• Sales
• Sandler Selling methodology
• Key principles in training staff
• Lead Generation
• Sales KPIs to measure
• Why use of Sales KPIs
• Marketing
• Email Building - Best Practices
• Rank of email list building method by conversion rate
• Email Marketing Best Practices That Actually Drive Results
• Copywriting Best Practice
• Creating a paywall to download content

Sales

1. Understand the product: Get to know the software inside out and understand how it can solve the customer's pain points. This will enable you to communicate the benefits of the software more effectively and close more deals.
2. Identify the target market: Identify the target market for the software and focus on building relationships with potential customers in that market. This will help you to generate leads and close more deals.
3. Build a strong sales team: Hire the right people with the skills and experience to sell the software. Train them on the product and the target market, and provide them with the tools and resources they need to succeed.
4. Develop a sales strategy: Develop a sales strategy that aligns with the company's overall goals and objectives. This should include a clear value proposition, a pricing strategy, and a sales process that is focused on delivering results.
5. Measure and analyse: Track your progress and measure your success against your goals. Use analytics to identify areas for improvement and make adjustments to your strategy as needed.

Sandler Selling methodology

Sandler Selling Methodology is a sales approach that focuses on identifying and addressing the prospect's pain points, building trust, and creating a mutually beneficial relationship. The following are the key steps involved in implementing the Sandler Selling Methodology:

Key principles in training staff

1. Introduce the Sandler Sales Methodology: Begin by providing an overview of the Sandler Sales Methodology and its key principles. This should include the Sandler Selling System, the Sandler Submarine, the Pain Funnel, and the Up-front Contract.
2. Provide Training Materials: Provide your new staff with training materials such as books, videos, and podcasts to help them learn about the Sandler Sales Methodology. Encourage them to take notes and ask questions as they go along.
3. Role-play: Role-playing is a critical part of training new staff in the Sandler Sales Methodology. Provide scenarios and role-play exercises that allow them to practice the methodology in a safe environment.
4. Provide Feedback: After each role-play exercise, provide feedback to your new staff. Discuss what went well and what they could improve on. Encourage them to ask questions and provide feedback of their own.
5. Reinforce the Methodology: Reinforce the Sandler Sales Methodology through regular training sessions and ongoing coaching. Encourage your new staff to share their experiences and challenges with the methodology and provide support as needed.

Lead Generation

1. Develop a targeted lead generation strategy: Identify your ideal target market and create a strategy to reach them through channels such as email campaigns, social media, and industry events.
2. Use content marketing: Develop valuable content such as whitepapers, webinars, and case studies to attract and engage potential customers.
3. Optimize your website: Ensure that your website is optimized for search engines and is easy to navigate. Use landing pages and forms to capture lead information.
4. Utilize LinkedIn: Use LinkedIn to connect with potential customers, join industry groups, and share valuable content.
5. Leverage referrals: Ask satisfied customers for referrals and provide them with incentives to do so.
6. Use customer testimonials: Share customer testimonials and case studies on your website and in sales presentations to build trust and credibility.
7. Consider account-based marketing: Instead of a one-size-fits-all approach, focus on high-value accounts that are most likely to convert.
8. Create a strong sales process: Train your sales team on best practices for lead generation and ensure they have the tools and resources they need to close deals.
9. Measure and Analyze: Continuously measure the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts and use data to make informed decisions about where to focus your efforts.

Sales KPIs to measure

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are measurements that sales professionals use to evaluate their effectiveness and determine how well they are performing against their goals

1. Sales revenue: This is the total amount of revenue generated by the sales team, and it is one of the most important KPIs for any sales organization.
2. Sales growth: This measures the increase in sales revenue over a specific period of time, typically measured in percentage terms.
3. Sales conversion rate: This measures the percentage of leads that convert into paying customers.
4. Average deal size: This measures the average size of each sale, and it can be useful in identifying which products or services are the most profitable.
5. Sales cycle length: This measures the amount of time it takes to close a sale from the initial contact to the final agreement.
6. Customer lifetime value: This measures the total value of a customer over the entire duration of their relationship with the company, including repeat purchases and referrals.
7. Customer acquisition cost: This measures the cost of acquiring a new customer, including marketing and sales expenses.
8. Pipeline value: This measures the total value of all the opportunities currently in the sales pipeline.
9. Activity level: This measures the amount of activity that salespeople are engaging in, such as the number of calls, emails, and meetings.
10. Win rate: This measures the percentage of opportunities that result in a sale, and it can be useful in identifying areas where the sales process can be improved.

