Sales training, not just for sales teams anymore. SMstudy is for everyone.

As companies continue the eternal pursuit of streamlining, a little bit of universal sales training can yield major benefits. Basic understanding of the aspects of the sales process is a benefit for all members of a company regardless of position or department.

Some very real advances in efficiency can be achieved when everyone speaks the same language.

Ever feel important communications get lost in translation from one branch of a company to the other? Since sales is usually a crucial element of any company, it benefits everyone to have an understanding of sales processes and its terminology.  When everyone speaks the same language, everything goes more smoothly.

According to Will Brooks, executive vice president and director of marketing at The Brooks Group, “Communication is enhanced once everyone is fluent in the selling process, when the dialogue around specific accounts and stages in the buyer’s journey becomes more efficient—both within the sales team and across departments. Congruent terminology and standard definitions of each stage in the buying process reduces miscommunication and unifies the sales and marketing departments.”

Continuity of Message = Efficiency

Another important benefit of universal sales training; the continuity of company communication, both internally and externally. A consistent informed message that permeates a company will make a stronger clearer message to potential customers. As customers are brought in to the sales cycle, they will continue to receive a consistent message that in turn leads to a seamless customer experience. 

Brooks notes, “Customer service can better understand the customer’s needs once they have received sales training, and when marketing understands the sales process, they can provide tools and resources that are aligned with how sales is selling. The promises sales makes to customers should mirror the messages that marketing sends out, and alignment between these departments ensures that’s always happening.”

SMstudy works very well for any company considering a company-wide sales training program. It’s convenient and offers flexible training opportunities that work within the timeframe of a staff members’ busy schedule. The SMstudy Guide® and all its resources, including training videos, study guides, test questions and more, is ideally positioned to provide a positive sales training experience for everyone. 

Find more interesting information on sales and marketing at smstudy.com.

Sources:

How Sales Training Can Benefit More Than the Sales Team, Will Brooks. Sept. 21, 2015. https://www.trainingindustry.com/blog/blog-entries/how-sales-training-can-benefit-more-than-the-sales-team.aspx

Five Exceptional Examples of Product Placement in Hollywood Movies

The European Union defines product placement as "any form of audiovisual commercial communication consisting of the inclusion of or reference to a product, a service or the trademark thereof so that it is featured within a program." Product placement is one of the most effective methods of advertising because it has a viewing audience of nearly 100 percent. While TV advertisers lose many viewers who take breaks during commercials, movie viewers pay attention to product advertisements because they are engrossed in the film. The growth of product placement in movies has been phenomenal over the past decade. The U.S. is the largest and fastest growing paid product placement market. It generated revenues of $1.5 billion in 2005, $2.9 billion in 2007, and $3.7 billion in 2008.

Lets look at five exceptional examples of product placement in Hollywood movies that stood out in terms of seamless integration with the storyline and benefit to the brands.

1. Wilson (Movie: Castaway) - "Castaway" took the concept of product placement to another level by using a brand name for a character. When Chuck (Tom Hanks) gets stranded on an island, he finds a Wilson volleyball from one of the boxes that was in the plane. He paints the ball and turns it into a friend and companion named "Wilson." One of the original volleyballs used in the movie was auctioned for $18,500 to the ex-CEO of FedEx Office, Ken May. Wilson launched a joint promotion at the time of the films release boasting the fact that one of its products was co-starring Tom Hanks.

2. Sears (Movie: Man of Steel) - The 2013 blockbuster "Man of Steel" holds the record for the most occurrences of product placement in a movie. Apparently, the producers signed around 100 deals with promotional partners. One prominent example of product placement in the movie is a Sears store. Supermans father uses Craftsman tools and works at Sears. One scene includes a Sears store being blown up. Sears used this opportunity to create a Guinness World Record for the largest number of people assembled in one place dressed as Superman by gathering 566 employees in Superman costumes at the companys headquarters.

3. McDonalds (Movie: Pulp Fiction) - The 1994, Quentin Tarantino movie "Pulp Fiction" is arguably one of the best movies ever made. One bit of iconic dialogue centers on McDonalds. While discussing cultural differences among nations, Vincent Vega (John Travolta) and Jules Winnfield (Samuel L. Jackson) reference the Quarter Pounder and Big Mac.

