The Impact of Technology

On Correctional Industries Sales & Marketing Efforts

Technology Growth in America

Internet & Email Access at Work

What percent of American workers have Internet /email access or work? Estimates say over 90%

Cell Phone Ownership

What percent of American’s own cell phones?

A. 50%

B. 65%

C. 80%

D. 90%

What percent of cell phone users access the Internet or email with their phone? 35% 50% 65% 75%

Cell Phone Internet Usage

Cell Phone Usage Facts

Nearly two-thirds (63%) of cell phone owners now use their phone to go online (this has more than doubled since 2009)

One third of these cell internet users (34%) mostly use their phone to access the internet, as opposed to other devices like a desktop, laptop, or tablet computer

Tablet Ownership

What percent of American adults own tablets?

A. 15%

B. 33%

C. 45%

D. 67%

Tablet Ownership

The New B2B Buyer

The New B2B Buyer

What has all this technology and Internet access done to buyers? More connected More impatient More elusive More impulsive More informed

How do we as marketers & sales answer to these changes?

The New B2B Buyer

Connected Internet is 1st stop in researching products and

services; 92% of B2B buyers start their search for a solution to their problem online

Process neither starts nor stops at your website – more likely to start at a major search engine, industry portal or social network

If you want your product or service to be considered, it’s critical that your content appear wherever the buyer goes online at every point in the decision making process

The New B2B Buyer

Publish Deep & Wide about the problems your prospect faces and the solutions your product offers

You must create content for every depth of prospect interest and attention span

Remember: The basic needs of the buyer remain the same,

only the behavior has changed Much of the information needed in the process

comes from the Internet

The New B2B Buyer

Impatient If a prospect can’t find the right info on your

website or figure out how to use your free trial or sample, it’s usually goodbye

Today’s buyer has to be pretty committed to evaluating your product or service before picking up the phone

The phones don’t ring like they used to

The New B2B Buyer

You Must Enable Efficient Self-Service Buyers want independence and efficiency

from the internet; if they have to rely on a salesperson as the primary source of information, both are lost.

The buyer controls the flow of information; your strongest strategy is to give the prospect efficient self-service access to your content

Search and speed rule (want fast web pages, easily searchable content)

The New B2B Buyer

Elusive The buyer can find your product or service,

learn about it, evaluate it, see what others think about it, and sometimes even try & buy it, all without engaging with a salesperson

Process even more complex as the “buyer” is often more than one person – process is more organic with different stakeholders doing tehir own research

The New B2B Buyer

Measure, Model & Move Buyers may be elusive to sales, but not to

marketing Measure your customers level of engagement

to determine where they are at in the process so you can provide content or assistance to help them move through the process

The New B2B Buyer

Impulsive Cheap and easy access to online information

enables flexibility in the buying process Buyers go in and out of the process, go slow,

go fast, whatever suits their priorities Email may be waning for marketing

communications, but it is central to the internal communications of buyers

The New B2B Buyer

Lifecycle Marketing Map your content to the buyer’s needs at

each stage of the buying process – throughout the entire customer lifecycle

For an active buyer, you are just keeping things moving along quickly and efficiently; for the distracted buyer, its about breaking the status quo and creating a sense of urgency

At a minimum, you are their when the customer decides to pull the trigger. At a maximum, you have the potential to accelerate the purchase

The New B2B Buyer

Informed When does the New B2B Buyer reach out

to a sales rep? When they are stuck! If the buyer knows more than the sales rep at

this point – it can be disaster It’s an information arms race between the

buyer and the sales rep Today’s sales rep must quickly assess the

purchase knowledge & needs of the buyer and lead, follow or get out of the way

The New B2B Buyer

Consultative Selling The sales rep MUST know more about the

products than the buyer does If all your sales rep does is usher buyers

around your website and take orders, then you are leaving money on the table or your website isn’t simple enough

Buyers expect fast answers and sales reps must be purchase experts that can adapt their expertise quickly and efficiently to the buyer’s needs

The New B2B Buyer

Last but not least…. The New B2B Buyer Is Still Only Human! Buyers fear the unknown, public opinion,

failure It is important to all of us (including buyer) to

feel good about the decisions we make

The New B2B Buyer

You Must Build Trust There is no substitute for the sales rep’s personal

relationship with the buyer, especially when the stakes are high

Today’s rep must be a smooth writer as well as a talker – but don’t hide behind email

When it comes to building rapport and trust, chat is better than email, phone is better than chat, video is better than phone, and face-to-face is better than video

You must provide technologies and opportunities for your reps to engage with buyers at a personal level

Stages in the B2B Purchasing Cycle

Traditional Cycle

Need recognition Information search Evaluation of alternatives Purchase decision Purchase evaluation

You must tailor your sales & marketing efforts to each stage in the buying cycle.

