AddressTwo offers features to help in the expansion of both dimensions. First, with breadth of influence, we offer a free contact form for your website. This simple form can be created by logging into AddressTwo, and from your dashboard, click the "How?" link atop the "Recent Website Leads" box. You can custom design a form for converting leads from your website. Another handy tool that we've created is Addy's ability to add new people to your database when you email them. If Addy is CC'ed or BCC'ed on your outbound email and the recipient is not yet in your database, then Addy will automatically take two actions: (1) create a new account for that contact and (2) send them a verification request to fill in the blanks. You can find these Addy-created accounts on your dashboard in the box called "New from Addy."
Secondly, the real power of AddressTwo is the tools it provides for expanding your depth of influence. This is the real bread-and-butter of what AddressTwo was designed to do. I can't even list here all the ways that AddressTwo can help with this, but to name a few high-points, let's start with drip emails. Drip Marketing is the most important part of any Influence of Marketing methodology. Those contact forms that you install on your website can be configured to trigger an automated series of response emails (also called Autoresponders) from AddresTwo. Beyond that, you can also use the Task Manager to trigger a series of follow-up actions for sales people in your organization that is also queued automatically from a contact form. The list is endless of ways you can use AddressTwo to deepen influence. Just watch our tutorials. The program is full of them.
The most important part, though, is that you realize that these two dimensions are separate objectives. Create two strategies: one for increasing breadth, and one for increasing depth. Approach your marketing with this simple dichotomy and you will gain impressive results.
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