Let’s face it—it does no good to build a funnel and spend zero time optimizing for conversion. That’s a no-brainer, right?

But, how many of you are working closely with your head of sales to ensure that the opportunities you help generate actually convert into paying clients? Ultimately, if you want to be seen as a successful marketer, you’re going to have to show that marketing is driving sales.

Now, the challenge is that in today’s commoditized world, sales teams often struggle to stand out from the crowd. As a result, closed won rates plummet, and organizations find it challenging to demonstrate to prospects how their total value proposition is the clear winner against all of the other competitors.

To make matters worse, many organizations rely on “super hero” sales people or even the founder to close deals. This approach is not sustainable or scalable. You can’t build a successful sales team if you’re constantly relying on a select few individuals to bring in all of the business.

The solution to this problem is a sales process that follows a standardized approach while also creating clear differentiation with prospects at the same time. By implementing a systematic sales process, you can scale your sales efforts beyond just the founders and “super heroes.” This will lead to higher closed won rates and higher gross profit margins, as you’ll be able to win at premium prices.

The benefits of a systematic sales process are clear. You’ll be able to scale the process beyond founders and “super heroes,” achieve higher closed won rates, and enjoy higher gross profit margins as you’re now able to win at premium prices.

When I implemented a systematic sales process in my former agency, I was able to consistently have 60-70% closed won rates, even when I had zero involvement in deals. This is the power of a well-designed sales process. In fact, I standardized this process and called it the Systematic Sales Process.

So, what does a Systematic Sales Process look like? Here are the five stages:

Stage 1: Evaluation

In this stage, you’ll have a 30-45 minute call with your prospect. The goal of this call is to point your prospect in the right direction—it’s not to “make a sale.” The reason we want to take this approach is that many prospects are likely not a good fit for your firm, so let’s not assume that every first call is an “opportunity.” That’s why we call this call the “Evaluation”—you want to evaluate whether or not you can help your prospect, whether or not they align with your requirements, and whether or not they are ready to move forward. We call this “two-way qualification.”

It’s not uncommon to reach the middle-to-end of the call and determine that your prospect, in fact, needs someone or something else other than you!

IMPORTANT: You should NOT move anyone beyond this point unless you have full alignment.

Do this stage right and you will ensure that your pipeline is real.

Stage 2: Discovery

After you have alignment with your prospect from the Evaluation call, you’ll engage them and their team in a 60-120 minute Discovery meeting.

The key in this meeting is to have a strong business conversation and less of a tactical conversation related to what you do. You’re looking to create paradigm shifts with key stakeholders on your prospect’s side. You want them to leave the meeting thinking about their problem in a completely different way and with a sense of excitement about the potential of moving from where they are now to where they want to be.

IMPORTANT: You want to ensure critical stakeholders are present for this meeting, as they’ve agreed-to in the Evaluation call (this is non-negotiable), to whatever degree you require for your process.

Do this stage right and you will sub-consciously win the business.

Stage 3: Plan

In this stage, you’ll collaborate with your main point of contact to develop your plan. That said, be a leader and show them what needs to be done to achieve their desired outcome, then discuss how you can divide and conquer together. Don’t treat this as a “pick from a menu” excercise.

This collaborative approach to developing your plan helps your main point of contact see your plan as their plan, too. This increases the odds that they will be a champion for you.

IMPORTANT: During these dicsussions, be sure to have them help you avoid “land mines”—things that could lose the business for you.

Do this stage right and you will eliminate surprises at the next stage (Presentation).

Stage 4: Presentation

You’re now ready to present and officially win the business during a 60-90 minute meeting. That siad, do not call your plan a “Proposal”! Instead, give it a specific title that speaks to their goals (e.g. “How ACME Corp Can Drive 17% More Revenue Through Conversion Rate Optimization”).

Your presentation should tell a “story” that includes:

• Their Vision
• Their Goals & Objectives
• Their Challenges
• How to Win (Strategy)
• Highlights (Tactics)
• Required Commitments (Their time, money, and resources to make this plan a success)
• Expected Results (ROI!)
• Why Your Firm

After you present, answer any questions they have and when their questions are done, ASK FOR THE SALE.