Today’s Cycle

Content Marketing

What is Content Marketing?

Content marketing is using relevant and valuable information to attract potential customers to you.

Content Marketing Usage

Challenges That Face B2B Content Marketers

Producing enough content 64% Producing the kind of content that engages 52% Producing a variety of content 45% Lack of budget 39% Inability to measure content effectiveness 33% Lack of knowledge, training & resources 26% Lack of integration across marketing 25% Lack of buy-in / vision 22% Finding trained marketing professionals 14%

*2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmark-North America: CMI/MarketingProfs

Content Marketing Tips

Spread existing content across different platforms

Marketers use an average of 12 content marketing tactics

Evaluate your budget & figure out how many you can commit to

Create goals (brand awareness, customer acquisition, lead generation, sales)

Measure the success

Social Media

B2B Social Media Usage

Social Media Tips

Don’t sign up for an account without having goals and a strategy to attain those goals

Do prioritize the channels you want to experiment with and spend a dedicated amount of time to test out what works (and what doesn’t) - don’t spread your efforts too thin

Produce good content & create a schedule to keep producing it

Social Media Tips

No presence at all is better than a lackluster presence

Keep messages across platforms consistent but customized to each community

Articles with images receive more views Social media alone is not enough – don’t

forget about your other marketing efforts Track your success

Social Media Tips

It can’t make up for a bad product or service

RESPOND to EVERYONE including complaints publicly

Give stuff away – content, webinars and white papers

Thank your customers and partners It won’t create immediate results Tell – don’t sell

Linked in

Was born and bred to create and develop business relationships

Most compelling feature is the ability to learn everything, on a professional level, about a target prospect

LinkedIn – Getting Started

Create a personal profile Employment history, upload a profile picture,

input your website and ask for recommendations

Complete your company profile Upload logo, include your mission statement,

have other company employees join and that they appear in your company listing of employees

Join groups Both you and your sales force Invite business AND personal contacts to join you

LinkedIn – Sales Tips

Complete profile (including experience, reference, hobbies, interests)

Invite prospects and customers to connect with you (builds rapport)

Utilize status updates to share articles and industry information (prospecting & networking)

Join industry groups

LinkedIn –Research

Use to find contacts at companies Prior to customer meetings find out about

the people they will meet with: where they have worked in the past and who they might know in common

Verify person’s title DON’T use for initial customer contact;

use to make sure contacting the right person but make the first contact via email

Twitter

It’s not all about you Personalize your Twitter page Follow people to get followers Schedule your tweets Track clicks and retweets

Facebook

Primarily B2C, not B2B Great for on-line promotions and event

announcements

Facebook Tips

Ask your staff, customers, vendors & partners to “like” your page

Upload lots of photos Set up a shopping tab to drive traffic to your e-

commerce website “Like” other pages that your customers might engage

with and comment on posts on those pages Give a face and personality to the company

Employee of the month Highlight what company or employees are doing in the

community or in support of a particular cause Post behind the scenes photos

Encourage your staff to share content

Google +

“The next big social network” for business Business pages allow a person to follow

and engage with your business on a personal level

Google+ is a platform for content delivery more than a way to business network

Why YouTube

YouTube is the 2nd most popular search engine

More than ½ of executives watch work-related videos on YouTube at least weekly

Video can engage your audience better than other media – creates a more personal connection between your brand and the viewer

Video is an effective way to explain product functions, processes and other concepts that are hard to describe in copy

Why YouTube

Video is great on the go – lends itself to the mobile format

Your brand will get discovered more (Google integration)

YouTube is measurable

YouTube

Create a branded YouTube channel Keep it relevant (product showcases, demos,

lessons, testimonials, how-to, expert advice) Develop videos that are quick, simple,

engaging and professional Make it easy to find and share Share your videos in other places Include a call to action (website, special offer,

etc) Speak to the person, not the business

Website

Effective Websites

Simple Quality content Blog Downloadable content / resource center Encourage collaboration Form and function Keep content fresh Integrate social media Check out your competition

Create Better Content

Focus on your audience and their needs Be clear and concise Incorporate relevant keywords Organize your content Measure the results

E-commerce

Make it simple Use images and video Customer specific profiles Integrate to both your customer’s and your

own systems Incorporate the human touch with bios and

photos of sales personnel Measure everything Understand your customer’s needs Easy to administer / update