This is a guest blog post by David Weinhaus, author of the Inbound Agency Selling blog and a member of my Agency Account Management team @HubSpot. 

Recently I offered to review an email sent by BayCreative, an Inbound Marketing Agency in the Bay Area, to introduce a new service to a former client. The email was representative of many I’ve seen agencies use when doing so.  Below, with the agency's permission, I’ve shared the email along with some thoughts and recommendations for turning what is not a bad email, but one with a low chance of success, into one that can gain significantly better results. 

Read the email below and put yourself in the shoes of the recipient, a business owner who has done business with the agency in the past. (Note that actual identifying prospect information has been modified.)

The Agency Email

"Hi Bob,

Our agency is offering a set of new lead generation-oriented services that I thought Smith Enterprises would greatly benefit from learning more about.

These services can enable Smith Enterprise to leverage an end-to-end marketing program for generating more qualified leads and reducing the sales cycle. It delivers visibility to the performance of all your search engine marketing, SEO, email marketing, blogging, social media, website visits, and landing pages. And, it centralizes and tracks performance and activity so you can rapidly measure the return on your investments, identify where tweaks to campaigns should be made, and nurture prospects until their ready to make a buying decision.

Are you available at 3pm Monday or Tuesday week to speak with me about lead generation? I'll come prepared to offer some suggestions based on what we’ve identified from your website, as well as a competitive analysis.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Best
Name of individual from agency"

Business Owners Skim

Here are my first impressions.

I read the first paragraph, skimmed the entirely of the second paragraph, and read the third paragraph. I did this on instinct, but it happens to align with the value in the email.

The first paragraph is good because it describes exactly why the agency is writing. "Our agency is offering a set of new lead generation-oriented services that I thought Smith Enterprises would greatly benefit from learning more about."

The third paragraph is valuable because it describes exactly what the agency is requesting and what they are offering. "Are you available at 3pm Monday or Tuesday week to speak with me about lead generation? I'll come prepared to offer some suggestions based on what we’ve identified from your website, as well as a competitive analysis."

Keep the Focus on the Prospect

However, the second paragraph does not deliver in the same way. In it, the agency succumbs to the temptation to make the agency and the service offering the focus. Rather than attempting to identify the goals and challenges of the prospect, it suggests a laundry list of services, relying on the prospect to attach those services to some meaningful objectives of the business. Most of the time, business owners won't make that connection themselves.

5 Tips For Improving Your Email's Success Rate

If there is a good relationship and a compelling need, this email might be good enough to get the job done. It is professional and clearly conveys the offer. However, in my experience, the odds are low.

There are a few things that can significantly improve the odds. Here they are - in order of increasing importance.

1. Make it Topical and Current

If you can, relate with something current and topical in the business. It shows you are paying attention and that you care. It also shows that you can connect the dots between what is going on in the business and what your agency has to offer.

Here is an example:

<<Hey Joe,

Congrats on your recent recognition in the Springfield Business Journal about Smith Enterprise's excellent customer service. I know that you have created a company culture where excellent customer service is rewarded. It is great to see that you are being rewarded  for it too!">>

2. Use a Positioning Statement

Turn around the second paragraph of the email above by using a positioning statement. Mark Gibson of Advanced Marketing Concepts has a great article about this: Positioning Statement - Best New Sales Technique of the Year.

A positioning statement is all about identifying the problem - not presenting a solution. At the early stages of the sales process, this has a much higher chance of resonating than does a solution.

Here is an example:

<<Lately, we've been working with clients who are frustrated that they're not getting more prospects finding them online. When we started working with them, their exact words were, "We do an amazing job for our clients. They love us. Our customer service and product quality is second to none. We're just not getting people finding us." >>

3. Include a Clear Call to Action

The example agency letter does a pretty good job of ending with a call to action. Here is another example. Both leave no doubt as to what is being requested. It may also be just a style thing, but I prefer not pressing for a specific time in an introductory email if they haven't agreed that they have a problem. I like the more open ended "Is this something that you'd be interested in speaking about?"

If it's an existing or previous client where there's a solid relationship, I'd also suggest just asking them if they'd like to catch up and discuss how things are going.

Tips 4 & 5 don’t relate directly to the email, but to activities that will help the overall success. They are every bit as important.

