Erich Stauffer

Tag: Sales

  • Launch Sequences for New Products Using Email Marketing and Live Events

    “Launch sequences” is a marketing term for the process of building anticipation and a sense of urgency to buy a new product rather than simply ‘announcing the product’ once.

    Imagine you’ve just created a new product and you’re getting ready to let the world know about it. Instead of adding it to your website and sending out an email, you could:

    1. Start posting on social that there is a big announcement coming
    2. Have those interested in the big announcement sign-up to an email list
    3. Plan to have a webinar or Google Hangout event on launch day
    4. Send out the email letting them know of the launch event
    5. Have the event explaining the new product and give them a coupon that only works that day

    Email service providers like Infusionsoft have “landing pages” that can be created specifically for creating an opt-in page for this purpose, but you can also make your own using WordPress and Mailchimp or use a service like LeadPages.

    The key is to create a sequence that builds up anticipation to the announcement, drip out more information about the product over time, and then give a time-sensitive offer to close the deal. This gives you more time to convince and convert visitors into customers.

  • What is the One Weird Trick to Increase Online Sales?

    If you already have an audience (i.e. a large following on social media and/or an email list), but you’re struggling to increase online sales, consider taking your online marketing to the next level with Google Hangouts on Air with this one weird trick.

    What are Google Hangouts on Air?

    A “Google Hangout” is like a GotoMeeting: it’s a live video stream of either a camera, a computer screen, or a mix of both. A Google Hangout “On Air” is public and is automatically recorded and saved as a YouTube video on your channel.

    Why do a live event like a Google Hangout?

    • to build anticipation
    • personalize the brand
    • get the community involved
    • get more email addresses
    • sell more product
    • answer people’s questions
    • create evergreen content.

    How will a Google Hangout on Air do that?

    • Anticipation: an email/social media post will be sent out letting people know a new live event is coming and to look for a special invite soon.
    • Personalize: the person/people on the broadcast will set the tone for the brand, add a face to the bottle, and help humanize the marketing.
    • Community: attendees will be able to ask questions, feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves, and win prizes for coming.
    • Email Signups: in order to get invited to this very special live event, you have to give us your email address. Invite your friends! Free prizes!
    • Sell Product: at the end of the event, there will be a special offer good only for the attendees of this very special live event. Stay tuned!

    What would the person say/do on a Hangout?

    Teach something, Share something, Give something, Ask for something:

    • Teach: show how a product we sell solves a problem the audience has.
    • Share: give insight into something behind the scenes or upcoming that this audience is hearing before anyone else. Make them feel special.
    • Give: do the giveaway(s) for the night via a drawing or by answering a question.
    • Ask: ask the audience to buy a product for a very special price, good that day only, and only for that audience.

    How would the Hangout work?

    It’s simply a matter of sharing out a link to join the Hangout and then presenting via your web cam and/or sharing your screen. The important parts are a) showing a face and b) being authentic. If you want to get more advanced later, you can add external cameras and microphones.

    How often should we do Hangouts?

    At least once a month, if not once a week. Eventually they could be automated (recorded), but in the beginning they would all be live.

    Optional community building tips:

    1. Give your audience a name. Ex. Justin Bieber followers are called “Beliebers” and Lady Gaga calls her fans “LittleMonsters”.
    2. Incentivize the audience to invite more people into the community.

  • Sales Insight from Google Analytics Service Providers

    Google Analytics’ Service Providers listing can give you insight into who is visiting your website each month.

    I was showing one of my client’s their web statistics for the month via Google Analytics and discovered that there was some useful information that I hadn’t been sharing before. When I showed them the Visitors section I drilled down through Network Properties to show them the Service Providers. While Google may have intended this to show Internet Service Providers (ISPs), if a company has a T1 or other type of prosumer connection to the Internet, the name of the business will display instead of the ISP. What that means is that the client now has a view of some of the businesses visiting their site and how often.

