5 Tips to Better Sales and Marketing Alignment

Marketers like shiny objects. It’s a fact. Dangle a new software or strategy in our face and we are like two-year olds in a candy store. We also use buzz words like value add, synergy, alignment, and transparency to avoid marketing speak (what an oxymoron). But I digress… What distinguishes a good marketer from a great marketer is being able to take a step back from the present and plan for the greater objective, which in most cases is generating revenue for the organization. We call this strategic planning.

One critical component that often gets missed or glossed over from the plan is Sales and Marketing alignment. I can’t underestimate the importance of the synergy among these two departments. (If you’ve worked in organizations with bad synergy…you know what I’m talking about.) Even if the teams don’t always see eye-to-eye, establishing mutual respect and setting goals to support will… pay… off.

Here are five simple tips when incorporating Sales and Marketing alignment in your strategic planning:

1. Share Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) – such as Opportunities generated and Closed Won business to measure success. Set monthly/quarterly/yearly goals towards each.
2. Create a shared dashboard that Sales and Marketing teams visit to track progress.
3. Reward both teams when goals are met.
4. Incorporate the sales team in your content planning. Listening to front-line conversation will lead to better deliverables.
5. Make sure Sales and Marketing leadership have a shared vision and have signed off on each other’s plan. Without that, the synergy cannot begin.

Sales and Marketing alignment might not be the most glamorous thing you work on as a marketer, but it’s certainly one of the most important. And, now I’m curious… what types of Sales and Marketing alignment strategies have you seen work particularly well?

BE YOUR OWN MENTOR

Mentors are Myths.  Or at least unicorns.  If you are waiting for a mentor to help develop you professionally, my best advice is to stop waiting for the magic mentor and go create your own opportunities.

I have written about the concept of five minute mentors, and the more people discuss the topic, the more I believe that learning from whomever you can whenever you can in combination with taking charge of your own destiny is your best path for success.

How many people do you know who have a professional relationship with someone who is really a mentor?  I would be shocked if you said any, let alone many.  The odds are just not good.

People are busy and distracted.  They have their own interests to take care of.  And even those with the best intentions don’t have the ability to be a mentor in the way that most people think about the word.  If you are able to get someone who can be helpful to pay attention to you, that’s fantastic.  Do what you can to develop a relationship and learn, but don’t have expectations that the relationship will endure on an ongoing basis or that they will think of you when you think that they should be.  That’s setting yourself up for disappointment.

Even worse, it may lessen the so-called pressure on you to straight-up hustle your butt off to make things happen for yourself in your professional life, whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee.

If you can find someone to be that person who puts their arm around you, says, “you are the chosen one,” looks out for you, tells you when you make good decision, tells you what to take away as a learning opportunity from bad ones, calls you when a new opportunity presents itself that is perfect for you, then by all means, grab on and don’t let go.  But kind of like the woman who waits for a Disney prince to live happily ever after, it’s probably not the best recipe for success in the real world.

Make your own opportunities and success.  Someone else can open a door for you, but in the end, you need to walk through yourself.

50 FACTS ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA FOR BUSINESS

It doesn’t matter what your industry, social media matters. And whether you’re a marketer, entrepreneur or some other professional, you’ve probably wondered what that means for you.

Here, to give you some interesting food for thought, are 50 statistics about social media for business today!

General Social Media Facts

1. 62% of adults worldwide now use social media
2. Over 80% of Americans use social media
3. 91% of those Americans access social media every month
4. People spend more online time social networking than they do emailing, searching or shopping
5. Social media is the most popular online activity
6. 22% of online time is spent on social networks
7. Around 40% of people access their social media accounts on mobile devices

Specific Social Networks

1. Facebook is still the top destination among social networks
2. There are over 800 million people using Facebook
3. Americans spend more time on Facebook than on any other United States website
4. More than half of Facebook users log in every day
5. 42% of mobile users are sharing multimedia on Facebook
6. 51% of Facebook users are more likely to buy from brands they follow
7. Smartphone users now spend as much time on social networking apps as they do playing games
8. 40% of Twitter users regularly search for products via Twitter
9. 64% of Twitter users are more likely to buy from the brands they follow
10. 12% of people have bought a product because of info on Twitter
11. Pinterest is the third most popular social network, right behind Twitter and Facebook
12. Buyers referred from Pinterest are 10% more likely to make a purchase
13. On mobile devices, Google+ is the second most used social network

