When a company gets bought out it’s natural top executives will be shown the door. And so the parade has begun at Sun, now part of Oracle. This is a good thing for open source. Talent is returning to the wild with credibility and experience others can benefit from. Take the case of Simon “Webmink” Phipps (above). The former chief open ... [
Meryl Streep won the Oscar for Sophie’s Choice, a film that hinges on (spoiler alert) a woman having to choose which of her children will live and which will die. Microsoft is for that kind of choice. In a blog post later copied to GovLoop, Microsoft’s Dan Kasun lays it out. “Choice has been one of Microsoft’s strongest messages for years,” ... [
Once again, Google has bought something only to open source it. This time it’s ReMail, first acquired, then put on Google Code as open source under the Apache 2.0 license. (It previously did the same thing with DocVerse.) ReMail was more efficient in terms of system resources than Apple’s own mail.app, it offered full text searching, and it had other neat ... [
Apple’s suit against HTC could end one of two ways. Either Apple becomes the next SCO, which ran itself aground claiming rights to Linux, or it becomes the next Microsoft, which is prospering while claiming to own Linux. The answer depends on how hard Apple presses its case. You can get a clue by looking at who Apple has sued. While ... [
The low-hanging fruit in the renewable energy business still lies with efficiency. Cutting your energy use without crimping your lifestyle gives you a faster payback than turning into Ed Begley Jr. It’s still good to be a little Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) on energy use, even if your politics are to the right of Rush Limbaugh, because there’s money in saving, ... [
The 311 service has been a “red headed stepchild” for American cities practically since it was launched in the mid-1990s as a phone service. (Picture from Moonbattery, a conservative blog.) The idea was to make 311 the 911 for non-emergency calls. A burning building call 911, a burning question call 311. But that charge was so broad that most cities did ... [
In all the talk about New York financier Paul Singer’s plan to go all Gordon Gecko on Novell, one word has not been mentioned nearly enough. Microsoft. Microsoft needs a viable Novell, and Novell’s Linux business was on the verge of becoming viable when Singer’s Elliott Associates swooped in with an offer to break up the company, seize its cash, split ... [
Dries Buytaert of Drupal and Acquia is warning that Software as a Service is becoming a threat to open source and that clouds could create the same vendor lock-in customers sought to avoid with open source. (This is Dries at last year’s Drupalcon in Paris, in a close-up of a photo by Pedro Lozano. From buytaert.net.) Even where SaaS companies let ... [
That first step is interoperability. Getting proprietary gear to work together, to transform reports among proprietary standards, is the first step on the road to an open world. The HIMSS show takes that step every year with what it calls its Interoperability Showcase. At this year’s show in Atlanta it occupied the whole end of one hall of the Georgia World ... [
The announcement by Twitter that it is switching to Cassandra for its database lookups puts new attention on a project that has yet to reach Version 1.0. Cassandra had been underway long before Oracle bought Sun and mySQL. Facebook first launched it in 2008 to power their inbox search feature. It was released on Google Code in 2008 and became an ... [
Today Matt Asay urges government buyers to support open source, open data and open standards. Why? Because it’s better. Because it promotes competition. Because it gives government flexibility. But after watching government on every level, in various countries, for over half my lifetime, I can tell you the last thing any government wants is to make a decision its successor can ... [
Since I began writing this blog in 2005 I have watched open source move from a fringe idea to something embraced by the IT mainstream. But there are still extremists out there who want to destroy open source. Some of their names may surprise you. What they have done is retreat into a group where they seek not to be identified. ... [
No. Matt Asay hits the nail on the head. In full “knock this board off my shoulder mode,” the Ubuntu COO dares Microsoft to sue Canonical, or Google, or someone else over its Linux claims who might fight back. To torture my recent analogy (analogies can’t fight back), Microsoft isn’t Neville Chamberlain. It’s the guy on the other side of the ... [
In response to my piece yesterday, my Italian friend Roberto Galoppini referenced a piece he did last August called the Open Source Innovation Backbone. Packaged software companies may just use open source to build a common base on which they can innovate. Or they may copy a proprietary product, competing against it together in order to drive out a competitor’s monopoly ... [
Open source may become the default position of customers, but it is still not the first option when a market is new. This is a point open source executives like Matt Asay continue to struggle with, one that closed-source advocates continue to hammer on. (Picture from the Breakthrough Institute.) Open source is shared freeloading. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. ... [Actually, I’m a bit surprised at just how little discussion I see out there about Conversion Rates. Conversion Rates are critically important to achieving sales online and should be near and dear to every marketing and business professional conducting business over the internet.