    For those with an active sales pipeline, information like this can be invaluable. Who better to sell to than those who have already been visiting your site? In the case of the client who helped me discover this, they found out someone at a major corporation had been viewing their web site regularly. Now, it could be anyone at that company and it could be for any number of reasons, but what it does indicate is that your web site has something they keep coming back for. When we reviewed the history of that company, they had visited almost every month for the past year. I’ve since started emailing out this page specifically as part of my monthly hosting report.

    Too Much Information?

    Depending on the amount of traffic your web site has, you may need to use the filter at the bottom of the listings (not pictured). You can either include or exclude words by using the “containing” or “excluding” drop-down, respectively. Use ‘pipes’ instead of spaces or commas to search or exclude multiple terms. For example, to exclude the most popular ISPs, you would write something like this:

    verizon|comcast|road runner|embarq|sprint|bellsouth

    Advanced Filter

    For a more advanced Service Providers search, try the Advanced Filter. Click “Advanced Filter” next to the search box, which brings up the dimension “Service Provider” with the condition “Containing” and a blank value. That much is the same, so here is the ‘advanced’ part. If you want to contain one or more values (remember to use the pipes) and exclude others, add a second dimension for “Service Provider” and choose excluding and your search value.

    But wait, there’s more. As you may have noticed, you can also add a metric for Visits, Pages/Visit, Avg. Time on Site, % New Visits, Bounce Rate, and Goals. When used together with Service Provider, you can seek and sort the visitors by number of visits, number of pages, and so on. This is a potentially very powerful sales tool and one that should not be overlooked in your web analytics.

    IP Exclusion

    If you want to exclude your own business or your webmaster’s business from Google Analytics, which can sometimes skew your data, use the IP exclusion feature. To do this, click on the “Edit” button for your site on the main profile page. On the “Profile Settings” page, scroll down the page until you see the box named “Filters Applied to Profile” (below goals). Click on the “Add Filter” link, and you’ll be taken to the “Create New Filter” page. Once there, put in the IP address(es) you want excluded and then click “Save Changes”. This will keep your business from being counted in Google Analytics. If you’re not sure what your IP address is, just Google, “What is my IP?”

  • 7 Tips on How to Sell a Cool Roof with a White Coating

    The best way to sell white roof coatings is by selling the two primary values to the customer: energy savings and the extension of the roof life.

    A roof consultant or salesman with experience and training in this subject can provide a valuable service to a building owner by selecting the right coating for a given roof and ensuring that it is properly installed and maintained, but the first step is to sell the service in the process. Here are seven tips that will help.

    Sell the value – White roof coatings protect roof membranes with a chemical barrier to prevent leaks and reflect sunlight, which both saves money on cooling costs, but also protects the life of the roof by protecting the surface from ultraviolet (UV) damage. Savings will be greatest in states like California and other southwestern states that enjoy more sunny days and more intense sunlight than other regions of the country, but savings can also be realized in northern climates during the summer.

    Show the math – Various models exist for computing energy savings based on various climates.  Use online calculators to estimate the energy savings from reflective roofs have been developed by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Cool Roof Calculator and Cadmus Group’s Roofing Comparison Calculator.

    Dispel bad information – For those wondering if a reflective roof causes increased heating costs in the winter, studies by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory indicate that in most U.S. climates, summer air-conditioning energy savings significantly exceed any winter penalty, so there is little or no concern that energy costs will increase with a cool roof. Moreover, temperatures can soar in temperate climates as well.

    Save on hardware costs – More than the ongoing energy savings is the up-front savings on air conditioning systems, which are often based on requirements for the hottest days. The total cost of not having a cool roof, including cooling systems and insulation, could be considerably higher than the immediate cost of energy for running the air-conditioning systems.

    Use a metaphor – Lower energy use is not the only benefit that accrues from the use of white surfaces. Just as the main reason for using sunscreen is to prevent burns, white roof coatings not only prevent large energy bills in the summer, but can extend the life expectancy of many different types of commercial roofing systems simply by avoiding the high roof temperatures and associated with exposure to the sun.

    Reduced roof replacement costs – Most people appreciate that white surfaces result in savings on cooling costs, but enhanced roof longevity, especially in northern states, can be another major benefit that results in at least as much savings.

