Dan Galante

I asked my LinkedIn audience If the Sales and Marketing function were merged and run by Sales, What would be your main focus? Why?

As you can see, 68% of those surveyed said that increased lead generation and demand generation was a top priority. What this means is that people see Marketing as a vehicle to increase Sales and Revenue.

Marketing also serves as an Enablement for Sales Teams, Customer Success, support, and even employer branding. Many companies have created a dedicated enablement function. Companies sit employer branding and Recruitment Marketing in HR. However, there are still a lot of companies without dedicated enablement and employer branding functions.

Everyone looks to the marketing department. The lines between product, marketing, sales, and customer success are blurring. Marketers need to be able to serve different parts of the organization.

Marketers do traditional work of branding, advertising, market research, content creation, and enablement, but these tasks support the larger goal of increased Sales and Revenue. Marketers impact Sales by filling up the Sales pipeline, pre, and post-sale. In the end, Marketers need to make a business case to justify their existence.

Why do People use Marketing?

People use Marketing for different reasons and they have different sets of challenges concerning the Marketing they do. I conducted two surveys of my LinkedIn audience.

I asked the following:

1. What do you hope to gain from your marketing efforts?

Based on the survey, most people want the marketing mix of brand awareness, leads, sales, and revenue in exchange for their marketing efforts.

2. What is your biggest marketing challenge? Why?

Based on survey findings, 56 percent of people use Marketing for a mix of brand awareness, lead generation, and revenue. In terms of Marketing challenges, 70 percent said that Content Marketing was the biggest.

What should be the main priorities of Marketers? What do you hope to gain from your marketing? What is your biggest marketing challenge?

Share your thoughts.

Additional places to find my content and blog

WordPress: http://dangalante.me/

Tumblr: http://www.askdangalante.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/DanGalante

Medium https://medium.com/@DanGalante

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/trendsettingsm

Anchor https://anchor.fm/dangalante

About Me

I’m a Strategic Marketer with Field Sales, Sales Enablement, Content Creation, and, Classroom Teacher/Trainer skill-sets using Marketing to drive Sales/Growth.

As a Marketer, I’ve worked with Start-Ups, a Political Campaign, and a Digital Marketing Conference.

I’m certified in Inbound Marketing with classes in Marketing, Product Management, Product Marketing, SEO, SEM.

Before teaching, I was an Outside Sales and Marketing Rep. selling and marketing dental products to Dentists using consultative selling, trade show marketing, field marketing, and market research.

I publish Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today a blog covering industry events and trends.

I’m seeking a full-time role in:

Inbound Marketing, Digital Marketing, Content Marketing, Product Marketing, Demand Generation, Social Media Marketing, Sales Enablement Enablement, Sales Strategy, Marketing Strategy, Employer Branding, Recruitment Marketing.

Open on title, industry, company, location, and level. Reach out on LinkedIn or at dan@dangalante.com to start a conversation.

We are in the digital age. In this age, social networks are the wave of the future. Today’s consumer is empowered. Social consumers quickly share their thoughts about a product or an experience on Facebook, Twitter, Google and many other networks. Brands need to be present on social networks to interact and engage with the empowered consumer. More consumers are consulting their social networks for product recommendations. It is important for brands to listen to their customers on social networks.

image via Shopify.com

Scenario

An article goes out on Twitter about how a customer credits a particular tool with helping her improve business results. A group of disgruntled Influencers and Industry insiders reply negatively claiming the story was paid for or sponsored by the company.

I would do the following to address the issue:

• Handle the situation right away stating that the story was not paid for and that the customer was a satisfied user of the product
• Edit the content to state that no one was paid for their opinion

To address Tweet that said, (“Company X just takes money from people to put up this crap- that tool sucks.”)

I would:

• Ask them to explain why they felt that way and if they had an issue with the product
• Share this with the company so they could address any issues these customers may have had with the product

I would take immediate action to make sure the situation was contained. My priority would be to protect the company brand.

How have you handled challenges on Social Media? Comment and share below.

About the Author

Dan is passionate about using Marketing to help businesses drive sales. Certified in Inbound Marketing, Dan has worked on various marketing assignments including: Start Ups, a Political Campaign & a Digital Marketing Conference.