4. Don't Send it Until You've Left a Voice Mail

At Hubspot, we don't send a prospect email without first picking up the phone. You want to actually speak to your prospect right? Nothing says that less than an email attempt without a phone call. The purpose of the call is not just the hope of a live connection. It is also to add emphasis and importance to attempted connection.

You will be tempted to dismiss this. DON'T. Compose an email in draft, make the call, and if you don't get through leave a voice mail. Then, and only then, hit send on your email. Conveniently enough, the email you have composed ahead of time will make a great script for your voicemail if you need it.

5. Plan on a Sequence of Calls/Emails

At Hubspot, when prospecting, we make 8 touches, including 4 calls, and 4 emails before giving up. The sequence typically goes something like this.

Business Day 1 - voice mail/email #1
Business Day 3 - voice mail/email #2
Business Day 6 - voice mail/email #3
Business Day 10 - final voice mail/email

Even more important than the content of each email and voice mail is the cadence you are establishing. Through your actions you are showing you care about connecting (far more than if you were to send one email and call it a day) and that you have something valuable to offer. As far as the content, make each attempt emphasize a different point of value. For instance, at Hubspot, for our second attempt we frequently reference a company's Marketing Grader score, and offer to review the results with them.

Summary

So now you've seen my 5 recommendations to get better results from emails when introducing a new agency service. To see an example email putting it together, check out - A Sample Email for Introducing New Agency Services.

What other successful techniques have you found?  

Photo Credit: RambergMediaImages 

To create successful inbound marketing campaigns, it's important to create processes to ensure that multiple lead nurturing efforts can be launched in the most efficient way. Furthermore, it's crucial to embrace continuous improvement so these campaigns bring in the greatest number of sales qualified leads possible. These practices help make your marketing agency, or any company, run more efficiently while attracting more clients and more talent.

As we continue to implement these standards and practices, we wondered what some specific things we—and you— could do to enhance these processes on a daily basis. First, let's identify some simple goals your team can rally around to make your shop a better place to work.

Goals to Help Us Strive for Excellence on a Daily Basis

• Our team and clients understand what we are saying
• We can clearly see the relationship between effort and success
• Every day we seem to be getting better at what we do
• We see ourselves as winners, and our customers do too
• When we have problems, we fix them right away and move on

Here, we brainstorm easy steps each of us can take to achieve these goals:

1. Resist the temptation to speak right away when asked a question. Think about your response and how to say it clearly.
2. Create a plan, just a simple to-do list, for every day. Execute the plan and review your progress before you go home. Then create tomorrow's plan.
3. When you run into a roadblock, add a to-do item to your list to solve it. You don't necessarily have to drop what you're doing now. Just commit to solving it later.
4. Prioritize your to-do list, and don't let things slide more than a day or two at the most.
5. Discuss your challenges and successes with your peers and bosses. Ask for their opinions and recommendations.
6. Set aside time every day during work to think. Yes, think. Take your most challenging to-do item and go somewhere quiet and think. Let your work neighbor know that's what you're doing in case you're needed. Let your boss know that's what you want to do and negotiate a reasonable amount of time.
7. Identify what's holding you back from becoming a genuine rockstar at your job. Talk to your peers and your boss about it and figure out a plan to get there. Work those steps into your daily plan.
8. Blur the lines between work and play. If your job is challenging and rewarding, both personally and professionally, why worry about how much time you spend on each part? When work is stressful, play hard to balance it. When work is awesome, celebrate with your teammates.
9. Own something. Strive to be a leader in your project, your field, your social network, your company. Leadership is hard to find and even harder to teach. You know what it means to be a leader, you just have remember to be one every day.
10. Write a couple of blog posts every week. Your company definitely needs your help, so you'll make an immediate impact. The big benefit is personal. Expressing your ideas, getting published and getting feedback from outsiders is one of the most rewarding things you can do—and it's out there, on the record for everyone to see. Pretty cool.

Make Your Own Top 10 List

We wanted to let you know that continuous improvement isn't necessarily an organizational thing, nor is it simply a formula with statistical measurements. It starts with our own daily habits and attitudes. By working on just a few things each day, we can improve ourselves and be better team members, and those things have a profound impact on success at every level.

