How Do You Ensure the Candidate Is a Match for the Organization And Brand?
I really emphasize finding someone who totally embodies your top five organizational values. They are going to be writing on behalf of the brand “voice,” so you want it to be an effortless, one-and-the-same brand personality.
You might give potential candidates perform the following exercises during the vetting and hiring process:
Ask them to turn a really poorly written rough draft into a nice article.
Give them only an outline of an article and ask them to turn it into two full-blown articles.
Give them a list of blog titles and have them write the interview questions they would use to interview an expert to complete the article.
Give them a “question” that acts as the main subject of a video or blog post. Now, instead of you interviewing them, have them interview you (either in front of the camera or simply by taking notes) so as to get a full and thorough answer for said question. Once the interview is done, give the candidate a short window (24–48 hours) to return with a completed blog post (or video) answering said question.
As you might imagine, this final activity is extremely effective because it tests the candidate on multiple fronts: Their abilities to interview well, think on her feet, ask great question, meet deadlines, and produce solid content.
I also suggest having several people from your team interview the candidate just to make sure they are likable and get along well with everyone.
And finally, make note of their personal interests. Do they write for fun? Are they into producing their own videos? Do they consistently use social media as well? Do they have creative hobbies? Do you sense they are called to create and grow something of their own?
Remember, the tools and the strategy can be taught. The values, curiosity, and natural passion for both people and writing are critical to making all of this come together and ultimately to get greatness.
37
On the Importance of Tools
Measuring Return on Investment, the Power of HubSpot, and More
As we’ve established throughout this book, They Ask, You Answer is a business philosophy that guides the sales and marketing approach of an organization through obsessive listening, teaching, and a desire to solve the problems of the marketplace.
And in order for this philosophy to work, a few things have to happen.
There must be shared buy-in.
Departments must be aligned.
Everyone needs to understand the underlying vision.
Great, quality-driven content needs to be produced through text, audio, video, and other media.
But after all of this is done, it’s critical that a business can answer the following question:
But did it make us any money?
If your organization is going to spend the time, resources, and money needed to make content marketing and They Ask, You Answer work, there absolutely should be an ongoing understanding of the company’s return on investment (ROI).
And in case you hadn’t noticed, the principle of showing ROI has been a major part of this book and the case studies herein.
Whether it was the “How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost?” article that generated more than 3 million in revenue for River Pools, or Krista’s statement of “20 million in additional revenue” with Block Imaging—the numbers have been a major part of the discussion, as well they should be.
You see, the fact is, as businesses, we must make money.
And then we must turn a profit.
All this They Ask, You Answer stuff is nice, but without it helping you to seriously generate more revenue for your company, it’s not worth the price tag on the cover.
It is for this reason that, with digital marketing and sales, tools do matter—a lot.
When I was a struggling pool guy on the brink of losing my business in early 2009, I spent quite a bit of time reading about digital marketing and how such things as content marketing, blogging, and so on could make such a big difference on a business’s bottom line. And although I found many helpful websites during this time period, the one place I kept going back to again and again was a start-up “marketing automation” software called HubSpot.
Since the early days when I was learning from the company, HubSpot has become somewhat famous in the world of marketing for a phrase their two founders—Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah—championed from the beginning of the company: “inbound marketing.”
As they explained it to me in 2009, this “inbound” marketing was essentially the opposite of old-school “outbound” marketing. It was about providing value (through information) to consumers online, leading them to come to you (inbound) versus the traditional method of bombarding consumers with interruption-based content like TV, radio, print advertising, and so on.
For me, the message was obvious and something we needed to do, which is exactly why we ended up embracing our They Ask, You Answer philosophy.
But because they had done so much to educate me on the way inbound marketing worked, HubSpot had gained my trust. And because they’d gained it, the idea of using their software to measure our success and enhance our inbound efforts only made sense.
So despite the fact that we didn’t have the money to pay for it, we signed up for HubSpot in March 2009.
Since that time, the impact HubSpot has had on River Pools and Spas, as well as our clients at the Sales Lion, has been phenomenal. Specifically, here we discuss the four major benefits we’ve encountered, benefits that every business must consider if they truly want to reach their online potential:
The ability to measure ROI
The ability to track lead behavior
The ability to track SEO
The ability to test your website
1. The Continuous Ability to Measure ROI of Your Digital Marketing Efforts
This is a big, big deal. As mentioned, if you’re going to embrace content marketing and They Ask, You Answer—and spend the time/effort/money/and so on to make it work—you need to see returns. And when I say “returns,” I’m not just talking about visitors or leads to your website. We’re talking sales and revenue.