IMPORTANT: You want to ensure critical stakeholders are present for this meeting, as they’ve agreed-to in the Evaluation call (this is non-negotiable), to whatever degree you require for your process.

Do this stage right and you will differentiate your firm.

Stage 5: Negotiation

Finally, you’re ready to provde the contract and negotiate, but don’t give this until they’ve given you the “verbal” that you have won the business. The reason you do this is to make sure that you’ve wont the business based on the material things before the prospect starts nit-picking your contract scope. That said, be clear about what you will do and what you won’t do.

Additionally, your standard terms and conditions will accompnay the scope. You want to know up-front the terms and conditions you will bend on and the ones you won’t bend on.  You don’t want to make a decision about an important term and/or condition during the emotion of trying to ink a deal. Knowing up-front your points of negotiation will help you make logical decisions in the heat of the moment.

Do this stage right and you will set up your team for success.If you’d like to learn more about how to grow your firm using a Systematic Sales Process, register for Frank’s free Systematic Sales Process training today!

The post How Standardizing Your Sales Process Boosts Overall Conversion appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

There’s something comforting and enjoyable about creating a routine where people know you, whether that’s a favorite coffee shop or place to walk or a local beer store where they call your dog by name.

Many businesses can create this personalized shopping experience to convert more browsers into buyers. But, it can be tough to do that online where you can’t look into a customer’s eyes or easily ask what they need as they browse digital shelves. Still, we regularly hear about the need for eCommerce personalization.

To tackle that opportunity, let’s define personalization, the best way to start implementing it, and methods to optimize your efforts.

Defining “Personalization” in ECommerce

Personalization and customization can feel like the same thing, but some important distinctions exist. Breaking these out makes it easier to understand personalization and how it can apply in eCommerce operations.

For your website and sales efforts, personalization uses data and customer insights to craft a specific shopping experience for every customer. These efforts may include showing relevant products, serving recommendations, and adjusting content based on the customer’s past behavior.

Companies may also try personalizing service levels or selecting specific pop-ups and overlays based on customer status. 

Customization, on the other hand, generally refers to customer-driven choices. These range from the obvious (selection or sorting by size, color, price, etc.) to detailed efforts specific to the individual (a customer chooses not to see certain types of products). When you think of customization as something helmed by the customer, you’ll start identifying ways to use their selections to craft personalized experiences.

How Personalization Creates a Better Shopping Experience

To create a personalized shopping experience, eCommerce businesses need to invest in audience research. By understanding your customers and what they want, you can create an individualized experience that will convert browsers into buyers.

You’ll want to create as complete a picture of the shopper as possible. Ask core experience questions, including:

• What are their needs that you can and can’t address? 
• What are their wants or things that tip them over the edge to make a purchase? 
• What motivates them to make this purchase at this time?
• Why should they choose you to meet their specific needs and wants?

Once you understand your customers well, you can start creating a shopping experience tailored to them. Take learning about their immediate needs and wants. I

t’s easier to suggest the right products when you know what they’ve recently viewed or what ad they clicked on to get to your site. You’re building based on their tastes and refining suggestions based on what gets that second purchase.

Understanding why someone values your brand can also help you create personalized discounts or special deals that gain shoppers. If you’re known for customer service, you might leverage this for an ad tagline: “World-class customer service meets free shipping on every order over $20.”

It’s more than just a deal; it’s one couched in the language you know they appreciate. Tying it back to shipping and order support also reinforces your brand as one that cares about the customer.

Finally, it is important to ensure the customer feels valued and appreciated. Thank them for their business and promptly take care of any issues they may have. Creating a positive relationship with your customers ensures they keep returning for more.

3 Steps to Take to Get Started with Personalization 

To get started with personalization, businesses need to take three steps: collecting data, analyzing data, and implementing personalization.

1. Collect Data 

The first step is to collect data about your customers. This could include information such as their demographics, location, what devices they use, what pages they visit on your site, and what products they are interested in. There are a number of ways businesses can collect this data, such as through website cookies, surveys, and customer loyalty programs.

2. Analyze Data 

Once you have collected data about your customers, it is important to analyze it to understand their needs and preferences. This will help you determine how to best personalize their shopping experience. Several tools are available to help with this analysis, such as analytics software and customer segmentation tools.