4. Omega (Movie: Casino Royale) - Product placement in James Bond movies isnt new. Omega is one brand with a long history of association with the Bond films. It started in 1995 with "GoldenEye," in which Pierce Brosnan wore an Omega Seamster Quartz Professional watch. The trend followed as Brosnan flaunted different models of Seamster in later films. Daniel Craig, the current 007, has also worn the Omega Seamster in all of his Bond movies and even mentions the brand name Omega in "Casino Royale."

5. Starbucks (Movie: Youve Got Mail) - The 1998 romantic comedy "Youve Got Mail" famously placed two brands in the storyline--AOL and Starbucks. In the movie, Tom Hanks is shown drinking coffee at Starbucks and even makes a reference to the coffee giant in the dialogue: "The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who dont know what the hell they are doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino."

What you did not know about web analytics

Online businesses, or businesses that have websites, generally use some sort of tool to track analytics, but most of the time these businesses haven’t maximized the potential of web analytics. Analytics aren’t just to see how many people have visited your site. Companies must delve into the world of analytics and utilize all of the benefits that come from properly deciphering an analytics report in order to decrease bounce rates and increase sales.

According to Digital Marketing, book 2 of the SMstudy Guide®, a basic definition for analytics, is “to evaluate and better understand the value and impact of available digital channels and digital marketing activities. Web analytics involves the collection, measurement, analysis, and reporting of web data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing web usage. Analyzing such data helps a company to assess and improve the effectiveness of its website.”

You can use analytics reports to track web traffic in order to determine where and how to invest marketing time and dollars. Ask yourself, "Is your traffic coming from other websites (referrals), social media or search engines (paid/organic)?" says Mike Wolfe, CEO of WAM Enterprises, a digital marketing agency. "Knowing where traffic comes from can help you understand where to invest more time and money to increase traffic."

You can also view a visitor’s location; information that can help to build a campaign to target a specific audience. This information is helpful to determine specific geographical regions that are not showing interest in your website. A marketing team can then generate a plan to create interest in those regions. Discounts, special deals, and incentives are great ways to increase engagement and reach disengaged target areas.

It is important to know where people enter your site and where they leave it. The analytics report will show what keywords people used and the search engine that led them to your website. The report also shows how long the person was on your website and what page they exited from. This can be helpful to determine which pages are causing people to lose interest. Once this information is found, a company can update the pages to be more engaging and interesting. The report also includes where the customers go when they leave a website, so you can see what competitors are taking your business and why.

As stated in Digital Marketing, “Web analytics also enables a company to assess the effectiveness of specific mobile marketing campaigns and channels, including mobile advertising, mobile search marketing, and traditional desktop channels, and identify those that appeal to the target audience and work best for the business.”

With the help of web analytics companies can create a website that fits the consumer’s needs in order to maximize reach, reputation, and relationship with their potential or current customers.

For more resources and information visit www.SMstudy.com.

How to Ensure your Campaign is Noticed with SMstudy

Last year 540 million dollars was spent on marketing globally. 90 percent of that marketing went unnoticed. This number does not represent the percentage of marketing that was liked or disliked, instead it includes the billboards that fade into the background of a city skyline or a print ad that was flipped past while searching for a story about some sort of celebrity gossip.

Marketing managers often ask their teams, “How should we brand our product?” Or “What will make a consumer want to buy a product?” But maybe they should be asking, “How do we get noticed?” Because if you can’t get noticed, then why even bother?

In order to get your marketing noticed, we need to reinvent the wheel a bit. Marketing automation is just as necessary to marketers as QuickBooks is to accountants. According to Tim Asimos vice president & director of Digital Innovation, “Marketing automation provides marketers a powerful and easy way to integrate all the components of their online marketing program into one system, helping to more intelligently manage the customer experience across online channels. And over the last several years, the software has seen enormous growth, fueled by the likes of Act-On, Pardot, Marketo and Hubspot among others.”

Not only does marketing automation save time and improve efficiency, but it also gives marketers the ability to focus their attention on creativity and innovation rather than worrying about the nitty gritty aspects of a campaign. Asimos notes, “As today’s buyers (B2B and B2C) have become increasingly sophisticated and research oriented, marketing and sales simply have to change their approach. Customers are in control and want to make informed decisions. And they seek out information that is educational, insightful and helpful, not the in-your-face sales messages that dominated marketing of the past.”

