You’ve probably heard people talking about “funnels” like they’re the magic solution to fix your business overnight.
“Just build a funnel.”
“Funnels are how you scale.”
“Funnels generate revenue while you sleep.”
Sure, these statements are true in theory, but if you’ve ever tried building a funnel yourself, you know it’s not that simple. Anyone can set up a lead generation funnel, but actually generating leads takes real strategy.
Although 96% of visitors aren’t ready to make a purchase when they first land on a website, a big percentage are willing to give you their contact information if you have a great offer. But how do you create an offer people actually want? How do you build a lead generation funnel that converts?
Whether you’ve felt too overwhelmed to start, or you’ve built a funnel that just isn’t converting, this guide will explain how it’s done.
You need leads coming through your website every day, otherwise your business will flatline. While you can certainly generate leads from a variety of sources, around 50% of marketers say that web forms convert the most leads. If you don’t have a lead gen funnel, you’re missing out.
There are two main ways to get leads:
· Offer something free. Free offers include access to white papers, case studies, templates, cheat sheets, demos, PDF guides, ebooks, etc. You’ll get more leads this way, but most will be cold, just curious, or looking for freebies. You’ll need to warm them up with a solid email sequence that builds trust, solves micro-problems, and creates a desire to buy.
· Offer a low-ticket product ($10-$50). These are low-cost digital products or physical items. You won’t get as many leads as you would with a freebie, but the ones you’ll get will be far more valuable. They’ve already paid something so they’ve proven they’re willing to spend money, and these leads tend to be more targeted.
Both types of leads are valuable; it just takes more time to warm up the first group.
With this in mind, here’s how to build a high-converting lead generation funnel in five steps:
An effective lead gen funnel speaks directly to the intended market. A highly targeted message will make people take your offer without hesitation. In fact, companies that utilize detailed buyer personas see a 56% increase in high-quality leads and a 73% boost in conversions.
Think about your market. What do they want? What are they afraid of? What keeps them up at night? How does your offer solve their problems?
A well-defined target audience ensures your messaging resonates and your offer appeals to those most likely to convert. If your product or service has multiple markets, separate them so you can market more effectively.
Start by creating a detailed buyer persona. Develop a profile of your ideal customer that encompasses demographics, interests, pain points, and buying behaviors. Use this profile to create your landing page content and ads. The better you know your ideal customer, the easier it is to get them to convert.
No matter how well you think you know your target market, start searching online for discussions to get insight into their desires, fears, and hopes. Reddit is a great resource for market research along with Facebook groups. It also helps to engage with your market through surveys, feedback forms, and conversation to derive insights into their needs and preferences. Don’t start building your funnel until you’ve nailed your buyer persona.
If you’ve never built a lead generation funnel and you’re trying to do it manually, the learning curve can be pretty sharp. While it’s easy to connect a simple web form to an existing email marketing system, there’s far more to successful lead generation.
When you try to build lead gen funnels manually, you have to build all of your landing pages from scratch, and that’s where things get tough. Even if you’re using a templated content management system like WordPress, you’ll need design and coding customization to create effective landing pages. Doing it this way can take weeks and thousands of dollars to launch. And if you want to add in upsells and order bumps, you’ll have to pay even more.
When you use software specifically designed for building online funnels, you can launch in hours, not weeks or months. Integrations are easy, and you’ll get built-in analytics and split testing.
Where price is concerned, software is budget-friendly. Instead of paying someone an hourly rate for manual funnel building, software comes with a set monthly fee. The best part is most funnel building software comes with conversion-optimized templates so you won’t need to build your landing pages from scratch and hope they work – just apply the template and fill in the content.
A lead gen funnel is more than just a landing page with a sign-up form. At minimum, you’ll need the following:
· A traffic source (organic posts, referrals, PPC ads, etc.)
· A landing page
· A thank-you page
· Email automation
· Follow-up emails
You can use more advanced strategies, but it’s not necessary. Even a basic funnel has the power to bring in thousands of leads if it’s highly targeted. The good news is – with a few exceptions – most popular funnel building applications include everything you need to build and launch high-converting lead gen funnels. Not sure which one to choose? Here’s an overview of the the top 6 funnel building applications:
· ClickFunnels. Designed for entrepreneurs and small business owners, ClickFunnels is the easiest way to build lead generation funnels. The drag-and-drop editor is easy to use even for beginners, and if you get stuck, there’s a help button inside the builder that will take you to a knowledge base or let you chat with an agent. While the templates inside the builder aren’t the greatest, they offer better lead gen templates on their blog. If you search Google, you’ll find plenty of templates created by third-parties that you can install with a couple of clicks.
The pricing is a little higher than other options, but it comes with email marketing and unlimited contacts even with the basic plan. You can create landing pages, regular website pages (like your terms of use and contact pages), storefronts, courses, a community, and more.
· Leadpages. Leadpages has been around for a long time and offers some of the best conversion-optimized templates. However, they don’t offer email marketing. The standard plan from Leadpages is more affordable than other options, but once you go pro and above, you’ll be paying about the same as applications that have more to offer.
· GetResponse. GetResponse is one of the oldest lead generation applications around, and offers a complete funnel building solution with easy-to-use templates. You can create social media campaigns, landing pages, courses, and webinars, and it comes with an email marketing service. Many people with Shopify stores use GetResponse to manage their email marketing campaigns.
The downside is having to pay more as your contact list grows. However, that’s pretty standard across the board for email marketing applications (with a few exceptions).
· GoHighLevel. GoHighLevel (GHL) is an all-in-one solution that makes it easy to build your website, landing pages, full funnels, and more. It combines the functionality of a CRM, email marketing, and funnel builder all in one place. The monthly cost is comparable to other options, but the learning curve is a bit steep.
· HubSpot. In addition to customer relationship management (CRM), HubSpot can be used to build your sales funnels with the landing page and form builders. There are a variety of plans available with fees that range from free to $4,300 per month.
· Thrive. Thrive is an all-in-one package that comes with a WordPress website builder and lets you create membership sites, online courses, and quizzes. Of course, you also get plenty of lead generation features.
Thrive is relatively cheaper than other options, but does have some big downsides. It doesn’t come with email marketing, and if you want to move your website to another host, you won’t be able to keep your theme. Thrive only offers their themes to monthly members.
Choose your platform wisely because if you need to switch companies, you’ll need to build your funnels again from scratch. There is one exception: ClickFunnels has a browser extension called Barnum PT that allows you to import your GoHighLevel funnels into ClickFunnels. However, you’ll need an active GHL account to complete the transfer.
A successful lead generation funnel begins with an irresistible offer. Visitors need a good reason to give you their email address and/or phone number. Email fatigue is real, and weak offers like checklists and infographics won’t always cut it. An irresistible offer consists of the following elements:
· Clear value. It should take no longer than three seconds for someone to see the value in your offer. It shouldn’t be just another advertisement for your bigger ticket products. Your offer needs to stand on its own with inherent value.
· Meets a specific need. Rather than creating an offer and then trying to get your market to bite, it’s more effective to find out what your target market wants and then craft a compelling offer specifically tailored to their needs.
· Specificity. Instead of vague statements like, “grow your business,” get specific with phrases like, “Get 25 qualified leads in 30 days or less.”
· Emotional hook. Even with your lead generation offer, you’re not selling the offer – you’re selling what it will do for your market. Appeal to desires, status, security, freedom, or belonging. Emotion sells, while logic just makes people think.
· Solutions. A good offer will solve a specific problem you know your market experiences.
· Urgency. People need a reason to act now. If there’s no urgency to act, many people will bounce and forget about you.
· Stacked bonuses. Multiple bonuses increase the value of an offer, but they can’t be basic. Each bonus should provide as much value (or more) as the original offer.
· Social proof. Landing pages with social proof convert up to 34% higher. If you have case studies, testimonials, media mentions, or reviews, reference those in your copy. People are more likely to do business with you if they can see that others are already happy with their experience.
You can offer just about anything as long as it’s deliverable, people want it, and it meets the above criteria. For example, you might ask visitors to sign up for your email list in exchange for providing a downloadable PDF file or mailing them a physical book.
Although the most common lead magnet is a free download, lead magnets don’t need to be free to be effective. In fact, depending on what you’re selling, paid lead magnets can qualify your prospects and weed out tire kickers. For example, if you’re selling ecommerce strategy coaching, you want leads who already have an ecommerce business. You don’t want to attract people who need to be walked through building a business from scratch. By offering a book packed with strategies for existing businesses – and asking leads to pay $10 for shipping and handling – you’ll generate targeted leads.
Copy is where most people lose their power. They write what sounds “professional” instead of what works. Effective copy feels like a real person is talking to a friend. Not a college English professor or marketing robot. Here’s what that looks like:
· The hook. This captures attention and stops people from scrolling. For example, “Why do some freelancers get 10 clients a month while others struggle to get just one?”
· The body. This is where you hit your target market’s pain and show the payoff. For example, “Most freelancers don’t know how to package their services. That’s why they’re stuck writing $30 blog posts. This free training fixes that.”
· The CTA. Your CTA tells them what to do. For example, “Click to get instant access.”
Make the desired action clear: what do you want people to do? Download a lead magnet? Buy a $27 mini-course? Book a call? Stick to one call-to-action (CTA) and make it clear and obvious. If there’s more than one CTA, people will be confused, and confused people don’t convert. If you want to provide multiple offers, use separate landing pages for each one.
No matter how you build your lead generation funnel, you’ll need to generate traffic to start getting leads. You can:
· Run paid ads on platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Google, and YouTube
· Write content and get it ranked in the search engines using search engine optimization (SEO)
· Partner with other organizations for cross-promotion
· Borrow attention through guest posts, podcasts
· Use influencer marketing
All of these methods will generate traffic to your funnel, but make sure your messaging and back-end demographics specifically target your ideal leads. For example, if you’re offering a beginner’s guide to managing a remote team, don’t target freelancers with no team. Make sure you target managers, small business owners, and startup founders.
A high-converting lead generation funnel isn’t something you want to leave to change. The truth is, most funnels fail because they were thrown together without a solid strategy or compelling offer. But your funnel doesn’t have to follow this fate.
If you’re serious about generating quality leads and growing your business, we can help. At Marketer.co, we don’t just build funnels – we engineer customer journeys that convert leads into raving fans. Whether you need help fine-tuning your buyer personal, writing persuasive landing page copy, or anything else, we’ve got you covered.
Contact us now for a free consultation and let’s build a funnel that brings in qualified leads and turns them into paying customers.
Having a strong online presence is crucial for restaurants to attract and retain customers. With 90% of consumers researching restaurants online before dining and 72% using social media for their search, digital marketing has become essential for success in the restaurant business.
If you own a restaurant and you haven’t invested in digital marketing, you’re missing out on serious revenue. By implementing a digital marketing strategy, you can help more people discover your restaurant and generate a steady flow of loyal patrons who keep coming back for more.
If getting more customers sounds good, here’s everything you need to know about marketing your restaurant online.
While you don’t need a fancy or complicated brand image, you do need a stable, consistent brand voice and visual aesthetic to differentiate your restaurant in a crowded market. For instance, a rustic Italian restaurant might use warm colors and traditional fonts to evoke feelings of authenticity, while a restaurant focusing on kids’ entertainment would use bold colors and a cartoonish font.
When it comes to visuals, your logo and tagline should be memorable and instantly recognizable. For instance, McDonald’s golden arches and their “I’m lovin’ it” slogan are recognized worldwide by just about everyone. Take this into account when coming up with your brand image. It doesn’t have to be inherently meaningful – it just has to be recognizable.
Another important part of your brand identity is your origin story, which may include what motivated you to start your restaurant. For example, many restaurants are created when the owner has a passion for creating a certain type of food or wants to create a specific dining experience for people. Making this information known can create an emotional connection with your customers. For example, a family-owned traditional diner might highlight the use of generational recipes and a commitment to giving back to the local community.
No matter how or where you market your restaurant online – whether you use paid ads, social media posts, or other channels – people will visit your website, and that means it needs to be as user-friendly as possible. For the best results, restaurant websites need the following elements:
· A current menu. This should include photos, descriptions, and prices for everything offered, including meals, appetizers, drinks, and side dishes. This menu should exist locally on your website and should not be a link to a menu on an external website.
Even though you might use a third-party online menu and ordering website, your website visitors should be able to access your menu without being taken off your website. A lot of third-party menu sites are difficult to navigate and require signing up to see prices. Since many visitors will be checking your menu before heading out to dine in, difficult third-party menus can be a deterrent.
· Contact and location information. Your phone number and address should be visible on every page. Some visitors will be specifically looking for this information.
· Online ordering. Restaurants that offer online ordering get more sales. Instead of calling, many people prefer to order online and pick up their meal to take home.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is how you’ll get seen in search results when people search for restaurants or the types of food that you serve. Here are the 3 most important elements of SEO for restaurants.
The first thing you’ll want to do is create a Google Business Profile and optimize it as much as possible. Include high-quality, professional photos to capture attention and make sure to include as much information as possible, including your hours, contact information, and website URL.
Don’t forget to verify the accuracy of Google’s map marker. Even when the address is correct, markers are commonly misplaced. An incorrect placement can cause you to lose out if people can’t find you. For instance, if the marker is located in an empty alley, but your restaurant is on the other side of a business complex, people might not have the patience to drive around to find you.
Next, you’ll need to zero in on targeting local keywords to get your website seen by locals. For instance, if you’re running a French restaurant, you’ll want to optimize your website for keywords like, “French dining,” “French restaurant,” “Authentic French food,” and similar phrases. When users search for these phrases, search engines will give them results for local restaurants based on their zip code. Your goal should be to rank for the phrases people are most likely to type into the search bar.
Make sure your restaurant is listed on platforms like Yelp, TripAdvisor, and other local directories to reinforce your credibility and improve local search rankings.
With the exception of paid ads, marketing on social media is more like lead generation and relationship building. The more interesting content you publish, the more likely people are to engage with your brand online. Getting activity on your posts will serve as social proof that your restaurant is popular. You’ll also gain more visibility as people share your posts and see their friends commenting.
Although there are plenty of social media platforms out there, it’s important to choose the right ones so you don’t waste your time. According to the data, Instagram and Facebook are particularly effective for restaurants. Out of the 42% of people who use social media to find new restaurants, a whopping 59% of them use Facebook the most. This means you can’t afford to skip having a presence on Facebook – it’s the best way to reach your potential patrons.
If you don’t already have a Facebook page for your business, create one right away and start posting to engage your customers. People love seeing photos of food and drinks on a restaurant’s social media account, so post your best photos to entice people to visit.
As people engage with your content, remember to respond with short, friendly comments in return. People notice when a brand engages with their audience on social media, and positive interactions will strengthen your brand image.
Email marketing can be highly effective for restaurants when done correctly. Here’s a general idea of how it’s done:
· Build a subscriber list. You’ll start collecting emails through website sign-up forms, in-store promotions, and events. This is the foundation of every email marketing campaign.
· Send personalized emails. You’ll send periodic emails to your subscriber list with content tailored to their preferences to encourage them to visit. For example, while your whole list might get a BOGO coupon, you can also send people special discounts on their birthday.
· Use automation. Automation is the key to making email marketing work. By scheduling a set number of emails to be delivered over time to each new subscriber, it takes less work to get results.
Once you set up your email sequence, every new subscriber will be automatically added to the list and will receive all of the emails in your sequence over time. Additionally, you can set up automated emails to be delivered on birthdays and holidays based on the information users submit.
In the restaurant industry, the average email open rate is 40.03%, which means for every 1,000 subscribers you have, around 400 people will open your emails. That’s significant and higher than the general average across all industries. If you can get 400 people to look at an irresistible coupon deal, you have a good chance of getting many of them to come in for a meal at some point in the near future.
In addition to email marketing, SMS marketing – or text message marketing – is highly effective. SMS communications are delivered instantly, get high engagement rates, and are cost-effective. According to statistics, 75% of guests prefer receiving restaurant promotions through text rather than email, and if you craft the wording just right, you’ll get plenty of people in the door.
Paid advertising, specifically pay-per-click (PPC) ads, are essential for restaurants. Running targeted ads on Google, Facebook, Bing, and Instagram has serious potential to bring you new and repeat customers. PPC ads will increase your restaurant’s visibility to potential customers searching for dining options in the area. The best part is that you can also run retargeting ads that only get displayed to people who have previously interacted with your brand by clicking on an ad or visiting your website. This gives you warm leads that are easier to convert.
Managing your paid ads budget is easy when you set daily limits and learn how to optimize your bidding strategy. You can calculate your ROI by tracking your performance metrics and optimizing your campaigns for better returns.
Online reviews play a big role in digital marketing for restaurants and if you haven’t prioritized this yet, now is the time. Not only do you need to start generating a higher quantity of reviews, but it’s equally important to respond to reviews, especially when they’re negative.
Encouraging satisfied customers to leave reviews on platforms like Google and Yelm can boost your reputation and encourage new patrons to try your restaurant. Addressing negative reviews from unhappy customers will demonstrate your commitment to customer satisfaction and can clear up misunderstandings. For example, say you receive a negative review from a customer who says their salad was bitter, but they ordered a traditional Italian salad made with arugula and lemon. You can clarify that the dish is supposed to be bitter while offering a free salad of their choice on their next visit.
If you have damaging bad reviews on Google, it’s worth trying to get them removed. A few bad reviews aren’t always a big deal, but depending on what the review says, they can drive people to your competition even when you have a lot of positive reviews.
The best place to run deals and discounts is online. To get more patrons, you’ll want to run limited-time promotions, like happy hours or holiday specials, to attract new customers and incentivize repeat visits.
Hosting local events to create community engagement is something worth considering. Not only will you bring people together for a fun time, but you’ll increase your brand awareness, especially if you provide food at the event.
One of the best promotions you can offer is a loyalty program where customers earn points for every dollar they spend that can be redeemed for discounts and free meals. A good loyalty program will get people in for more frequent visits.
Now that we’ve discussed the basics of digital marketing works for restaurants, the importance of tracking your performance can’t be overstated. You’ll need a strategy to track all of your marketing efforts so you know exactly what strategies and channels are bringing you the best results. Social media insights, Google Analytics, and similar tools will provide this data so you can refine your marketing strategies and improve your results.
Running a successful restaurant takes more than just delicious food and great service – you also need a digital presence that works hard to represent your brand and bring in more patrons. From showing up in local search results to engaging customers on social media, your restaurant’s online strategy can be the difference between a perpetually packed dining room and slow nights. With a strong digital marketing strategy, you’ll attract new customers, build loyalty, and drive repeat visits.
All this sounds good, but you might not have the time or energy to figure it out on your own. It takes a lot to search SEO tactics, monitor ad performance, design email campaigns, and respond to reviews. Doing all that feels like a full-time job. The truth is, digital marketing is complex and time-consuming, and doing it wrong can waste time and money.
That’s where we come in.
At Marketer.co, we provide restaurants with digital marketing services to take the extra work off your plate. We’ll handle everything you might need, including local SEO, social media, website optimization, paid advertising, and even reputation management. When you work with us, you can focus on what you do best: running your restaurant. Whether you’re looking to boost takeout orders, introduce online ordering, or fill tables on slow nights, we’ll help you get there with a custom digital marketing strategy tailored to meet your goals.
If you’re ready to turn clicks into customers, contact us today for a free digital marketing consultation. We’d love to help you grow your restaurant.
Making the most of your existing technology starts with your tech stack—an interconnected and integrated suite of business tools, technology products, and software applications.
Finding partners like Value Added Resellers (VARs) can help you unlock the power hidden within these resources.
VARs also represent another channel for sales optimization within your organization.
This outline discusses exactly how processes such as identifying current needs, evaluating potential VARs, leveraging expertise to tailor solutions, and optimizing workflows are effective strategies for taking an existing tech stack and transforming it into a valuable asset- capable of delivering immense value to businesses now and in the future.
