Dan Galante

Free or Low-Cost Trials

When creating a new offering, I would offer a free or low-cost trial of your product to the end-users and industry experts. Consumers look for social proof before they buy a product. Now if the product is new, none exists. To lower buyer resistance, you need to make it low risk and feel safe.

In addition to market research and product testing; the free or low-cost trial is a great way to build trust and get feedback. Surveys can be created to ask potential customers about their experience.

If your product helps to solve a customer’s problem they will be more than happy to share it with others; converting to paying users! The product will earn testimonials and endorsements. Testimonials and endorsements will address product reliability creating: loyalty, brand recognition, and Sales for your product.

Loss Leaders

In place of a free or low-cost trial, a loss leader can be an option. A loss leader is when you offer a product at a loss or break-even point to gain business in the future. Supermarkets do this all of the time when a new product is rolled out.

Another place I saw loss leaders was when I was in Field Sales. I was selling Dental equipment at the time. Certain customers were loyal to certain types of equipment. When I ask why they stated that these were the tools that they had used in school. When I called on Dental schools and Hospitals, I found they were locked up with large contacts. My larger competitors sold the equipment at cost practically giving it away. Why would they do this? My competitors were creating life-long customers who were trained on certain tools and refused to switch.

Connection, trust, and advocacy are essential for customer acquisition. It is your job as a brand to turn your customer base into evangelists.

The decision on developing and implementing offering free, low-cost trials and/or loss leaders will be different for each product.

Free, low-cost trials and loss leaders help to Increase Sales and Customer Loyalty.

How have you used free, low-cost trials and loss leaders to create Sales and Customer Loyalty?

Comment and share.

I covered The AI Summit in New York last week because I wanted to learn more about AI and Machine Learning.

According to Tractica, AI is being implemented globally.

AI and Machine Learning used in many verticals and processes. For example, when I compose an email using GMAIL, I received suggestions on how to finish a sentence. To use the GMAIL suggestion, I can tap the right arrow button on my keyboard.

Think about your routine and your processes, I bet that AI influencers your decisions from where to eat to what to watch.

It is important not to fear AI; use it as a tool to be more productive and live better.

Data Privacy

There are many issues on Data privacy with legislation such as GDPR, CCPA among others. Right now we’re are at the level where AI can understand customer behavior and make suggestions.

AI In the Home

I attended an LG Labs event on AI in the home where it was suggested that companies need to collect more customer data to make better products. To convince customers to provide more data, companies need to provide customers with a ROD analysis or Return on Data. The return on Data should measure customer benefits against the amount of data they are providing. For example, in exchange for providing X amount of Data, we improved our product By Y i.e. increased functionality and better user experience. Think of an ROI or ROAS analysis.

The next evolution for AI is to go from predicting current user intent to future user intent based on user actions. Eventually, AI devices will be consolidated and work cross-functionally.

How AI will impact Sales, Marketing and the Customer Experience

Mark Beccue of Tractica opened up the Sales, Marketing and Customer Experience part of the Summit.

Matthew Quinn of Columbia University shares his insights on AI’s impact on Sales and Marketing.

Companies will not have just Salespeople or Machine Learning in the sales process. Instead, to increase Profits companies will have a hybrid model.

A business’s reason for using Machine Learning and AI is to become more efficient, get better insights and better ROI and profits.

Businesses need to think globally by applying cultural diffusion to their business through localization and language translation.

Marketing

AI will improve Marketing KPIs by allowing brands to measure improve linguistic effectiveness.

Shared by Smith Yewell of Welocalize

Customer Segmentation

Shared by Ranjit Jangam of Comcast

How ML can improve Customer Segmentation Data

AI will improve the customer experience by allowing customers to control their buyer journey with less interaction from the seller.

Shared by Priyanka Tiwari of Interactions.

Conversational AI will help power a self-service model according to Gartner.

What is Conversational AI?

