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Listening skills are valuable salesperson traits according to buyers in a recent survey on selling skills. When buyers were asked about the most valued traits in a salesperson, 80% selected “actively listens to me.” If you’re a good listener, you’ve got an important skill to be an elite salesperson.

Pay-per-click marketing is synonymous to Sponsored Link marketing and we'll refer to it for now on as PPC. You know - those search results at the top of the page and along the right side of the page. Each time you click on one of those links, it costs the company advertising the link some money - hence "pay-per-click".

I am proud to announce that friend, long-time customer and President of ILM Corporation, Jason Cohen, has been named the Virginia Small Business Person of the Year for 2013.

As a sales professional in an online marketing agency your role is to identify the best solutions, maximize profitable sales for your company and create raving fans of your customers. This article is about maximizing profitable sales and achieving a 100% close ratio – you heard me right…100% close ratio of qualified customers.

In the next 5 years industry experts predict online marketing will comprise 35% of total marketing spend compared to 21% in 2012. Online display marketing, more practically known as banner ads and the like, is expected to grow at a compounded annual rate of 20% over the next 5 years, surpassed only by growth rates in social and mobile. By 2016 experts expect display marketing to represent 36% of total digital marketing spend and nearly 13% of total marketing spend, offline and online. While search engine marketing, including SEO and paid search, will still have the lion’s share of total digital spend at 44%, online display marketing spend won’t be far behind at 36%. This all makes sense as more consumers’ “eyeballs” go online to consume content, including that of traditional TV. In summary, branding activity will continue to move online and much of it will be in the form of display marketing.

For the first time in history, marketers in 2012 will spend more on online marketing than advertising in print magazines and newspapers. It is expected that online marketing spend by 2016 will double from that in 2011. Consequently, sales and lead generation from websites will likely grow proportionately.

How much should I be investing in marketing? How much of my marketing budget should be directed to online marketing vs. offline. These are questions I get asked frequently. So, recently I experienced an intersection of data from credible sources that combined go along way to answering these important questions. The two sources referenced in this post are the annual survey of CMO’s by CMOSurvey.org sponsored by the American Marketing Association and the Duke University Fuqua School of Business; and a recent report by Forrester Research Group about interactive marketing trends and predictions.

Background

Google has upped its game once again with the latest Penguin update and SEO pros have to up their game to achieve the results their clients deserve. No more easy link building – links have to be obtained the “old fashioned” way…through quality content. But that is much easier said than done.

Search engine optimization, often referred to as SEO, recently experienced yet another major change when Google implemented their last big update. They called it the Penguin update – and while penguins are typically found in cold climates, this Penguin had significant impact on rankings no matter what climate you are in.