A Value Added Reseller (VAR) is a company or partner that provides specialized services to help businesses get the most out of their technology.
These customized services typically include configuration, integration, training, and maintenance in order to maximize the value of existing systems or newly purchased solutions.
By executing cost-effective processes and standards, VARs are able to abstract complexity away from businesses that would need extensive development resources otherwise.
VARs furthermore give businesses access to expertise on new technologies right away in order for them to remain competitive as markets evolve over time.
Value Added Resellers (VARs) offer specialized services and customized solutions designed to address specific business needs.A partnership with a VAR can bring many benefits, from a deep understanding of the latest tech trends and optimizations to cost savings due to enhanced buying power.Furthermore, many technological components become intertwined which increases complexity; innovation often lifts one side while weakening other segments.
Value-added resellers (VARs) provide specialized services and solutions to effectively enhance tech stack investments. They offer cloud computing, on-demand storage, server installation/ configuration services and more.
What sets VARs apart from traditional service generators is their team of software developers/designers, systems integrators, and IT professionals with deep technical expertise that enables them to assess existing systems before suggesting necessary packs accordingly making them commendable partners for most stack growth cases.
Their planning prowess also helps businesses select solution packages carefully that grow accurately as workload demands—while paying attention to budget restrictions sensibly.
When evaluating your tech stack, the first step is to properly identify existing technology needs and gaps. Start by pinpointing how current solutions are helping or hindering workflow processes. Envision what features or technologies could add additional value and create opportunities for growth in the future.
There may be cases where unmet needs aren't solved through current hardware or software unless it's modified - recognizing these situations and determining if a VAR partner can make implementation easier is key in making sure you get the most out of your technology investments.
Evaluating your tech stack begins with understanding what you already have in place. Assessing the effectiveness of existing solutions enables you to identify any areas of improvement or optimization, from application usage and performance to cost efficiency and security.
Look for ways in which existing technology can be streamlined to maximize productivity or improved to meet changing customer expectations and business needs.
By tracking and analyzing key trend metrics over time, you better understand how current solutions are being used—and why they’re not effective in certain cases—in order identify valuable opportunities for growth with VARs.
When evaluating your tech stack, it is important to determine where improvements and optimizations can be made.
Strategies should focus on identifying existing technology needs and gaps, assessing the effectiveness of current solutions, pinpointing inefficient processes, and taking the time to actively evaluate these opportunities for enhancement.
Through a thorough assessment of the tech stack utilization, this way critical areas within IT that require optimization can be mapped out accordingly.
Researching and identifying potential Value Added Resellers (VARs) can be a daunting task. To make the process easier, first, try to identify mobile application platform vendors that are consistently known for high quality customer service. Next, contact specialty electronic distributors who may have already vetted current providers in order to provide performance data from former customers.
Additionally, neighbors, colleagues, or other business connections may be able to provide firsthand accounts of their experiences working with local VARs. Finally, an exhaustive Google search for ‘best tech stack VARs’ can yield results of highly targeted thought leaders in each region.
Taking the extra time to research possible value added resources now will pay critical dividends down the line toward technological success and competitive advantage over aging rivals.
When researching and identifying potential Value Added Resellers (VARs), it's important to evaluate them on their expertise and industry experience in order to get the most out of the partnership. Consider factors such as sector track records, reputations, client base demographics, and locations.
VARs must fully understand your niche environment so they make suitable technological recommendations and promptly address potential problems or complaints.
Additionally, determine how current tools or techniques that will be beneficial for your prospects and objectives can best integrate with the existing technology infrastructure under their guidance.
When researching potential value added resellers (VARs) to partner with, it is important to look at both their technical and competitive capabilities. It is also essential to review how well they will fit your tech stack and business goals.
You'll need a VAR that can not only deliver the research and implementation services required but also if they pair well with your existing technology infrastructure and provide custom solutions for any unique needs you have.
Take into account factors such as the cost of goods sold, various product offerings from vendors, support services included in packages, or add-ons offered to replicate features within existing systems already established by current providers. Select carefully so you make the most of your partnership!
When collaborating with Value Added Resellers (VARs), it is essential to establish clear communication channels and expectations.It is important for all parties involved to be aware of information-sharing processes, timelines, responsibilities assigned to both the VAR and client company, approach that will be taken, standards of performance as well any deadlines related to project completion.A successful collaboration between VARs and clients can only be achieved with respect, and professional courtesy towards one another during every stage of the process.Although resources are limited for many businesses in tumultuous times like these, it is in their best interest that clear lines of information flow have been established from the very beginning.
When working with Value Added Resellers, it is crucial to set clear project scope and objectives in order for collaboration to achieve optimal results. All parties should define the outcomes they are expecting from partnering up as well as tasks that need to be completed beforehand.
This will give added clarity on time frames and benchmarks along with what components of the technology stack require customization leaving plenty of room for flexibility and reliability throughout this process.
Additionally, expectations should also impede communication skills, service availability, response times, and contact methods as agreed upon in a contract before any work begins.
Successful integration of comprehensive and robust tech stack solutions requires specialized expertise. Value Added Resellers (VARs) help ensure efficient, tailored integrations that are customized from the ground up to identify each business’ unique needs and goals.
Through discussions of desired outcomes and current challenges with VAR vendors, various onsite implementations can be executed to deliver turnkey powerful experiences ripe for optimization.
This collaboration which leverages VARs' expertise is essential in order to make the most of existing technology investments.
VAR-assisted strategies mean businesses attain bespoke solutions offering the maximum value-added potential for long-term success.
Leveraging Value Added Resellers (VARs) for tech stack optimization is a great way to architect customized solutions--tailored specifically to the unique needs of businesses.
Partnering with VARs allows organizations to benefit from customized solutions ranging from software integration and content-sharing capabilities, as well as tools enabling automation and the optimization of processes.Equipping entrepreneurs with effective technologies helps drive revenue growth and prevent unnecessary headaches wasted researching valuable up-to-date IT developments on their own. When business functions are better managed, competitive advantages and profitability can be observed in any line of work.
Partnering with a professional Value Added Reseller (VAR) allows businesses to accelerate workflow processes for tech stack optimization.
VARs bring capabilities such as advanced strategies, specialized coding and experienced development skills needed for customization and effective integration of different tools into one optimized network that fits their business requirements.
These solutions can further reduce operational cycles and shape new ways of working by automating tasks, making them cost-efficient keeping track of customer data for improved business analysis moving forward.
The long-term result will be streamlined workflows providing convenient access to data and unlocking more potential in the current technology within an organization’s ecosystem.
Implementing performance metrics is essential for assessing the money, effort, and time invested in a collaboration with a VAR. VARs often provide oversite but may not understand specific business objectives and plans of customer success to reach an organization's technology goals.
It will associate costs per hour rate with the goal of being able to realize better design or cost efficiency validation after installation & setup activities based on task-related values input by personnel-related involved activities such as custom coding utilized benchmark that offers explainable concise detail allowing a clear way track progress improvement process easily monitored.
Successfully leveraging a Value Added Reseller (VAR) is heavily reliant on feedback and close communication.
After VAR services have been implemented, it's important for businesses to collect customer and employee feedback to measure progress.
Initiative surveys can be set in place strictly dedicated to evaluating a range of questions concerning customer experience or satisfaction regarding specific developments or improvements from the VAR partnership utilization.
Using this data to further bolster arrangement concepts allows for any arising issues, both big and small, to be immediately addressed in real-time minimizing future headaches when scaling tech stacks.
Whether it’s within individual departments or overall enterprise solutions an insights-driven workflow shift will always assist with obtaining quicker results more monetarily beneficial.
In order to ensure tech stack optimization remains viable into the future, the establishment of a yearly maintenance protocol and review session is necessary. By monitoring data gathered throughout the lifespan of integrating Value Added Resellers (VARs) into technology solutions, insight will be gained expanding potential optimizations.
Depending on market demand and daily processes, adjustments should be made to optimize VAR partnerships and improve business outcomes while maintaining reasonable revenue margins—even if incident costs equate for investments in unfamiliar areas. Incorporating integration services, network security, and even scalable data centers ensures your approach stays future-ready.
Furthermore, when a value added reseller enhances your offerings with managed services or installation services, you expand your reach to end users and boost customer satisfaction in measurable ways.
Partnering with a qualified Value Added Reseller (VAR) is an impactful way to gain access to specialized tools, custom-designed solutions, and additional technical support. Making sure that the VAR shares industry knowledge and expertise—in addition to having system compatibility with your tech stack—are critical factors when selecting a partner.
Whether your partner follows a traditional VAR business model or acts as a solutions aggregator, the added value they provide lies in more than just product access. By taking all of the necessary steps outlined here, you will have set up the mechanism for maximum optimization and ROI enhancement from leveraging value added services for your tech stack. As always — measure success continuously to keep growing long-term with the help of reliable solution providers.
Integrating various software with CRM systems is an essential element for businesses looking to increase their operational efficiency. Such data integration offers organizations more expansive and mature capabilities and enables better communication between management and value-added functions like marketing campaigns, analytics, payment processing, and customer service tools —making them necessary tools eCommerce businesses are leveraging in an ever-evolving digital landscape.
With integrations that allow you to access data across platforms, businesses can synchronize sales data, streamline inventory management, and create more tailored strategies based on customer data collected through the CRM platform. Leveraging systems like Salesforce CRM and connecting via application programming interface (API) further enhances the ability to understand and guide the customer journey through every touchpoint.
In this article, we discuss the ten essential CRM integrations—such as email campaigns, social media managers, and project management software—businesses should consider taking the volume of their operations up a few notches while improving business growth over time through smarter use of CRM data.
Integrating email marketing software with CRM can help maximize customer communication and increase lead generation.
Email messages delivered consistently to the right prospects, improve both conversion rates as well as customer engagements that result in sales.
There are warm leads who have interacted with the organization before; sending personalized marketing messages through integrations helps teamwork easier and quicker to reach potential buyers at the perfect time right in their mailboxes.An informative newsletter sent regularly reinforces customer relationships while providing updates when needed for keeping customers updated about the progress.
Email marketing tools provide businesses with the ability to manage communications and campaigns with existing and potential customers across multiple email accounts efficiently.Popular examples of email marketing software programs include Mailchimp, Constant Contact, Sendinblue, Benchmark Email, Zoho Campaigns, SendGrid, and Emailybuddy.These solutions allow users to run custom campaigns through forms or automated task sequences―making it easy for organizations of all sizes to utilize this powerful digital marketing channel from one central place.
Enhancing Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems with social media management integrations helps businesses better track how they interact with customers on each platform. By connecting a CRM to social tools such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and eClincher, companies can aggregate conversations from all their channels into one location for streamlining marketing and customer service activities.
Such integrated data furnishes marketers with advanced analytics offering highly customized insights about pipeline opportunities in real time and helping prioritize or automate when needed.
Social media management tools are some of the most important CRM integrations, as it provides businesses a chance to monitor and improve their presence on multiple social networking platforms.
Popular choices include Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social, and Sendible for managing accounts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and others.
As well as allowing users to comment and reply directly from CRM system notifications within these integrated tools; real-time collaboration is further enabled by enabling access roles based on user qualifications to allow multiple team members access on the fly without disrupting privacy or data integrity rules.
Streamlining customer support with CRM integrations is essential to ensuring a seamless customer experience with your CRM. With the right integration, you can dramatically speed up your response times and allow team members to collaborate more efficiently to help customers reach resolutions faster.
Examples of popular customer support & help desk solutions that integrate well with CRM systems are Freshdesk, Zendesk, and Helpshift which provide comprehensive ticketing functionalities primarily aimed at managing feedback from customers on digital channels like calls, emails, etc.
Additionally, these support tools feature automated questionnaires and specialized detailed user profiles that give agents further insights into client relationships when servicing tickets for help or assistance inquiries.
Common features offered by such integrations include ticketing, service automation, personalization services, KPIs tracking, omnichannel intelligence private channels or live discussion panels.
Popular customer support and help desk options include ServiceNow Customer Service Management (CSM), Zendesk Support Center Suite of Products and Freshdesk multi-channel CSE software platforms.
Implementing these services can drastically improve the quality of the user experience for both employees and customers alike.
Project management software offers businesses a wide array of tools, such as task delegation and resource management tools that help them increase operational efficiency.
Using these specialized systems, organizations can track progress at every stage within a project in order to identify potential challenges along the way and resolve any sustainability issues quickly.
Integrating project management software within CRM technology enables instantaneous collaboration among team members and helps to bridge shortcomings with existing models for data communication delivery.
Project Management Software involves connecting a CRM system with task management systems to help improve performance and optimize execution.
Choosing the right software for these purposes can help streamline complicated business processes, generate valuable reports, discover opportunities, and save money and time.
Popular project management tools for this include Asana, Trello, Basecamp and nTask are all user-friendly platforms that enable collaboration between stake holders for different roles related to marketing operations in businesses.
Integrating an e-commerce platform with your CRM can boost sales and improve customer experience.
Through this integration, users can easily check out customers' order details stored in the CRM while they are shopping online and use essential data collected to improve the customer service process.
This integration smooths the purchasing flow between businesses and their customers dramatically.
Additionally, insights into customer purchasing behavior sent back from the same platform are directly transferred to insights for nurturing leads inside of a CRM.
Integrating a powerful e-commerce platform with your CRM system can help to enhance customer experience, boost sales and convert visitors into buyers. Popular options include Shopify, Magento, and WooCommerce.
Some platforms offer direct integration while for others you may need specialized services like extensions or APIs. All of the solutions boast industry-leading payment security features, responsive design capabilities that make the checkout process smooth on any device type, and 24/7 technical support should you need it.
Integration 6 for enhanced business efficiency via CRM is marketing automation software. By integrating marketing automation tools with the customer relationship management system, it's possible to automate many of the redundant and manual tasks associated with customer outreach communications.
This frees up more time to provide a better level of service to current customers while allowing employees to focus their efforts on analyzing trends or honing campaigns to target new prospective buyers.
Popular examples of automated marketing include sales and special promotions emails along with lead nurturing campaigns tailored towards prospects' own needs and interests.
Collaboration and Communication Tools, involves utilizing CRM integration solutions to enhance team collaboration in the workflow.
This type of integration can streamline communication between staff members as well as allow for better allocation of tasks and resources.
Popular software options include Slack, Google Hangouts Chat, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and numerous others. By having integrated systems such as these into your CRM better performance can be obtained from team collaborations which creates increased efficiency no matter company size or industry.
Integrating accounting and invoicing software with CRM systems are becoming a necessary ingredient for many businesses striving to meet customer demands.
This CRM integration simplifies financial operations management, including extending estimations of costs in contract features to support deal velocity whilst creating richer, more accurate financial insights.
Specific capabilities offered by this type of integration feature heavy balance sheet workflows, and automation attached form submission processes into deals tracking modes safely and preserve sensitive banking information securely.
Accounting and invoicing software can be integrated with CRM to streamline financial processes. Software like Quickbooks, FreshBooks, Wave, Zoho Books and Sage offer features such as order creation, billing automation, invoice organization and tracking revenue that make it easier for businesses.
Integration of these popular accounting solutions into a CRM system makes business more efficient by synchronizing data across platforms and avoiding duplication of customer information entry.
This simplifies bookkeeping automatically providing customers with an accessible yet secure database for digital payments as well as clearance functions.
CRM systems comprise customer survey and feedback tools, designed to gather valuable data insights that can inform decisions and measure customer satisfaction. These integration tools simplify the process of conducting polls, ratings, and surveys for speedy responses from customers.
Some popular options include Survey Monkey, QuickHelp Feedback Surveys, Client Checker Insta Survey etc.
Implementing customer survey integrations into business processes allows improving the past performance analysis to improve the future ones thus yielding better customer experiences and streamlined operations overall.
In conclusion, engaging the right software integrations for your CRM system is pivotal to enhancing business efficiency. The 10 integrations outlined above spell out an important suite of tools that provide everything from improved customer service and data insights to automated marketing processes and streamlined team collaboration.
Regardless of the shape or size of a company, selecting the functionality-rich integration tools best suited for operational needs will help take their services yet another level up.
Customer relationships are at the heart of today’s successful organizations. Reaching consumers, understanding their customer needs, and building their trust—these tasks demand robust strategies optimally leveraging customer data to track customer data and analyze customer data across the entire customer lifecycle.
Achieving organizational excellence is often a combination of careful customer management regimes such as Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and measurable experiences delivered to end customers—known as Customer Experience (CX). These strategies play a vital role in enhancing customer satisfaction, strengthening customer retention, and supporting customer service teams in their effort to improve customer service and retain customers through each stage of the customer lifecycle.
In this outline, we will examine the differences between CRM and CX, lingering mixes of disbelief, and where strategies are proactive around customer-centric tactics to really improve customer satisfaction and build solid relationships.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a business strategy and technology that coordinates customer data and interactions across departments.
It enables organizations to better understand customers, facilitate streamlined communication between all stakeholders in the customer relationship lifecycle and uncover opportunities for growth ensuring a strategic deliverance of effective service or product values.
Core components of CRM focus on efficient data storage helping manage customer information, an analysis capability providing deep insights into behavioral challenges, as well as the building feature enabling tailored encounters plus outlined commitment metrics.
CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, is one of the most powerful tools organizations have for understanding customers. It offers valuable insights into customer behaviors among various product lines and services they interact with, which fundamentally assists marketers in building personalized customer journeys and experiences at every touchpoint.
CRM tracks how customers are using what the brand is providing and makes marketing functions more responsive to expected styles of consumption patterns amongst their target user base – making it easier to quietly evaluate strategic opportunities like acquisitions or partnerships that inform desired channels for future growth.
Ultimately, fully integrated CRM software can provide insights that determine where the most effort is needed to focus on customer engagement requirements – this allows businesses to maximize returns on their investments in meeting individual customers’ diverse and converging preferences and expectations.
CRM (Customer Relationship Management) has become essential to managing customer interactions effectively and efficiently. CRM systems are designed specifically to collect customer data, track sales leads, and capture customer feedback.
With the right CRM software in place, businesses can analyze their performance as well as improve their relationships with existing customers.
Key features of all successful CRM systems include comprehensive customer histories; interaction logs; multi-channel support capabilities; design customization and scalability options; automated workflows or processes — and CRM applications can track company and industry data, forecast customer activity, and set objective-based performance incentive plans as well.
In terms of benefits, companies utilizing a good CRM solution can gain invaluable insights into their customers’ behaviors while target market analysis reveals unknown sales leads and growth engines that support deeper growth & opportunities armed with this knowledge. Furthermore, 24/7 processes enable faster service with higher customer satisfaction rates thanks to careful algorithmic tailoring taking place across each individual customer experience.
CX (Customer Experience) is a broader concept compared to the narrower focus of CRM. It focuses on dealing with every customer interaction and offering positive experiences throughout their journey at each touchpoint – starting from awareness to the acquisition of value and leading towards providing support and retention.
Pioneered by Don Peppers in the early 90s, it involved understanding customer behavior at all points of contact between them and the company, to better understand and respond to later interactions. Hence CX encompasses a vast range of activities that let organizations augment user delight and loyalty.
Simply put, CX is an approach that unfailingly meets set alignments to customer expectations while shaping as many interactions with the purpose of delivering quality experiences.
The customer experience (CX) is a marketing process focused on improving the long-term relationships between a company and its customers, primarily through analytics and strategies that encourage personalized customer interactions at all points throughout the customer journey.
Customer experiences involve direct efforts to enhance the overall customer journey with personalized activities that promote greater satisfaction and loyalty as well as stronger connections to an organization.
This might include providing extra value for customers with introductory offers or discounts for repeat purchases, attentive delivery services, online help features that allow quick resolutions to customer queries, or other tailored touches. Above all, an effective CX strategy must ensure that all of the customer interactions throughout every touchpoint remain comfortable and empowered for both the brand and the customers themselves.