3. Implement Personalization 

The final step is to implement personalization into your eCommerce store. This could include creating a personalized homepage, recommending similar products, using data to segment customers into different groups, or offering discounts. By personalizing the shopping experience, businesses can increase conversion rates and average order value.

The Top 5 Ways to Personalize the Shopping Experience

Personalization can be an incredibly complex experience or a simpler operation based on your tech stack and the amount of data you use. To get started, there are some core efforts to implement that can start with minimal, current-session data and then move to longer-term tracking and utilization.

1. Use Data to Recommend Products

One of the most effective ways to personalize the shopping experience is to use data to recommend products. This could include data from past purchases, browsing history, and social media activity.

By understanding what customers have bought in the past, businesses can make recommendations for similar or complementary products. This helps customers find what they’re looking for more easily and allows businesses to upsell and cross-sell effectively.

2. Create a Personalized Homepage

Another way to personalize the shopping experience is to create a personalized homepage. This could include features such as recommended products, recently viewed items, and even a custom welcome message.

By creating a personalized homepage, businesses can make sure that each customer feels valued and that they can easily find what they’re looking for — reinforcing your brand identity as helpful and in-the-know.

Consider tying homepages to traffic and referral sources so that someone looking at your Instagram account hits a page filled with both products and the videos you create. It’s an easy way to start the fruitful process of understanding customer behavior across channels.

3. Use Data to Create Targeted Marketing Campaigns

Another effective way to personalize the shopping experience is to use data to create targeted marketing campaigns. This involves using customer data to segment customers into different groups and then creating marketing messages that are tailored to each group. This could include offering discounts or special promotions to specific groups of customers. 

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Don’t neglect small lifts here. Greet customers directly by name. Adjust messages based on user region. Adapt to local events and other broader experiences that keep your content from feeling too general, even if it isn’t hyper-personalized.

4. Use Data to Segment Your Email List

You can also personalize the shopping experience by segmenting your email list. This involves grouping customers together based on their interests, demographics, or purchase history. Most email marketing tools track detailed customer information you can leverage.

For example, monitoring when customers last visited allows you to email people about how “it’s been a while”. 

By segmenting your email list, you can send more targeted and relevant messages to each group of customers. This can lead to higher open and click-through rates, as well as increased sales and revenue.

5. Personalized Product Pages By Creating Variants

The final way to personalize the shopping experience is to use data to create a personalized product page. Or, at least create a page that feels catered to the individual based on broader context and information.

When you can get very detailed, this involves using customer data such as purchase history and browsing behavior to recommend similar or complementary products. You’ll need a dynamic site that can adapt to their history and habits in real-time.

If you don’t have a robust site, consider building blocks for each section of your landing pages or product pages for each SKU. Then, you can create groupings that feel customized because the pre-existing blocks you use match what people see in broader marketing campaigns. As you get more sophisticated, these blocks can then be what you dynamically insert into different elements as the customer shops around your site.

By creating a personalized product page, businesses can enhance conversion rates and have a better chance for higher order values because of the relevance of up-sell and cross-sell promotions.

The Benefits of Personalization for Businesses

There are many benefits of personalization for businesses. By creating a personalized shopping experience, businesses can increase conversion rates, average order value, and customer loyalty.

Conversion rates improve because customers are more likely to buy from a store that recognizes them and offers products they are interested in. If you’re marketing to the same people, small efforts like using someone’s first name in an email can increase conversion rates.

Companies that personalize offers also tend to see average order values increase in multiple ways. These incentives help push people to make more impulse purchases and reach higher overall orders — a benefit you can compound when making traditional online offers like free shipping on orders of a certain value.

Finally, studies also show that personalization can improve customer loyalty. Studies have found that more than half of people are open to receiving personalized experiences, and 72% who get these end up spending more or buying more often. This is because customers feel appreciated and valued when they are recognized and offered products they look at or follow.

Overall, personalization is a powerful tool that can help businesses improve conversion rates, average order value, and customer loyalty. When used correctly, it can be a key driver of success for eCommerce businesses.

Create an Experience You’d Enjoy

When it comes to personalizing the shopping experience, businesses must take a few steps to ensure they are doing it correctly.