Prior to serving as a Classroom teacher, Dan served customers as an Outside Sales & Marketing Rep in NYC. In this role, he taught & trained Dentists on the company’s products & services using a consultative selling approach combined with direct marketing. He also supported the company’s marketing efforts at industry trade shows.

He writes & publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing & Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to over 17,000 followers on LinkedIn & over 15,000 on WordPress.

Dan’s articles & insights on Sales, Marketing & Social Media have been featured, mentioned & referenced in major Business Publications such as:

The Arizona Republic

http://yourbusiness.azcentral.com/handle-top-10-sme-sales-objections-24845.html

Twitter Ads Blog

https://blog.twitter.com/2014/how-smartphone-users-engage-on-twitter-three-key-findings

Yahoo! Finance Blog

https://es.finance.yahoo.com/blogs/fintechnologiayredeses/cueva-arma-secreta-obama-110427857.html

Paper.li’s Wall Of Fame via Scoop.it

http://www.scoop.it/t/all-things-paper-li/?tag=Dan+Galante

Dan has been honored for his Social Profiles & Content

•Recognized by Klout for having a Score putting him in the Top 10 % of Social Media Users

•LinkedIn Social Selling Index Score in the Top 1%

•Honored by SlideShare for being in the top 5% of profiles viewed in 2014

•Honored by LinkedIn in 2012 for being in the top 1% of profiles viewed out of 200 million members

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Direct, Inbound, Digital, Content & Social Media Marketing. He is willing to be a CMO to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. Contact him to set up interviews. dan@dangalante.com 

I covered Voice Summit last week at NJIT in Newark, New Jersey. Voice Summit is the largest voice tech conference that brings the conversational design ecosystem together in one place.

Last year was the first Voice Summit. It was amazing to see how the industry has advanced in the past year. This year, the conference grew to over 5,000 attendees!

Voice Summit was a great place to network. Many Voice Startups demoed their offerings as well.

Founder Pete Erikson shares the story of Voice in the opening press conference. Pete shared the podium with Voice industry leaders and Newark Civic Leadership.

The conversation in Voice has shifted from should brands have a Voice Strategy to how to effectively incorporate voice technology across the organization. Attendees had opportunities to attend hands-on voice workshops on topics ranging from creating brand guidelines to building a voice strategy from the ground up. I took the Voice strategy workshop conducted by Brett Kinsella of VoiceBot.Ai. We received a workbook that had questions that served as building blocks to build our voice strategy.

I had was able to get a look at the Expo Floor where I was able to meet exhibitors and explore the Amazon Smart Home. It was amazing to see how voice technology has transformed the home experience. In this video, I was able to ask Alexa to play Who Wants to Be a Millionaire and to play music, etc.

Marketers have many opportunities with Voice and Audio Content according to Voices.com research. Content takes the form of short and long-form ranging from Flash Briefings up to Audiobooks.

However, when it comes to smart speakers only, 18% of users discover skills from brand advertising according to Vixen Labs.

Brands need to prepare to change their Marketing and Advertising for Voice. A panel shared their thoughts on how to improve how to achieve this aim.

Edison Research and NPR conducted market research on the topic of smart speaker customer behavior. The number of smart speakers in U.S. homes grew 78% from December of 2017 to December. The research packed with data you can see here.

Brett Kinsella led a panel where Marketers shared how they have developed and implemented their strategy for Voice.

Steve Keller of Pandora shared his thoughts on the topic of Sonic Branding and Sound Business.

On a side note, NJIT was nice enough to provide me with a tour of the start-up incubator and co-working space opening this September. I was able to see areas being built from the ground up just as startups are.

I also was able to see the Alexa Cup which is Amazon’s initiative to pair Marketers and developers to work on projects such as Female Empowerment and Mental Health.

What touched me on a human level was the closing keynote entitled “A journey through a deaf developer’s eyes.” In this keynote, Thomas Chappell of Prudential shared his story. Thomas is unable to speak.

After his talk, I was able to meet him. People communicate with him using Voice to speech technology and American Sign language. I was able to use the technology on a smartphone to have a full conversation with him.

Voice Summit was an amazing conference. I want to thank Pete Erikson, the Modev Team, NJIT, the City of Newark, and the State of New Jersey for having me as their guest.