Customer Experience (CX), largely focused on customers’ interactions within and before/after the purchase of a product or service, can provide crucial insight that cannot be gleaned from other data points.
CX allows businesses to build a genuine connection with their customer base by creating personalized experiences they will enjoy more, as well as introducing unique features and benefits in an effort to increase value for the target audience.
Customers satisfied with these processes appreciate feeling valued, and in doing so, strengthen business and brand loyalty, strengthen engagement levels, and form long-term relationships.
Advancements in digital progress have given rise to more customers expecting higher customizations of offers and increased investment in customer experience can tremendously increase loyal identifiable consumers rather than the acquisition process. Ultimately, CX boosts customer loyalty by facilitating intangible value to increasingly drive transactions over direct discounts and promotions.
CRM and CX have different yet somewhat overlapping objectives. In general terms, customer relationship management looks to help organizations maximize the value of their customers and efficiently manage customer data while optimizing sales cycles through controlled contact nurturing.
On the other hand, customer experience (CX) aims to enrich customer interactions as this often does more to support business goals such as growth rates, expanded product portfolio, unwavering brand loyalty, and repeating customers - all balanced against maximum profits from resource allocation than anything in CRM can really deliver. CRM is the platform driving those yields meanwhile, CX particularly focuses on stretching organization performance and outcomes to distinctive levels through highly satisfying customer frontline engagement designed to promote long-term retention.
Customer Relationship Management is a tool designed to help businesses manage all aspects of customer data and relationships. It captures, stores, and uses important customer information such as sales histories, preferences, and behaviors to continually thrive off developing customer relationships in an effective way.
As the data is actively used to contribute positively throughout multiple levels it also becomes useful with increased benefits maximizing customer experiences holistically, sustaining correlations over repeat visits is foremost focused from prevalent analytics ensuring relevancy doesn't weaken preventing downtime.
CX (Customer Experience) is a broad, holistic approach to enhancing the interactions, experiences, and relationships that customers have with a business. It looks at the end-to-end customer journey in its entirety.CX considers many aspects of engaging customers such as services offered, available products or features they will benefit from, integration among all facets of the customer experience (front & back offices), customer feedback, persistence and continuity between engagements, and technologies used for integrated communication channels.
With its focus on improving tangible and intangible customer touchpoints, CX attempts to fulfill the desires of customers and strives to leave a lasting positive emotional connection.
CRM and CX are distinct concepts, however, the two overlap in many areas. While CRM focuses on nurturing and forming valuable customer relationships, CX serves as a holistic approach to optimizing an overall superior experience.
While CRM captures important data about customers such as individual contact details or buying preferences, CX leverages this information to also add humanizing elements through personalized engagements that enrich customer experiences.
By combining CRM’s segmentation abilities and CX’s value-adding sentiment, businesses can benefit from improved customer insight. Utilized in harmony, CRM and CX cultivate sincere and valuable relationships essential for driving real customer loyalty.
CRM and CX are interconnected but have different trends. The integration of CRM with customer practices is key for improving their CX. Enterprise-level customer relationship information in a CRM system allows businesses to synthesize a sequence that leads clients from engagement all the way through mastery.
Customer profiles included in the CRM provide companies with data on investments made, behaviors faced, response channels used as well as preferences used throughout the customer journey. Companies leveraging this kind of information can identify consumers’ needs and expectations allowing them to then deploy marketing and service models that tackle these problems effectively.
This leads to better customer experiences across multiple tracks. Therefore, engaging customers through their preferred paths while managing consumer encounters via CRM mechanisms allows businesses the leverage they need to achieve more efficient CX processes.
The ultimate goal for any organization is to create a meaningful connection between its customers and its brand. The link between customer relationship management (CRM) and customer experience (CX), although distinct, must synergize closely in order to maximize impact.How can CX inform CRM effectiveness? As opportunities are presented, CX should drive the global ideology governing personalized reconciliation that comes secondary o understanding what drives a consumer’s intent or ambition which goes straight into lead-scoring structures managed by visualization strategies in analytics and surveys from product feedback forms.CX puts customers at the heart of CRM efforts, helping to drive social ROI as well as proactively prioritize engagement opportunities woven between targeted campaigns based on past purchase data - allowing businesses to effectively focus tactics closer to achieving desired goals driving progress that meet customer ambitions and understand customers' brand perception.
Integrating CRM and CX initiatives can be beneficial for optimizing customer relationships and overall user experience. Identification of key touchpoints, as they emerge, helps to ensure a unified brand experience across every potential customer interaction.
Leveraging existing customer data collections into meaningful insights helps drive organizational strategy, allowing companies to focus both on performance optimization in iterative releases and opportunity identification when it comes to new marketing campaigns, product feature suggestions, or service upgrades.
With feedback loops built into these approaches, progression is natural; from course corrections to task automation and lead engagement processes. As data evolves over time, analytics pertaining to customer teams, their histories, preferences, and indicators of product or service engagement can be made available administratively — gaining accuracy with ongoing technological advancement.
Having a thorough knowledge of the differences between Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Customer Experience (CX) is essential for enterprises wishing to be successful in their customer-first methodology.
CRM, by concentrating on tracking information about customers and managing existing connections, establishes a backbone for further individualized interactions.
On the other hand, CX reviews the complete dealings between customers and your product or service to build extraordinary experiences that stimulate confidence and happiness from users.
For businesses to maximize customer relationships and experiences, CRM and CX must come together as one. By alignment with the two initiatives, a customer-centered culture is created with resultant improvements in satisfaction and long-term growth that can yield incredible results.
Considering the interconnectedness between CX and CRM, consolidation of their approaches ensures success in delivering an unparalleled experience for customers.
Software vendor-reseller partnerships are a type of strategic collaboration between software vendors and resellers. It is beneficial for software companies to enter product growth agreements with third parties, such as managed service provider firms or services partners, to broaden their customer base, expand to new geographical markets, improve customer support, and generate more revenue (or at least diversify income streams) through a strong partner ecosystem that includes a variety of software offerings and professional services.
This article looks at five key reasons why these collaborations serve as an integral part of professional practice in the software industry. The success of such partnerships greatly depends on proper communication between vendors and resellers about business objectives, customer segmentation strategies, sales enablement resources, and market feedback precedents.
By establishing successful relationships based on mutual goals and equal contributions by both parties—often supported by a structured partner program and aligned joint marketing efforts—companies can achieve significant expansion in sales while simultaneously improving the quality of service they offer customers through enhanced technical support and more comprehensive support offerings, sometimes supplemented with consulting services for more specialized needs.
One of the primary advantages of software vendor-reseller partnerships is the ability to access a much larger customer base thanks to a reseller's existing networks and relationships.
This extended reach means that vendors are able to tap into customers in new and unexplored markets which in turn could result in potentially higher sales volumes without having to generate such risk themselves.
Resellers also provide valuable local context when addressing changing dynamics within different geographic areas, making it easier for vendors to adjust product features or positioning strategies according to market trends.
Vendor-reseller partnerships enable software companies to tap into their reseller partners' existing relationships and networks.
By leveraging those connections and building relationships with reliable distributors, vendors can access an extended customer base across different regions without the need of setting up a physical presence in each area.
This allows them to increase their market penetration cost-effectively while also benefiting from referrals by satisfied customers through referrals, generating more sales volume and boosting overall revenue.
Software vendor-reseller partnerships can open up unexpected opportunities for software vendors to expand their geographical markets. For example, resellers may already have an established network of customers and the local knowledge that makes entering new markets smoother.
Therefore, partnering with a well-known local dealer in a foreign country would help the software producer strengthen its own entry into the market. Additionally, leveraging the connections between different reseller partners across different countries is also beneficial while trying to enter those new global regions to maximize reach and access to an extended customer base.
All in all, this collaboration method helps amplify growth potential with greater efficiency and cost-effectiveness than going out on the market alone.
Resellers have in-depth expertise when it comes to selling high-value software products to prospects and marketing those products across different channels.
This allows vendors to tap into the resellers' knowledge base about preferred communication styles, buying preferences of customers, local market insights, and any upcoming trends – all beneficial traits that help boost unit sales with optimum revenue outcomes.
Software resellers bring valuable industry knowledge, key networks, and specialized skills to the software vendor-reseller partnership.
This enables more targeted sales and market reach for software vendors: by understanding customer needs and presenting tailor-made solutions to customers with specific preferences - instead of a one-size fits all approach - overall sales volume is increased and revenue generation is most effectively maximized.
Software vendors that partner with resellers benefit significantly from their ability to generate increased sales and revenue.
Resellers highly skilled in selling and marketing software can have an immensely positive influence on vendor unit shipment growth, helping them broadly reach customers with the right solutions that meet many potential targets in one fell swoop.
By allowing access to a large tail of low-dollar through more specialist markets, multiple venues for success may ensue as profitably.
Resellers can serve as important local support systems for customers of software vendors. They provide customers with answers to pre-sales inquiries and offer post-sale assistance, increasing both response rates and satisfaction, and allowing businesses to develop better relationships with their end users.
Whether logging concern calls or having questions removing technical complexities, resellers tend to act responsively and personally creating admiration from customers who benefit from such expertise.
Software vendors rely on resellers to provide direct customer support. Resellers have the expertise and contacts needed to offer valuable pre-sales and post-sales support — helping customers with product selection, installation/configurations, problem resolutions, maintenance programming, and more.
This enables software vendors to boost their customer satisfaction rates while providing enhanced service offerings with added convenience and personalization that stakeholders find invaluable.
Software vendor-reseller partnerships enable better customer support and service, such as providing faster response times and more personalized assistance for end-users.
Resellers act as local point of contact in order to provide pre and post-sales support, meaning customers receive solutions that are tailored to their individual requirements. Delivery time is also optimized thanks to the closer relations between reseller and customer meaning results can be achieved faster and at a higher satisfaction rate for all involved.
Resellers provide unique insight into software markets and customers through their contact with customers, recognizing items like preference, usage patterns, perceivable issues, and potential product advancement.
This valuable information helps vendors make key decisions to notice market opportunities more accurately post-launch, optimizing products already on the market such as version changes or localization efforts.
Enhancements at the feedback loop level can guard customers’ loyalty levels with continual learning from in-demand advancements driven by rebranded reseller deliveries
Gathering feedback from resellers is a key benefit of software vendor-reseller partnerships that allows vendors to gain insight into product performance and customer satisfaction levels.
Resellers play a valuable role in obtaining important data about the entire industry such as reviews, ratings, pain points, trends areas of improvement, and more.
By utilizing this valuable information learned through these kinds of interactions with local customers, vendors are better able to identify deficiencies in their current offerings and address emerging needs amongst the end user base quicker than ever before.
Mutual business growth is one of the key advantages that arise out of a software vendor-reseller partnership. Through joint initiatives and co-marketing efforts, both parties benefit from shared resources and knowledge to help enhance their respective brand images.
Joint business development activities can take the form of organized events or conferences where vendors showcase products to potential customers while resellers pit their local expertise and networks in strengthening market reach for new software solutions.
Mutual business growth through the sharing of resources and knowledge by software vendors and resellers helps both parties better position their respective products in the market.
Through effective collaboration, Information Technology companies can develop joint initiatives to increase brand visibility, maximize market potential, generate sales leads, and take on more business opportunities (in the form of proposal responses, etc.).
They also get access to expand into different geo-locations that would otherwise not have been possible in the absence of such partnerships. In this way, understanding each other's strengths resulting from resource-sharing can lead to greater business success.
Software vendor-reseller partnerships allow for both to make the most of their respective skill sets, grow their business positively, and successfully reach even more customers. Whether it's reaching customers with specific needs and preferences, providing faster pre-sales and post-sales support, or pooling resources to use market insights to improve products, there are many attractive mutual benefits associated with such strategic alliances.
By working together, software providers and resellers can align their business goals, offer tailored solutions, and deliver personalized services that enhance customer success. Resellers often bring technical expertise and act as a system integrator, providing critical implementation services and value added services that help maximize the impact of the software for end-users.
Overall, collaboration between software vendors and resellers is essential for sustainable growth in the industry – strategic partnerships act as a stepping stone to expand into new markets, generate more revenue, and ensure customer success.
Inbound marketing centers on attracting potential customers to a business’ website or offering using online content, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing tactics, and email messaging—all of which promote brand authenticity and help businesses build responsive relationships with their audiences. Inbound marketing focuses on drawing people in through inbound marketing tactics, aiming to guide them down the sales funnel effectively.
Outbound marketing efforts, however, tend to apply more traditional means of advertising such as TV-spot advertorials, radio promotions, direct mails, etc., in an effort to send the desired message directly to audiences.
Still relevant these days, outbound marketing methods are mainly used for speeding up promotion and obtaining tangible results quickly on engaging customers. Common outbound marketing examples include cold calling, print advertisements, and billboards, which differ significantly from inbound marketing efforts that lean heavily on digital marketing platforms.
Comparing both outbound and inbound marketing tactics to find out the right strategy that works is instrumental given their respective characteristics that may affect outcomes differently. As such, we will provide guiding questions enterprises can ask themselves before formulating a sound and efficient marketing agenda through discussing both inbound marketing focuses and outbound marketing efforts features foremost ahead of evaluating budget returns or analyses of competitive landscapes and conducting evaluation exercises.
Inbound marketing involves creating, distributing, and optimizing content within online channels using tactics like search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, email campaigns, etc.
Content is tailored to engage and create useful buying experiences for prospects by educating and informing them about potential products or services at the earliest stages of consideration, establishing connections & level of trust in the form of brand authority. The overall goal is focused on having leads find your businesses instead of trying to seek after them directly which constitutes direct sales as part of outbound marketing.
Content creation and distribution involves the creation of topics/stories related to your brand, addressing customer questions or needs. These pieces are placed across various web channels such as blogs and social networks.
Content not only establishes authority but raises awareness for products extended by a brand leading to higher interaction with customers. Content strategy also adds fuel to internet metabolism promoting better engagement with article readers diversifying through quality distribution flexible format resources leveraging an integrated utilization having targeted connection availability to rapidly reach multiple geographic regions just on touch in recent trends/changes.
Search engine optimization (SEO) is an important strategy for inbound marketing. This strategy involves optimizing content to increase its rankings within search engine results pages, as well as improving the overall visibility of a website.
To do this, technical measures need to be taken such as structure and coding of a website, speed optimization, and quality evaluation of links so that they are compatible with specific latencies and if possible reduce loading times or targets blocking certain IP addresses.
Additionally, there are SEO tools such as image optimization, keyword targeting, and competitor tracking which help drive higher visibility with search engines like Bing, Google, and Yahoo.
Social media marketing is a key inbound marketing strategy comprised of targeting and engaging customers through social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more. It's an effective way to spread brand awareness, increase website traffic, promote products or services, and even build relationships with prospective consumers.
Social media can leverage user-generated content to showcase customer feedback of the brand and allows brands to be portrayed in real-time highlighting the impact it’s making among current followers within their chosen industry or niche areas.
Email marketing is a key inbound marketing strategy, and it involves sending branded messages to customers through emails with useful content such as tips, offers, promotions, etc.
It requires data collecting via subscribers list in order to push relevant messages tailored to individual customer interests or specific behaviors they exhibit online.
To optimize its effectiveness email marketers need to utilize segmentation techniques and pay attention to incorporating precise CTAs links onto the message forms.
This boosts chances for higher levels of conversions and enhances the overall quality of user experiences contained within the confined digital environment in direct correspondence with the entire brand.
Inbound marketing has the power to attract qualified leads by drawing interested customers in through targeted content and using effective tactics like SEO, social media, email campaigns, and more.
By producing relevant content that your audience wants and needs, you are able to tailor your messages to inform prospects seeking particular knowledge related to your product.
SEO is another great way of attracting qualified leads since it makes it much easier for potential customers interested in that topic or term to find related offers, articles, news items, and other informational pieces on the front page of search results.
Building Brand authority is one of the main benefits of inbound marketing. Creating a consistent appearance across all platforms, such as Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, enables customers to identify the brand from a glance. Publicizing successful strategic relationships perfects this notion - customers are much more likely to recognize (and trust) that they can receive superior services from high-caliber partners.
Inbound tactics are also irreplaceable for sustaining engagement with leads on an ongoing basis through nurtured content interactions;
Additionally, visitors who respond positively should strongly consider joining marketing mailing lists and/or similar subscription-based services so as to remain in the loop for when new offerings become available.
Cognizance of these distinctive capabilities bolsters customer retention rates which solidify the position of the company within their respective industry.
Inbound marketing initiatives, specifically targeted content distribution, can play an integral role in building strong relationships between businesses and their customers.
Content shared through blogs and emails aimed at catering to the needs of customers yields improved brand loyalty, more revenue from customers over time, and a greater chance for these same current buyers to recommend more pleased patrons in their contact circles.
By regularly providing accessible and relevant information curated just for valued buyers, repeated exposure with obtaining higher speed desired declarations of commitment by existing clients leading to repeat visits.
Furthermore, customers offering further prospects due to endorsements has been consistently found a long-term result stemming from the successful adoption of up-to-date information technology aspects combined with targeting content strategy creation in active inbound marketing practices.
Outbound marketing is a type of traditional marketing approach that involves actively pushing products, services, or content to target audiences through paid advertisements and stronger calls-to-action.
Common strategies include print and TV ads, cold calling, direct mail campaigns, telemarketing, and different promotional activities such as trade shows and events. The goal for outbound efforts is usually more oriented toward general exposure than tailoring individual interactions. It sometimes requires higher costs and specific resources, but can still be effective if the target audience is defined correctly.
Traditional advertising involves using TV, radio, or print mediums to transmit ads to a wide audience. It relies heavily on standing out from the rest and creating persuasive messages that can capture viewers’ attention. Companies often pay external outlets, such as newspapers, magazines, billboards, film theatres, etc.; for space to publish their advertisements.
Benefits of traditional media include immense reach (even globally) more timely results and high impact levels due to its interactive capabilities and user involvement in receiving campaigns; especially when compared to digital media.
Additionally, core systems (e.g. TV programming) important in lots of industries rely on ads-related investments and payments due to their profit models, affixing used traditional mediums as well determinant elements for certain marks reaching success and notoriety among their audiences desired.
Cold calling can be an effective outbound marketing strategy for businesses to reach their target audiences and communicate the features of a product or service. It allows companies to try and make connections with potential customers or clients, establish a relationship with them and enter into selling dialogue directly.This method gives businesses the opportunity to expose themselves face to face as well as greatly improve customer acquisition prospects since results remain unknown until contacted sometime later and persuasion may be successful.
Furthermore, timely actions are guaranteed since companies can receive a response during or right after the conversation. Despite all these advantages, this strategy comes with difficulties and when customers reject immediate purchase propositions trust might be undermined in the long run.
Direct mail is a key outbound marketing strategy that involves physical letter distribution directly sent to recipients through the mail.It allows marketers the chance to speak to consumers on a personal level and stand out much more vividly compared to most digital media.
Direct mails in return hold more attention which provides plenty of opportunities such as generating leads, upselling products, or igniting communication between customers and prospects; whereas other outbound strategies can just act as pure brand exposure only.
While it’s overwhelmingly convenient that other digital outbound strategies exist and become popular, direct mail can still be effective and shows show-through in daily life eliminating all competition most of the time.
Outbound marketing often involves traditional forms of advertising, such as TV and radio spots, print advertisements, direct mail campaigns, and telemarketing (also known as telephone sales). Telemarketing is particularly strategic because its personal touch offers access to qualified leads while building relationships with existing customers.
This helps companies boost sales directly or drive traffic to online assets where consumers can find more product details.
Skilled telemarketers are equipped with detailed product information, making effective objections – one call at a time– allowing telemarketing to effectively convey important messages faster and remain data-driven operations.
Outbound marketing is a popular choice for businesses looking to meet wider audiences of potential customers and get greater brand awareness.
Compared to inbound tactics like content creation, SEO, and social media advertising, traditional offline techniques typically allow the business to communicate its message further and faster.