First and foremost, they need to collect data about their customers so they can understand their needs and preferences. Once they have this data, they need to analyze it to determine how best to personalize the shopping experience for each customer.

Then, they need to implement personalization into their eCommerce store, which could include creating a personalized homepage, recommending similar products, using data to segment customers into different groups, or offering discounts. 

The final piece, however, is reviewing the effort and ensuring that it adds value to the shopping experience. Ask if it is something you’d enjoy or if the elements and personalization get in the way. You don’t want to be overly burdensome or overly creepy. The aim is to show people what they want to see without them feeling like you’re crunching a lot of data behind the scenes.

The post Crucial Steps to Converting Browsers into Buyers appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Running a marketing agency isn’t easy. It’s not even *slightly* hard. It’s really hard.

The challenges you face will have you questioning why you chose to build an agency in the first place, and if it’s time to throw in the towel. Difficult clients, employees, and deliverables turn the romanticized dream of agency life into a one-way ticket to personal development land.

This is the land that requires you to level up your mindset—or fall flat in your business.

We’re not recommending any books or courses that will change the way you look at your agency (and life). Instead, we want you to take a look at how you’re running your agency…and why that’s keeping you in a perpetual cycle that feels like this:

And this advice comes straight from Ryan Deiss, co-founder and CEO of DigitalMarketer and serial entrepreneur running over a dozen other businesses. At one point, Ryan fired himself as CEO of DigitalMarketer because he thought the problem was him—the company would only survive if he left the captain’s seat.

In a way…that wasn’t entirely wrong. What Ryan discovered after firing himself, hiring a new CEO, having to fire the new CEO, and rehiring himself was that his business wasn’t built the right way.

It was operating on the wrong system.

Every Business Has an Operating System

Your operating system is how your business runs—just like an operating system is how a software program runs. A software program needs a set of algorithms, a common language, and desired outputs. Your agency needs processes and SOPs, communication and alignment, and goals and objectives. 

And whether you put them in place or not, they’re there. That’s why your agency is frustrating, complicated, and you’re facing constant decision fatigue. It’s running on the wrong operating system. 

There are two situations that tell your agency you need to upgrade your current operating system:

#1: You’re experiencing system overload

Sound the alarms because things are not going well. In system overload, plans are loosely defined and rarely followed (making 90% of your meeting a waste of time and money). Work is pure chaos and nothing important seems to get done except when something is actually on fire. Team members constantly need to be told what to do, nobody seems to know what’s going on and profits are lower even with higher sales.

#2: You have founder burnout

Welcome to the club, it’s nice to have you here! Founder burnout is normal…and solvable. You don’t need to spend your days stressed and feeling trapped in your agency. You can’t be the sole creator of everything that happens inside your business (from hires, to content, to lead generation). That’s the speed train to burnout, and even shutting down a business that’s one step away from being all you’d hoped.

Every business has an operating system and agency owners tend to create a YouOS. In YouOS, YOU are the operating system. The agency operates around you because you’re the center of its universe.

And that means your agency owns you. 

Install an OS that Scales Your Agency

Your marketing agency is failing because you accidentally installed YouOS instead of sOS (The Scalable Operating Framework). YouOS requires you to be working in your business from morning to night…or else you don’t move forward. You end up in the perpetual loop of putting out fire after fire and suddenly, it’s the end of the year and you didn’t even come close to reaching your profit goals, working with the clients you hoped, and creating Version 2.0 of your agency.

The Scalable Operating Framework (sOS):

1. Documents and optimizes your agency’s deliverable creation process and assigns clear roles and responsibilities reinforcing team accountability
2. Communicates progress, pivots, and priority shifts in as close to real-time as possible
3. Provides clarity around the company’s vision, mission, values, and goals

That sounds like a refreshing change from YouOS, huh?

Here’s how to shift your agency from the YouOS Framework that’s the #1 reason your marketing agency is failing and towards the Scalable operating system (sOS) Framework.