About the Author: John McTigue is the Executive Vice President and Co-Owner of Kuno Creative, an industry-leading inbound marketing agency and certified Gold HubSpot partner.

photo credit: Pompeychuck

Are you looking for creative ways to use the iPad for business? Have you ever wanted to do more with your LinkedIn Connections? In this article, I'll share some ideas on how you can do both to help grow your network and strengthen relationships with your current customers.

I had the opportunity to interview Tom Boudreau of R&R Insurance (a client of ours). Tom is a Commercial Insurance Account Executive who was looking to provide better resources for his current and prospective customers. Tom was kind enough to share his thoughts and process in how he's using his iPad and LinkedIn network to do a "52 in 52" video interview series featuring Wisconsin business professionals.

Below is a recap of my interview with Tom:

Q: Tom, what is "52 in 52"?
A: "52 in 52" is a video interview series where I'm interviewing 52 Wisconsin Business Professionals, with nothing but my iPad, over a time period of 52 weeks. I've wanted to do this "52 in 52" initiative for years, but it took time to build my network of Wisconsin experts. I am now in a position in my career to leverage the collective expertise of my network. They are a great group of people and I'm happy to be able to share their knowledge in a way that can help all of us grow our businesses.

Q: Where did the idea come from?
A: I sell business insurance like a lot of individuals. But my goal is not only to be the best at that, but to also help my clients build their businesses — whether it's insurance related or not. "52 in 52" is my attempt at putting the "social" back in my social networking.

I really wanted to offer my clients and prospective clients something of value. I also wanted to do something with my LinkedIn Connections. In the past, I was simply accepting new connection requests on LinkedIn and then not doing much more with it. I wanted to reach out to my network and learn more about what their businesses do to see if they could help my clients. Ultimately, my goal of "52 in 52" is to share knowledge.

Q: How has this worked for you?
A: It's been great! I'm spending an hour with each individual for the interview - and prior to that we're communicating about what we'll be discussing in that interview and what we can provide the audience as a leave-behind.

It's really strengthening my relationship with these individuals. This process is kind of a bonding process. I share with them the analytics and they feel that I'm truly trying to help them - and that's my goal.

This has also resulted in new and additional business for me. I had a client that I was working with sign an 'Agency of Record' letter for additional services because he appreciated the fact that I was differentiating myself from other insurance agents and working hard to help my clients grow their businesses.

I've also had several opportunities present themselves in ways that I didn't expect. Just by staying in front of my clients, I'm having them refer opportunities my way, as well as introduce me to other professionals that help me strengthen my business network. Even beyond the sales, this has helped build brand awareness for me in a way that doesn't come across as salesy.

Q: How has this benefited your network?
A: It's been very beneficial for them as well. As an example, the interview I posted a couple weeks ago resulted in business leads for the individual being interviewed. A couple hours after I sent out the email to my network letting them know that I posted the new video, three people reached out to me asking to have my guest speaker contact them about quoting some business. It really was a win, win, win for all of us involved.

Q: From a production standpoint, how are you doing the video interviews?
A: I'm using nothing but my iPad set up on a tripod. My father-in-law was kind enough to let me set up a little studio at their office (Circular Marketing in Waukesha, WI). I purchased a couple lights and printed up a sign, but the rest of it is just setting up the iPad and shooting the interview.

I purchased the iMovie App for the iPad and do the editing right on my iPad. When completed, I upload the video to our YouTube Channel and then with your help (Stream Creative), we build out the blog post, create a landing page and upload the leave-behind piece.

When those pieces are in place, I create an email in SubscriberMail and send that out to my network. From start to finish, including the interview, the entire process takes about 4 hours.

Q: In closing, do you have anything else you'd like to share with readers?
A: As a sales person we try very hard to get that initial meeting to learn what our prospects' businesses are all about and where R&R Insurance can help them. Through these "52 in 52" interviews, I can ask these same questions through a totally different process that doesn't feel like I'm selling to them - which I'm not selling - I'm trying to help them reach a new audience, and they get a better value out of that.

If I had to do something different, it would be finding a way to shorten the final videos - but I just can't find a way to get them between three to five minutes without cutting out a lot of the content or sacrificing the personal element involved with these interviews.