While these more proactive strategies may come at a higher cost than those produced with digital technologies by companies without an equally robust digital presence, the major advantage of the higher reach and brand exposure makes it worth considering.
One of the key benefits of outbound marketing is that businesses can achieve quick results and often notice an immediate impact on their brand recognition and lead generation.
Outbound content works best in what is known as a “push” system; this type of strategy forces current or prospective customers to take action or see products take potential leads down the funnel toward purchase faster than with inbound tactics.
Traditional options such as TV ads, direct mail, telemarketing, and cold calling guarantee vast, rapid coverage of a target market across strategies from different input channels while reaching potential customers regardless if they are actively searching.
Ultimately, these proven strategies enable products and services to be seen by the right people with their unique messaging in a shorter period of time.
Outbound marketing is often an effective way to reach a larger scale of target audience, especially for certain industries and groups.
Its traditional methods such as radio, TV, and print advertisements can broadcast messages over large geographical regions resulting in a greater market pie through brand name recognition.
Cold calls offer doorstep access to numerous leads that could be found outside the internet link-ages demographic while telemarketing or even direct mail helps with exhausting efforts in finding suitable demographics.
Outbound strategies are usually applied when launching new products to boost exposure to the various target niches amidst the constant transformational needs of the audience's influence and behaviors.
Inbound and outbound marketing differ significantly in terms of approach and targeting. Outbound evidence-based on blanket methods, with advertisements, cold calls, etc targeted generally at a wide audience without consideration for their needs or abilities.
In contrast, inbound enables companies to build tailored buyer personas based on careful analysis of an objective’s best potential audience.
This allows it to target users unknown but interested in the provisioned solution as well as retarget current leads giving them content specially written and including crucial information aligning it with the correct conversion tactics.
In comparing the cost-effectiveness and ROI of inbound and outbound marketing, it is clear that both strategies offer value. Inbound marketing tends to focus on long-term success with higher ROI.Its methods, such as SEO, content creation, social media marketing, etc., cost less money up front although they require time and effort for effective implementation.
Outbound digital tactics can quickly drive moderately scaled targeted orders and campaigns at a lower cost than their counterparts in traditional channels; however, the ROI is short-lived or may require subsequent campaigns.
Customer engagement and relationship building is a key difference between inbound and outbound marketing strategies.
Inbound marketing allows for long-term relationships to be built by creating quality content that attracts new customers, as well as retails existing relationships with current customers. Outbound methods are typically used to outreach potential audiences, but oftentimes the interaction ends once conversions take place.
Thus, inbound campaigns can create deeper customer relations when consistently applied over time; whereas results from outbound methods may dim easily if not followed up regularly.
When assessing their inbound and outbound marketing strategies, businesses should pay special attention to how customer behavior and preferences are changing over time.
Today’s consumers appreciate personalized experiences which is why inbound marketing can be beneficial as most of its tactics have the potential for personal customization.
Overly generic outbound initiatives lack faster results but still require a considerable budget to remain competitive against newer ways of reaching customers such as messaging apps or podcasts. Without an appropriate transformation of traditional strategies, profitability can suffer if campaigns fail to keep up with ever-changing consumer behavior.
When deciding which digital marketing strategy works best in unfamiliar territory a business should pay close attention to its goals and who they want to reach.
Though both inbound and outbound offer benefits, the nature of each will determine if either is suitable for meeting intended objectives and consumers' needs.
Establishing basic decisions such as budget or time allowance should be taken into serious consideration when selecting either tactic– inbound requires strategic, long-term planning while outbound pops off gains faster through experimentation.
Undoubtedly, investing adequate time in researching both tactics and circumstances ahead of conducting either path is invaluable information to have when embarking on an uncertain marketing quest.
It’s imperative to carefully examine available budgeting so that campaigns are tailored effectively to enable maximum efficiency. Depending on financial plans, either excess untapped funds can be allocated towards certain strategic areas or creativity improvements can boost rewards without huge outgoings.
Analyzing industry trends and competition is essential to finding the proper strategy for a business. Because each industry sector has its own unique trends, responsibilities and challenges, analyzing key industry influencers is useful in developing effective solutions to get desired results.
By looking at successful strategies of key competitors as well as up-and-coming brands in the field, businesses can gain insight into what works best within their specific sectors-- such as understanding customer needs and how competing products are marketed fiercely yet comfortably fitting within internet regulations.
Combining inbound and outbound marketing can provide businesses with more comprehensive results. Such a strategy works by complementing one another, for example, using targeted email campaigns in combination with social media marketing or offline events to drive the desired response from end users.
Both should be continually reassessed  based on changing consumer behavior, industry trends, competition levels as well as any newly emerging technology or platforms. By combining both segments under one omnichannel approach, companies will have better resource utilization which maximizes return on investments.
In conclusion, inbound and outbound marketing strategies can work together to further the success of an organization. It is essential to assess each tactic based on the KPI (Key Performance Indicators) meant to provide beneficial results for the company’s needs.
By choosing carefully which strategy should come first involves curating why it fits perfectly with its target market and that it provides lucrative profits followed by maintaining said technique when scenarios change continually or adjusting another alternative for optimal exposure all throughout.
Ultimately, developing a comprehensive approach featuring a mixture of inbound and outbound marketing will undoubtedly bring successful returns for businesses striving to survive the multitude of available options in today’s digital industry.
It’s 2025 and you can’t afford to waste money on strategies and tactics that don’t generate qualified, hot leads who want to buy from you. With attention spans getting shorter than TikTok videos and competition lurking around every corner, it’s critical to use effective lead generation tools.
Not every tool, tactic, strategy, or platform will get results for every business. The key is knowing what tools will work for your business and learning how to use them right. Here’s a breakdown of the top 10 lead gen tools that small businesses are using to generate qualified leads in 2025.
CRM software has been around for a while now, but it continues to be a key component in lead generation for small businesses. Without it, it’s extremely difficult to capture leads, let alone follow up with them and close deals.
There are a handful of great CRMs out there, and each one offers a different set of features and benefits. However, in general, they typically provide a way to capture leads through web forms, tag your leads to segment your audience, and then nurture your leads through email over time, which is where the real money is.
CRMs also allow you to schedule and document sales calls, manage your pipelines, set reminders for follow-up calls, assign tasks, and your sales reps can see what each customer has already purchased or expressed interest in to make sales calls more effective.
Some CRM tools provide more extensive features than others, but most businesses don’t need anything overly complex. Businesses that make full use of a CRM – even on a small plan – tend to see an increase in lead conversion within the first six months.
· HubSpot CRM. Many people love HubSpot’s CRM and for good reason. It’s an easy, user-friendly system that allows you to collect and manage leads, automate email marketing, and build landing pages all in one. In fact, the entry-level plan offers all of these features for free. If you outgrow the free plan at any time, you can buy add-ons to grow as needed. It’s ideal for small to medium sized businesses who are just beginning to automate their marketing and sales.
· Salesforce. Salesforce has been around for a long time, and it’s considered the gold standard in CRM software by many. It’s extremely customizable and built for businesses serious about scaling. However, it’s highly complex.
This CRM is ideal for companies with complex sales cycles, big teams, and enterprise-level data. The system collects an impressive amount of data and has a beautiful dashboard to make sense of it all. The learning curve for Salesforce is steep, but it’s worth the cost for growing businesses that need access to deep analytics and AI forecasting.
· Keap. Keap (formerly Infusionsoft) has long been the go-to for CRM software, but it’s pricey and the learning curve is steep. However, it’s not as hard to learn as Salesforce. To help small business owners get access to all the best CRM features without the extra complexity, the company now offers two user-friendly versions for those who aren’t IT savvy: Keap Pro and Keap Max. The more complex application formerly known as Infusionsoft is now called Keap Ultimate.
You can do just about everything with this CRM, including build web forms, capture, segment, and manage leads, run advanced email marketing campaigns, sell products, and manage your sales pipelines. Keap is ideal for service-based businesses and entrepreneurs who want to scale without hiring a team.
· GoHighLevel. GoHighLevel (GHL) combines a basic CRM with email and SMS marketing, a funnel and website builder, appointment scheduling, and several additional features you can’t get with other applications. Similar to other funnel building apps, you can sell physical or digital products with order bumps and upsells.
If you want to earn even more monthly revenue, you can white label the GHL software, brand it as your own, and charge your clients a monthly fee to use it.
GHL is great for digital marketing agencies, entrepreneurs, infomarketers, and service providers with multiple clients.
· ClickFunnels. Similar to GoHighLevel, ClickFunnels is a sales funnel builder with an intuitive visual interface that makes it easy to build sales pages and move people through your funnels with order bumps and upsells, whether you’re offering physical or digital products. You can also sell courses and memberships.
Like all the other CRMs discussed here, email marketing is included. It’s ideal for just about anyone who needs to capture and nurture leads, including infomarketers, coaches, and even course creators.
Email marketing alone isn’t enough. When you use a CRM, you’re building and managing relationships, nurturing leads, tracking every interaction, and fine-tuning your conversions based on what you know about your leads. A CRM truly gives you the upper hand in all your lead generation and nurturing efforts.
For B2B small businesses, LinkedIn Sales Navigator is a game-changer in lead generation. It’s a premium tool designed to help business owners find, track, and engage with potential leads and decision makers. You can filter your searches to target specific keywords, job titles, company size, industry, geographic location, and someone’s seniority level and/or years in their current role.
When you use this tool, LinkedIn will recommend potential leads and allow you to save leads you like and get notified when they change jobs, post content, or engage with your content. Liking or commenting on a potential lead’s posts warms them up a bit and eliminates ice-cold outreach.
With Sales Navigator, you also get access to InMail messaging to reach out to people outside of your network without having to initiate a connection request. InMail open rates are between 18-25%, which is far better than standard 3% seen with email marketing.
When it comes to integrations, Sales Navigator syncs with HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho, and many other CRM and marketing applications. If you’re in B2B sales and still using standard LinkedIn, you’ll get the advantage with Sales Navigator.
Anyone who says popups don’t work is misinformed. Popups absolutely work, but they need to be done professionally and strategically. The truth is, when people want what you have to offer, they will give you their email address if you ask. Most businesses offer a valuable freebie in exchange for a user’s contact information, like a PDF guide, white paper, discount, or even a physical book sent through the mail.
Although you can display popups when a visitor first lands on your website, the most effective popups are triggered by behavior, like exit intent and scroll depth popups that only show up when a user performs certain actions. These types of popups convert better than ones that bombard a user with a barrier to the content they’re trying to access. Data shows that click-triggered popups have the highest conversion rates at around 22-29%, while exit intent popups convert at around 15%.
For ecommerce brands, exit intent popups with discount codes or free shipping offers are especially helpful in getting people to make a purchase. You can program popups to be triggered by just about any user action, like clicking on something, scrolling to a certain point, hovering over an element, or even adding something to their cart.
When people come to your website, many of them have pre-purchase questions. If you don’t have a chatbot to tackle those questions, most people will bounce and never come back. However, when you make a chatbot available, people can ask questions and get the information they need to make a purchase decision.
A chatbot can also help you generate leads by asking users to provide their email address so someone can get back to them as soon as possible. This turns passive visitors into prospects, even outside of business hours.
More than half of business owners say chatbots help them generate higher quality leads. That’s a big deal since low quality leads don’t convert as well and can be problematic with higher refund requests.
Chatbots can also help you filter out irrelevant leads by providing all kinds of information to your visitors, including answers to questions and even price quotes. It works well because a lot of people would rather type into a chatbot than make a phone call. As a result, many small businesses are able to generate 20+ new leads per week just through a chatbot. Having a chatbot is like having a 24/7 digital sales rep on call who doesn’t need any coffee breaks.
Nothing beats word-of-mouth referrals from existing customers, but you can level up even more by automating this process with an app. For instance, ReferralCandy helps ecommerce businesses create and manage referral programs effortlessly. Customers are automatically invited to join your referral program after making a purchase and are given a personalized referral link to share with their network. When a purchase is made through their referral link, they’ll get some kind of reward, like cash, a gift card, a prize, or anything else that makes sense in your market.
Referral programs integrate seamlessly with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce for easy implementation. The best part is you can monitor key metrics, like referral sales and social shares to see who is getting the best results and where.
Although it’s simple, website builders like Wix have built-in lead capture forms that can be implemented with a drag-and-drop action. You can use these forms to calculate custom quotes, offer free downloads or paid offers, provide discounts, and more. This simple feature works great for small business owners who don’t have the budget for a full CRM application and are running a simple website.
If you haven’t started using quizzes, it’s time to start. Businesses that use quizzes for lead generation get higher conversion rates (40-50%) compared to traditional lead magnets (20-25%) when the quiz funnels are well-designed.
Quizzes tap into people’s curiosity and people love learning new things about themselves, even if it’s just something silly like what type of bird they were in a past life. However, when your quiz aligns with your product or service, it doesn’t just entertain people – it qualifies your leads.
Here’s how it works: You create a quiz (e.g., “What’s Your Ideal Marketing Strategy?” or “Which Wellness Routine Fits Your Personality?”), promote it on social media or through ads, and then collect email addresses at the end to reveal results. Once you have a list of leads, you can create personalized follow-up content and offers based on their answers. As long as it’s fun, relevant, and immediately rewarding, quizzes are an interactive source of engagement that can help you build a list full of conversion-ready leads.
You don’t have time or money to waste generating poor leads that don’t convert. Thankfully, when you start using the tools outlined in this article, your lead generation game will be leaner, smarter, and more effective than ever before. Whether you’re nurturing leads through emails, talking to them with a chatbot, or catching them before they bounce, the right tools can be one of the best investments you’ll ever make in your business.
Whether you need a custom CRM solution, support with email marketing, a high-converting quiz funnel, or a chatbot that generates leads while you’re asleep, you don’t have to figure it all out on your own. At Marketer.co, we specialize in building effective, smart, scalable lead generation systems using all the best tools in the industry to help you attract the right people at the right time.
Stop chasing cold leads and start converting warm ones. Contact us right now and let’s build your lead generation machine.
As a real estate agent, generating leads is the lifeblood of your business. Whether you’re just starting out or looking to take your career to the next level, mastering lead generation is essential for success.
The good news?
There are countless ways to attract more clients. Here, we’ll dive deep into several proven strategies to help you build a steady pipeline of leads.
Now more than ever, your online presence is often the first impression potential clients have of you. Start with a professional website that showcases your expertise, current listings, and client testimonials. Make it easy for visitors to contact you by including clear call-to-action buttons and a contact form.
When it comes to social media, focus on just one or two platforms that align with your target audience rather than spreading yourself too thin. For example, if your ideal clients are professionals, LinkedIn might be the best fit. If you’re targeting younger buyers, Instagram could be more effective. By concentrating your efforts, you can dedicate the time needed to build an engaged and loyal audience.
Post consistently and ensure your content adds value – market insights, success stories, and community updates are excellent choices. Engage with your followers by responding to comments, asking questions, and sharing behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work. This builds trust and establishes you as a relatable and reliable expert in your field.
Additionally, leverage features unique to your chosen platforms.
The key is to provide content that resonates with your audience and reinforces your expertise. A focused and consistent online presence will not only attract more leads but also help you establish long-term trust and credibility.
SEO helps your website appear higher in search engine results, making it easier for potential clients to find you. Start by optimizing your website with high-intent keywords that potential buyers and sellers might use, such as "real estate agent in [Your City]" or "homes for sale in [Your City]." Be sure to include these keywords naturally in titles, meta descriptions, and throughout your content.
Create valuable, keyword-rich content like blog posts, neighborhood guides, or market trend reports to attract organic traffic. The more helpful and relevant your content, the more likely people are to see you as a trusted resource. For example, a blog post on "Top 5 Family-Friendly Neighborhoods in [Your City]" can draw in families searching for their next home.
Another critical aspect of SEO is link building. Focus on earning backlinks from reputable sources, such as local news outlets, community websites, or industry blogs.
You can achieve this by contributing guest articles, partnering with local, small businesses, or getting your listings featured in online directories. Backlinks not only drive referral traffic but also boost your site’s authority, helping it rank higher in search results.
Don’t overlook technical SEO either. Ensure your website loads quickly, is mobile-friendly, and has a secure HTTPS connection. Tools like Google Search Console can help you identify and fix any technical issues. With a well-rounded SEO strategy, you’ll consistently attract high-quality leads to your website.
Paid advertising, like Google Ads and social media campaigns, can give you immediate visibility and help you reach potential clients quickly. To make your campaigns effective, it’s essential to target your ads to specific demographics, behaviors, and geographic areas. This helps ensure your message reaches the right audience at the right time.
Platforms like Facebook Ads and Instagram Ads allow for precise targeting options, including location, income level, interests, and even homeownership status. For example, you can create an ad campaign targeting young professionals in your city who are actively searching for homes, allowing you to effectively generate real estate leads. Use engaging visuals and concise, persuasive ad copy to capture their attention, particularly by showcasing insights into the real estate market.
Experiment with various ad formats, such as carousel ads that highlight multiple listings, video tours that offer a virtual walkthrough, or lead generation forms that make it easy for users to contact you directly. Each format has its strengths, so testing different options helps you identify what resonates most with your audience, including those attending local events where real estate interest might peak.
To maximize your return on investment, track your campaign performance using analytics tools provided by the advertising platforms.
Monitor key metrics like click-through rates, conversion rates, and cost per lead. Use this data to refine your approach, reallocating your budget to the most effective campaigns and adjusting underperforming ads.
Additionally, consider retargeting strategies to re-engage users who have visited your website or interacted with your previous ads. Retargeting keeps your services top-of-mind and increases the likelihood of converting potential leads into actual clients. By focusing on strategic targeting, creative content, and data-driven adjustments, paid advertising can become a powerful tool in your arsenal for securing real estate leads.
Your personal and professional network can be a goldmine for leads. Let your friends, family, and acquaintances know you’re in the real estate business. You never know who might be buying, selling, or know someone in need of your services.
Stay top-of-mind by sending periodic updates, holiday greetings, or invitations to client appreciation events. The more you nurture these relationships, the more likely they are to refer you to others.
If you’re thinking to yourself, “I don’t have a very big network,” maybe take some time to brainstorm. You’d probably be surprised to learn how big your network actually is. That’s because your network doesn’t just consist of people you know directly. It actually extends to second-degree connections.
Second-degree connections are people who are connected to people you’re connected with. In other words, if you know a guy who happens to be close with a point of contact in the local universities athletic department, suddenly you have access to an influential individual who could connect you with dozens of other people. Sure, first-degree connections are always the best, but second-degree connections can produce a pretty high ROI too.
Open houses aren’t just about showcasing properties – they’re also a prime opportunity for real estate professionals to meet potential buyers face-to-face and build relationships. To make the most of this strategy, start by marketing your open house effectively. Use social media ads, email campaigns, and local community boards to spread the word. Highlight unique features of the property and create a sense of urgency to encourage attendance, ensuring you attract potential clients who are genuinely interested.
During the open house, make a lasting impression by being personable, knowledgeable, and approachable. Be ready to answer detailed questions about the property, the local market, and the surrounding community. Provide printed brochures or digital handouts with all the key details, so visitors have something tangible to take home.
To further engage attendees, consider offering refreshments or small giveaways. This not only makes the event more memorable but also encourages people to linger, giving you more time to connect with them. Use a sign-in sheet or lead capture forms to collect contact information from every attendee – this is critical for follow-up.
After the event, follow up promptly with personalized emails or phone calls. Even if attendees aren’t ready to buy immediately, staying in touch keeps you top-of-mind for when they are. Additionally, analyze the feedback you receive during open houses to improve your approach for future events. By staying informed about industry trends, you can continuously refine your strategy and offer exceptional real estate services.
Over time, hosting well-executed open houses can become a cornerstone of your lead generation strategy.