Step 1: Define Scale For Your Agency

There are 4 growth targets to choose from:

• Hypergrowth: 3x, 3x, 2x, 75% per year (7 years = $100mm company, true disruption, usually VC-funded)
• Rapid growth: 2x, 2x, 75%, 50% (very fast growth, usually difficult to achieve without some kind of outside funding or in very fast-growth markets)
• Steady growth: 50-75% YoY (great growth goal for bootstrapped companies)
• Mature growth: 10-25% (fine as long as margins are strong, just make sure you aren’t lagging behind the market. If the market is flat, 10% growth is fine. If the market is growing at 10%, then you are falling behind)

Ryan suggests figuring out your current top-line revenue and seeing if you can make it your bottom-line revenue in 3 years.

Step 2: Map the Value Engines of Your Agency

The goal of this step is to visually map out how your agency creates its deliverables. There are 3 types of value engines:

1. Growth engine (attract and convert new customers)
2. Fulfillment engine (deliver the promised value)
3. Innovation engine (create, update, and improve offerings)

In Ryan’s words, “Never underestimate the power of simply documenting how value is created in your business.”

Step 3: Create Functional SOPs (Your Employees Actually Use)

You only need to document what’s actually important. If you try to document everything, your employees and freelancers won’t look at them. Figure out what SOPs to create by looking at the value engines of your business. You’ll create two types of documentation as needed:

1. Checklists for SOPs
2. Audits for areas of your business where people make a decision (they buy your basic package vs. premium package)

Make sure to store your SOPs and audits in an extremely convenient place. You can use fancy software or just use Excel (that’s what DigitalMarketer uses).

Step 4: Assign a Team Member to Every Task

If you don’t assign a team member to tasks…guess who that task will fall on? You’ll be in charge of keeping the accountability to the goals and SOPs and before you know it, you’ve downgraded back to YouOS. 

To stay in your upgraded sOS, your agency needs to assign a team member to each value engine, so nothing can slip through the cracks.

You’ll notice some of your employees and freelancers aren’t part of this, and that’s okay. This is your support. They’re the people helping those in charge of each value engine.

Step 5: Create scorecards to stay on track

Every week, you’ll look at your scorecards to make sure everything is on track. Your scorecard is just a fancy spreadsheet that tells you:

1. Your North Star metrics
2. Products
3. Marketing
4. Etc.

And for each, you have a team member assigned, a monthly target, and the actual metric you hit. You’ll also add a status column that immediately tells you where that project stands. Is it doing great? Is it falling off a cliff?

Better yet—who’s in charge and what questions do you need to ask them (or do you just need to get out of the way) to keep things moving towards your goals?

What Operating System is Your Agency Running?

It’s normal to feel like your agency is on fire…always. But, it’s not normal to stay there. As you figure out your role as an agency owner, it’s imperative that you don’t build a YouOS operating system.

If you do, you’ll stay stuck in a perpetual cycle of frustration where your agency owns you. Sure, you might fit in a vacation or two a year—but you’ll feel obligated to bring your laptop or have your phone on the entire time. If you don’t, things could crumble at any second because your operating system is giving you a shaky foundation.

Instead, upgrade to a scalable operating system. The kind that lets you go on vacation, turn your phone off, and come back to sunshine, rainbows, and butterflies (a.k.a profit, happy customers, and happy employees).

And remember—you’re not supposed to know it all. There are some agency lessons you have to learn from experience, but there are others you can learn from mentors. The people who have built multi-million dollar agencies have wisdom that can save you unnecessary blood, sweat, and tears.

We’ve brought those agency experts into DigitalMarketer Academy to give you Insider Trainings, Workshops, write Playbooks, and give you their Toolkit so you can learn from their mistakes, and grow your agency more efficiently (and enjoyably).
Check out DigitalMarketer Academy to see everything else included in your membership (like our community of marketers!).

The post The #1 Reason Your Marketing Agency Is Failing appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Manny Torres is a brand strategist who works with B2B advisors and business owners to increase profitability by generating more sales, improving customer retention and growing referrals.

In this video he shares how a DigitalMarketer Certified Fractional CMO can help your business. Whether you’re a small start-up, a growing company, or a large corporation, an outside perspective can uncover friction points, gaps, and broken systems to help your business get back on track.