Why use of Sales KPIs

• They will help you make better decisions. You must have timely and accurate information about all aspects of the performance of your team members in order to plan and coach effectively. As a sales manager, you can’t rely on hope and assumptions; you must be assessing real data in real time that will reveal what is going on so you can take action now, before it is too late.
• This leads to better execution. Identifying, measuring and – most of all – coaching to the right KPIs leads directly to behavior change and skill improvement across the entire team.
• KPIs set expectations and improve communication. Defining KPIs clarifies for sales makers the activities upon which they should be spending their time, and provides a context for sales managers to interact with sales makers regarding their performance.
• A clear focus on KPIs will change sales maker behavior. Once sales makers understand the activities they are supposed to be concentrating on, they will devote more time and energy to these areas, especially if they know their compensation will be tied to their performance in these areas.
• Focusing on a core set of KPIs will keep sales maker activities consistent. There is an old saying; “People don’t do what is expected, the only do what is inspected.” When sales makers understand what you are going to inspect every week, they are much more likely to do them every week.
• Tracking KPIs is the best way to identify and qualify sales maker performance. Sales makers might be staying busy and giving a 100% effort every day, which can be confused with real productivity. However, if they aren’t giving that effort to the right activities, all that effort is wasted. Tracking KPIs helps sales managers make sure sales makers are spending the right amount of time on the right activities.
• Tracking KPIs takes the guess work out of evaluation and coaching. This is related to the previous point. Sales managers who don’t regularly track sales maker performance against a set of standard KPI metrics don’t really have any objective basis for evaluating performance. The sales maker may be a great person and hard worker, or they may be a disagreeable know-it-all, but those aren’t the most important behaviors for a sales manager to evaluate. The only thing that really matters is how they are performing in relation to the KPIs.
• Effective coaching begins with KPIs. Most sales managers understand that coaching is important, but coaching is useless if it is not based on quantifiable, actionable skills and behaviors. The greatest value of tracking KPIs is the information they reveal about where each sales maker is doing well, and where they might need help to do better. Sales managers can quickly access KPI’s from their CRM for every sales maker and use this data to customize coaching conversations that will address gaps and boost performance.

Marketing

Email Building - Best Practices

Work smarter, not harder! That’s what comes to my mind when I think about these three points: selection, timing, and behaviour.

Selection: Which method will work for you? There are no straightforward recommendations because all websites are not the same. Each one varies from the others. So this is the best practice:

1. Conduct a heat map test.
2. Find the areas with the most clicks.
3. Choose the best 2-3 methods around them.

Timing: Subscribing materials shouldn’t appear before 60 seconds has passed. If they appear before 60 seconds, you will have a significant drop in conversion rate. Conversely, if you wait too long, you will miss a large number of visitors. So the best timing is at least 60 seconds or a little after this period.

Behaviour: Why should you control the behavior? Here are the reasons:

1. Stop annoying visitors
2. Stop people from leaving your site
3. Stop losing conversions

To prevent showing subscribing materials to the same person again and again, you should use cache. You can set the cache to 15-30 day, so the visitors who see the materials once won’t see them again in the same period. Of course, some of the standard forms that don’t annoy anyone, such as sidebar, home gate, top bar, and so forth can appear all the time