Providing free resources is an excellent way to attract leads while demonstrating your expertise. Think beyond the basics and create high-value materials that your target audience can’t resist. For instance, consider offering downloadable eBooks like "The Ultimate Guide to Buying Your First Home" or "Insider Secrets to Maximizing Your Home’s Value." These resources can be hosted on your website and made available in exchange for visitors’ contact information, effectively converting traffic into actionable leads.
Expand your efforts by hosting interactive webinars or live workshops. Topics like "Staging Tips That Sell Homes Fast" or "Demystifying the Mortgage Process" can appeal to both buyers and sellers. During these sessions, you can address common questions and provide actionable advice, further solidifying your role as an industry expert.
Another approach is to create localized content, such as neighborhood guides, school district rankings, or "Top 10 Reasons to Move to [Your City]." By tailoring your resources to the specific needs of your market, you’ll position yourself as the go-to agent for that area.
Don’t forget to promote your free resources on social media, email newsletters, and community forums to maximize their reach. When potential clients see the value you provide upfront, they’ll be more likely to trust you with their real estate needs.
Here’s another simple yet effective tip. You can get some pretty amazing results when you team up with local businesses to expand your reach. For example, partner with home improvement stores, interior designers, or mortgage brokers to co-host events or create cross-promotional content.
Collaborating with businesses that cater to homeowners can help you tap into new audiences and build valuable relationships. It’s a win-win for everyone involved. (And never underestimate how many other business owners and brands are looking to build relationships to grow.)
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to stay connected with potential clients over time. Create a monthly or bi-weekly newsletter that includes market updates, new listings, and tips for buyers and sellers.
Segment your email list based on where leads are in their journey. For example, send first-time buyers tailored content that helps them understand the buying process, while experienced sellers might appreciate tips for maximizing their home’s value.
Video is a highly engaging way to showcase your expertise and build trust with potential clients. Create virtual tours of listings, neighborhood overviews, or short videos explaining real estate concepts.
Share your videos on YouTube, social media, and your website to maximize their reach. Remember, people are more likely to work with someone they feel they know, and video is a great way to establish that connection.
A CRM system helps you organize and track your leads, ensuring no one falls through the cracks. Use your CRM to set reminders for follow-ups, record client preferences, and track interactions.
Many CRM platforms also integrate with email marketing tools, making it easy to nurture leads over time. By keeping your pipeline organized, you’ll spend less time managing data and more time building relationships.
Positive online reviews can make or break your reputation as a real estate agent. They serve as social proof, showcasing your expertise and reliability to potential clients who are researching their options. Encourage satisfied clients to leave reviews on platforms like Google, Zillow, or Yelp. The more glowing testimonials you have, the more trust you’ll build with potential clients.
Make it easy for clients to leave reviews by sending them direct links to your review pages after a successful transaction. A personalized message thanking them for their business and requesting feedback can go a long way in increasing participation.
Respond to reviews – both positive and negative – to show you value feedback. For positive reviews, express your gratitude and let clients know you appreciate their trust. For negative reviews, take a professional and empathetic approach. Apologize for their experience and offer to resolve the issue. (Even a well-handled negative review can leave a positive impression on future clients, as it demonstrates your commitment to customer satisfaction.)
Additionally, you should highlight your best reviews on your website and social media profiles. Sharing success stories not only boosts your credibility but also reinforces the idea that you prioritize excellent service. Over time, maintaining an active and positive presence in online reviews can significantly enhance your reputation and real estate lead generation efforts.
Being visible in your community helps establish you as a local expert and builds trust with potential clients. You can do things like:
These activities not only give back but also increase your visibility and create organic networking opportunities. While this is the last tip on our list, it might be the most important and effective one – when it’s done well.
As a real estate agent, you can’t afford to have a disheveled or messy brand. In order to generate more leads, you need a cohesive approach that allows you to put the right message in front of the right people at the right time. At Marketer.co, we can help you do just that.
Contact us today to learn more!
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Most of us have had experience with chatbots, either as business leaders or as individual users engaging with them.
In the earliest stages of development, chatbots weren't especially impressive. They were very basic, recognizable, and at times difficult to deal with.
But these days, bots are incredibly effective. It's difficult to differentiate between bots and humans in most contexts. Chatbots are more unique and personalized. And on top of that, they’re suitable for a wider range of applications.
These days, marketers and lead generation specialists are taking an especially close look at chatbots.
But why is this the case? And how can you use chatbots effectively in a modern lead generation strategy?
Chatbots are effective marketing tools because of their ability to broadly automate what would otherwise be intensive manual effort. These bots can be created and trained to simulate a human being in a wide variety of applications, from initial lead qualification to customer service. When deployed effectively, they can strike up conversations and respond to user queries, gather important information from people, and even address their biggest questions and concerns.
Most people are familiar with chatbots in customer service and on websites by now, but they can also function well on social media and in a variety of other channels.
Lead generation unfolds in many forms and across many channels.
So what are the specific ways that chatbots are used in lead generation?
· Superior customer engagement. In most contexts, chatbots can engage with customers in ways that exceed the potential of their human counterparts. This isn't to say that bots are better than humans when it comes to conversation or personability, but bots are much, much more consistent, less prone to error, and are much easier to scale. To handle a million customer queries without creating delays, you might need a million customer service agents – but you’ll only need one sufficiently powerful chatbot.
· Constant availability. Another advantage of chatbots is that they're constantly available. If one of your prospects gets the sudden urge to ask some questions about your product at two in the morning, you won't need to pay a human business development specialist overtime to handle that conversation. You also don't have to force your customer to wait.
· Direct lead qualification. Chatbots have gotten exceptionally skilled at directly qualifying leads. Provided they've been given adequate direction and training, these chatbots can quickly analyze customer intentions, categorize them, and provide you with the necessary data to make effective decisions related to them.
· Personalized marketing opportunities. Automation in customer service and lead generation is nothing new. But chatbots have added an interesting new dimension to this interaction; they can personalize marketing experiences. Modern chatbot interactions give your leads and prospects a much richer, more individualized conversation.
· Customer support and upselling. Chatbots are also useful in providing customer support and even upselling some of your customers. Because this customer service is more personalized, more immediate, and more consistent, it can help you sell more than ever.
· Improved data analytics. Having a network of chatbots in your lead generation strategy also gives you access to superior data analytics. You can gather far more information on far more people and use that data to better shape your lead generation, marketing, and sales approaches.
· Support for flexible growth. One of the greatest advantages of utilizing chatbots is that you can grow much more flexibly. With the right technologies, scaling almost becomes a trivial matter, and it's much easier to handle increasing waves of leads and customers as your influence expands.
With that in mind, there are some limitations associated with chatbots used for lead generation.
· Niches and training. Chatbots aren't always easy to train, especially in complicated or unique niches. Chatbots also need to be trained before you can rely on them. Because of this, you may not have a perfectly competent chatbot to serve your customers out-of-the-box. But if you're willing to put in the time, money, and effort, you can create a chatbot to serve almost any conceivable purpose.
· Lack of personality. Although today's most sophisticated chatbots are somewhat indistinguishable from humans in certain applications, these things still don't have a unique personality. Many prospects and customers will prefer a more authentic, human interaction, and for the time being, chatbots can't provide one.
· Difficulty with complex topics. Even the most advanced chatbots on the market still sometimes struggle with exceedingly complex or deep topics. If a prospect has a sufficiently confusing question, or if they're asking about a sufficiently complicated product, even a well-trained chatbot might not know what to do. But because this is rare, you can always have human agents on standby to step in when necessary.
· Need for high-level direction. Your entire chatbot network is going to be dependent on the high-level direction that you provide them. Without a solid lead generation and sales strategy in place, your chatbots aren't going to generate much new business.
So what tactics can help you use chatbots in your lead generation strategy more effectively?
· Choose the right technologies. First, you need to choose the right technologies and implement them into your business effectively. There are many types of chatbots out there, and you can even choose to develop your own from scratch. Always do your due diligence and make sure that what you're purchasing is going to be a good fit for the organization and your needs.
· Provide ample information and training. The more information and training your chatbots have, the better they're going to be. Make sure they have access to all relevant information, and give them ample feedback to guide them in their development. The more time you spend on cultivating skilled chatbots, the better they're going to serve you.
· Focus on quality over quantity. As is the case with nearly every aspect of your sales and marketing strategies, you need to focus on quality over quantity. It's very nifty that chatbots can handle extremely large volumes of leads and prospects, but if you aren't proactive in cultivating quality leads, it's going to come back to haunt you. Every element and every stage of your approach needs to be focused on generating quality leads.
· Test, test, test. Don't just assume that your chatbots are working the way you intended, or even the way that you trained them. You need to test them, thoroughly and often, to make sure that they're serving your mission.
· Integrate with human-led conversations. Chatbots are amazing for their ability to handle large volumes and serve people consistently, while also saving time. Humans are amazing for their ability to connect personally and think through more complicated matters. Accordingly, your best approach in lead generation is to utilize the best of both worlds.
· Get feedback. Get feedback from your leads, prospects, and customers. It's hard to tell whether your chatbots are improving your brand’s reputation unless you have actual, objective feedback from people who have interacted with them. Use short surveys to gather opinions.
· Scale deliberately. It's tempting to scale quickly and aggressively once you have sufficient automation in place. But if you want to be effective, and retain more customers, you need to scale thoughtfully and deliberately. If you grow too quickly, you might spread your resources too thin or miss critical problems that are holding your strategy back.
Are you interested in utilizing the full power of chatbots in your lead generation strategy?
Are you ready to get more value out of your lead generation investment?
Our team of lead generation and marketing experts is ready to help you at every stage of your journey.
So if you’re ready to start the conversation about small business lead generation, contact us today!
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Paid lead generation can be a game-changer for your business – when done correctly. Whether you’re running Facebook ads, Google Ads, LinkedIn campaigns, or any other paid lead strategy, the right approach can drive a steady stream of prospects into your funnel. But too many businesses make costly mistakes that drain their budgets without delivering meaningful results.
If you’re struggling to see a return on your paid lead generation efforts, chances are you’re making one (or more) preventable mistakes.
The good news? Once you identify them, they’re fixable. Let’s take a closer look at what might be going wrong – and how you can turn things around.
From a big picture perspective, it’s important to begin by understanding how paid lead generation compares to organic lead generation (and how they fit into a larger strategy). Because, while both ultimately play a role in a well-rounded marketing strategy, they work in very different ways.
Organic lead generation focuses on attracting potential customers without directly paying for ads. This typically involves long-term strategies like search engine optimization (SEO), content marketing, social media engagement, and email marketing. While organic methods require patience, they often produce sustainable, high-quality leads at a lower long-term cost.
The downside? Organic strategies take time to build momentum, and competition for visibility can be tough.
Paid lead generation, on the other hand, involves investing in advertising to quickly generate leads. This can include pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, social media ads, display ads, and sponsored content.
The biggest advantage of paid lead generation is speed – you can start seeing results almost immediately. You also have greater control over targeting, allowing you to reach specific demographics, interests, and behaviors. However, without careful management, paid campaigns can become expensive, and the leads you generate may not always be as high-quality as those who find you organically.
For the best results, businesses should use a combination of both. Organic strategies help build long-term credibility and trust, while paid lead generation fills the gaps by driving immediate traffic and accelerating growth.
If you get it right…that is.
As mentioned, there are several costly errors that businesses often make with the paid side of their lead generation strategies. And if you make these same mistakes, it could really hurt your results.
A lot of businesses fail to reach the right people with their paid strategy. If you’re casting too wide a net, you’ll end up wasting money on clicks and impressions that don’t convert. On the flip side, if your targeting is too narrow, you might miss out on potential leads who are actually a great fit.
Before you even think about launching a paid campaign, you need a clear picture of who your ideal customer is. Start by building a detailed customer persona that includes demographics (age, gender, income, job title, location) as well as psychographics (pain points, interests, motivations, buying behaviors).
For example, if you're marketing a high-end financial service, your ideal customer might be a mid-career professional earning over six figures, interested in wealth management, and searching for strategies to minimize taxes. Without a well-defined persona, your ads may attract people outside your target market, leading to wasted ad spend and low-quality leads.
One way to build this profile is by analyzing existing customer data. Look at your current clients and ask these three questions:
The more granular you get in defining your audience, the better you can tailor your paid ads to reach the right people.
You can also use platform-specific targeting features to further home in on your audience. Every advertising platform has its own set of targeting tools designed to help you reach your ideal customer. The mistake many marketers make is using a one-size-fits-all approach rather than leveraging these features to their full potential.
If you’re running Facebook or Instagram ads, take advantage of interest-based targeting and lookalike audiences. You can target users based on their behaviors, interests, and interactions with similar brands. Lookalike audiences allow you to reach new people who resemble your existing customers – making them more likely to convert.
You can have the best targeting in the world, but if your ads aren’t compelling, they won’t convert. Weak headlines, bland copy, and uninspiring visuals lead to low engagement, which results in higher ad costs and fewer leads.
Here are a few ways you can fix this:
Even if your ads are performing well, a bad landing page can kill conversions. If you’re sending traffic to a page that’s slow, cluttered, or lacking a clear next step, your paid leads won’t turn into actual customers.
Speed matters more than you think. Studies show that even a one-second delay in load time can reduce conversions by up to 7 percent, and pages that take longer than three seconds to load lose nearly half of their visitors. Slow-loading pages create frustration, increase bounce rates, and waste your ad spend by driving users away before they even see your offer.
To improve load speeds, start by optimizing your images – large, high-resolution images take longer to load, so compress them without sacrificing quality. Use next-gen formats like WebP instead of PNG or JPEG for faster rendering. Next, minimize unnecessary scripts by eliminating third-party tracking codes or plugins that slow down the page. If you’re using WordPress, disable plugins that don’t serve a critical function.
Another game-changer is using a content delivery network (CDN), which caches your landing page on multiple servers worldwide, ensuring faster load times no matter where your visitors are located. Services like Cloudflare or AWS CloudFront help significantly in improving speed and reducing latency.
With more than 60 percent of web traffic coming from mobile devices, you’ll also want to make sure you have a mobile-friendly landing page. A page that looks great on desktop but isn’t optimized for mobile will cause users to abandon it within seconds, costing you valuable leads.
To make sure your landing page is fully responsive and easy to navigate on any device, use a mobile-responsive design. Most website builders and landing page tools offer responsive templates that automatically adjust layouts for different screen sizes. Test your page across multiple devices (smartphones, tablets, etc.) to ensure everything looks and functions correctly.
Many businesses treat lead generation as a numbers game: get as many leads as possible and hope they convert. But if you don’t have a follow-up strategy in place, you’ll lose out on valuable opportunities. Thankfully, there are a few solutions to this issue:
Paid lead generation isn’t something you can set and forget. If you’re not constantly analyzing and optimizing your campaigns, you’re leaving money on the table and potentially wasting your budget on strategies that don’t convert. Successful lead generation requires ongoing monitoring, testing, and adjustments to ensure that every dollar spent is working toward your goals.
To improve your results, start by setting clear key performance indicators (KPIs). Before launching a campaign, define what success looks like for you. Are you aiming for a specific cost per lead (CPL)? A target conversion rate? A certain return on ad spend (ROAS)? Without measurable objectives, it’s impossible to determine if your campaign is performing well or if adjustments need to be made.
Once your campaign is live, monitoring your analytics should become a regular habit. Use tools like Google Analytics, Facebook Ads Manager, or LinkedIn Campaign Manager to track important metrics, such as click-through rates, engagement levels, and cost per conversion. If you notice that certain ads or targeting strategies aren’t delivering the expected results, make changes quickly rather than letting underperforming campaigns drain your budget.
It’s also a good practice to constantly be testing everything. A/B testing different elements – such as headlines, images, ad copy, landing pages, and audience segments – can reveal what resonates most with your audience. Even small tweaks, like changing the wording of a call-to-action or adjusting the placement of a form, can lead to significant improvements in conversion rates.
At Marketer, we work with some of the biggest brands to help build and scale advanced digital marketing strategies that bring in more leads and customers. Want to learn more about how we can help you with strategy, planning, or execution? Contact us today!
Usually, the first thing people do when they find your business is Google it to get the scoop on your reputation by reading customer reviews. Having bad reviews – even just one or two – can drive customers to your competition.
In this article, we’ll explore why Google reviews matter more than ever for conversions and local SEO rankings, what happens when you ignore negative reviews, how to generate reviews that build trust, and how to get those damaging negative reviews removed from your Google business profile. Let’s dive in.
Local SEO has changed drastically since Google’s early days. Today, Google’s local search algorithm is driven primarily by trust signals, and reviews are at the top of the list. Successful local SEO depends heavily on having an optimized Google Business listing with plenty of reviews. Google places a heavy emphasis on the quantity and recency of reviews when determining local rankings. And while a few bad reviews won’t necessarily tank your visibility, they can deter potential customers.
Generating leads or customers from your Google Business listing requires two steps: First, you need to show up in the search results, and then you need people to click on your listing or call you directly. However, bad reviews and low star ratings can be a strong deterrent even when you rank at the top.
Business profiles show up at the top of Google’s search results, which makes your Google listing even more important than your website. However, a lack of good reviews along with bad reviews can keep you buried.
Truth be told, Google reviews can make or break local rankings and conversions. When someone searches for “plumber near me,” Google will show businesses with the highest ratings, plenty of recent reviews, and active Google Business profiles. However, the algorithm is just one half of the equation. The other half is psychology.
Customers trust social proof, including reviews, more than copy on a website. According to research data, 32% of people trust Google Business reviews and listings over the content published to a business’ website. At the end of the day, potential customers rely on reviews to assess trust and credibility. A business with 4.6 stars looks significantly more trustworthy than one with 3.1 stars.
The bottom line is that you need good reviews to get search visibility, and once you rank, you need trust to get conversions. Star ratings have a psychological impact on whether or not a potential customer will convert. While negative reviews aren’t completely avoidable, they can be managed to mitigate the damage.
Both a lack of reviews and the presence of bad reviews can harm your local search rankings and erode trust. Unfortunately, sometimes one bad review can become the single point of focus that dissuades customers from doing business with you. However, the more positive reviews you get, the less impactful one negative review becomes. This means you can mitigate the potential damage of negative reviews simply by making the effort to generate more positive reviews.
For example, say you’re running a local HVAC company and you haven’t been managing your reviews. You drop down to 2.9 stars, your call volume drops by 37%, and your main competitor picks up the slack. They’ve been managing their reviews, so they have over 250 reviews, 4.8 stars, and a 65%+ call-to-quote conversion rate. Their success isn’t because they had better prices or even better services. They just projected a more attractive perception that got customers to choose them.
Let’s be real. You can’t just delete a bad Google review because you don’t like it or there was a misunderstanding that wasn’t truly your fault. But that doesn’t mean you’re powerless. There are methods to manage and even remove bad reviews without too much of a hassle.
The first step is to assess the review to see if it violates Google’s review policies. If a review breaks the rules, it should be easy to have it removed. Reviews are considered in violation when they contain the following:
· Hate speech
· Offensive language
· Fake content (like a fake review from a non-customer or competitor)
· Off-topic content (like a review for a different company)
· Personal attacks or threats
· Conflicts of interest (like a nasty review from an ex-employee)
If a bad review meets any of these criteria, you can flag it for removal by accessing the review through your Google Business Profile, clicking the three dots next to the review, and selecting “report review.” If it’s a clear violation, Google will remove it.
When a bad review doesn’t violate Google’s rules, you need to take a different approach. Respond to the review by acknowledging the customer’s frustration, but without admitting fault. Offer to resolve their issue offline. For example, you might write the following:
“We’re sorry to hear about your experience, Sam. This doesn’t reflect our usual company standards. Please contact us at [contact info] so we can make it right.”
In many cases, this opens the door for you to turn a 1-star review into a 5-star review. Believe it or not, it happens frequently because people appreciate being taken care of and companies that make things right earn big trust.
Reaching out to people who leave negative reviews also shows other prospects that you’re professional and responsive, and it neutralizes people who are only looking for a fight.