Demographics Info

1. 98% of 18- to 24-year-olds use social accounts every month
2. College towns have the highest Facebook logins
3. 57% of Facebook users have completed some college (and 24% have degrees)
4. 46% of Facebook users are 45 or older
5. 60% of Pinterest users are female
6. 50% of Pinterest users are in the United States
7. 50% of Google+ users are 24 or younger

Social Media for Business

1. 53% of small businesses are using social media
2. 88% of them are using social media to increase exposure
3. 60% of small business decision makers spend less than $100 on social media
4. 53% of active social media users follow a brand
5. 65% of the world’s top companies have an active Twitter profile
6. 90% of marketers are using social media for business
7. 93% of marketers using social media rank these tools as important
8. 43% of marketers have seen sales increase due to social campaigns
9. According to Ning, it only takes 20 people to build meaningful, many-to-many networking

 Social Media for B2B

1. 44% of small to mid-sized business (SMB) decision-makers use social media
2. 86% of those SMB decision-makers use Facebook
3. 41% of SMB decision-makers use LinkedIn
4. 33% use Twitter

Social Media and Customer Relations

1. 20% of social media users would make a purchase from a social media site
2. 50% of small business owners have reported getting new customers through social media activity
3. 47% of consumers are somewhat likely to buy from a brand they follow online
4. Active adult social media users are 75% more likely to spend a lot of money on music
5. Active adult social media users are 47% more likely to spend a lot of money on clothes, shoes and accessories
6. Social media users are willing to pay a 21% premium for brands that deliver great service through social media
7. Social media users who have a great service experience tell an average of 42 people, compared to 9 for those who aren’t on social channels
8. 60% of them are also willing to post on Facebook about products/services if they get a great deal or discount
9. Social media users who have a bad service experience will tell an average of 53 people, compared to 17 for those who aren’t on social channels
10. According to research from ComScore, brands that post at least once a day will reach 22% of their fans in a given week.

WHY DIGITAL MARKETING IS SO IMPORTANT TODAY?

WHY DIGITAL MARKETING IS SO IMPORTANT TODAY?

                         There is no doubt that technology has changed our lives, the way we influence others and the way we are influenced by others. Gone are the days when the people come to you to buy your products or services. Today everything is online, so why not marketing.

In simplistic terms, digital marketing is the promotion of products or brands via one or more forms of electronic media. Digital media is so pervasive that consumers have access to information any time and any place they want it. Digital media is an ever-growing source of entertainment, news, shopping and social interaction, and consumers are now exposed not just to what your company says about your brand, but what the media, friends, relatives, peers, etc., are saying as well. And they are more likely to believe them than you. People want brands they can trust, companies that know them, communications that are personalized and relevant, and offers tailored to their needs and preferences. Digital marketing gives you a fair chance to interact with your existing as well as new consumers. Advertising on social sites brings in a lot of customers which in turn will benefit your company. Digital marketing helps even a small company to build its brand image in the minds of their target consumers. Today people don’t have much time to go to shop so as to save their precious time and buys their needful online. Selling the products and services online and making money is today’s world, I call it digital world.

5 reasons why digital marketing is so important:

1. Today more and more people are going online. As per February 2013, India’s Internet Population stood at 150 Million (which is the 3rd Largest in the world).
2. India is Google’s 3rd largest market globally. Google is the finest search engine and usage of Google is increasing rapidly.
3. Indians spend around 16 hours online (in a week) on an average. That’s more than the time we spend watching TV
4. The Indian Online advertising market IN 2010 has crossed 1000 crores and is growing fast at a rate of 50% per year. With this information, you can imagine why digital marketing is so important.
5. India has nearly 950 mobile subscribers and at least 50 million subscribers have internet enables mobile phones.

                

                   “THE WORLD IS OF INTERNET, USE IT”.

HOW TO BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR

HOW TO BECOME AN ENTREPRENEUR

Firstly who is an Entrepreneur? In simple terms, the person who runs his own company  nationally or internationally is called anEntrepreneur.

Entrepreneur is a person with great skills and ideas, takes the risk as well as rewards and is actually a business leader.

