Tuesday 8 October 2019

LinkedIn: The Best Prospecting Tool (Chapter 3)



Hi guys! Here I am with the third chapter of LinkedIn: The Best Prospecting Tool.

For those who have just started following: I have covered “how to create and maintain a genuine account” and  “the importance of LinkedIn groups” in the previous two chapters.

Well, this chapter is All About LinkedIn Connections!

Building connections is basic but the most important thing to do on LinkedIn. To rationalize the word ‘social’ in a ‘social media platform’ and to take advantage of LinkedIn, you need to build connections on LinkedIn. Connections are great because they promote you and moreover show you as a trusted business companion to everyone. So, here are six simple yet powerful tactics that can make a boom in your connection list and increase your customer database like anything!

How to Connect With Right People


Tactic 1: Using an Influential Person for Leverage

We have already discussed about connecting with an influential personality in a target market in the previous chapter. Well, we are going to follow the same rule while increasing our quality connections. These are the steps you require to follow to develop better connections:-

  • Search for a group outside LinkedIn. For example, AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants)
  • Connect with the admin of the group
  • Now, if there is  group of the same community on LinkedIn, you can join the group and use Endorse Your Business Technique (discussed in Chapter 2).
  • If a LinkedIn group does not exists, then contact the person offering him valuable content for his group members (webinars, infographics and all sorts of useful intellectual property).
  • Speak to him in person if possible and understand the group’s pain points
  • Also, you can offer to promote the group in your subscriber’s list. It will be win-win situation for both of you.

Tactic 2: Expanding Your LinkedIn Universe



  • Expanding your LinkedIn universe does not limit to connecting with a single person in an group. It actually is developing connections around your target market. For example, if you cannot connect with a chairman of group in your target market, look for some mutual connections in his profile. Thus, you can contact and influence him with the help of your connections.
  • In addition, you can also take help from your competitors and thought leaders in your target market. You can gather leads from them. You just have to find the strong links in organizations and contact them.

Tactic 3: Direct Connection Requests

When you are trying to connect to a 3rd level connection or some person whom you cannot connect through an influencer, sending an Inmail is the best option available. But. here are some few things you require to take care of while sending them an Inmail request:-

  • Executives like CEO or CFO (your target audience) get a lot of requests to connect from many people. So, you have to make sure that your mail has a psychological upper hand from others to instantly grab your audience’s attention.
  • You have to target their pain points. As soon as you have understood their problems, you can generate subject lines which consist answers to their problems. That’s how you make them open your emails.
  • Now, you will have to address  the direct objections like introducing yourself with an opening line. For example, you can start like- “Do you think- “what does he want from me?” I want to eliminate your (problem name)”. Then you can continue your mail with a CTA, LinkedIn profile link and a date to schedule a call. Here’s an example of a good Inmail to generate leads:-



Tactic 4: Connections Through Introductions




You can get introduced to second level connections by your connections via LinkedIn introductions. The above displayed example clearly describes how to ask your connections to introduce yourself to their connections.

Note:- You can add the message which your connection needs to send to your potential customer in the mail. He or she will appreciate the gesture.

Tactic 5: Broadcasting Messages That Do Not Get Spammed

It does not mean that you need to send thousands of mails. It will obviously freak out your audience. Hence, broadcasting messages involve sending mails only to your direct connections.



Further, in your connections, you need to filter out according to your target audience such as location, industry, or organization. Your aim is to obtain the most relevant and smallest customer database.

Now, you again need to identify the problems of your selected audience and set up an ideal headline. You can also send straightforward messages to audience. And after sending messages, you can disqualify your customer database. For example, you can just ask your potential customers to let you know if you they are interested in staying connected with you. If they aren’t, you can disconnect with them.

Tactic 6: Stealing Your Competitor’s Clients

Here, I am talking about stealing clients immorally but through ethical means. For example, if a client is not happy with a professional, you can acquire the client.  These are things which you would like to ask yourself:-

  • Why did my potential client like my competitor?
  • How can I outshine my competitor?
  • What is that my competitor missing and is really important to my prospect?