    It can waterproof – Many white coatings are waterproof, but some are not. The property of permeability (perm rating) to liquid water, water vapor, and gases varies greatly, depending on the type of coating. Acrylic coatings are breathable, which means they have a high moisture vapor transmission rate or permeability. Silicone coatings, as well as many urethanes, are also classified as breathable types. Butyl rubbers, Hypalons, and Neoprenes have a very low permeability (i.e., they are highly resistant to moisture transmission). The same applies to asphalt-extended, moisture-cure polyurethanes and SEBSmodified, cut-back, asphalt coatings. The perm rating should not be confused with weatherability or resistance to weathering. A coating with low permeability still may require a protective topcoat to ensure satisfactory weathering resistance

    More Information

    The White Coatings Council of the Roof Coating Manufacturers Association (RCMA) serves the producers and suppliers of acrylic or elastomeric (non-bituminous) coatings. The council has implemented an industry promotional program and is actively planning programs to respond to targeted governmental and regulatory issues, technical matters and activities, and membership services and programs. The White Coatings Council focuses on describing and promoting the benefits of white coatings in terms that directly and positively motivate targeted end users through a plan to increase awareness and product promotion. The council now has 18 members who are committed to promoting to commercial building owners and designers that white coatings are easy to understand, easy to
    apply, and cost-effective. For more information, call RCMA at 202-207-0919.

  • Email Pitches

    I wanted to share with you some things I learned at the Blog Indiana 2011 conference about email pitches. I think it will be helpful for you in the future. I learned them from Casey Mullins, who is a successful mommy blogger in Indiana.

    First, tell them what you can do for them, then how it will benefit them. Be humble and concise. Explain what you wish to get out of the communication and how they can contact you. This is kind of like the old saying, “people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” Today for them, tomorrow for you.

    Next, it’s best to greet each contact personally, but if you do send out a mass email, use the BCC line instead to protect the privacy of your email list. Also, attachments may cause your email to get filtered out as spam so its best to send those in a follow up email or send links instead.

    If you are just starting out, you might find Guy Kawasaki’s book, The Art of the Start, useful. If you buy the book through that link, I’ll get a percent of the purchase price of that and anything else you buy at Amazon.com as a commission, but another good resource is Startup Marketing or Seth Godin’s Blog.

  • Studying Success

    Successes can motivate you and give you ideas on what to do differently.  My wife has pushed me to use my personality and blend it with what I enjoy doing.  Find something to do that you would normally do for free and start charging others for your services.  Then you will succeed, at least that is what my brother taught me.  This blog post shares a little bit about my family and what my brother has shared with me about how he decided to start his own business.

    Most people don’t like to mow their lawns.  My brother has never complained about mowing.  He finds it peaceful and rewarding when he turns around and sees the straight lines and clean cut grass.  Then he started noticing all the horribly installed fences.  He wanted to install straight, neat and top-quality wooden privacy fences.  He then built his first privacy fence on his property and have critiqued it over and over again in his own mind.  Through those trials he learned what works and started his own fencing contractor business.

    Here is a story my brother tells about learning how to sell:

    I knocked on the door next to a new mowing customer I got two weeks ago because their lawn was worse than the one I was mowing.  When the lady answered she was not prepared to talk to me.  I asked her if I could give her a quote for mowing and she said she had a 13 year old.  Ok I left a business card anyways and said if she changed her mind to call me.  3 days later I got an e-mail from them.  No phone call, just an email.  I was driving to St. Louis on Wednesday when they wrote the email.  I did not check my email until Friday morning while waiting for a colleague in the hotel lobby on a free computer.  Shocked that they even responded and I was now 3 days later to respond, I quickly gave them a call, scheduled a time to meet.  emailed them the estimate at night, they next day they called with the good news that we got the bid and 50% down.

    A Delay is Not a Denial

    Just because someone does not return your message right away or come to a conclusion right away, it doesn’t mean they aren’t interested.  A delay is not a denial.