Rank of email list building method by conversion rate

• Opt-in #1: The Landing or Squeeze Page
• Opt-in #2: The In-Content Email Capture
• Opt-In #3: Product Page Calls to Action
• Opt-In #4: A Link as a Menu Option
• Opt-In #5: Before the “Read More” Tag on Your Homepage
• Opt-In #6: The Hospitable Welcome Mat
• Opt-In #7: The Classic Pop-Up
• Opt-In #8: The Attention-Grabbing Feature Box
• Opt-In #9: Below your Menu on Pages
• Opt-In #10: On Your About Page
• Opt-In #11: The Contact Page Capture
• Opt-In #12: The Slider Subscription Form
• Opt-In #13: The Side Pop-Out Button
• Opt-In #14: The Easy Comment Checkbox
• Opt-In #15: The 404 Squeeze Page
• Opt-In #16: The Breadcrumbs Subscribe Link
• Opt-In #17: The Top Bar CTA
• Opt-In #18: The Traditional Sidebar Form
• Opt-In #18.1: The Custom Sidebar Capture
• Opt-In #19: The Hidden Footer Form
• Opt-In #20: The RSS Subscription Link

Email Marketing Best Practices That Actually Drive Results

Reference: https://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/23965/9-email-marketing-best-practices-to-generate-more-leads.aspx

1. Don't purchase contact lists.
2. Avoid using 'No-Reply' in the sender's email address.
3. Stick to fewer than three typefaces.
4. Optimize the email's preview text.
5. Include an email signature.
6. Clean your mailing list regularly.
7. Keep the main message and call-to-action above the fold.
8. Personalize the email greeting.
9. Keep your email 500-650 pixels wide.
10. A/B test different subject lines and calls to action.
11. Put your logo in the upper lefthand side of the email.
12. Use incentives to increase open rates.
13. Allow recipients to subscribe to your newsletter.
14. Write compelling (but concise) subject lines.
15. Use auto-responders for opt-ins.
16. Closely tie emails to landing pages.
17. Conduct a five-second test.

Font Sizes

https://stripo.email/blog/best-fonts-email-usage-tips-tricks/

Copywriting Best Practice

• Use Short Sentences - Short sentences = better copy. Bottom line: they're easier to read and understand
• The Slippery Slide - "The sole purpose of the first sentence is to get you to read the second sentence". The slippery slide is when you add something to your page to keep people reading
• Super Specific Headlines - They're headlines that tell your reader exactly what they're going to get (example of what not to write -- "Save more time the easy way", good example "Save 2 hours a day with these productivity hacks"
• Use FOMO (fear of missing out)
• Doesn't work for every situation. More for B2C businesses
• Generates strong reaction from prospects and makes them want to listen closely to what you have to say (ie, adding deadline at beginning of copy)
• Write Strong Leads - Leads follow right after headline
• 3 tips to do it:
• Use a hook in your first or second sentence (ie, "Are you afraid of taking your business to the next level? Here's what to do")
• Make your lead 6-8 sentences max
• Use mini-stories in your leads
• Don't Use Big Words -Use words that are easy to read and understand
• The AIDA Formula
• Attention: grab them with the first line
• Interest: created with a bold promise
• Desire: something that anybody reading the copy would want
• Action: Call-to-action to keep reading
• Benefits Over Features
• Get Out Of The Friendzone
• When customers and potential clients like what you're selling but not enough to buy
• Solution? Address theyre objections (ie. "it's too expensive", "not a good time for me")
• Urgency and Scarcity
• Convert on the spot or potentially lose the sale
• Use phrases like "limited time offer", "only 47 left", "sale ends Oct 31st"
• Solve the "Social Proof Paradox"
• Feature your strongest form of social proof (doesn't have to be sales. I.e. if sales haven't taken off yet but four people love the product, feature them as testimonials.
• Use Crooked Numbers
• More believable than round numbers

Creating a paywall to download content

Visitor Journey

1. Create a landing page with a form to download Whitepaper
2. Visitor will enter email into the form and click submit. They will be redirected to a page/ message that says " Please see email for download link"
3. Visitor goes to email address to download link

Backend

1. Landing page page form is connected to FM webform integration
2. Once email is entered, it triggers a journey in FM
3. FM journey will add email to email list + send follow up email with download link

Steps:

1. Create whitepaper PDF
2. Create a special link to download whitepaper PDF
3. Create landing page in Wordpress with "Whitepaper download form"
4. Link website 'download form' to FM webform tracking. Similar to the contact us form page on the MetaBroadcast website
5. Create journey in FM - When customer enters journey (completes form), add contact to email list in FM and send follow up email with download link PDF