Now, you will design a message where you will belittle your client’s achievements through your competitor in your subject line. It will disturb him but he will surely open your mail. In your mail, you will congratulate on his business’s achievement but offer him something more that is great yet tangible. For example, if your prospect has a good Google ranking but sucks in content which is affecting his revenue, you can offer him solutions to mend it.

Distinct Leads on LinkedIn and What to do with Them

Unestablished:– Audience who does not know about you or about your work. You can follow perform the lead  generation tactics on them.

Established:- People who are your present clients or are currently in touch with you. You need to perform up selling or lead re-generation. You can use the update option to mention their name with a specific plan or  product.

Re-established:-  People who were your clients. You can use mass-messaging to connect with them and reestablish your connection.

That’s all for now guys! Be prepared to read another exciting chapter of LinkedIn: The Best Prospecting Tool soon. Hope you will see an increase in the number of fruitful connections until next time.

Stay Happy, Stay Connected!

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LinkedIn: The Best Prospecting Tool (Chapter 2)



Hi everybody! I hope that you are doing great boosting your business through your LinkedIn profile.
If not, read this article on how you can increase your prospects by improving your LinkedIn profile. Well, in this article, I would like to discuss the importance of LinkedIn groups and how can you use them to attract your target audience.

LinkedIn Groups are great boosters for your connections and business. There have been many instances where people have used LinkedIn groups to become thought leaders, sell their paid events, market their products and set up an entire business around LinkedIn groups. That’s how powerful LinkedIn groups are.

So, here’s how you can also search for most beneficial groups, create your own and be the top most influencer in your groups by implementing these simple practices. Read On!

Finding The Relevant Groups


When finding LinkedIn groups, you need to elect groups where your target audience resides. For example, if you are providing marketing or sales services, groups with CMOs or CFOs as participants can be a great choice.

So how can you find such groups? Here are Super easy steps you can follow:-

  • Type the profile name in the search bar. For eg:- type ‘CFO’
  • Now, look for personalities who can be your prospects.
  • Get a view of their profile and see which groups they are members of
  • Make a list of such groups (which you haven’t joined) and review the quality of those groups.

Now, go to a different prospect’s profile and repeat the process. See if any group is repeated often in many profiles. In the end, you will a refined set of groups that are high quality and have good number of target audience. Choose those groups and enrich your LinkedIn connections.

Note:- Make sure that group is not a one man show and encourages different contributors.

Endorsing Your Business Through Groups


Now, as you have already chosen your groups. Let me tell you how you can influence them to promote yourself.

Select a group and offer your content as a solution to their audience’s problems. Contact the owner of the group and tell the person that you can present content (webinars, presentations, seminars) for the group. As every group owner seeks the best content for audience, he or she will surely encourage your worthful efforts. Thus, providing value content to such groups will improve your credibility in front of your audience. Hence, it is pretty much easy yet pretty much important too to connect with the right group and improve your trustworthiness.

Also, every group owner has the authority to mail his group members once a week about the updates in the group. Hence, for example if you offer a valuable content to a group owner who has 80k members, he can announce it directly to all his members (LinkedIn mails directly land to Inbox and not spam). You are able to take your product to 80k people without even maintaining a customer database. Isn’t that amazing!

Also make sure that you write the mail’s subject line and body to make it more effective.

Creating Your Own Group


Why do you need it? Because You want people to follow you which makes you a leader in the market. And your LinkedIn group is the best way to constantly be in touch with your audience.

Some things to know about groups in LinkedIn

Number of groups you can own- 30

Number of groups you can join- 100

  • Note:- Once you reach 100, you have to withdraw yourself from one group to join a new one.

Hence, I will recommend you to make as many groups as you can manage because groups act as databases to your business.

Alert:-  Always create groups related to your target market. You don’t need to create or name a group around your profession as that will not do much good to you.

Example:- If you are a marketing expert, you can create a group named “Chief Finance Officers”. You can also think of problem solution for a name.  And when talking about members, be prepared to welcome your competitors as well as they can bring potential customers to your group.

How to Make People Join the Group


Well, as you have created your LinkedIn group, it’s time to attract members to your group.

