Craig Rentmeester's Blog

B2B — From Sales Quotes to Persuasive Proposals

I wrote in the past about post-sale tactics for pre-sale marketing.  In that post, I mentioned case studies and satisfaction surveys to help gather testimonials and build credibility for future sales opportunities.

A few weeks back I attended a conference and a speaker mentioned transitioning from an ordinary sales quote to a persuasive sales quote. (I prefer the term proposal.)

I thought it was a great talk and thought I'd elaborate on it and provide some personal insight as well.

He mentioned that most companies sales quotes consist of:

• line items
• a brief summary of what's included in each line item
• prices
• contact information
• a logo
• an expiration date

However, a persuasive proposal includes the items listed above, but also includes:

• Business issues that you're helping solve with this purchase and plan.
• Testimonials from past customers.
• A one-page case study featuring a past customer in the same industry.

Why does this matter?
This matters because the person you've met with, talked to and persuaded may not be the person that ultimately signs off on the purchase. In that case, you may have created a champion inside the company that doesn't help your cause when it comes to their recommendation to the board, president, or CFO. The persuasive quote  provides your contact the additional firepower they need to help advance the sale with the end decision makers. 

Pros and Cons
The downside of using the persuasive proposal is that it will be longer making it tougher to fax.

However, give your fax machine a break, save a bit of money, time and paper and send it via PDF. It will allow you to add color and style to the proposal, providing a level of distinction from your old-fashioned competitors.

Remember, every interaction provides an opportunity for marketing. Whether or not you're prepared is up to you.

Benefits of using a Blog as your E-newsletter

A rather new concept is using a blog like an e-newsletter.

I love the approach from a marketing and an SEO standpoint.

• Rather than sending PDFs or E-blasts via e-mail to subscribers, a blog offers dynamic content that maintains the same look over time.
• A blog instead of an e-newsletter makes subscriber management much easier.
• Its easy to transmit and easy for customers to subscribe in a way that works with their existing habits (live bookmarks, posts via e-mail, feed readers, etc.)
• From an SEO standpoint, the blog approach provides an opportunity for more content on your site and more inbound links.
• You can archive posts, allowing for customers to revisit old items.
  
• It provides an opportunity to distribute press releases when they're timely vs. lumping them together in a monthly newsletter.

The one drawback I can think of is not getting each subscriber's contact information. However, users are in control, whether you like it or not. If you provide continuous value, they'll want to do business with you.

I am going to be pushing for this approach at my company.

Do you have any other drawbacks or benefits of using a blog as an e-newsletter?

Also, I'll be on vacation this week. This will be my last post for a while.

Dogs Blog?

Unannounced to me,  some people blog on behalf of their pets.
Here's a link to an interesting, yet strange article from CNN.

From the article...

Psychologist Larina Kase of Philadelphia says there are countless reasons people blog on behalf of their pets. "Pets are part of the family, yet we can't communicate with them about many things, so pet owners may blog about their pets as a way to better understand how their pets think and feel," she says.

And blogging in such a way, Kase says, can help a person connect with other humans, too.

"People bond over shared interests, especially those that they are passionate about. Walking a dog is a great way to meet other dog walkers and people who stop to pet your dog." Blogging, she says, is "21st-century dog walking."

Conclusion: Niche audiences still exist. And, yes, the long tail is real.

 

Blogging Break Explained

Sorry for not posting much in the past 10 days. I was busy at a conference, and then I went skiing for a few days.

Below is an impressive view from the peak of Big Sky and a recent excerpt from Seth Godin's blog on how to properly order items, including ski runs.

Your data files, your product catalog... none of it should be in alphabetical order.

The one exception is the name of ski slopes. Ski slopes should go from A to Z, left to right, as you look at the mountain. If someone says, "I'll meet you at the top of Montego Bay," you know where that is without looking at a map. And, by the way, the difficulty of each slope could be coded into the name. Cities could be easiest, animals could be blues, and the most difficult slopes could be named after disgraced politicians....

(click  to enlarge)

 

Contact us pages and the (real) Exit Rate

Here's something I have been wondering about lately as I rework my company's Web site into a more user-friendly, visitor-converting marketing machine.

Why do companies only have a web form on the 'contact us' page?

Yes, it funnels everyone through the same system and allows your database to grow. But, it also turns people away; people that may want to talk with a sales agent before pulling the metaphorical trigger on their next purchase.

If your company only has a form on its 'contact us' page and you're wondering how to monitor its performance correctly, keep reading. Otherwise, I suggest opening the lines of communication and providing options for visitors to get in touch with your company.

One metric that companies should look at is the exit rate from the 'contact us' page. By exit rate, I don't mean people that leave the site after reaching the contact us page. After all, the contact page is a goal or end destination. However, only monitoring entrances to 'contact us' page isn't telling the whole story.

To monitor my version of the exit rate correctly, simply have the form setup so that the input data is sent to an e-mail alias, install an analytics package to monitor 'contact us' page entrances and check for disparity. Another metric worth studying is the amount of time spent on that page. If a form takes the average individual 35 seconds to complete (do a sample with coworkers to determine this), and the average amount of time on the page isn't within 15 percent of that either way, then you're turning people away too often.

Every person that gets to the form and doesn't fill it out is either:

• a lost opportunity.
• someone who called your      competitor, whose communication options better suited their style.
• an unqualified lead --      someone in either the research or interest phase of the search buying      cycle.

Personally, I'd rather have the sales team disqualify an opportunity, rather than a static form.

Tip: If you're going to use forms, make only the bare minimum number of fields required.

SEO Tip: Page Titles

To promote my first installment of my free SEO e-book series, I am giving out free on-page SEO advice from the book.

This week's tip relates to page titles and how they should be used.

Page Titles
Here are two things to keep in mind with page titles.

• Page titles should contain no more than 5 words that are keyword-centric and directly relate to what is on the corresponding page.
  • Using more than five words in a page title dilutes the strength of each word.
• Place important keywords early in the page title. The first word in a page titles receives the highest reward.

Another SEO Tip to Remember
Remember, page titles are the first thing people see on on a search engine results page. (commonly referred to as SERP). So, they're not only important for rankings, but they're also important for your click-through rate (commonly referred to as CTR). It is one thing to appear high in the search results, it's another thing to actually have people click-through to view your content.

Use these links to view the other SEO tips about using header tags and the importance of URLs for SEO. 

Download the Book
Use this link to download the free SEO e-book as a PDF that can be saved and shared with friends.