Posts tagged ‘Sage Academy’

Marketing Academy – Day Three Round Up

We covered a lot today...

It’s Day Three of the Sage Marketing Academy and there was a lot of ground covered.

We began with the business card analysis topic (already discussed here) and moved on to discuss search engine marketing and optimization.

Search Engine Marketing and Optimization

This is a far-reaching topic with a lot of considerations. There’s a lot out there on the internet about those topics and I’m not going to be able to do it justice in this post.

Suffice it to say that search engine marketing and optimization is an extremely important concept and we should all pay attention to it and how easy (or difficult) it is for people to find us on the internet. Here’s a statistic that underscores that thought:

The #1 position in search engine results can receive up to 42.3% of all click-throughs and the #2 position will drop to a measly 11.92% of all click-throughs.

So … figure out what key words (search terms) your prospects would use to find you and optimize your website to get to that #1 position!

When you are thinking through your key words, give consideration to the “long tail” theory as well. The long tail essentially says that the main key words for searching will be slammed with requests but there is a lot of opportunity to grab the folks searching for more specific topics.

So, as an example, in my world, I would like to capture the audience searching for “CRM” or “Sage CRM”. Well – there’s a lot of competition out there for those terms. When I blog, I will use those key words a lot but it’s also beneficial to create specific articles such as “How to Create Custom Integrations Between Sage CRM and Sage Accpac ERP”. 

There won’t be as many people searching for a term on the long tail but when they do, you will be capturing their attention. Something to consider as you create your website and content (blogs, brochures, pages, whatever).

Content Themes

A great idea presented by marketing wunderkinds Dan Kraus and Laura Lorenz of Leading Results was the concept of marketing themes. In a nutshell, a marketing theme is a way to tie together several marketing initiatives under a common umbrella.

Great marketing themes:

• Are value based
• Drive content that educates
• Drive content that builds trust
• Create engagement opportunities

Some theme examples include:

• Excel is not meant to be a reporting tool
• Duplication of effort
• Outgrowing your current system
• Finding the right staffing

Find one that works for you and break it down into sub-topics that can then be expanded upon over the course of several posts, webinars, etc. It’s a great way to help you plan out new content (which is always a challenge) and help your search rankings.

I am doing this more and more with my own efforts. See my recent effort on “Bizarro Social Networking” as an example.

Blogging

This is a good segue into blogging. Blogging is ugly, time-consuming, hard to get started and then it’s difficult to keep going. I realize that I’m painting a pretty bleak picture of it but … it’s the truth.

It’s also true though that blogging should be a key component of all of our content strategy. It can:

• Add depth to your website
• Provide a place to show your expertise
• Allow you to display your corporate personality
• Give you a platform to repurpose other content
• Provide a tangible way to allow others in your value chain (employees, partners, customers) to contribute
• Feed the search engine spiders

For me, the biggest benefit of blogging is that it allows people to get to know, like and trust you before they even meet you. That goes pretty far with building relationships with people which can lead to doing business together.

Social Media

This post is already longer than I typically like (if you made it this far – congratulations!) but we covered a LOT of ground on Day Three.

Most of the afternoon was spent discussing Social Media – it’s importance in today’s world and the many different paths that you can follow. If you are reading this blog, I have to assume that you probably are aware of the value of Social Media.

Your challenge – like mine – is probably figuring out how to make sense of it all and how to prioritize your efforts.

I would recommend that you start with a blog. From there, you have (hopefully valuable) content to distribute to the different avenues – Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube, Slideshare, etc. Once you get a pattern of producing fresh content, slowly start trickling it out to the folks that would find it of interest.

Note: It all has to start with VALUABLE content. It’s going to be a rare person that is interested in reading blog articles that are nothing more than sales pitches. Put the audience first and your products and services last (if you mention them at all). By talking about your audience’s needs, wants, problems, you will speak more to them than droning on about your awesome set of products and services.

Recap

Believe it or not, there were a few more topics covered on Day Three. One in particular that is of huge value to you and your prospects and customers is public speaking. I will break that out into an upcoming post (and if I have time I will expand on a few other topics not covered above).

