Small and Medium-sized Businesses, including agencies, rank lead generation and sales as a critical issue. We discuss how competitive research drives lead-generation and helps sales support build persuasive, motivational proposals. Several tools and resources are mentioned and we demonstrate using SEMrush in the lead generation and selling process for higher conversions and revenue.  During this webinar, from Thursday May 28, 2015, we show:  • How to use Competitive Intelligence to Sell Agency Services such as Digital Marketing and Design Services  • Compare and Contrast with Purpose  • 5 Charts that Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms  • Listen - Why It's Better to Help than to Sell  • Wild Cards - Reputation, Local, Mobile - If I Had More Time I'd Have Built a Fatter Proposal 

1. How Competitive Data
can Power Your
Lead-Gen and Sales
#semrushlive

2. Michael Stricker
U.S. Marketing Director, SEMrush
• Leading competitive research tool for digital marketing
• Agency, consulting and web design studio experience
• 100s of successful digital marketing campaigns
• 1,000,000s of impressions for web-based businesses
• Speaker: ClickZ Live, HEROconf, Etail, SMX East.
• Author: blogs CIO.com, Business2Community, SEMrush.com
Publications Philadelphia Inquirer and Philly Ad News.
• Worked with Enterprise Brands 2Modern, AeroPostale, BET,
GolfSmith, HomeFirst, RedCats, RE/MAX, The-House, Toshiba

3. We'll show you how
Competitive Research
drives lead-gen and
helps you build killer proposals.
We'll demonstrate how to use SEMrush in the lead
generation and selling process for higher conversions and
revenue.
(attendees get a free SEMrush 30-day trial)
(stay to the finish for a chance to win an Apple Watch)

4. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
• How to use Competitive Intelligence to Sell
Digital Marketing and Design Services
• Compare and Contrast with Purpose
• 5Charts that Graphically Drive Prospects into
Your Arms
• Listen -Why It's Better to Help than to Sell
• Wild Cards -Reputation, Local, Mobile

5. • How to use Competitive Intelligence to Sell Digital Marketing Services
Photos of Really, Really Scared People |© 2014 Colossal www.thisiscolossal.com

6. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Motivate Prospects Using Competitive Intelligence to
Sell Digital Marketing and Design Services
2. Desire
• Success (Mate)
• Eat (Consume)
• Novelty (Play)
1. Fear
• Competition (Get Eaten)
• Shifting Markets (Get Lost)
• Outmoded (Disappear)

7. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify Prospects Using Competitive Intelligence to
Sell Digital Marketing and Design Services
Search –Paid and Organic
• Keywords
(many Shared Keywords)
• Traffic
(receiving high Traffic Share for high-monthly-volume Keywords)
• Brand terms
(find competitors using other brand names in ads and content)
• Niche (related by keywords SimilarWeb, SEMrush, others)

8. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Motivate Prospects Using Competitive Intelligence to
Sell Digital Marketing and Design Services
Search –Competitive Landscapes
• Keywords
(a semantic method of detecting similarity AND Content Superiority)
• Traffic
(results-based technique: who is most effective competitor?)
• Brand terms
(knowledge of competitors using their brand name in ads and content)

9. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify &Motivate Prospects Using Competitive
Intelligence to Sell Digital Marketing
Paid Search
Budget VS Traffic
(cost/traffic unit to measure effectiveness and efficiency, look for keywords
up, traffic up, spend down)
Overall Budget
(biggest AdWords spenders in a category, region, industry, overall, or
rapidly increasing budgets, shifts from organic to paid in response to
Algorithmic Updates)

10. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify &Motivate Prospects Using Competitive
Intelligence to Sell Digital Marketing
PLAs
The highest-converting paid ads for merchandisers
(WalMart shifted 80% of their ad budget to this vehicle)
Presence of Google Shopping Ads “sucks the commercial intent out of the
SERP” (Bing in beta)
Some etail competitors invest in this, exclusively, and so their scale of
operations, number of products / keywords might escape notice

11. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify &Motivate Prospects Using Competitive
Intelligence to Sell Digital Marketing and Design
Services
Local SEO / Mobile Search
Position Tracker
Ranking, volume and traffic for domains and their competitors by:
Location (national, state or city level);
Device (smartphone, tablet or desktop; trends starting at inception, over
time) Detect even national firms that dominate local ad markets with
spending very difficult to detect at the national level.

12. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify &Motivate Prospects Using Competitive
Intelligence to Sell Digital Marketing
Social
Networks of value
(depends on type of business and market demographics; Topsy,
SocialMention, Mention, SocialCrawlytics, SocialBakers.com)
Networks of scale
(Followers and growth rates; Radian6, Sysomos, Meltwater)
Engagement
(activation including sharing, RTs, conversations; FollowerWonk,
SocialCrawlytics, new Bitly Audience Metrics, BuzzSumo)

13. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Motivate Prospects Using Competitive Intelligence to
Sell Digital Marketing and Design Services
Content Types
Form –
(what formats are attracting the most shares? BuzzSumo)
Headlines --
(what titles are commanding the highest CTR and readership? BuzzFeed,
Mashable, HuffPost)

14. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify &Motivate Prospects Using Competitive
Intelligence to Sell Agency &Studio Services
SEO Audit
Issues, Errors and Warnings
(cumulative effect of neglect; poor SEO practices; potential spider-traps and
crawler errors – can number in the thousands)
PageSpeed – every half-second of webpage display delay can cost 7-15% of
your prospects that you paid good money to attract in the first place)
Mobile-Ready (test) BuiltWith (for a quick tech read, only apply dangers, or
practices adopted wholesale by competition)

15. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify Prospects Using Competitive Intelligence to
Sell Digital Marketing and Design Services
Custom Reports
CUSTOM REPORTS –Derive bigdata
• SEMrush
• entire industries, product or brand names,
• every single keyword for which Amazon ranks;
• every non-branded keyword invested by WalMart;
• every single AdWords spender in a given nation with budget >$X?

16. Competitive Research for lead-gen and killer proposals
Identify Prospects Using Competitive Intelligence to
Sell Digital Marketing and Design Services
Contacts
ACTION: ATTACHING CONTACTS TO DOMAINS
Enables you to import contact data from webpages or Email into the CRM.
KiteDesk ZoomInfo
Fliptop Full Contact
Netprospex Nimble
Email Hunter BuzzStream

17. Compare and Contrast with Purpose
DON’T…
OVERSELL
OVERSTUFF
PACKAGE

18. Compare and Contrast with Purpose
DO…
SCARE WITH SHARE
TEACH WITH REACH
TALK CORNER OFFICE TALK
TELL A STORY IN PICTURES

19. Compare and Contrast with Purpose
1. DO… SPEAK SUCCESS IN THE VOICE OF OTHERS

20. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
1. Overview
2. Domain VS Domain
3. Paid Ads History & Texts & PLA
4. SEO Audit
5. Won/Lost Keywords; Winners/Losers

21. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
1. Overview Organic

22. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
1. Overview

23. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
1. Overview Paid

24. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
2. Domain VS Domain

25. Identify &Evaluate Paid Competitors
Common Keywords = Battle Zone
Common, Strong Competitors =Sweet Spot

26. Identify &Evaluate Paid Competitors

27. Identify &Evaluate Paid Competitors

28. Identify &Evaluate PLA Competitors –All KWs

29. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
3. Paid Ads Copies & History

30. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
3. Paid Ads Copies & History

31. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
4. SEO Audit
2000 1200
450

32. 5Charts Graphically Drive Prospects into Your Arms
5. Won/Lost Keywords; Winners/Losers

33. Listen -Why It's Better to Help than to Sell
1. Outbound -
Cold-calling, gatekeepers, lukewarm response,
blocking
INTRUSIVE, IMPERSONAL, INTERRUPTIONAL,
HIGH-BUDGET AND LABOR-INTENSIVE

34. Listen -Why It's Better to Help than to Sell
1. Inbound -
Issue/Problem, Search, Website/Blog,
Content/Nurturing, close
HELPFUL, RELEVANT, INTERCEPTION,
RELATIONSHIP- OR PERMISSION-BASED,
24/7/365, LARGELY AUTOMATED
CHEAPER, MORE PRODUCTIVE

35. Wild Cards - Reputation, Local, Mobile
Reputation
Trust, both on-site and off-.
Social trust,
Word of Mouth,
Mentions,
Ratings,Reviews, Testimonials, Video

36. Wild Cards - Reputation, Local, Mobile
Local
Type of business,
single location, service area, franchise of national
brand;
Google My Business, Yext, Moz, Mobile-Ready,
Position Tracker

37. Wild Cards - Reputation, Local, Mobile
Mobile
Mobile-Ready test, whether responsive design,
Dynamically-served site, or App;
Mobile funnel, mobile conversion,
Call,
Payment methods,
Ads, landing pages, trust pages

38. Wild Cards - Reputation, Local, Mobile
Timing
• Google Trends;
• Market Movement;
• Seasonality (start now);
• Weather;
• Impending Google Algo Updates;
• hedging and diversifying traffic and referral sources;
competitor news, new advertising media (mobile, in-app) and new ad
delivery vehicles (remarketing); opportunities, threats

39. Offer
FREE Trials of SEMrush
FREE Demonstrations Available
http://semrush.com

40. Questions?

41. Thank you!
Michael Stricker
U.S. Marketing Director, SEMrush
@radioms