Overall, this has been a great experience!

So how are you engaging with your LinkedIn Network? How are you using your iPad for business? Please share any of your ideas in the comment section below.

About the Author: Jeff Coon is a partner and creative director of Stream Creative, a certified HubSpot partner and full service digital marketing and design firm specializing in inbound marketing, web design and development, and social media.

As you embrace 2013 planning, thoroughly assess your marketing program as a means to identity opportunities and gaps in execution.

With an in-depth understanding of where you are today, and what you have the potential to do, it’s much easier to properly allocate time, talent and budgets, and create strategic plans that propel your program forward. 

Wondering where to start? Below, I outline 10 areas within your organization that are worth a critical look during the planning process.

10 Marketing Assessment Considerations

1. Business Cores — To build a powerful marketing program and brand, it’s important that a strong business foundation is in place. Consider business cores such as financial health, customer service, product quality and culture, and how they relate to overall marketing efforts. Are there areas to improve or severe roadblocks that hinder your potential?

2. Audiences — How well does your organization communicate with key stakeholders such as employees, customers, media and prospects? Are there audiences that you are neglecting?

3. Marketing Performance — How do you track and report success (i.e. content downloads, customer retention rates, lead quality score, profitability, etc.)? How have your campaigns historically performed in these areas?

4. Marketing Cores — Do you have the foundational pieces in place that are necessary to truly execute an integrated inbound marketing program, or will much of your time be dedicated to builders that don’t drive immediate results?

5. Lead Sources — Where do you currently get leads? Can you better capitalize on these outlets? Are there other, more effective, lead-gen sources worth investigating?

6. Marketing Team Strength — How competent is your internal team in all areas of marketing strategy and execution? Do inadequacies justify hiring a new employee or bringing on an agency for support?

7. Marketing Technology Utilization — What marketing and sales technologies do you currently use? Are there technologies that would make your job more efficient, effective or track-able?

8. Social Media Marketing — How is your company currently using social media to connect with audiences, generate leads and raise your profile? Where can you improve?

9. Content Marketing — Is content creation and distribution a crucial piece of your marketing strategy? Do you regularly blog, and publish content like case studies, ebooks, whitepapers and webinars?

10. Public Relations — What have you historically done in terms of PR, and are there ways to enhance your program through social, speaking opportunities, content and networking?

Introducing a Marketing Intelligence Engine

The above categories are derived from PR 20/20’s new marketing intelligence engine, Net Marketing Score. As a free online tool, NMS assesses the strength of your business and marketing foundations, forecasts potential and aligns expectations.

Learn more about its origins on the PR 20/20 blog, and sign up for beta access.

Your Thoughts

What do you consider when planning for the new year? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

About the Author: Paul Roetzer is the founder and CEO of PR 20/20, a certified Gold HubSpot partner and inbound marketing agency that combines content, public relations, social media and search marketing into integrated campaigns.

I originally wrote this article in March 2008. It's another article that got stuck in the draft folder. It's still very relavent, so I'm publishing now. 

I make a lot of calls to business owners and marketing professionals. Most business owners have a long list of lines they use to get salepeople off of the phone. I love getting this excuse: "The Timing isn't Right".

First of all, it's probably important to note that I do about 1.5 hours of free consulting and coaching for my prospects. So, anyone talking to me, given my years of experience at internet marketing, should be pretty damn grateful. My time is spent diagnosing their internet marketing and website mess, starting keyword research and competitive research for them and recommending how they can leverage SEO, PPC, blogging, social media, etc, etc to drive more traffic as well as use marketing analytics, lead capture tools and lead intelligence to convert more of their visitors to leads and sales.

Bottomline: they're going to learn a whole hell of a lot from me for free.  No obligation.

So, when someone tells me that the timeing isn't right, they're really missing out. 

Maybe the Timing Truly Isn't Right. Now, of course, sometimes the timing truly isn't right. Maybe they do not have the time to dedicate to online marketing. Maybe their time would be spent better elsewhere. Maybe they have a family or human resources emergency. Maybe they need to tighten up the operations side of the business. Maybe they have bad sales recruitment problems. There's all kinds of problems that would prevent an organization from stepping up their online marketing. 