In this video:

• How a Fractional CMO Can Help Small Businesses: 00:20
• Large Corporations Benefit from Hiring Fractional CMO: 00:41
• Common Mistakes Companies Make Implementing Marketing Strategies: 01:08
• How a Fractional CMO Benefits Growing Companies: 01:30
• Why Outside Perspective Matters in Your Business: 01:54
• What is a Fractional CMO?

A fractional CMO is someone who acts as the Chief Marketing Officer for your company but is hired as a contractor or consultant. 

Generally, fractional CMO’s are working with several different companies at one time, much like freelancers or consultants do. They work for you for a fraction of their time (hence fractional). But don’t let that spook you. A good fractional CMO is going to give your business as much attention as it needs.

What Does a Fractional CMO Do?

A fractional CMO will do all the same things a traditional CMO will:

• Get more leads
• Manage digital ads
• Create marketing strategy
• Oversee marketing tech integrations
• Grow email list and engagement
• Build marketing reports
• Work with freelancers or marketing agency
• And more…

What Doesn’t a Fractional CMO Do?

A fractional CMO probably won’t:

• Write and send all emails to your list
• Upload blog posts
• Schedule social media posts
• Redesign button colors on landing pages
• Track detailed metrics for every marketing asset

The best way to know if a fractional CMO is right for you is to look at your marketing performance and to look at your team.

• Do you have someone dedicated to your marketing as a whole?
• Are you struggling to find a direction with your marketing?
• Do you have a solid understanding of marketing yourself?
• Do you have a marketing team, but no marketing leaders?
• Are you struggling to coordinate with your marketing contractors or agency?

About Growth Amplifiers

Growth Amplifiers provides service-based business owners who are busy and overwhelmed running their operations a framework and support to save valuable time and increase revenue and profits while providing more value to their customers.

Specialties include:

• Brand Strategy
• Content Strategy
• Marketing Strategy

Hire Manny https://www.digitalmarketer.com/certified-partners/growth-amplifiers/

Find a FCMO for Your Business https://www.digitalmarketer.com/find-a-certified-partner/

Become a Fractional CMO https://www.digitalmarketer.com/partners/

Who is Manny Torres?

Manny Torres is a brand strategist who works with B2B advisors and business owners to increase profitability by generating more sales, improving customer retention and growing referrals. Learn more about Manny here.

What is DigitalMarketer?

DigitalMarketer is the premier online community for digital marketing professionals. It’s a place where you can learn how to market like a pro, connect with industry experts, and get the strategies and tools you need to grow and scale your business to new heights.

The post Benefits of Hiring a Fractional CMO – Manny Torres – [VIDEO] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.

Dave Albano shares why our exclusive, action-based growth program might be a good fit for YOUR small business.

In this video:

• What is Digital Marketer ELITE? 00:14
• What’s included in the yearlong coaching program? 00:21
• Who should consider ELITE? 00:39
• How to get started… 1:06

What is Digital Marketer ELITE?

ELITE is a year-long coaching program tailored to help ambitious business owners set and meet next-level goals for their business and life.

But TBH, it’s more than that. 

Our coaches come alongside you and a small cohort of business owners to develop and implement a “predictable growth engine” into your business.

It isn’t a generic, one-size-fits-all approach to business growth. Our coaches and your community peers develop targeted and specific programs and processes to help you achieve your revenue and growth goals.

What’s included in the yearlong coaching program?

We combine an incredible community and marketing mastermind groups with tactical sessions, accountability coaches, and world-class training that will make your business more efficient and effective and let you get back to what you do best.

Learn more https://www.digitalmarketer.com/elite/

Apply here https://digitalmarketer.typeform.com/to/pD5Uyk5f?typeform-source=www.digitalmarketer.com

Just one of our testimonials Ryan A. says, “Biggest breakthrough is continuing to go back to my customer Journey and ask how can I make it better? We implamemted some really cool lead nurture strategies that boosted our call volume around 20%”

WHAT IS DIGITALMARKETER?

DigitalMarketer is the premier online community for digital marketing professionals. It’s a place where you can learn how to market like a pro, connect with industry experts, and get the strategies and tools you need to grow and scale your business to new heights.

The post Elite Coaching Promo Video – Dave Albano [VIDEO] appeared first on DigitalMarketer.