So,

If you want to become your own boss

If you want great talent to work for you

If you want to be recognized as the great entrepreneur

Read this some tips and walk the way to your new successful business.

1.      Choose your own business line:

Firstly make a choice of your business line. It depends on your skills, interest in a particular business and again it depends on your ideas to develop a purely new business that never exist. Engaging in a new business that never exist is a good choice because less number of competitors and more profitable.

2.       Business plan:

Prepare the business plan from the scrap including your investments, business line, marketing expenses, etc… Each and every aspect must be there in your plan.

3.       Startup capital:

Introduce the startup capital to back your business idea. Venture capitalist can help you to start your business if your business plan is worthy and profitable.

4.       Business building process:

After your capital arrangement, start your business process, i.e, developing network, targeting the consumers and selling them.

5.       Brand building:

After you start running your business profitably, take a further of promoting your company’s image and developing your brand image in the minds of your target market. This can be done through promotional activities like online and offline marketing, free samples to promote your brand, etc….

These are some simple steps to become a successful entrepreneur. The steps are simple, but the execution of these steps are challenging. One should have great passion to become his own boss.

5 things one should not do in business

5 things one should not do in business

Running a business is not an easy job to do. Some of the leaders run their business successively because they do not do the “Don’t do”things and most of the people ignore this things resulting in harming their business. These are very important things that one should understand for a successful business career.

These are 5 things one should not do:

1.       Doing business unethically:

Business ethics is very important for running a business successively. Ethics means doing a right thing in a right way. Unethical businesses may be successful but only for some time. There is a right saying “You can fool one person every time or you can fool everybody once, but you cannot fool everybody every time”. One should serve the right value to the nation.

2.       Not serving value to consumers:

If you are selling a product to your consumer, the consumer must feel satisfied with price and also quality. Consumers must be the biggest asset that the company should have. Satisfying the consumer’s need is very essential for the company’s success. For successful business, retention of consumers is also important because if they are not satisfied, they have many options.

3.       Harsh with employees:

In today’s hyper competitive business scenario, retention of good talent is very important because it is very difficult to find a good talent. Employees are the pillars of a successive business. Today, many big multinational companies aim to retain their employees by providing promotions, monetary and Non-monetary incentives. Behaving well with employees and focusing on them for better performance will always take the company to the top.

4.       Not focusing on competitors:

One should be aware of what the competitors are doing. Competition is necessary for the overall growth of the nation, but it is always necessary to keep an eye on competitors. Business leader should have the knowledge of each and every move of his competitors, i.e., what strategies they are using, which product they are launching and how, if any, etc… Knowing about the competitors, one can manage and formulate the strategies that can serve the company more than that of competitors.

5.       Not formulating Zero defect policy:

It is always advisable to the company to formulate the zero defect policy. Zero defect policy is nothing but improving the quality of the products again and again, at the regular basis. Improvement is essential for the overall growth of the company.

THE ART OF SELF- MOTIVATION

THE ART OF SELF- MOTIVATION

None of your visualization or imagination will do any good if you do not believe in yourself. Many of us have goals that we are really excited about — goals that have rewards so big we did give almost anything to get there. But sometimes it feels like those goals are just fantasies that won’t ever happen, and that’s when every ounce of motivation disappears.

If you want to stay motivated then you have to believe in yourself. You need to believe that you can accomplish your goals, you can get everything on your hands if you want.

Learning how to motivate oneself  is something that I feel is not only one of the most important skills one can have, but may be one of the greatest gifts I can give to myself.

I think one of the biggest differences between an ordinary person and an extraordinary person is their degree of consistent motivation and passion.

Creating Self-Motivation

So if motivation is one of the most critical aspects of success, and motivation comes within, then what is the secret to staying motivated? Underlying motivation is your desire.  Desire is sort of the root of motivation.  First there has to be a strong desire in order to create motivation. Desire is analogous to fire — a small fire makes a small amount of heat.  A big desire creates big motivation.

Intensify your Desires to Drive Motivation

Just thinking about what you want or desire is not enough to create the type of sustained motivation that drives success.  You really need to intensify those desires by thinking intently about how much you really want those desired outcomes.

Motivate yourself after now and then, that is, “Yes I can do it”. Repeat this as a Mantra or some shlok.