  • The very first thing you can do to increase your followers, is by directly mailing your connections and friends to join the group. Just see for the list of people who can be benefited by joining the group.
  • Put an update about your profile and share value content that is published on your group.  
  • You can promote your LinkedIn group on your blog. Put a link of your group in the middle or end of the article and it would draw your audience’s attention.
  • You can invite your email list and ask them to follow your new group.
  • You can contact fellow groups related to your target market. For example, if you have a group about “Chief Marketing Officers”, you can contact a group dedicated to “Chief Sales Officer” and mutually help each other.

These are few tested ways to increase the number of your group members. In addition to that, you have keep a track record of posting awesome discussions or content. Ensure that you have a minimum of 20 posts or discussions to publish to make your group interesting. A good trick to increase the number of discussions or increase followers is to invite other influencers (competitors) in your niche. But also mention to announce your group to their group members.

Winning Credibility with Discussions


There is a simple trick for gaining credibility in a short span. It is called winning the credibility over others. What you need to do is to choose a content which is very popular in your targeted niche and review it logically. While reviewing it, you need to discuss few points you fully or partially agree upon and a couple of points, you totally disagree with. For example, if you are targeting the marketing industry, choose a name who is looked upon as the ultimate marketing wizard and review his works.

Make sure that your points are rational and valid. Hence, when you prove a big name wrong, you are automatically leveraged in the eyes of your audience. And that’s how you win the credibility over others!

Get on the Top Influencers League

  

You have to come up in the elite league of influencers in groups that you have joined. Hence, to do it, you need to tart contributing to the group in a way that people notice you.

For example, if whiteboard videos are the trending in your target market, start a discussion contradicting it. Provide a compelling title like- “Whiteboards are a Time Waste” and logically support your arguments in the post. You can also provide a link of your post on your blog. Thus, the main aim is to draw your audience’s attention by saying something at issue and backing your statements logically.

Be prepared for people commenting for and against your statement but anyways it will boost your group persona as long as you can logically back yourself. Moreover, this heated debate will enhance your activity level in the group and people will start to recognize you as a person with big balls and credibility and will want to have a business with you.

Another trick, you can use to be reached out by your potential customers is by picking up a hot issue related to a big name in the market and providing solutions for that problem publicly. For example, let’s say if Yahoo is going down and you come up with an article that tells “How you can save Yahoo in 25 days”. People around you will notice it and will subconsciously think of you as a business partner.

The Yin-Yang Philosophy for Business


There is no use of posting a content if no one is reading it. Therefore, you need to come up with a great title which is eye-catching and Yin-Yang philosophy can help you in coming up with a great title.

What is Yin-Yang Philosophy?

It is about understanding and using the two contradictory concepts. For you, it is answering two questions-

  • What is the most feared thing by your target market?
  • What is the most desired thing by your target market?

You have to figure the answers to these questions and construct a title at a elementary level. For example, let’s say if you are posting a content about how to present your business plans in the best way possible, you can go like- “Presenting your business plan Soon! 3 Surefire Ways you can Excel in your Presentation” or you can say- “3 Surefire ways to sell your Business Plan”

Leaving Your Link In the Discussion


Leaving your link can help your prospects easily find you. So, when you comment on a discussion, leave your link in the comments by providing a reason for your target audience to connect with you. For example, ask your audience to connect with you to learn more about a strategy and provide your LinkedIn profile link.

That’s all for today, guys. Use the power of LinkedIn groups and increase domination in your target market.

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Friday 4 October 2019

LinkedIn: The Best Prospecting Tool (Chapter 1)



LinkedIn is not just a platform for recruiters or job seekers. More and more businesses are trying to sell their products or services through LinkedIn due to large crowd of quality business professionals (which mean more clients). As LinkedIn is a great professional communication platform, you can foster your business through genuine efforts. And when I speak of genuinity, it starts with your profile.

People can see your profile and judge whether it is genuine or fake. So, how do you think you can create a profile which is genuine? Just show what you are! But do you think you can be genuine and interesting at the same time to your audience?

Yes, You Can and I can help you on that.

In this article, I am going to explain you the best way to build a genuine but an intriguing LinkedIn profile which will subconsciously trigger your prospect’s mind to choose you over others in your niche. Read on!

Headline Matters!