To frame the discussion in terms of traditional face-to face sales, I would point to a sales formula that’s well know to most sales people:
TS = TAB * HR * ASP
Where:
- TS = Total Sales
- TAB = Times at Bat or Customer Encounters
- HR = Hit Rate
- ASP = Average Sell Price
This formula is always true. For purposes of this discussion [and analogy], let’s drill down a bit on face-to-face sales first. Looking at the TAB number, there are real practical limits to this number as humans have a limited amount of time that they can actually meet with customers. For our purposes, let’s say that is a constant across the board for all sales people.
The ASP number . . . while I would argue that sales organizations go to great lengths training sales people on how to sell up in order to increase their ASPs, for practical purposes and for this discussion let’s assume that give or take ASP is also a constant. Generally speaking across the board, the variance here salesperson to salesperson is fairly small.
That leaves us with Hit Rate as the key variable. Sales Managers get this in a big way. While they will spend time with the sales force training people on closing skills, product skills, and strategic selling techniques, they know that by far, the largest impact on total sales is sales qualification. Specifically, since the sales force by definition has limited time they need to use it where it can be used best. That is, spending time with customers that are qualified: ready, willing, and able to buy. How that is done will determine the pipeline and largely total sales for the organization.
Getting this right is a ton of work for direct sales. Getting it right for online sales is just as hard [maybe harder] and makes you wonder why many in the Online community don’t recognize the amount of sales and marketing process work required.
Translating this formula to Online Sales:
TS = Hits * Conversion Rate * ASP
We can see it’s pretty much the same formula. That shouldn’t be a big surprise.
If you’ve been involved with this for any amount of time, you have experience with SEO [Search Engine Optimization] and SEM [Search Engine Marketing]. Often, the primary focus of both of these disciplines is getting the visits as high as possible generally using techniques designed to optimize the site for search engines. While I would tend to agree that getting the number of hits high will generally help with sales, getting qualified visitors to the site is far more profitable and important. This is essentially the same as qualification in the face-to-face world.
To accomplish this in the online world and specifically in the world of search, understanding sales process as it relates to your specific product is critical. The sales process will vary from product to product, but generally speaking, the closer the potential client gets to a buy decision, the more specific their search terms become. This is why, when doing Keyword Analysis, understanding your sales process and specific keyword phrases can be critical. Having general keywords may get you a lot of visits, but may not [read probably will not] bring you qualified sales opportunities. On the other hand, selecting specific keyword phrases to your product and centering your marketing programs toward that will bring you more qualified visits. More qualified leads means higher conversion rates and higher total sales. Additionally, it is far easier to dominate searches for specific terms than it is for general term. Less competition.
So why all the talk about conversion rates? Getting the potential [qualified] client to your site is critical. Now that they’re here, how do you get the sale? By now, the potential customer has done a reasonable amount of product research and diligence to get this point. They are now ready to make a final decision, between you and 1-2 competitors. They have their credit card handy and will probably spend 30 seconds to 2 minutes max on each site before they make their decision.
This is conversion time. We’ve all read about “words that work” and other systems which is one of the reasons that I use Glyphius. Glyphius scores your sell words against thousands of sales phrases that have been proven to work and not work. Glyphius helps you vent your language and get out “negative” sale words. That’s critical! Further, using proven words that sell can move the customer to select your product NOW over the competition. Given the short decision cycle, having the right buy words is critical.
You can purchase your copy of Glyphius here!
0 responses so far ↓
There are no comments yet...Kick things off by filling out the form below.
Leave a Comment