Maybe You Just Think the Timing Isn't Right
But usually, they think the timing isn't right because they think they know what they're talking about when it comes to online marketing. For example, the most common reason someone thinks that the timing isn't right is because "they're redoing their website right now". They think, and I can understand the logic, that you should worry about driving traffic after you launch a site. However, that's a big mistake.

Why? Well, keyword research and tracking should govern a site design or redesign: keyword research will help you find the keywords to use in your content, as well as affect what pages you have, what the name of the pages are, as well as what your navigation links should be. These are pretty important factors when it comes to launching a site. Also, if you really want to do SEO, you should launch a blog on your own domain  and be able to add and edit pages on your site without technical help. That's less about "building the site" and more about "building the site on the right platform". Further, if you want to do PPC advertising down the road, you should have a system in place that lets you launch and tweak landing pages. Further, before you do any kind of relaunch, you should study how people arrive to your site and interact with it. You don't want to screw something up and take a hit on traffic because you didn't understand what search terms, referers people were coming from OR because you eliminated a page that almost every visitor read upon their site visit. 

Another reason people think it's the wrong time is because "they want to figure this stuff out" first. They're doing their "homework" and "investigating" how to do online marketing. WTF? Why do you think companies like HubSpot have salepeople? Because we know this stuff. We are your cheat sheet. We've figured it out. It's our job to diagnose. Once someone's a client, we give them the curriculum.  For some reason, when it comes to internet marketing, people feel they need to write the curriculum themselves.

What "The Timing Isn't Right" Really Means.
All of that said, I understand that people make this mistake of thinking that they should talk to me after they do "something". That's normal. And I understand they think I'm going to pitch them something they don't need. They've dealt with many bad salespeople. However, they should know that I won't sell them something unless I can solve a problem that's important to them. 

I originally wrote this article in September 2008. For some reason, I never published it. It's still pretty relevant, so I'm putting it out there.

Every week, I generate one or two leads from my website. I've closed several deals from it. Every week, HubSpot's website generates a few thousand leads. I, and the other 11 inbound marketing advisors at HubSpot, close more than a few deals each week as a result of those leads.

In my case, If HubSpot's amazing marketing team wasn't generating leads for me, I could certainly work through my leads fairly quickly. Most companies can work through their internet generated sales leads very quickly.

But, at HubSpot, we have an entirely different problem. We have to figure out who to call first.

There are 3 really amazing things that HubSpot's software does that help me be a lot more efficient and helps me spend my time talking to the right people.

Before I get into it, I know that many people are suspect of salespeople. However, given that I have a Chemical Engineering degree, have run my own business, am a moderately successful internet marketer and can hack code with the best of them, I'm hoping you realize I'm not just a "sales guy". Most importantly, my philosophy in sales is to just "help people solve their problems, assuming I can". In other words, I'm not just pitching products. I'm doing my best to help people identify appropriate solutions to their problems. 

That said, I do better when I am helping people who want my help. HubSpot's software helps me maximize the time I'm helping people. 

Here are the things that the software does that enable me to do this: 

• Leads are prioritized based on engagement with our website.
• When a lead revisits a site, I get notified.
• Track what pages a lead has viewed on our site. This helps me start a conversation by asking a question that I know interests the prospects. For example, if a lead has visited a bunch of seo resources, I know to start the conversation with a question like, "Are you trying to figure out how to improve your search rankings in order to attract more qualified visitors to your site through SEO?"

HubSpot's lead scoring, lead revisit notifications and lead intelligence work differently these days. The software is significantly slicker. But, the way we use them on the sales team has stayed the same. Don't have this capability? How are you prioritizing and timing your sales efforts?

Mark Gibson wrote an excellent article about a company who was on the fast track towards inbound marketing success. Then, hope died. See the graph below. If they had kept on their path, Mark predicts they would have gained 12,000 visitors.

Can you guys guess why it happened? Hint: It's a sales and an account management problem.

When I talk to businesses who are using inbound lead generation, but who aren't seeing the sales that they want, I usually start with questions that identify what they're doing wrong (or not doing) at the top of their sales funnel. If the top of the sales funnel isn't predictably full, sales usually falter at the bottom. Maybe not right away. But, someday, they'll dip if they don't have the ability to predictably find qualified sales opportunties amongst the leads they've attracted.