First step:- Work on Your Headlines (very important)

  • It should be catchy
  • It should give people something surprising rather than providing them what they expect
  • It should give away the details about “who you are” and “not what you do”
When you explain your audience the question- “Who are You?” instead of describing what you do, you establish yourself in the beginning.
  • Use Statistics in Your Headline
  • Tell your audience if you are the number one marketing expert in your country or you have helped your company to increase their leads by 30% in 48 hours. The statistics will look tangible to your audience and they will reach you
  • Use primary problems of your Audience.
  • Relate your headlines to your audience. For example, your audience are chief marketing officers or finance officers and their problem is determining ROI from their efforts in social media, you can put a headline like “generating 230% ROI from social media strategies for chief financial officers”.
  • You can try something unusual and creative in your headlines. You can introduce contradictory statements- “I asked my entrepreneur clients to not to stay positive” Wondering Why did I say that? Read On”. This will look like a beginning of an article, yet it’s eye-catching and it works.
The sole purpose of constructing these kinds of headlines is to make your profile visible (searchable) to your audience.

Focus on Your Profile Picture (Highly Recommended)


It is one of the most important elements that can help you create a good first impression on your visitors. Hence, earnestly focus on your profile picture. Now, you should look professionally personable yet not too informal in our profile picture. Also, do not put a profile picture like cropping your face from a group picture or uploading some random image from your computer just for the sake adding a profile picture. Get a decent click that will present yourself as an outsider yet a viable person. The image should accentuate your character and should describe that you have an interesting life.

Note:- Pasting an image related to your product or service on your personal LinkedIn profile is a strict NO!

Focus on Your Summary


The primary intent of writing an eye-catching summary is to subconsciously align the immediate needs and wants of your prospects. And there are certain ways to do that.
  • Take Advantage of Their Needs
  • Hit your prospects between their eyes while creating a summary. Here’s an example





  • Some points to note:-
  • Sell yourself with statistics and number and create a rapport with your potential customers
  • Introduce a funny quotient in your summary. Tickling the funny bone will make your summary a pleasurable read for your prospects.
  • Don’t treat summary section like a resume. Your visitors are here to interact with you and to know you better. Do not shoo them away with a lifeless piece of information. Always remember that people love to work with them who have an interesting persona.
  • Include a call to action in your summary. For example, you can say that “Let’s talk and I will provide you the best sales score you ever had. If not, I will give away my best selling- Sales Bible for FREE”! This will trigger their action and increase the chances to end up with you.

You can also induce their your current experience in your summary and provide them a new perspective that they can believe. Make them believe that they don’t have a problem, they have a result for their actions, thus giving them a new perspective.

  • You can add keywords while writing about Specialties in your summary. For example, if you are a marketing analyst, you can add B2B marketing or strategy lead nurturing in Specialties. This will show your profile in the search results when people are searching with the same keywords. Again, think of some special keywords that your wannabe customers may search. For example, instead of adding the keyword “lead generation”, add “lead generation in software industry”. This will flush out the competition to some extent and push your profile to a better level to get noticed.
  • Also, get some idea from people who are already in your realm.
  • Do not intend of bombarding your profile with keywords to improve its visibility or LinkedIn algorithms may trace your profile and suspend it. 

How to Write The Experience section


Before we move into the Experience section, you should keep in mind that everything you write in your profile will exhibit your persona. Hence, creating a magnetic profile is all about building a persona and not about some hacks and tips that can enhance your LinkedIn profile. As it was already discussed that people can identify between fake and genuine ideas, you require to work out a genuine effect to improve your leads. There are no shortcuts when it comes to long lasting results in LinkedIn.
Now, while writing content for the Experience section, you need to include your benefits rather than adding your features. Hence, it is not about showing what you do for your customers but showing things which mean a lot to your customers.