By using a tool like HubSpot, whenever anyone on your website fills out a form (contact form, e-book download form, and so on), you have the ability to “track” that person (or, specifically, his or her IP address). With this tracking, you’re able to see to major data points that will allow you to measure ROI: the first page of the site they landed on and how they got there in the first place.
The reason why first-page-landed-on is so important is that, if someone is using a search engine like Google, lands on that page, and then eventually goes so far as to become a customer—you can now trace the customer’s first visit to the website back to that page, therefore giving that singular page credit for the sale and revenue numbers.
It is for this reason I was able to say in chapter 11 that one article, “How Much Does a Fiberglass Pool Cost?,” generated our company more than $3,000,000 in revenue. It is also for this reason every case study you’ve read up to this point has done the same—showing true revenue numbers as the ROI.
Aside from first page viewed, the other factor that’s critical in measuring ROI is knowing what website (or means) brought the visitor to the website.
For example, many companies today use pay per click (PPC) advertising (like Google AdWords) to generate traffic to their websites. Whenever I’m discussing this subject with a company and they tell me they’re using PPC, my first question is “How much money did it make your company last year?”
Sadly, many companies can’t answer this critical question, all because they’re not using the right tools.
Case in point: At River Pools, despite the fact we’re able to generate a couple million organic website visitors a year to our website, we still engage in pay per click advertising, and here are the results:
In 2015 we spent $12,000 on pay per click, which equated to 11,657 we
bsite visitors, 437 leads, 33 sales appointments, and seven customers. These seven customers generated $357,000 in total revenue, with a net profit of just under $100,000.
In other words, for us, PPC is worth it. But had we not been using a tool like HubSpot, this type of data would not be available to us, leading to guesswork and a possible misallocation of marketing funds.
Upon working with our various clients at the Sales Lion, we’ve seen time and time again that some companies who thought PPC was worth it were losing money, while others who thought PPC didn’t make financial sense were missing out on major revenue opportunities.
But PPC is just one example of many. The same story could be told for social media. In the world of digital sales and marketing, companies are continually debating the efficacy of social media, yet few are actually able to say, “Because of Facebook, we generated a net profit of $X,XXX,XXX for our company last year.”
No company, regardless of how big or small, can “do everything well” with content, social media, PPC, and so on. It is for this reason organizations need to study and measure what truly drives revenue, and use that data to help them focus more energy and efforts on what’s generating the most revenue for the organization while spending less energy and efforts on that which has the smallest returns.
2. The Ability to Track Lead Behavior and Use This Advanced Intelligence throughout the Sales Process
Along with measuring ROI, the other major benefit of using a tool like HubSpot has to do with advanced lead intelligence. And when I say “advanced lead intelligence,” I’m specifically referring to having the ability to know what pages of the website a lead has seen, how many times they’ve visited the site, and how long they spent on each page.
For many sales professionals, the first time they call or contact a lead is a “blind” conversation. In other words, they don’t yet know much about the lead, his needs, his hot buttons, and so on. But with advanced lead intelligence, a sales pro can now see every page of the website that individual has read, every video she’s watched, and know every time she’s come to the site. Digging deeper, each one of these pages is a reflection of what the lead is or is not interested in.
For example, in my case with River Pools, if I saw a lead had visited the “How to Finance a Swimming Pool” page once, I knew they were likely going to need to get financing for their pool. If they looked at the page twice, is was an absolute guarantee they were going to need financing.
By knowing this, I could then work to ensure they had financing taken care of before I drove up to their home for the sales appointment, a simple act that would dramatically increase closing rates.
The key to remember here is that every lead has his or her own story—a story that writes itself as the lead engages your content, thus showing you what truly matters and what does not.
For any seasoned sales professional, this type of knowledge and intelligence is very, very appealing.
3. The Ability to Track SEO
Unfortunately, some people in the digital marketing space would say SEO (search engine optimization) is dead. But until the day arrives where we’re not using Google (or another search engine), the statement is grossly false and frankly irresponsible. For every client we’ve had at the Sales Lion, SEO has had a major impact on their ability to generate more traffic, leads, and sales. Sure, in some industries or cases social media or other apps may have a bigger impact on buyers than SEO, but as a whole, consumer research through search engines is going to be a major factor in the success of businesses big and small for years to come.