Sage Marketing Academy – Day Two

The Marketing Academy portion kicked off in earnest today on Day Two. For more on Day One, click here.

The class was led ably by marketing super-stars Dan Kraus and Laura Lorenz from Leading Results. Leading Results’ tag line is “we help small businesses not waste money on marketing”. Take a look at their website, there are some great ideas and marketing principles at work that we can all adopt.

Dan and Laura guided the class through a blend of information and periodically sprinkled in working excercises designed to get the attendees to apply the principles discussed to build, expand and improve their respective marketing pieces.

I would like to discuss two exercises in particular that were of great interest and will provide long-term value.

Building a Talking Logo.

The Talking Logo is the answer to someone asking you the question: “What do you do for a living?”. It should highlight your difference and invite curiosity and get someone to ask “how do you do that?”.

For me, this exercise can lead you down a bad path and, if you aren’t careful, you can create something so abstract that you actually have the opposite effect and shut down the other person. As an example, I once met a person who told me they “helped businesses deliver dreams”. Obviously, this is a personal style thing but, for me, when someone says something that … “out there” … it turns me off and I’m mentally checked out.

Don’t be too cutesy. Here are some decent examples:

• An architect – we help contractors get paid faster.
• A business coach – we make entrepreneurs more confident.
• Cookie maker – we bake nostalgia.

Like most marketing activities, they build over the course of years as you think, try and re-think your message and materials. So don’t beat yourself up if you can’t come up with a winner in the first few minutes. On the flip side, don’t be afraid to start with something and measure reactions to it.

Once you have the talking logo, you can use it throughout your organization on your collateral – your website, business cards, elevator pitch, proposals, etc.

Building Your Company Description. 

So … what does your company do? Can you tell this message consistently? Can your co-workers? Can your clients?

A pre-defined company description helps with building a consistent, clear message for your organization. You will find that, at different times, you will need different formats and lengths to get the message across. Here’s a few pre-defined formats that you should consider:

• 150-word description
• 250-word description
• 200-character description
• 400-character description
• Press Release boiler plate

The suggested structure for all of these descriptions is as follows:

1. The key value your company provides
2. Your unique way of providing it
3. Description of your ideal customer
4. One or two problems you solve
5. Awards you’ve won
6. Location(s)
7. Year established

Now – you don’t need all these pieces in your description but work your way down the list. If you are going to cut something, cut the year established before cutting your key value. In other words – cut the non-essential stuff first.

Based on these guidelines, I took my organization’s current description from:

Azamba is the leading SageCRM reseller in North America with over a decade of SageCRM experience. Our mission is to help organizations become more profitable through effective and efficient usage of SageCRM.

We retain the top SageCRM experts in the field and have more certified SageCRM consultants on staff than any other firm. We have successfully completed over 250 installations ranging from small, “Mom ‘n’ Pop” shops to Fortune 500 companies.

In 2010, we received the inaugural Sage Spirit Award because of our dedication to helping other Sage partners with their clients’ SageCRM implementations.

to this new (and improved?) version:

Azamba Consulting Group helps businesses become more profitable through the use of Sage CRM software.

While the majority of CRM implementations fail, Azamba has a proven track record with over 250 successful implementations. We have achieved this by focusing on helping our customers adopt CRM using a gradual approach that allows them to crawl before they walk and walk before they run.

All of our services are offered at a fixed price, defined scope and deliverables with a money-back guarantee to ensure our clients get what they expect and can rest easy knowing that we are committed to their success.

Our implementations range from small, “Mom ‘n’ Pop” shops to Fortune 500 companies all across North America.

Established in 2007, Azamba is the two-time winner of the Sage Spirit Award primarily in recognition for our efforts to help other Sage partners help their customers understand and implement Sage CRM.

All told, the day was productive, useful and informative. It’s been a worthwhile investment so far.

I don’t think I’m the only one who leaves these types of sessions fired up and ready to go … only to get too busy (and distracted) when you get back to the office so nothing ever happens. So, I’m extremely grateful for the hands-on time to actually apply these principles during class.