  • Try to make your headings more eye-catching. For example, instead of writing ‘CEO’ say that you are the Creator at XYZ foundation.
  • Display benefits in bullet points as they acquire more attention from your visitors.
  • While introducing each point, analyze what does that mean to your potential customers.
  • Work on all of your job titles (especially if they are pulls back the attention of  your audience from your current job profile). For example, you can write “Director, XYZ corporation” instead of “Director of Sales & Marketing, XYZ Corporation”. Moreover, people don’t care much about your previous job roles that you had 20 years ago unless you founded the organization. So don’t add them.
  • Ensure that your experience is connected to the right company. Your visitors should be able to understand clearly which company you work or worked for. There should not be the minutest confusion about the companies you are associated with.
  • Never encourage lame testimonials or recommendations on your profile. It will sabotage your audience’s interest in your profile and will make you look like a fake person. People will choose you on the basis of your relatable experience, credibility, and immediacy of need. Hence, make sure that the testimonials are specific enough. Here’s an example of a good recommendation:-



Share an Update


Share some pieces of information related to your niche. You can even mention the name of a connection who you think can be a prospect. Thus, the person you have mentioned will receive a message saying you have mentioned him on your update.

Example:- You can share an update like – “Mary Abigail check out ten ways to improve your sales”. It may sound like a sales letter but it is more effective.

Launch a Video about Yourself


I personally feel that videos are the best ways to communicate with your audience as they are multi-dimensional. You can influence them with your words, your sound tones and your content. More importantly, the features of your video content should be brevity and wow content. Your video should not go more than 120 seconds (your visitors will not invest much time) and choosing a video over a presentation is a much wiser step for your personal branding. Discuss their fears and needs and apply yourself to them. However, infographics, if well built, can also help you convey your information to your clients in terms of your presence in their business.

How To Write a Skills and Endorsements Section


“Skills and endorsements” section is only used to make your profile visible to more viable potential customers. The skills which you have listed in your profile will count in when people search for these terms on LinkedIn. And now, when talking about endorsements, once you get a message like this- “X has endorsed you for Z”, you have to ask yourself whether the endorsement popularizes you the way you want to be. If it does not, just delete it because eventually, you will get some endorsements which you may not like to be associated with. You may also ask your colleagues or friends to endorse yourself for a specific skill as it will bump up your numbers on LinkedIn.

Work On your Contact Section


Try to stay aloof and cool in front of your audience. It will create interest about you in your audience’s mind.

Hence, here are the best and most efficient changes you can apply to your profile to acquire more notice from your clients and get enduring results. There are many more things that can be done for your business via LinkedIn but rejuvenating your own profile is the foremost thing to do. Stay tuned for the next article about LinkedIn affecting businesses in the series. Until then, enhance your profile and share your experience or doubts in the comments below.

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Tuesday 24 September 2019

21 Software Testing Blogs to Level Up Your QA skills


Testing is fun!, but why should testers have all the fun? Testing is for everyone who wants to ensure an error free product. Especially, every marketer who deals with website or application must know the basics of testing. Sound weird? But it’s NOT. Afterall, it is very crucial to ensure that the product/service which you are going to promote must be error free to users. Being a digital marketer,  I not only look for Onpage issues on website, I also liaise with testing unit to make it lovable to visitors.

So fellas, here are some Testing/ QA blogs which you must read
no matter you are a tester, developer, SEO or a marketer.

1. The Test Eye

The Test Eye
You will be able to hear from expert professionals like Martin
Janson, Henrik Emilsson, and Rikard Edgren through The Test Eye.
The blog provides information about test ideas, scripted testing,
software and agile testing and different testing techniques. You can
also seek for recommendations on skills, people, machines ,ideas,
and documentation in the section “recommendation”. The blog gets
updated monthly.

2. Sticky Minds

Sticky Minds
StickyMinds is a community (managed by Techwell community) where
you can find answers to all most all of your queries related to testing.
You can use its ‘question & answer’ section and get your problems
solved by expert opinions by renowned professionals and veterans
of the testing industry. The blog also displays latest happenings in
the field of application testing.

3. James Bach’s Blog

James Bach's Blog
James Bach’s blog also known as satisfice caters testing with his
unique style of describing things. Read James Bach’s blog to learn
and improve testing and inspire yourself to understand testing in a
better way. I personally find his content very rich and engaging.

4. Thoughtworks

Thoughtworks

Thoughtworks is a blog which is focused on the latest news about
the complete software industry. You can find many articles describing
the importance of testing in business in this section.