The fastest way to neutralize bad reviews is to generate as many positive reviews as possible. It’s similar to SEO, where you can rank better content to push less-than-ideal content lower in the rankings. The further back a bad review gets pushed, the less relevant it will seem to your prospects.
The good news is that it's easy to get positive reviews when you have a strategy.
The biggest mistake you can make when managing your Google reviews is not asking for reviews. Most people won’t remember, even after telling you they will give you a 5-star review. People need to be gently reminded and walked through the process. Thankfully, there are several ways to not only generate more reviews, but to maximize the positive ones.
Part of managing your Google reviews requires generating reviews. If you leave it up to customers to remember, you’ll only get a small fraction of the reviews you can get with a proactive approach.
It’s important to request a review right after a successful transaction. This way, the experience with your business will be fresh in your customer’s mind, and they’ll be more likely to share a positive experience. Don’t wait until their enthusiasm fades. Here are some tips for getting reviews while the experience is still fresh:
Get a QR code that takes people directly to the URL where they can leave you a review on Google. If you work in the field where you visit people’s homes, print the QR code and place it in an acrylic sign holder and bring it with you to each job site. This works great for plumbers, roofers, electricians, and general contractors.
If you have a physical location or office, you can place the QR code in an acrylic holder on various counters or right at your desk if you deal with customers directly.
Another method is to send out automated email marketing or SMS messages with direct links after a service has been performed, or a few days after a purchase to give the customer time to experience the product.
If you have employees, teach them to confidently ask customers, “would you mind sharing your experience with us on Google?” You’ll get plenty of reviews this way.
Sometimes leaving reviews seems simple, but customers may not want to go through all the steps. You can reduce the friction by making it as easy as possible.
Don’t make customers search for your business listing. Provide direct links to review pages.
Provide step-by-step instructions. It may only consist of three simple steps, but spell it out.
Remember not to offer any kind of incentive (monetary or not) for leaving a review, altering a review, or deleting a negative review. Doing so is a violation of Google’s terms and can cause Google to remove reviews, penalize your local search rankings, and even suspend or remove your Google Business Profile entirely.
A crucial part of managing Google reviews involves responding to every single review. This shows customers and prospects that you’re listening, and that will help you build trust.
It’s best practice to thank customers for positive reviews using their name and highlight a specific detail they mentioned in their review. For example, you could write, “Thanks for the great review, Sarah! We’re so happy to know you enjoyed our cookies over the holiday season.”
If no details were given, writing a general message is good enough as long as it sounds sincere.
When responding to negative reviews, be professional and polite. Acknowledge the issue and offer to resolve it offline by asking the customer to contact you. This will show prospects that you’re accountable and willing to resolve issues. A bad review handled correctly can build even more trust than a 5-star review.
On the back end, turn bad reviews into opportunities to improve your services. If you keep getting similar complaints, take that as a sign to revisit your products or services and see if you can make some changes to meet customer expectations.
It’s not enough to just collect customer reviews. You need to make sure the world can see them even when they aren’t searching for you in Google. You can embed your Google reviews on your website using a review widget, like the ones offered by EmbedSocial, Tagbox, or Trustmary. These widgets will integrate reviews seamlessly and can be customized to match your website’s color scheme. It also helps to share screenshots of your reviews on your social media accounts.
You can also boost trust in Google’s search results by getting your star ratings to show up under your search result listings. This is done by embedding schema markup on your pages.
Last, start collecting video testimonials from satisfied customers and embed them on your website for people to watch. Written reviews are good, but video testimonials pull more weight. A whopping 72% of customers trust a brand more when they have positive video testimonials and reviews.
Now that you know how to remove and suppress bad reviews along with how to generate positive reviews, make sure you monitor reviews regularly and respond to each one appropriately.
It also helps to use tools to track and analyze customer sentiment so you can get a better idea of what people are saying and how they feel about your brand. From there, you can adjust your business strategy as needed to improve customer satisfaction and boost your revenue.
At the end of the day, your Google reviews are doing one of two things: fueling business growth, trust, and visibility, or lighting a fire that is slowly burning your credibility.
Local SEO is no longer about who has the most backlinks or the best keywords. It’s about having customers who trust you, and positive reviews are the clearest signal of trust you can get. The businesses winning the most traffic, leads, and conversions aren’t always the best in their industry, but they appear more trustworthy.
If you want a high level of trust when customers search for your services, here’s what you need to do:
· Start managing your Google reviews like your business depends on it.
· Respond to every review, especially the negative ones.
· Fix whatever is broken.
· Flood your Google Business Profile page with genuine, positive reviews.
· Don’t allow bad reviews to slip by without intervening.
Local SEO lives and dies by Google reviews. And the truth is, every day you delay is a day your competitors get ahead. If managing your Google reviews feels overwhelming, or you just don’t have the time, we can help.
At Marketer.co, we help local businesses turn their Google reviews into a clear advantage. If you want more visibility, more 5-star reviews, and more leads, contact our digital marketing agency right now. We’ll help you build a reputation that gets results.
If your business is doing the same old thing and continually getting inadequate results, it’s time for change. The digital age is now upon us. And while the old ways of running marketing campaigns can work in some situations, you’re making a mistake by ignoring digital marketing.
Consumers are a fickle bunch and are becoming more skeptical of direct advertisements. They’re more likely to be convinced to make a positive purchasing decision by relying on personal recommendations and sources they find authentic and dependable. This considerable shift in consumer behavior has contributed to the increasing importance of influencer marketing.
Statista reports that the worldwide influencer marketing segment was worth $21.1 billion as of 2024. That's more than triple since 2019. It adds that the influencer endorsement market continues to mature as a sector and that the size and worth of influencer marketing platforms continue to grow each year, making strategic partnerships between brands and creators increasingly profitable. Marketers in the know are leveraging the power of the movers and shakers on social media to communicate their unique value propositions to consumers.
Influencers with a strong social media presence and sizable list of online followers can be help move the needle on the lead generation front. But how exactly does influencer marketing drive lead generation? Keep reading to learn more about how influencer marketing impacts lead generation -- and how Marketer.co can help you maximize your influencer marketing strategy.
Influencer marketing is a type of social media marketing. There were 5.56 billion internet users globally as of February 2025, which makes up 67.9% of the worldwide population. Meanwhile, the number of global social media users comes in at 5.24 billion, making up 63.9% of the global population. That’s reason enough for every business to develop online marketing strategies. Failing to do so means losing out since your rivals are likely already targeting people online.
Businesses pursue influencer marketing because it enables them to reach a wider target market through trusted sources who come with loyal followers. That can lead to higher engagement and conversion rates versus traditional marketing. For influencer marketing to work effectively for your business, the influencer and the influencer’s audience should be part of your company’s target demographic so that endorsements are impactful and yield results.
Types of influencers include:
Which type of influencer your company works with will depend on what you’re looking to achieve and how much you want to invest. That’s where working with Marketer.co, a business specializing in cutting-edge lead generation strategies, can help you come on top. We specialize in helping businesses ranging from startups to Fortune 500 companies with their influencer marketing and other digital marketing strategies.
There are at least five ways that influencer marketing generates leads. Here’s an overview:
With more than 50 million influencers worldwide, businesses have plenty of options to work with. But that doesn’t mean your company can succeed with just any influencer. It’s important to do your homework and find an influencer with followers that are natural fit for your brand.
The truth is that the right fit matters and can make or break your digital marketing strategy. Depending on who you ask, businesses should invest between 5% and 10% of revenue on digital marketing. When earmarking that amount on anything, you need to know what you’re doing. Otherwise, you might fritter away financial resources on strategy doomed to failure.
Here are some things to consider to ensure you get maximum impact when using influencer marketing for lead generation:
1. Find the Right Influencers
2. Create a Clear Campaign Strategy
3. Run Special Promotions
5. Track and Measure Performance
6. Establish Long-Term Relationships with Influencers
When developing an influencer marketing strategy, you’ll want to avoid missteps. Making any of the following mistakes will lead to wasted time, effort, and valuable financial resources:
1. Choosing the Wrong Influencers
2. Ignoring Authenticity
3. Failing to Set Clear Goals and KPIs
4. Failing to Track Performance and ROI
Influencer marketing has become a reliable driver of lead generation -- giving companies another way to find, reach, and engage with their target demographics. But understanding the importance of influencer marketing and developing a winning strategy that yields measurable results are two separate things.
At Marketer.co, we have the expertise to ensure you get results, including a measurable ROI. Get in touch today to learn how we can help -- whether you’re a startup, a Fortune 500 enterprise, and somewhere in between -- to develop an impactful influencer marketing plan.
When it comes to growing your business, lead generation is the backbone of success. But how do you know if your lead generation efforts are actually working? You can’t just guess – you need hard data to measure what’s effective and what needs improvement.
That’s where key performance metrics come in. By tracking the right numbers, you can determine if you’re attracting quality leads, converting them effectively, and maximizing your return on investment (ROI). Here are 10 essential metrics you should be analyzing to assess your lead generation performance.
The first and most basic metric is lead volume – how many new leads you’re generating over a specific period. Whether you measure this daily, weekly, or monthly, you need to track how many potential customers are entering your pipeline.
If your lead volume is too low, it might mean your marketing strategies aren’t reaching the right audience or that your ad spend is too low. On the other hand, a high lead volume doesn’t automatically mean success – you also need to evaluate lead quality.
A high number of low-quality leads can be just as problematic as too few leads, so don’t focus on quantity alone.
Bringing in leads is great, but how many actually convert into paying customers? Your lead conversion rate is the percentage of leads that complete the desired action – whether that’s signing up for a free trial, making a purchase, or booking a consultation.
To calculate it:
Lead Conversion Rate (%) = (Number of Conversions / Total Leads) × 100
A low conversion rate might indicate:
If your conversion rate is low, you might need to optimize your follow-up strategy, refine your sales pitch, or make your offer more compelling.
Every lead you generate comes at a cost – whether through ads, content marketing, SEO efforts, or sales outreach. Cost per lead (CPL) helps you understand how much you’re spending to acquire each lead.
To calculate it:
CPL = Total Marketing Spend / Total Leads Generated
If your CPL is too high, it means your marketing campaigns aren’t efficient, and you’re spending more than you should for each new lead. Finding ways to lower CPL – such as improving ad targeting, optimizing landing pages, or investing in organic traffic – can improve your profitability.
Not all leads are created equal. Some are ready to buy, while others are just browsing. That’s why you need to track lead quality.
A lead quality score is usually based on specific behaviors, such as:
Your sales and marketing teams should work together to create a scoring system that helps prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert.
Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC) goes beyond CPL by looking at how much it costs to acquire an actual customer, not just a lead.
To calculate it:
CAC = Total Sales & Marketing Expenses / Total New Customers Acquired
If your CAC is too high, you might be spending too much on ads, sales outreach, or inefficient campaigns. A high CAC can eat into your profit margins, so it’s crucial to keep this number under control.
One way to reduce CAC is by improving lead nurturing – so that more leads convert without requiring additional ad spend.
The faster you respond to a lead, the higher the chance of conversion. Studies show that leads contacted within five minutes are significantly more likely to convert than those contacted an hour later.
If you’re taking too long to reach out, you’re losing potential customers to competitors who respond faster. To improve response time, consider using automated email sequences that dynamically send to prospects based on the time they’re most likely to open the email.
Another thing you can do is set up instant notifications for new leads. This pings everyone on the team the moment a new warm lead enters the funnel. You can then train your sales team to prioritize fast follow ups.
A shorter response time keeps leads engaged and increases the likelihood of conversion. The only question is whether or not you’re making this a priority.
If you use email marketing to nurture leads, tracking open rates and click-through rates (CTR) is crucial. But before we go on much further, let’s make sure we’re clear on what we’re talking about:
To improve these rates, you can do several things:
Better email engagement leads to higher conversions. Pretty obvious, right? Well, it’s amazing how often we get so focused on technical details that we forget all about engagement. At the end of the day, this is really all that matters. Increase engagement and more conversions will follow.
At the end of the day, you want to know if your lead generation efforts are actually profitable. ROI measures how much revenue your campaigns generate compared to what you spend.
To calculate it:
ROI (%) = [(Revenue from Leads - Marketing Costs) / Marketing Costs] × 100
If your ROI is low, it might mean:
Optimizing ROI ensures you’re spending money wisely and getting the best possible return from your marketing budget.
Generating leads is only the beginning – you also need to track how valuable those leads are over time.
A high lead retention rate means that your leads are sticking around, engaging with your brand, and eventually converting. On the other hand, if most of your leads disengage after their first interaction, your lead nurturing strategy needs improvement.
You should also track customer lifetime value (LTV), which measures how much revenue a customer brings over their entire relationship with your business.
If your LTV is high, you can afford a higher CAC, but if it’s low, you may need to lower acquisition costs or improve retention strategies.
If you’re using social media as part of your lead generation strategy, you need to track how well it’s working. Look at:
If your social media posts and ads aren’t generating leads, you might need to:
Social media is a powerful tool, but only if you’re using it effectively to capture and nurture leads. Make sure you aren’t blindly throwing darts. Have a plan, know how to measure it, and gradually shift and pivot as the results dictate.
At Marketer.co, we don’t do fluff and platitudes. We believe the only way to judge a marketing strategy is by studying the data and letting the numbers tell the story. If you’d like to build a better marketing strategy – one that’s based on ROI – we’re here to help. Contact us today to learn why startups to Fortune 500 brands alike testify our campaign outcomes are second to none!
Lead generation is the cornerstone of successful marketing, and social media is a goldmine for capturing high-quality leads. For years, businesses have leveraged platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to build their email lists and grow their customer bases, and you can, too
The good news is you don’t need to be a major corporation with a massive marketing budget to get results. And since each platform has unique advantages and access to a variety of audiences, social media is ideal for generating leads in any industry. Whether your goal is to reach consumers or other businesses, try these platform-specific strategies to generate leads and grow your business faster than ever before.
Before exploring platform-specific strategies, it’s important to understand the overarching methods of generating leads through social media.
Like every other marketing strategy, successful lead gen begins with identifying your market and crafting your messages and content to resonate with their desires and needs. On social media, attention is limited, so you need to capture attention quickly, and that requires knowing your audience.
Since people scrolling through social media feeds tend to be multi-tasking and have limited attention, it’s crucial to craft content that captures attention immediately.
Users will check your profile to see who you are and get a better sense of your legitimacy. Optimize your social media profiles with your business name, website, and any other important information.
Paid advertising is a huge component of social media lead generation and provides a significant advantage over just posting content.
When people create their own content featuring your products or services, you’ll naturally start to earn trust and that will positively influence purchase decisions. You can get people to create content by running contests or by creating an irresistible brand people love.
When you think of generating leads, don’t forget to include sales as part of your strategy. For example, some businesses sell a simple PDF guide for $15-$47 that delivers immense value just to capture relevant leads they can nurture and upsell later. The revenue from sales is nice, but the main point is to capture hot leads.
Selling a PDF guide works similarly to giving way a free lead magnet, and you might be surprised to see how well it works. Some people are more likely to give you their email address in exchange for a free download, but paying customers are more likely to buy upsells and make additional purchases.
Last, but not least, no matter what social media platform you use, it’s helpful to engage with your audience by responding to posts, shoutouts, questions, and even complaints. Interacting with people shows your customers and leads exactly who you are and why they should do business with you.
With that said, let’s take a deeper dive into generating leads on specific social media platforms.
Facebook has more than 3.06 billion monthly active users and is one of the most widely used platforms for lead generation. No matter your industry, there’s a good chance your target market hangs out on Facebook. Here’s how to reach them.
Facebook offers several ad formats that support different end goals. For example, lead gen ads are specifically designed to generate leads, while standard ads are used for generating website traffic. While you can use standard ads to send people to a lead capture form on your website, there’s a difference.
Unlike traditional ads that send users to your website, lead gen ads keep the user on Facebook’s platform while they fill out a form in exchange for a lead magnet. Lead gen ads have been shown to get an average click-through rate (CTR) of 2.5% across all industries.
Don’t want to spend thousands on your first experimental ad campaign? You don’t need to. Facebook sets a different minimum daily budget based on how your account gets billed, but it can be as low as $1 per day. With a low cost of entry, you can start experimenting with any budget.
Getting your ads in front of the right people begins with using the right keywords. While brainstorming can be a good place to start, using the keywords in your website analytics reports will be even better. These are the actual phrases people typed into search engines to find your site.
While looking through your reports, identify the keywords that make sense to use with your ads and test them out in a campaign. You can also use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, and other SEO keyword research tools to find additional keywords and phrases.
Ad retargeting, also called remarketing, can increase conversions by 43% across all devices. This strategy allows you to show specific ads to people who have already interacted with your ads, viewed your ads, or visited your website. People who have already been exposed to your brand are more likely to engage, especially when you tailor your ads to feel more familiar. A user might see your ads three times before deciding to sign up for your free report.
Participating in Facebook groups or even creating your own group can significantly increase the number of leads you generate. It takes time to grow a group and cultivate a trustworthy vibe, so you’ll need to invest time and effort to get it going. Connecting with your audience fosters trust, and when done right, will position your brand as an industry leader or expert.
As a visual-centric platform, Instagram offers unique opportunities to capture leads. Here’s how.
Instagram Stories will promote your content outside of your feed and can include “swipe up” calls to action. It’s not as good as paid ads, but it can help. Whenever you post stories, be sure to link to a landing page with a lead capture form.
Boosting your Instagram posts can get you a better reach, but you don’t have control over your target audience. Still, it’s a decent way to get followers who may eventually see your ads and sign up for your email list.
Since the algorithm makes organic reach difficult, paid ads are by far the best way to generate leads on Instagram. You can do this in three ways: instant forms, chats, and calls. When you use instant forms, leads will fill out your lead capture form without ever leaving Instagram.
If you sell services, the chat ads can help you acquire leads through direct communication. When an ad is clicked, it opens up a DM and you can connect with your prospects through messages. The call feature works by allowing users to call you by clicking your ad.
Building up an Instagram account from scratch is not an easy task. It’s tough to generate leads organically without a large following. Collaborating with an influencer who already has a big fanbase is the easiest way to grow your Instagram account and get those leads.
Most Instagram posts don’t reach a wide audience anymore, and that’s because the entire algorithm has been overhauled, including the search function. It happened gradually, but people noticed the impact as far back as 2017. Meta’s latest update was designed to “boost original content,” but Instagram still favors accounts with a large following. Influencer marketing can do wonders for your conversions.
Although TikTok is facing a potential ban in the United States, it’s still around for now and shouldn’t be overlooked. Here’s how you can generate leads from TikTok.
From your bio to your content, spend time creating a trustworthy, appealing account. There isn’t much room, so make every word count.
Just like Facebook, TikTok offers lead gen ads that keep users on the app while they fill out your form.
TikTok makes it even easier to reach your audience with image ads. Rather than spending time and money producing videos, you can use existing images and turn them into ads. Image ads allow you to showcase multiple products or services in a carousel, creating an engaging experience without the high cost of video production.
If what you sell qualifies for TikTok shop, sign up right away. Each sale also counts as a lead, and it’s an excellent way to grow your email list with leads who are more likely to buy again.
In the past, TikTok favored short content, but is now starting to push longer content, like one-minute videos. Longer videos are starting to get more views and engagement, and that’s your cue to follow suit with your regular content and ads.
A well-executed ad with a compelling call-to-action (CTA) can generate an enormous amount of leads. Although one-minute videos are doing well, test different video lengths for yourself – some creators find optimal success with videos between 15 and 30 seconds long.
Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is a visual-centric social media platform with plenty of opportunities for lead generation. With more than 480 million monthly active users, Pinterest is one of the most popular platforms around. If you’re not using Pinterest to expand your reach and attract new leads, now is the perfect time to start.