So how you produce this sort of material? It’s quite simple, really. Companies can perform surveys to gather the necessary data to target their decided consumer base.

As stated in Marketing Strategy, book 1 of the SMsutdy Guide®, “Surveys typically gather quantitative and qualitative data. They are conducted to help companies understand how their brands are viewed in the market and to identify the brand attributes that are preferred by customers. Surveys also help to determine how customers view the company’s products or services relative to competing products. Customers may associate positive attributes with a company such as reliable, innovative, fast, secure, and friendly, or they may perceive a company or a product in a negative fashion and provide attributes such as inconsistent, frustrating, slow, or mediocre when describing their perceptions.”

Leveraging marketing automation software can provide your online marketing program a much-needed boost. It saves you time and increases reach and engagement by sending relevant and timely content to prospects. It also allows for marketers to focus their energy on creating the magical content that’ll get a campaign noticed.

To learn more about improving your marketing efforts, visit www.SMstudy.com today.

Marketing for a Flat World

Thomas Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning author made a strong case for the democratization of the global marketplace in his 2005 book, The World is Flat. Friedman named ten factors that had contributed to the leveling of the world’s economic playing field. One of the most important noted by Friedman was the advent of the Internet and its unprecedented opportunities for connection. In many ways, modern-day marketing is a microcosm of Friedman’s “flat world” where a similar “leveling” of has occurred.  

At one time (not so long ago), traditional media outlets, such as print publications and radio/TV stations received the lion’s share of all marketing dollars. They were the only game in town able to reach large swaths of potential consumers and, therefore, enjoyed a special place in the marketing hierarchy. Ad space was limited in each of these traditional marketing channels and in turn, the cost of ad space (or time) was pricey. So pricey, in fact, that it often discouraged or prevented smaller companies from participating. But, as we know, this is no longer the case.

Compare our current media “ecosystem” to 20, or even 10 years ago, and it becomes clear that as the Internet has grown, so have less expensive, more diverse channels for marketing distribution, opening up the opportunities for smaller outfits to compete with larger companies. All these new Internet-enabled marketing options that have led to the democratization of marketing can be called fragmented new age marketing.

According to SMstudy’s Digital Marketing, fragmented new age marketing supports new, small brands with much smaller budgets and it also allows for more direct targeted marketing.

The book explains that “while mass media marketing is less targeted and primarily focused on affecting emotional attitudes about the brand, new-age marketing is data-driven and focused on driving specific calls to action.”

Fragmented new age marketing allows for traditional avenues, but also includes newer channels such as websites, mobile and social media and within those categories there are numerous economical marketing options. Regardless of company size or limited budgets, there’s some form of new-age marketing that is within reach. And most likely, there’s numerous avenues available even if the budget is nearly $0. For example, online ad networks such as Google, Yahoo! Search and Microsoft AdCenter often offer promo codes that reducing their costs to as low as $25.

In addition, there are a variety of ways to approach marketing in the digital age that are not only free, but break through the limitations of traditional media and allows for greater public engagement. Many relying on creativity and a more open, responsive and organic approach such as connecting with topic bloggers or forging relationships with experts.

As author David Albert notes, “There are many ways to position yourself as an expert: guest blogging, participating on Q&A sites like Focus.com, Quora.com, LinkedIn Group Discussions, etc.”

Fragmented new age marketing recognizes that today’s marketing is, in a sense, open source, offering the ability to grow and build on marketing ideas and opportunities made possible through technology. And now with the demise of the high cost of doing business, the only limitations are the limits of the creative collective. A more democratic global “marketing-place” is here!

Sources:

"Top 10 Tactics To Marketing Your Startup Launch With $0", David Albert, Junw 2, 2014 http://www.builtinchicago.org/blog/top-10-tactics-marketing-your-product-launch-0

The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First History, Thomas Friedman. 2005

SMstudy Guide ®, Digital Marketing, Pg. 8 

The Stuff Nightmares Are Made Of... and SMstudy

Were you ever required to write a research paper in one of your classes in school?

One of our editors here at SMstudy used to be a public school English teacher. He remembers the anxiety that the traditional research paper assignment caused some of his students. They complained of stomachaches, headaches and sleep deprivation due to nightmares.