5. Software Testing

Magazine- (Agile, Load, Functional 

& Unit Testing)

 Software Testing Magazine
The blog gets updated in a week with 4 posts related to agile,
performance, acceptance, functional, integration, TDD and 
unit testing. You can get updates about different tools via
Software Testing Magazine.

6. Testing Blog by Google

Testing Blog by Google

Google’s Testing Blog is the official blog powered by Google about
updates and latest trends related to testing. You can find a new post
every month in this blog.

7. Trishkhoo

Trishkhoo
The first thing which you will like when you will visit the blog
Trishkhoo will be its user friendly and vibrant interface which
will keep you more engaged in its articles. The site which is
maintained by Trish, a blogger who is interested in all elements
of software industry, has a very unique style of conveying
information (like a tale). Go for Trishkhoo and you will like it.

8. Software testing help

Softwaretestinghelp.com is a very fast growing blog on software
testing which is founded by Vijay. The blog includes all kinds of
testing topics which include automation testing, manual testing,
and web testing. It also discusses methodologies, write reviews
on different testing tools, books, provides guidance on your testing
career and enlightens you with latest news and trends about testing.

9. 9lessons

9lessons

9lessons founded by Srinivas Tamada, though not a blog dedicated
for testing, contains lot of good articles which provide insight about
testing. You can find good content about tutorials about how to
write test cases for different functions on website.

10. ReQTest

ReQTest
ReQtest is another quality blog which updates you regularly
about various articles and tutorials about testing like development
requirements, agile testing and much more. You can join or
subscribe the blog for regular updates about testing.

11. Stack Exchange-

Software Quality

Assurance

Stack Exchange

Stack Exchange is a blog (question & answer) which is
related to automation engineers, qa experts and people related
to software testing industry. The blogpost adds 77 new posts
every week in its database.

12. Automation Awesomeness-

Automation testing Made Easy

Automation Awesomeness
The blog is dedicated to automation testing. Here, the site helps
you to overcome every issues related to automation testing. So,
stay awesome in automation testing by receiving updates by
Automation Awesomeness.

13. 99Tests- Software

Testing Community Blog

99Tests

99tests is platform for companies who can get their applications
tested by experts in the testing arena. The site also manages a blog
which gets updated once in a week with one post.

14. BlazeMeter (JMeter

and Load testing Blog)

BlazeMeter
Blazemeter can be helpful when you want to read content about
performance and load testing. The site is focused to help QA
teams so that they can focus on performing testing on api, mobile,
software and websites.

15. TestBirds

TestBirds

The blog focuses on topics related to testing applications for
IoT and websites. It provides innovative solutions for testing
applications. Testbirds’ diversified and engaging content will provide
fresh air to your must see testing blog list.

16. Saucelab blog

Saucelab blog
It is one of my favorite blogs which can be referred for reading content
related to application testing (especially mobile apps). The articles
listed here are very engaging and rich in content. You should try
Saucelab blog at least once. It adds 1 new blogpost every month.

17. Cigniti blog

Cigniti blog

The blog is maintained by Cigniti technologies,  a well-known name
in software testing market. The blog shares recent trends and changes
in testing industries like Devops testing, IP-led testing and so on.

18. GC Reddy Software

Video Blog

GC Reddy Software Video Blog
Name anything in testing and you can see it on GC Reddy
Software video blog. Some of the videos are ALM/QC videos,
UNIX testing tutorials, selenium  tutorials and the list goes on.

19. QA Mentor blog

QA Mentor blog
The QA Mentor blog provides articles covering topics like functional
and nonfunctional testing, automated testing, reviews about
different testing tools and best practices on test processes.

20. IIST video blog

IIST video blog
You can find informational videos on IIST (provides courses and
certifications on software testing) video channel. The video channel
gets updated every week with new posts on every topics related
to software testing.

21. Adventures in QA

Adventures in QA

Read Adventures in QA for articles related to mobile testing, agile
development and software testing. The bog is maintained by
Daniel Knott known brands like AOE, Xing, Accenture and IBM.
This is my personal list of the blogs for application testing which
I found the best but there are lots of blogs providing content
about application testing. Thus, if I have missed out your favorite
blog or if any of these blogs have proven beneficial to you, I
am all ears to your comments below.

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