Just like other platforms, Pinterest Lead Ads are designed to capture leads while keeping the user on the app. Even if you’re getting great results from standard image and video ads, Lead Ads can make a big difference in your conversions.
One thing to note about Pinterest is that users don’t necessarily expect visual perfection like they do on Instagram. That’s because a large portion of Pinterest consists of screenshots of websites and random low-resolution text-only memes. While pixel-perfect, beautiful images will certainly capture attention, you may want to experiment with a more handmade, less-than-perfect approach to your visuals.
Boasting one billion users in 200 countries, LinkedIn has been the go-to platform for business professionals for years. Although spam is a big problem, LinkedIn remains an effective channel for high-quality lead acquisition when used correctly.
Although there are several ad formats for lead generation, Lead Gen Forms allow users to sign up for your email list without leaving LinkedIn. Key fields will be automatically populated based on the user’s profile, helping you get more information on your leads. This mobile-friendly format increases conversion rates and creates a better user experience.
Now that we’ve discussed ways to use specific social media platform for lead generation, let’s end with some tips that apply to all platforms.
Regardless of the platform, a convincing call-to-action (CTA) is required to get clicks and signups. Your CTAs should be clear, direct, and action-oriented, telling users what you want them to do. For example, “buy now,” “sign up,” “learn more,” “get your free trial,” or “get started now.” Using strong verbs encourages fast action.
Split testing will help you identify specific ad elements that perform best. Start by creating two different versions of the same ad, but only make one element different between them. For example, use different headlines and keep everything else the same. When you know which ad is performing better, keep that headline, copy the ad, change another element on the second version, and test your new ads against each other. Continue this process by testing one element at a time to create a highly optimized ad.
Note that while some high-performing elements may translate well to other platforms, sometimes that isn’t the case. Always split test your ads on every platform.
If your ads send people to your website, it’s crucial to have powerful, persuasive landing pages.
When you see ads from competitors, don’t automatically assume that they are performing well. Even ads with comments, likes, and shares aren’t necessarily generating sales or leads. Some ads gather quite a bit of activity and do next to nothing for the business. If you use your competitors’ ads as a base template, track your results and make adjustments accordingly.
So-called “ugly ads” are ads that look like native content rather than a polished advertisement. These ads work well across social media platforms (especially TikTok) because they bypass the internal “ad filter” that makes people keep scrolling when they see something that resembles an ad. When you create ads that look like native content, users pay attention and you’re more likely to get the lead.
Finally, use strategies and content that work best for each platform. Users behave differently and have unique expectations for each platform. For example, use visuals with limited text on Instagram, and film your TikTok video ads vertically. If you’re not getting results on a particular platform, it might not be the right space.
AI chatbots have revolutionized our approach to communication and customer service in many industries. They are powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology to generate dynamic, intelligent responses based on keywords or phrases detected in the conversation.
By leveraging Natural Language Processing (NLP), AI chatbots can better understand specific contexts and deliver tailored answers accordingly.
ChatGPT is an advanced AI platform that takes this a step further with its diverse capabilities, offering users more accurate information retrieval and refined conversations even for complex challenges.
AI models like ChatGPT are revolutionizing the landscape of AI chat through their advanced natural language processing (NLP) capabilities. Utilizing a large-scale transformer model trained on an extensive dataset of dialogues, ChatGPT provides high accuracy and understanding for human conversation and generates AI-generated responses that are fluent in style with improved cohesion across conversational turns.
It has also been optimized for both open-ended dialogue scenarios as well as specific query resolution systems. Leading chatbot software like these are essential in building the foundation for more sophisticated and effective AI assistants that understand human language in a natural manner. The ability of AI chatbots to work seamlessly across various interactions makes them indispensable tools in modern communication.
Through deep learning algorithms and preceding context sequences, ChatGPT-generated responses are able to draw associations across conversations from a number of nodes simultaneously to better provide solutions or understandings.
For instance, when asked follow up inquiries such as "What about X?", ChatGPT can draw on its recent discussion points and add pertinent answers accordingly in the same overall conversation thread.
Furthermore, these kinds of conversational abilities allow fewer interruptions from humans and create a more natural, human-like response.
This level of contextual awareness is particularly valuable in customer relationship management, where AI-driven interactions can enhance customer engagement and support.
ChatGPT's NLP capabilities are revolutionizing how complex conversations and queries are handled by AI chatbots. With its advanced language understanding and generation, it is now more adept at understanding contextual cues which enables it to provide detailed, accurate responses based on specific user inquiries.
The system also has enhanced memory robustness resulting in millisecond responses regardless of the nature or depth of the query.
As each request increases in complexity, the technology maintains highly efficient transaction speeds while providing superior customer service in a natural, engaging conversational style.
Additionally, as AI agents continue to evolve, they are becoming more adept at integrating AI image generation alongside text-based conversations, enhancing user experience across multiple domains. The best AI chatbots will continue to refine their capabilities, ensuring seamless interactions that closely mimic real human communication.
SourceChatGPT offers a natural and engaging conversational style to users. With its complex understanding of dialogue and immersion in language advancements, it produces accurate, prompt, and detailed responses that stimulate individuals as though the chatbot was a real person.
Additionally, ChatGPT features social skills such as recognizing emotions which aids in a more interactive user experience by making users feel comfortable with talking.
By continuously learning from interactions with people ChatGPT is able to enrich its knowledge of vocabulary as new expressions or terms are used in conversations, and keep up with language trends.
Therefore ChatGPT executes conversational AI interactions seamlessly, Elevating customer service while simplifying manual tasks for staff.
Enhanced user experience through personalized responses has pushed the boundaries of AI chatbot interaction for customers. ChatGPT responds in an even more natural and engaging tone customized to each conversation or thread.
Conversations are extended by proactively providing customers with relevant information requested and also suggested results as per their conversations to speed up response times. Customer engagement is improved when bots can target key interests, naturally adjusting conversation pacing and content based on current responses.
ChatGPT is equipped with the ability to handle multiple user queries simultaneously. This allows organizations to save time and improve efficiency by handling an entire conversation as one query rather than individual statements.
The tool also provides users with highly relevant, accurate responses quickly while providing a natural conversational intuition that puts humans at ease. In addition, it offers personalized marketing responses based on individual interaction history which empowers even more engaging interactions between chatbot and user. To ensure effective learning integration too, feedback is recorded from every interaction.
SourceThe adoption of AI-enabled chatbots has enabled organizations to move promptly and accurately turn around customer inquiries.
Expanding an agent's domain knowledge base is integral in providing timely and accurate responses that draw on a comprehensive base of information such as product features, services, industry trends, or technologies.
To avoid silos between model specializations, chatbot developers are now turning towards ChatGPT for sophisticated and multi-domain training modules which can collectively inject context to user queries from varied topics.
The ability to access vital, up-to-date information improves the effectiveness of AI chatbots. ChatGPT empowers this by providing comprehensive training on diverse topics and industries ranging from cognitive science and natural language processing to health care and sports.
Furthermore, webhooks in ChatGPT allow for real-time integration with external APIs enabling the quick transition from mere knowledge acquisition to practical implementations such as complex Q&As for customer service solutions or automated report generation in enterprises.
All this make it easier than ever before to take advantage of advancements in a huge variety of domains and stay totally up-to-date.
ChatGPT has the ability to extend its area of knowledge beyond the conversational domain. Not only can it remember earlier inputs and conversations, but it is also able to synthesize additional related data from external sources.
The training datasets feed into ChatGPT’s topic-specific knowledge bases, which allow its responses to be more accurate and relevant in real-world applications. Training on diverse topics also allows ChatGPT’s accuracy and wealth of language skills within any area or industry to evolve.
Advancing ethical AI practices is an important element in harnessing the full potential of chatbots. Unbiased and inclusive responses must be ensured at all times to avoid misframing data.ChatGPT through its training approach ensures that specific policies are embedded within response metrics when responding to user queries, offering valuable protection against discrimination and imbalance powered by prejudicial classification systems from chatbot responses.
To ensure the responsible deployment of AI chatbots, measures must be taken to mitigate potential risks associated with malicious use. ChatGPT features a continuous review system designed to identify any inappropriate or possibly harmful content among user responses.
Through its automated monitoring and reporting capabilities, it can alert stakeholders about suspicious behavior quickly and accurately in order to take corrective action right away.
Advancements in ethical AI practices seek to ensure responsible navigation of the complex opportunities and challenges presented by new technologies. Mitigating risks associated with malicious use becomes increasingly important as individuals interact with chatbots on a regular basis.
To prevent adaption or manipulation of the conversational system, extra measures need to be put into place, such as reputation protection techniques and code obfuscation to reduce digital footprints.
ChatGPT's detection systems allow developers and users to actively monitor for misinterpreted instructions, off-policy behavior and misuse of data, giving the AI technology greater reliability and peace of mind.
Pioneering Continuous Learning and Adaptability is a key capability of ChatGPT. It allows for an artificial intelligence chatbot that can naturally evolve to become smarter, faster, and more accurate with age in response to user interactions. By “learning” from each interaction it gains understanding and recognition of patterns so that future conversations are tailored to the user’s preferences.
In addition, it seamlessly integrates new data without having to repeatedly adjust its training datasets while constantly striving to provide better results as a result of feedback from user interactions.
By learning from each user and conversation it participates in, ChatGPT is able to build up knowledge in order to provide expected responses with improved accuracy rates and an ever-advancing level of capability.
This process is facilitated by advanced architectures that draw from comprehensive training datasets containing millions of conversational utterances to allow the ChatGPT bot to better understand contextual nuances and intent.
Ongoing feedback loops between users, trainers, and domain experts work hand-in-hand with the learning framework to ensure an ongoing dialogue, enabling the system to continuously learn new skills and deep dive into domain-specific knowledge.
In addition, the chatbot can be trained on a continuous basis through leveraging adaptive learning enabling models to evolve at an unmatched rate.
Through continual training with relevant datasets combined with feedback from users, ChatGPT evolves its responses in order to offer personalized services and greater accuracy.
With advanced conversational machine-learning techniques, this AI-powered chatbot is efficient at spotting subtle changes in understanding human interactions and adapting its response accordingly—ensuring that user questions are answered quickly and accurately according to their current needs.
This is an invaluable and revolutionary capability that moves AI chatbots closer to "real-world" levels of conversational ability and problem-solving.
The potential for misinformation and false information propagation is an important limitation of AI chatbots, specifically ChatGPT. Without proper implementation of ethical AI practices, results generated by the chatbot may have inaccuracies or convey prejudice implications, both of which can lead to a skewed user experience.
Machine learning algorithms ingest learnings from large volumes of data and signals from previous conversations - as such, maintaining accuracy requires being extremely selective in the type of data used as well as employing rigorous integrity checks during training sessions.
Addressing ethical concerns and biases when deploying AI chatbots is a critical component often overlooked. Questions surrounding data privacy, questions of purposeful or accidental implicit bias, and other moral issues can reduce user trust levels.
Tackling those types of ethical concerns requires technology to conform to certain values such as conduct rule decision orientations. Additionally, by enhancing transparency and building auditing capabilities we could gain better insights into awareness from users on potential unfairness cues produced by chatbot interactions.
Data security and user privacy remain the foremost challenges when it comes to developing and deploying AI chatbots. This becomes even more problematic where real-time data that is fed into these chatbot systems holds private information and needs to be encrypted.
Balancing compliance with regulation standards like GDPR along with engineering limitations brings forth complexities that need to be taken seriously if building trust is important. Moreover, a single infringement could lead to reputational losses or legal issues down the line for companies using or connected with an AI Chatbot system proving its essential importance.
ChatGPT has shaken up the field of AI chatbots, transforming it from a limited technology hub to an innovative powerhouse. Its advanced language understanding and use of NLP give ChatGPT significant capabilities in user interaction, domain knowledge, ethical practices, and continuous learning.
With the right tools and strategy put in place for how they are used responsibly and ethically, ChatGPT is truly an exciting breakthrough that holds great promise not only inside the current realm of chatbots but for so many other future possibilities with artificial intelligence technology.
Regulatory frameworks must be implemented to ensure appropriate usage while preserving user privacy and security. As this space continues to progress there will remain more obstacles yet also opportunities ahead - all thanks to ChatGPT’s revolutionizing influence on AI chatbots.
When it comes to growing your email list or capturing leads for your business, a solid lead magnet is your secret weapon. But here’s the thing – not all lead magnets are created equal. If you want to create something that actually works, you need to focus on delivering real value. Your lead magnet should make someone think, “Wow, I can’t believe this was free.” So let’s break it down. Here’s how to create ebooks, webinars, and more that people actually want to sign up for.
Before you create anything, you need to get inside your audience’s head. What keeps them up at night? What problems are they desperate to solve? What questions do they keep Googling? The more specific you get, the better. For instance, if you’re targeting new parents, they might be searching for ways to get their baby to sleep through the night. If you’re focusing on small business owners, they might be looking for strategies to grow their social media presence.
Your lead magnet should directly address their needs or pain points. If you’re unsure what those are, start by asking your audience. Send out surveys with targeted questions, browse forums in your niche (like Reddit or Quora), or look through the comments on your social media posts to find recurring themes. You can also check the reviews of competitors’ products to uncover what their audience loves or wishes was included.
Once you know what they want, you can deliver it in a format that’s easy to consume, solves their problems quickly, and leaves them eager for more.
Not all lead magnets work for every audience. Here’s how to decide what’s right for yours:
Your lead magnet needs to be more than good – it needs to feel like a no-brainer. The title and description should grab attention immediately. Here’s how to make it irresistible:
Now it’s time to deliver. This is where you shine. Whatever format you choose, make sure your lead magnet is packed with actionable insights and solutions. To start, keep your content focused on a single issue. Don’t try to solve every problem under the sun. Instead, address one specific challenge thoroughly. (For example, if your audience struggles with time management, dedicate your lead magnet to providing a clear, step-by-step system they can implement immediately.)
Visual appeal also plays a crucial role. If you’re creating an e-book or checklist, make sure it’s designed to be both attractive and easy to read. Incorporate high-quality visuals, structured headings, and concise sections to make the information digestible. A well-organized layout not only grabs attention but also enhances the overall user experience.
Focus on providing quick wins. Your audience should walk away with something actionable they can use right away. For example, a webinar should be structured around practical takeaways that can be applied immediately, skipping long introductions and diving straight into the solutions. Deliver value quickly and leave them impressed with the depth of your insights.
Your lead magnet won’t do much good if no one knows about it. Promotion is just as important as creation. Here’s how to get your lead magnet in front of the right people:
Getting someone to download your lead magnet is just the beginning. The real magic happens in the follow-up. Set up an email sequence to nurture your new leads. Here’s an example of a simple follow-up sequence:
Creating lead magnets that work isn’t rocket science, but it does require effort and strategy. When you focus on delivering real value, understanding your audience, and following up effectively, you’ll build a lead generation machine that keeps your business growing.
Not sure you’re equipped to manage your own lead magnet strategy? Or maybe you need to outsource some of the heavy lifting? At Marketer.co, we can help you build out your lead generation strategy – whether you’re starting from scratch or trying to inch over the finish line.
Contact us today to set up a chat so that we can learn more about your business and how we can help!
Accurately predicting sales revenue is now evidently more critical than ever in today's competitive marketplace.
An effective sales outlook empowers organizations to develop their tactics, set prudent objectives, and maximize their selling functions.
To aid them in this process, businesses are now relying on one eminent tool - Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems. This composition will delve into the benefits of CRM for guesstimating sales and how it rewards businesses financially.
CRM, an acronym that stands for Customer Relationship Management, is a collection of tech tools and software that help businesses efficiently maintain customer records and manage sales strategies.
These products have become crucial to the progress in sales forecasting. The system also supervises underlying marketing activities necessary for companies who wish to develop long-standing relationships with their target customers.
Predictions of future sales volumes, revenues, and trends have undergone a revolution due to the arrival of CRM systems. Previously done manually based on underlying data and market studies this led to estimation mistakes or time lags.
But through them, a focal point was given which is hoard customer intelligence, market research as well as marketing information making accuracy in forecasts easily achievable.
CRM systems provide businesses with improved data management by consolidating customer information into one database.
This gives sales teams quick and convenient access to shopper interactions such as purchases, inquiries, and support requests. By analyzing these findings, more reliable decisions and predictions can be obtainable for business operation objectives.
The use of CRM tools for sales forecasting can prove to be highly beneficial by allowing the centralization of stored customer data. Instead of having such information spread across multiple spreadsheets, documents, or even stored with individual sales representatives as is typical in a traditional system, a CRM platform offers businesses reliable and accessible storage for their client records. This creates fewer chances for inconsistent or duplicate data while supplying timely access when needed.
Sales teams can leverage the power of a single source of truth for customer information, from which records can be accessed and updated in real-time. This enables them to gain a holistic view of every customer's background, likes, and activities with the business, thereby helping them manage customer relationships more effectively.
When necessary, salespeople are able to quickly access vital data about the customer, including their purchase histories, conversations they had with them before, and any service requests or problems they may have. Acting on this knowledge helps create personalized strategies for selling to potential customers and engaging them proficiently, ultimately fostering customer loyalty.
A CRM system not only enables centralized customer data but grants fast access to the history of sales.
This means that with some simple clicks, managers and representatives can utilize reports exhibiting commerce behavior in total time frames as well as Revenue, product expressiveness, and variant tendencies from selling.
Exploiting past sales figures makes it possible for companies to view seasonally relevant info, and market movement outlines, and assess how varied phenomena exercise consequences on average deal volume. In receiving this intelligence CEOs and their corporates are inclined to optimize accurate forecasts leading them towards organizing more prosperous sales practices sooner rather than later.
The myriad benefits of a CRM platform for sales forecasting are evidenced in its ability to track every customer interaction. Seamless logging with the system means that all customer contact is not overlooked, thus allowing sales representatives to go deeper into critical analytical information related to captured leads and orders placed.
Through monitoring each connection, they can optimize interactions with customers and strengthen their relationships—elevating conversions much more effectively than ever before. Additionally, businesses can improve customer service by integrating marketing automation into their business processes, ensuring every touchpoint along the customer journey is meaningful and data-driven. Moreover, a CRM platform allows companies to manage marketing campaigns and enhance contact management, creating a well-rounded strategy for sustained success.
By leveraging the capabilities of a CRM system, businesses can precisely forecast and track their sales. All necessary information—sales data and customer profiles—can be connected within one hub, enabling detailed assessment of customers’ attitudes and behaviors that could influence how they respond to different marketing strategies or promotions.
With this insight at hand, firms can optimize their efforts in terms of both product offerings and marketing campaigns according to what could be most appealing to respective consumers for higher conversion rates and successful sales outcomes.
Leveraging the historical sales data stored in their CRM, businesses can utilize past sales patterns and trends to inform future projections for sales.
Knowing the impact of recurring seasonality, buying cycles, or external factors on historical success provides actionable insights which lead to optimized marketing strategies and greater revenue potential.
Companies can plan around active periods, identify growth opportunities in new segments, and preemptively recognize when existing market share is decreasing.
Altogether this helps businesses redirect operations accordingly so that they may most effectively spend buyers' resources and maximize their overall accuracy with forecasting abilities.
CRM systems can help companies to identify leads and potential sales opportunities with better accuracy in prediction.
The evaluation of customer data such as interactions, buying behaviors, and engagement insights across channels contribute to CRM's ability to determine more prospects with higher conversion and repeat purchase rate chances.
This allows sales teams to focus their resources on those expected to have the highest worthiness instead, of optimizing projected incomes along with conversion rates.
Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system for sales forecasting offers a significant benefit, as it simplifies data sharing among team members.
If done manually, exchanging of spreadsheets or reports usually caused control problems, and discrepancies in the figures and had no easy way to anticipate further developments.
With CRM, the transport of information is centralized and obtaining made accessible to those who were permitted, while stimulating teamwork and ensuring everybody receives only updated selections of sales values.