It is for this reason that you, as a business, must be aware of where you stand in the eyes of Google. You should know the major phrases buyers are searching in your space (Big 5 especially) and you should strive to be the company that is shown when someone searches these phrases.
As we’ve discussed, They Ask, You Answer is the key to giving yourself a shot at ranking for these phrases, but at the same time, you need a tool to help you quickly see where you rank with each of these and whether you’re gaining or losing keyword rankings as you go.
Having a tool like HubSpot, as well as other keyword tools, can help you do just that.
To give you a tangible example of what I’m talking about, with River Pools we currently track more than eight hundred different phrases (like “fiberglass pools” or “inground pool cost”) in HubSpot, and currently are ranking in the first three results of Google on more than six hundred of these phrases, which is why you can pretty much go to Google right now, ask a question about a fiberglass swimming pool, and find our website waiting to teach you the answer.
4. The Ability to Test Your Website
The last major benefit of using of using an advanced analytics tool like HubSpot is your ability to test what is and what is not working on your website to convert more leads.
For example, most websites have various “call-to-action” statements or buttons (like “click here” or “download now”) sprinkled throughout the site. Notwithstanding, most companies never test these calls-to-action to see how such things as the color of the button, or the wording used, affects conversion rates (how often someone fills out a form).
With our clients at the Sales Lion, we’ve seen time and time again situations when we thought a page’s copy, design, or call-to-action were just right, only to make some minor changes and see a major lift in lead conversions in the process.
Too often, we look at a website and because we think “it looks right” that it’s performing at its highest level.
The reality is the best companies understand that just because something looks right doesn’t mean it is right, nor does it mean changes aren’t needed.
By having a culture of testing within the digital side of your business, you’ll see again and again that the simplest changes in words, messaging, colors, and design matter—and therefore deserve your attention as a business.
This chapter could easily have been much longer, especially with the rate of change in tools and technology today. It’s also important to note that HubSpot is only one of many types of software that give you the ability to do the things we discussed. That being said, the core theme is that we should all be measuring, so that at any point in your efforts to become the thought leader of your space and embrace They Ask, You Answer you’re able to say:
“We put in a lot of work, but we know how much money it made. And it was well worth it.”
PART IV
Your Questions Answered
The title of this book, as you well know by this point, is They Ask, You Answer. I’ve discussed these principles with hundreds of organizations around the world, and I’m pretty certain you still have a few questions about them. And nine and a half times out of ten, I’ve heard them and answered them many times before. In this final part of the book, I address and answer the most frequently asked questions I’ve received from companies time and time again.
Simply put, it is my goal as the author to help you through what you’ve learned herein—assuming you’re interested—to immediately commence your own content marketing efforts following the guidelines suggested in this book.
In order to do this, you likely need a few additional pointers on some of the detailed questions that most organizations ask as they’re getting started. Specifically, we address the following:
How do companies find more time to make content marketing work for them?
How long will it take content marketing (following the principles of They Ask, You Answer) to work? (that is, generate more traffic, leads, and sales while positively affecting the company brand and bottom line).
Is all of this just a fad that’s not going to be relevant in twenty years?
How do I keep my team engaged and interested in this process? How do I transform it from a program to a culture?
What are some of the general guidelines for great content (text, video, and the like)?
How does social media play into all of this?
38
How Do I Find More Time to Make This Work within My Organization?
Far and away, one of the most common reasons companies say they haven’t been able to achieve success with content marketing comes down to this variable: Time.
Individuals and companies are struggling—mightily—to find the time to produce content.
And I get that.
It’s not necessarily easy.
It won’t happen overnight.
But, when done right, it’s always worth it.
This being said, there are absolutely ways you can produce more content, at a faster rate, and more effectively. Some have been touched on already in this book. Others have not. Either way, they all work, as we’ve done them with our clients many times.
Every Single E-mail You Ever Send Out That Answers a Question Very Well May Be a Blog Post
I’m amazed at just how much content (through e-mail) the average business produces in a day. So many of these e-mails are to prospects and customers, answering their questions, giving them the information they seek. Sadly, most of this content is never used again.
One might call it a “content marketing tragedy.”
Here at The Sales Lion, we’ve seen client content production explode simply by adding one step to their educational (They Ask, You Answer) e-mails—bcc:ing someone in the marketing department so as to ensure that the content (assuming it’s a fit) gets used in the future. By simply adding this click of a mouse, content ideas are continually being generated, the marketing team keeps its fingers on the pulse of all the questions and issues the sales team are dealing with, and silos are torn down.
They Ask You Answer Page 16