Where AI needs to improve

I want to thank The AI Summit for having me as their guest. If you want to use AI to improve business outcomes, sign up for the AI summit in your city.

What do you think is next for AI?

Comment and share below.

Sales reps can only be as good as the product and message they represent. Before companies can hire Sales reps, they need a great product with messaging that conveys the benefits to customers. Sales reps need support from marketing in the cross functional organization of tomorrow. The messaging should be able to prevent customer objections. Unfortunately, this is where many Marketing departments fall short.

image via Salesforce.com

Many people that get hired in marketing, lack a sales background and have no idea on how to handle customer objections.

In addition, many people in Marketing lack the background and understanding of how people learn. Teachers and psychologists have this training. Understanding how people learn can make product messaging more effective because it can be presented in multiple formats. Many people in marketing lack practitioner experience and as a result marketing is not as effective as it could be. Practitioners are especially under represented in the Marketing function of many EdTech companies and this needs to change. Now I will make a case for hiring Sales Reps, Teachers and Industry practitioners in marketing.

Case for hiring ex Sales Reps

• Knows how to handle objections which can be applied to message
• Experience dealing with customers, knows customer pain points
• Sees how end-user uses the product
• Can increase sales using Sales expertise to make messaging customer centric
• Can assist with Sales and Marketing Alignment as companies need to work cross functionally
• Understands the issues Sales Reps face and has the credibility of being a Rep when collaborating with Sales Teams

Experienced obtaining , qualifying and converting leads to Sales ie Lead gen/demand gen

Hiring Industry practice experts

• They are the customers and understand the pain points better than any market research -should be in leadership roles
• Healthcare does this with Doctors, Dentists
• Tech does this with programmers and engineers.

Why not EdTech!

• Can increase Sales because they are the customer and understand the pain points because they have experienced them in the job

This is the best market research/ buyer persona there is!

Case For hiring ex Teachers

• understands how people learned
• skilled at tailoring content for understanding based on learning needs
• Today’s marketing is about educating customer and earning the right to market to them as they can educate customers

Why it is not Good enough to just place them in Sales

People in Sales are not involved in the creative process and cannot change their cards and company messaging.

They cannot address weaknesses in messaging and product.

The Marketer of Tomorrow

Has all of the above in their background or at least a Sales background at a minimum.

My Unique Value Proposition to Companies

I would be an excellent fit for a Marketing role due to the following:

• Former Outside Sales Rep which allows me to create messaging to preemptively stop most sales objections
• Can help with Sales Enablement/coaching/go on selected sales calls to improve the sales process
• Experienced Marketer
• Can build a better talent brand by building out your career site with employee stories
• Create and establish new markets along with helping to create new product offerings that complement existing ones
• Experienced online audience builder
• I have built up a large audience with 19, 000+ followers on WordPress
• 24,000+ followers on LinkedIn along with a following of 6000+ on my Twitter handle @DanGalante

Are you ready to increase Sales by improving Marketing? Your sales teams deserve better!

Change today!

How have you increased Sales by improving messaging? Comment and share below.

Here are the slides.

Additional Resources 

Sales, Marketing & Social Media Strategies for Organic Growth

https://tmblr.co/ZTyq4v2VDX-Mx

https://tmblr.co/ZTyq4v2YTqK2h

http://dangalante.me/2016/10/18/how-businesses-will-increase-sales-by-improving-how-they-hire-marketing-staff/

About the Author

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

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

He writes and publishes a business blog on the topics of Sales, Marketing and Social Media entitled Sales, Marketing & Social Media Today; which has grown to 24,000+ followers on LinkedIn and 19,000+ on WordPress.

Dan is seeking a full-time marketing role in Marketing. He is willing to create and build out the Marketing function of your organization if it does not exist. If your company is hiring for roles in these areas, contact him directly via a free LinkedIn Message or email him at Dan@DanGalante.com to set up interviews.