He recalls telling them that they still had to do the paper and do it on time, and they didn’t have to like it. He could have been nicer, but that was “back in the day,” and we all know how bad it was “back in the day.”

That experience is not very different from what some marketing professionals undergo when facing a marketing research project. Like the rare students that loved (cough cough) doing research papers, there are professionals who relish marketing research. Yet, a significant number of professionals prefer jumping directly to the creative aspects of getting a product or service to market without all the number crunching and bean counting that often accompanies market research.

The first obstacle our colleague’s students had to hurdle was understanding what a research paper is. That is also true for marketers. Simply put, “Marketing Research is the systematic process of collecting, processing, and analyzing data to provide required information to decision makers,” according to Digital Marketing, a book in the SMstudy Guide to the Sales and Marketing Body of Knowledge series (SMstudy® Guide). When this is understood, the marketer can begin the project.

The first step for the students was to answer the question, “Is my topic researchable?” To answer this, they had to determine if others had written about their topic and if those writings were in a form that the students could understand. Even though they are on similar topics, a doctoral level paper on the precipitation characteristics of hydrocarbon molecules in aerosols doesn’t help a high school student researching air pollution.

“In marketing research, the first step is to define the research problem and objectives of the research,” says Digital Marketing. Like the students checking to see if others had written about their subjects, the marketing professional will use background information to evaluate the research problem and move forward, “Background information puts the research objectives into context, helping the researcher understand why certain research objectives are being pursued… The background information provides hints to the researcher regarding what information he or she should be looking for and where to look for it.”

“Once the research problem is properly defined, the next step is to choose a research design that can address the problem and objectives,” says the SMstudy® Guide. Choosing a research design—“a set of guidelines or a blueprint that specifies the methods and procedures for obtaining and analyzing the required information”—involves many of the same concerns the students had determining if their topics were researchable. The marketing researcher checks to see if his or her own company, industry associations, educational research institutions, competitors or others have already compiled and published the needed research.  Using these resources, called secondary data sources, is also the least expensive method to provide appropriate and accurate information and data.

At times a marketing researcher may be faced with no previously published research. In this situation, primary research must be done and the researching team develops and utilizes tools for gaining data directly from the marketplace. These can be surveys, questionnaires, pilot programs, test marketing campaigns and many more. Primary research is more time extensive and dollar expensive than secondary research.

Not every marketing professional enjoys marketing research, and that’s why research companies exist. After all, research projects aren’t really scary enough to give professionals nightmares and they are easier with a bit of understanding and help.

For information on how to get a copy of Digital Marketing by SMstudy, please visit SMstudy® Guide.

For additional interesting and informational articles on sales and marketing, please visit SMstudy.com/articles.

Brand Loyalty

Brand loyalty is a metric associated with brand perception in marketing. Brand perception refers to how prospective and current customers react to seeing or hearing about a company’s products or brands and how the company is perceived within the market.

Brand loyalty is reflected by how many customers purchase a brand repeatedly. It indicates the commitment that customers have towards a brand irrespective of the price offered by competitors of similar products and is the basis of a strong relationship between the brand and its customers. The underlying metrics for brand loyalty may be the percentage of repeat customers out of total customers, the frequency of repeat purchases, and the degree to which other brands are also purchased along with the brand under consideration. A high degree of purchase of other brands reveals a low brand loyalty for the brand under consideration. Another way to measure brand loyalty is to examine customer response to situations where a product variant is unavailable. If customers are loyal to a brand, they will either wait until the product becomes available or buy another product variant of the same brand.

Let’s illustrate the idea with some example. Some retail chains use payback / loyalty card to measure brand loyalty by frequency of a customer’s repeat purchase of products from their stores. As part of the loyalty program, these retail companies incentivize the loyal customers by offering cashbacks, payback points and other personalized discounts over and above the listed discounts. Some luxury car manufacturers have strong brand loyal customers who are ready to pay a premium price for a luxury car due to its perceived uniqueness and status. These set of customers are so brand loyal that they book their vehicles well in advance and are willing to wait several months for their order to be fulfilled and they will not accept substitutes.

To learn more about other brand perception metrics, refer Marketing Strategy, the first book of the SMstudy® Guide.