I've only ever spoken to one person who was doing everything right. So, don't feel bad if you fail the test.

Here's the list of questions I usually ask:

1. Do you call leads as soon as they complete a form on your website?
2. Do you call leads as soon as they revisit your website again, ideally while they're still on your website?
3. How often do you sit down and prospect? Do you have time blocked off every day? Do you do it every day consistently? How much time? How many leads do you call per day? Why that number?
4. What is the cadence you use to attempt to connect with them? Do you call them once and then wait awhile to call them again?
5. Do you try to connect live first by calling them? Do you also follow up with an email? Does your voicemail and email say the same thing? Do you leave them both at the same time? 
6. Do you connect with them on social media? If you connect on social media, do you just connect or do you respond to something they've posted in order to start a conversation? 
7. Do you have a series of voice-mail and email messages that you leave in succession that reference your earlier attempts and their lack of response?
8. How many attempts do you make in order to try to connect with a lead, before you give up? Do you actually give up or do you try calling them again after a period of time? 
9. Do you use the information they've shared on your landing pages and the information your marketing software collected in order to personalize your message? Is the message about their interests with an offer to provide further assistance OR is it about you and what you want to talk about?
10. Do you work the company or just the lead? If you get a lead, do you determine other contacts at that company that might take your call, who might influence that company buying from you or might have information on how the company operates? Do you ever just call the decision maker even if they aren't your lead?
11. When you get a lead, do you determine if you have any common connections on Linkedin, so that you might be able to get an introduction from someone they trust confirming your expertise? 

Without the dialog, you may not know the right answer to the questions. If you're unclear whether you're doing something wrong or not doing something you should, ask a question in the comments.

Usually, companies aren't doing the first few things right. If you got to question 11 and think you are doing everything you should be doing, please inquire here: I have openings.

Sales experts: What questions am I missing?

I'll be speaking today at BOLO 2012 with Chris Knipper (@ChrisKnipper), Founder of Kuno Creative. We're delivering, "How to Market Your Marketing Agency Using Inbound Marketing". Slides are below.

Here are links to resources we reference in the presentation.

1. What is Inbound Marketing?
2. Business Blogging eBook
3. Lead Generation eBook
4. Email Marketing eBook
5. Closed Loop Marketing Analytics eBook
6. Lead Generation Lessons from 4k Customers (My presentation includes updated data that HubSpot hasn't published yet.)
7. 4 Core Services of Inbound Marketing
8. State of the Marketing Services Industry
9. Content Marketing Manifesto
10. Kuno Creative's Services Package and Pricing

I have a confession to make: It's been 1 Month, 7 days and 3 hours since... my last blog post. Forgive me blogfather, for I have... (That's enough. Sorry if you are a Catholic.)

I'm excited to announce that I've hired Mary Planding to be the editor of the group blog for Co-Grow. 10 marketing agencies have agreed to become members of the Collaborative Growth Network. 20+ others have expressed interest. I'll be streamlining the signup process and officially signing up these agencies in the coming weeks. Before I signed people up officially and they started paying for membership, I wanted to ensure I had someone to [wo]man the blog. Mary will be doing that. Each member will be submitting one blog post per month and Mary will edit and schedule the posts for my approval. It'll be her job to make sure we have a steady flow of content. As we add more marketing agency members, she'll do more scheduling and editing. 

Mary has been a HubSpot partner for 7 months, has gone through our onboarding process and become an expert at inbound marketing, as you can see from her site, Inbound Marketing Squad.  She wrote an article about inbound networking that explained the concept better than I had. She's also been out talking to small business owners about inbound networking and has formed a group of her own. She's been a consistent attendee on my weekly inbound networking calls and I've been impressed with her clear communication skills, both verbally and in written form. I enjoy reading her blog as I believe she breaks down complex stuff into simple terms. When I suggested that I was going to hire an editor, she wrote a well thought out email about why it should be her. When she started quizzing me about the editor role's job, I realized she was thinking about important "editor-type" stuff that I hadn't even thought about.

Please welcome Mary Planding as editor of Co-Grow. You can read more about her, follow her on Twitter or connect with her on Linkedin.  She and I will be in touch soon with our inaugural members and we'll get the content flowing in October.