Winning “Business of the Year” might be an award you receive from your local government or industry organization but let’s face it. Awards feel good because they increase employee morale, excitement and brand recognition, but the best award a CEO, MARKETING or SALES team can receive is the achievement of key sales and marketing objectives. At Xzito, we define a BUSINESS OF THE YEAR as one that has the highest increase in:

• Brand recognition and demand, based on incoming web traffic, leads, and social media engagement.
• The conversion of leads into excited customers (enabled by tracking their  engagement scores)
• Increased sales, market share, and profitability

Over the past decade, our President, Jeshua Zapata and his team have been observing the power elements for achieving these goals. We applied them for clients and here at Xzito. The result? Our President was named the SBA 2013 Rhode Island Young Entrepreneur of the Year.

Here are 5 power elements that, when understood, can combine to launch the integrated actions that perfect the ability to be the BUSINESS OF THE YEAR.

Element #1: The creation of Buyer Personas minimizes the time and cost of connecting with customers!

Buyer personas are fictitious buyer characters that bring to life the ideal individuals you must target. Companies win when they define these personas. Who are your whale customers who bring the most profit and excitement vs. your guppies? What are they like? What do they want? How do they buy? Who are their peers? Companies that treat all contacts the same lose the ability to connect and engage. Their generic messages make them irrelevant because they’re not connecting to specific personas. Data is needed to create effective personas. Businesses of the year leverage web-sites, other media, and exciting content to connect with their most important personas.

Element #2: When it comes to Products and Services, simplicity is the new winner

Do you ever judge a mobile app, or web-site by how it makes you feel? Or, how easy it is to use? Competitors are very quick to copy winning products or services. Companies that simplify web usability gain a major weapon for outmaneuvering competitors that make it difficult for users to take action. Make your web interfaces intuitive. Make your fresh ideas easy to share. This helps your product or idea to go viral. True excitement comes from the buyer, not the seller.

Element #3:  The best Internet marketing moves people through a defined Marketing and Selling Process.

Buyers are bombarded with so many “We’re the Best, so buy now!” messages every day that they tune out. Research shows that just 20% of all leads are actually ready to buy. 80% are just browsing. Most people go to Google to search, but don’t have an immediate purchasing intent.  The business that capture the highest number of leads, understand this.  They have developed systems that understand the intent of each prospect - whether they’re tire-kicking or ready to buy. They deliver messages based on whether the prospect is located at the beginning or the end of the buying process.  Their websites and online marketing programs deliver ultra high-quality leads to the sales team, which values them as a teammate that assists in the customer engagement process. This is so critical today, since online research lets prospects to get more than halfway through the buying process before they contact a seller. Without high-performing websites and online marketing, they never see the leads and revenue they’re missing.

Element #4:  Track results, opportunities, and threats with easy-to-understand ANALYTIC DASHBOARDS. 

Without the systems to monitor traffic, lead, and customer engagement and connect web performance to ROI, you’re feeling your way through a pitch black forest.               Most organizations do not know how to quantify website and online marketing/sales results. With the right knowledge, leaders let data justify their actions. One CEO believed that Email would annoy customers. BUT, analysis of his data proved otherwise, and today, his company has huge open rates, leads, customers and orders.

Element #5:  Everything’s changing, faster and faster. Are you?

Keywords used by buyers are constantly changing. Are you tracking them? Competitors are constantly evolving their products and communications. Are you countering them by continuously differentiating? Or changing the game entirely, so they can’t keep up? Opportunities and threats arise constantly. Do you have the data to meet the challenge?

We want you to be the Business of the Year. By doing the right things and getting the max from your budget in the least amount of time, you can be.  Please give us your feedback. What have you learned in your world? Lets talk further about these points