CRM systems provide valuable real-time visibility of sales progress, providing teams with an invaluable resource to manage and monitor their performance, as well as adjust accordingly in a timely fashion.
Basically, this means sales representatives can log their activities--such as updates on opportunities and tracking the progress of leads within the system--and instantly share the results with managers and other staff members from different departments.
This data creates further unrestricted transparency of vital components such as customer journey analytics and revenue tracking for management; it is a clear indication that CRM software aids organizations in increasing collaboration efforts too.
As a whole, having increased automation backed by improved accuracy significantly bolsters team productivity with minimal effort involved.
The combination of a CRM system with effective coordination between sales and marketing teams can lead to successful sales forecasting.
Sharing information through the CRM provides insights from both sides that help them align their efforts to reach business goals—marketing departments benefit from impressions about many aspects, such as campaign effectiveness and customer wishes; and sales departments have input on lead/customer quality, preferences, and trends.
The unified nature of this collaboration brings increased accuracy in predicting sales driven by marketing strategies.
SourceThrough the utilization of comprehensive sales estimates administered by the CRM solution, companies can generate educated decisions in terms of resource delegation. This incorporates assigning representatives, forecasting marketing costs, and designing inventory levels - all based upon highly precise sales projections dedicated to intensifying productivity.
The forecasts presented from using a CRM system efficiently allow businesses to assign their personnel to where they are needed most; for example, if hefty expansion was anticipated among a certain division, additional employees could be placed there in order to capitalize on any emerging opportunities.
Being able particular market segments and delegate resources accordingly allows one to circumvent spending needlessly while also increasing efficiency within operations simultaneously.
Businesses leveraging CRM-based sales forecasting benefit from improved accuracy and the ability to identify underperforming sales territories. Instead of relying on manual processes, CRMs generate automated reports that accurately reflect marketing efforts and correctly forecast future sales.
Through visualizations and reports highlighting geographical differences, businesses use this data to refine strategic plans to ensure successful performance in all territories.
Companies can easily identify areas where additional investments or changes must be made; such as adjusting marketing campaigns, enhancing training materials, or redistributing resources.
By proactively addressing deficient sales regions in areas in a timely manner, firms develop efficient strategies to drive better results across the board while also exploring lucrative new avenues for growth.
A CRM system can be leveraged to significantly streamline sales workflows through the automation of repeated activities such as scoring leads, data input, and friendly reminder implementation.
Subsequently, there's much less burden on manually completing tedious manual tasks and much more on contributing tangible value to conversations with potential buyers for increased closure ratios which ultimately results in improved sale estimate accuracy.
Thanks to this increased efficiency from automated features, staff may dedicate nearly all their time into higher-value operational areas used for winning and retaining clients continually.
A CRM system can track comprehensive performance data to show the efficacy of sales strategies. KPIs such as conversion rate, deal size, and sales cycle are all displayed in real-time.
This allows employers and teams to know where improvement is necessary. For instance, if there’s a lack of success concerning one product or service - more investigation behind root causes can then be applied to improve its overall performance rates.
With metrics in hand made readily available this way too, businesses may also well adjust forecasts beforehand according to need.
A streamlined lead tracking process afforded by CRMs gives more historical precision to determine if campaign promotions are a revenue-making tactic. Using this program, entrants procured through promotional blitz courses or processes external can be attributed into a centralized system easily.
All parties involved can qualify these prospects, and define within time acceptances with continuity consistently; resulting in sure prospects becoming mere paying customers directly long term.
Using a CRM system instantly raises sales forecasting accuracy and efficiency. Dynamics of tracking customer info, anticipating goal-attaining trends, and squeezing down lead management all legitimize businesses' outlooks for understanding today’s agile markets when sticking with an efficient platform instead of attempting on-your-own abstract judgment.
Traits including enhanced data organization, automated sales support, and complete visibility equip collectors with gold standards within collective analytic dynamics and resource prioritization ability fostered from advancing systems algorithms ultimately ensuring successful options manifold occurrences by end performance deep dives.
With the emergence of advanced digital communication channels, customers now have more direct access to great services and expect a superior experience than ever before. Today's companies have adopted a whole new set of tools such as social media platforms and messaging applications to meet their customers' expectations.
One increasingly popular method is text message-based communication which boasts an array of instantaneous and convenient customer interactions unprecedented by any other prior method.
This article focuses on the role of text messaging in elevating customer experience through increased participation from both businesses and customers alike, invaluable personalization options, faster resolution of customer issues, enhanced loyalty towards brand names, along with improved efficiency for enterprises.
In today’s world, companies expect to provide a high-level of customer service that exceeds the customers' expectations. As technology has developed over time, traditional methods of customer communication have evolved alongside these advances. These traditional methods include an array of options such as phone calls, emails, or in-person interactions.
Depending upon the situation and needs, these can be great ways for businesses to interact with their customers and resolve issues quickly. Furthermore, in comparison to modern digitally-savvy alternatives such as text messaging or social media conversations, their personal touch natures give users ample room for meaningful understanding by both parties.
Therefore employers need to take into account different styles and preferences when finding the perfect balance between technological developments in interaction systems coupled with more personal approaches
The ever-changing technology landscape has transformed the way businesses communicate with customers. Initially, traditional methods such as phone calls and emails were used for customer communication; now digital channels including social media and messaging apps have risen in prominence.
One of the most popular ways that companies are connecting with their customers is through text messaging - immediate, secure, low cost, and accessible. Text messages provide a more personal touch to customer interactions than other plans of communication due to their easy customization options allowing businesses to meet customer expectations with convenience and efficiency.T
ext messages are also impactful as it decreases response times significantly improving customer satisfaction and loyalty helping create trusting relationships built around dependability.
Text messaging offers customers instant and convenient communication with businesses. It can enable customer service text messaging, allowing customer service reps to fulfill customer requests in near real-time with messages, replies, follow-ups, and notifications all exchanged quickly. This substantially cuts down the wait time for alerting customers of their status or gathering feedback from them, ultimately enhancing customer loyalty.
Unlike traditional communication channels like phone calls, which require synchronous participation from both parties, text messages permit asymmetric conversations since one side may not necessarily respond right away while still taking advantage of the convenience factor associated with texting. This makes it an effective customer service strategy that aligns with modern consumer expectations.
Customers are more likely than ever before to choose it as an easy method of getting answers and resolving any issues instantly due to its simple setup process and instantaneous delivery under normal circumstances. Compared to other communication channels, text messaging remains a top choice for businesses looking to improve engagement and streamline interactions with their customers.
Text messaging has opened up countless opportunities to increase the accessibility and reachability of businesses in customer communication. Business texting services have enabled customers to contact entrepreneurs virtually anytime, from anywhere.
This one-touch process eliminates waiting on long call queues and puts customers in direct contact with texting firms that can meet their needs right away - whether it’s being drafted for sales inquiries or receiving questions about a product or service.
Businesses can leverage text messages both proactively and reactively, tasking agents with responding quickly to customers’ questions while also taking maneuvers towards giving advice or means by which submitting offers they can take advantage of.
Text messages enable organizations to provide prompt responses that build strong relationships between them and their customers—leading to increased engagement rates and higher customer satisfaction.
Text messaging provides businesses with a host of personalization and customization options. Through segmenting customers and splitting messages, businesses can send more targeted content to the right recipients based on their individual interests or needs, strengthening customer relationships and fostering a more positive customer experience.
Businesses can also integrate automated questions in text message conversations in order to gauge customers’ experiences, preferences, response times, or follow-up messages as needed. This ensures direct communication, allowing businesses to remain proactive in keeping customers informed throughout their customer journey.
In addition, businesses may utilize AI to recognize unique customer needs through a variety of contextual cues extracted from the conversation itself. By leveraging these insights, businesses can engage customers effectively and provide hyper-personalized content relying on indirect dialogue – something that was rarely, if ever, possible until recently.
Text messaging has proven to be an effective customer communication channel, offering a range of benefits for customer service organizations. One such benefit is the positive impact on customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Customers appreciate how quickly and easily they can reach out via text messages, as received responses typically lag within minutes. As customers get accustomed to these immediate interactions, they come back looking for more cozy digital relationships from companies.
Consequently, with its concise yet personal messengers aligned towards quick resolutions for customers’ queries and complaints companies could eventually build up loyalty over time resulting in increased transaction volume while locked customer churn reduces bringing spiraling metrics around the table!
SourceObtaining customer consent for text messaging is a critical part of ensuring a great customer experience in this medium.
Customers should be made aware of the communication method and asked to voluntarily opt-in to SMS messaging. Every message should provide an opportunity for customers to unsubscribe from receiving further communication and that element should appear prominently within each message’s body.
Organizations are legally obligated to acquire express consent from customers prior to sending promotional messages via text, so companies must invest time in setting up systems that help ensure people agree legitimately and at their own will to receive them.
Doing so not only demonstrates respect for the potential customer base but likely also limits any legal liabilities that may arise from choosing an automated communication system as well.
In order for businesses to leverage the full potential of text messaging in customer experience, it is essential that secure and reliable messaging platforms are implemented. This means that communication between customers and business owners must remain both protected and private at all times.
In addition, a stable platform is needed to ensure messages receive prompt delivery as well as interactive elements like push notifications, image recognition system integration, two-way communication capability and advanced analytics tools.
Businesses should place an emphasis on sharing compelling content with customers throughout their respective journeys to differentiate themselves from plenty of alternative solutions currently available on the market.
Crafting effective, concise, and engaging text messages should be a priority in customer experience via text messaging. Messages need to be polite yet net to the point. Clarity is essential - metrics like read rate can help assess effectiveness.
Messaging interactivity could take effect, leading to improved open rates; thereby personalizing conversations with the customers themselves, further leading to huge business gains.
By sending personalized and tailored gifts and experiences aligned with their interests, customers can form emotional bonding limits thus enabling sway of motivation towards positive outcomes for businesses as well.
Utilizing automation and AI for efficient text message handling is a key best practice in improving customer experience through texting.
Automating tasks, such as relevant follow-ups via text messages or personalization offers, can free up customer service agents’ workloads while also delighting customers with fully personalized service. AI-driven tools can be used to track customer preferences and detect sentiment from conversation data which supports a tailored response to individuals.
By using machine learning algorithms, chatbots can understand complex natural language processing queries making users feel connected better. Automation and AI help companies handle high volumes of texts faster with improved accuracy and personalization which both leads to higher efficiency effectiveness and increased customer satisfaction levels throughout the user journey.
SourceCreating an effective customer experience with text messaging means striking a balance between automation and personalization. Automation can streamline processes and standardize communication, but provide few opportunities for connection and engagement with customers.
By balancing automated responses with personalized messages from the customer service team, companies can convey more of a human touch in their conversations while reducing the labor time required for responding to common questions or inquiries.
To successfully balance these elements, companies might help identify commonly requested services or items to open texts that impart an immediate “human” voice but direct user queries towards conversational AI solutions if further detailed information is requested.
Additionally, since almost all activities including text messages exchanged are tracked it could help contact centers quickly know which interactions passed over chatbots or with fuller human appeal and alter assistant automation to materialize a balanced response profile.
Ensuring timely responses and resolution of customer queries are key when utilizing text messaging for customer experience. It is important that organizations address customer inquiries as soon as possible since delayed response times can harm a business’s reputation and lead to losses.
To increase responsiveness, businesses should use dedicated ‘support lines’ for incoming texts and set up an escalation process for unresolved issues. If the backlog is high, applicants should have easy ways to reschedule conversations or book appointments via SMS itself at alternate dates.
Businesses must also use automated bots within chats when appropriate in order to more quickly answer frequently asked FAQs from customers so consumers get immediate feedback on generic queries or quick solutions even when no representative is online.
Monitoring and analyzing customer feedback should be an integral part of any company’s text messaging platform.
Doing so allows businesses to gain insightful information on their requirements, as well as measure the effectiveness of current communication strategies. It also enables companies to identify potential weaknesses or areas for improvement such as in response times, delivery rate, use of automation et cetera.
This can help ensure customers are satisfied and that issues are addressed quickly and accurately. Because customer feedback is such a powerful tool, it is advisable to ask fewer questions through more complex messaging rather than break down surveys into multiple messages which will waste time for customers.
Companies should continually update their tools and technologies to avail both qualitative and quantitative feedback metrics, collecting inquiries from different sources for a broader view.
With thorough monitoring and analysis over time, companies can more knowledgeably improve customer experience through text messaging while continuing growth in an ever-evolving competitive environment.
The widespread popularity of text messaging as a primary mode of communication has posed some important questions about potential barriers to adopting it in customer experience.
Most notably, certain demographics may remain excluded from using this technology due to language and literacy challenges, economic constraints, or lack of technical access such as cell phones.
Additionally, businesses should be mindful of the appropriateness and effectiveness of channels for different types of communications - they may not be best suited for confidential conversations or sensitive topics.
It is also important for companies to actually understand when to leverage these modern means Customers may become rapidly overwhelmed by receiving massive volumes of text messages.
Text messaging can be particularly sensitive when it comes to protecting customer data. Companies must ensure that their chosen messaging platforms and solutions are secure, implement strict technical protocols for data encryption, and limit a user’s access to protected data depending on their role and responsibilities.
Additionally, businesses should make sure adequate permissions settings exist for all users of the platform or application, that individuals are assigned unique usernames/logins with appropriate passwords and security questions in place, and establish clear policies around message access history.
Lastly, customers need to be made aware of privacy measures present by companies which involve creating documentation on what personal information is collected via text messaging communications and how it is safeguarded by the business.
When it comes to managing and controlling message volume and customer expectations in text-based customer interactions, businesses should focus on producing quality over quantity of messages. Setting up automated reply features with predefined templates can help streamline response times whenever possible.
But at the same time, allowing for some level of customizability or personalization by staff can free up resources that would otherwise be spent responding to individual customers’ queries. Additionally, setting clear expectations upfront helps set realistic standards of communication for users such as message delivery frequency and timespan for expected replies.
Utilizing AI insights coupled with predictive analytics to adequately prepare company messaging strategies can effectively reduce overloads as well as ensure a satisfactory ongoing experience for customers.
The use of text messaging for customer experience is continuing to evolve. Emerging technologies are making text messages even more engaging, efficient, and effective.
Businesses can take advantage of advanced features such as rich conversations with images and animated content, voicemail integration, scheduled responses, and lead segmentation.
Additionally, AI-powered automation can improve communication timeframes by providing customers with quick answers to their questions. By leveraging these often overlooked solutions companies can not only boost customer satisfaction but also provide a unique customer engagement platform that will stand out from other organizations in its field.
Furthering the application of tech-savviness within communication realms will drive Business success in Customer experience in many successful ways.
In conclusion, this article examined the growing role of text messaging in customer experience. It revealed its numerous advantages over traditional business communication channels and explored various best practices to maximize the potential benefit that businesses can derive from text messaging associated with enhancing customer satisfaction and loyalty while also improving efficiency and productivity within a company.
Today’s businesses must embrace SMS communication as it has become increasingly important for enhanced customer experience in order to stay competitive and successful.
The changes brought by SMS technology present an exciting opportunity but also pose some difficulties which require careful thought and strategic planning ahead to reap its many benefits fully.
Instagram is undoubtedly one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide and has massive potential for businesses. From Reels to Instagram Shopping, there are numerous tools and tactics that can be used to help amplify your brand presence on this platform. Whether you’re a seasoned marketer or looking to tap into the industry for the first time, mastering the tricks of Instagram can help give you an edge over your competitors as we head toward 2023.
From unlocking all-important insights into how best to use Instagram Live streams to maximize engagement through captions and crafting consistent story content, this guide will cover everything you need to know about taking advantage of its features.
Explore how launching campaigns with Reels could level up your position as influencers explore connecting more with their audience, revolutionize your Instagram shopping journey by optimizing that user experience and use smart analytics to inform your posting strategies.
In this solid foundation-giving overview sprinkled with exclusive tips, you can harness the power of video content, captivating stories, and hacks that will come in handy for brainstorming creative ideas to bring life again into an Instagram account. Discover more of these latest tricks as you immerse yourself in acquiring hands-on strategies here!
Instagram Reels enable you to explore and unleash your creativity. With the music, effects, and easy-to-use editing tools on hand, Reel makers can experiment with a wide variety of formats without ever having to leave the app.
Short videos (15 -30 seconds in length) give you more space to be creative with bold ideas when compared to normal IG posts which are usually only limited to text and image uploads.
Whether it’s duets, split screens, or side-by-sides - take your post-game up a notch and make your content stand out amongst other accounts by finding fun ways to convey meaning in fascinating visual presentations for greater lasting engagement from today’s GenZ audiences!
Instagram Reels are the latest buzzword on Instagram. Think of it as an improved version of TikTok that leverages AI and can be fully integrated with your already existing business or presence.
Reels allow you to tell a unique, creative story 15-30 seconds at a time—providing swift opportunities to increase engagement rates and social rewards. Whether it’s striking visuals or witty remarks, harness the power of viral videos made famous through reels while putting a spin that is true to your brand's voice or tone.
As long as the video is entertaining and captivating enough, there’s no limit on how much traction this type of content can have! Strategizing around memorable image/video combinations allows for more engaging and interactive content that promotes sharing within audiences.
Give this tactic a shot to maximize the return in terms of likes, and followers, and increases engagement with reels!
Organizations should incorporate Instagram Reels in their content strategy to make the most of the creative opportunities offered. Here are a few tips for harnessing this engaging medium:
By utilizing Instagram Reels in their content strategy, brands can access powerful engagement metrics that will help them gain insights into their growth trajectory on the platform.
For businesses, Instagram Shopping is the ultimate tool to unlock the potential of their social media presence. Setting up on Instagram for Shopping couldn't be easier. Businesses first need to have a business account and a Facebook page linked to the account, where they can receive payments through their corresponding Catalog Manager.
After that, users set up product tags by assigning Shop categories like Shirts, Artwork & Prints, or Potted Plants in their Catalog Manager icon within the More tab on Instagram which will fill with an array of data needed from them including pricing info and payment methods used for checkout. Updating user shortcuts also allows customers immediate access to purchasing.
Instagram has become a powerhouse for e-commerce sales due to its expansive user base. Companies can keep track of trends on the platform and identify areas where they can capitalize based on the insights derived from this data.
It is key to ensure your followers are engaged with ads, content, and posts as this will determine whether they visit your online store regularly or not. Furthermore, utilizing strategies such as Instagram Shopping and targeted post work well for reaching different segments of an audience interested in particular product categories as well as for launching products on a larger stage.
Researching consumer behavior specific to Instagram offers greater visibility into what works best in engaging with consumers interested in purchasing items through websites linked to the platform’s profile page.
By pinpointing these decisive elements businesses can tap into the e-commerce boom of Instagram and ultimately promote products in a more meaningful way.
Instagram Shopping brings e-commerce opportunities to the world's biggest photo-sharing platform.
Businesses can set up an Instagram store and use tags to link products with their posts, making it their shoppers easier than ever to buy from them. With features like shoppable stories, personalized product recommendations, targeted ads, and analytics tools, businesses can amplify their reach while collecting crucial purchase data about their customers.
By leveraging insights gained through Instagram's analytic services, business owners will be better equipped to tailor campaigns that coincide with customer interests and behaviors. Ultimately this enables small companies the opportunity to engage consumers on a larger scale while increasing their sales potential in a highly competitive landscape!
Engaging potential customers with FOMO is increasingly common in the digital age, and Instagram Live is a great way to leverage this marketing strategy. Through live video streaming, boost engagement amongst followers by inviting them to participate in games or contests that are exclusive to the “when” they jump on board.
Additionally, host virtual Q&A sessions or impromptu showcases of product lines followed by exclusive discounts catering to viewers present. Use stories leading up to the day of your events when formal registration processes aren’t used.
Let your target market know something special can be expected if only they show up just for that time frame—or simply put a tradeoff offer slated for expiration within 48 hours attached before packaging it all neatly into a fresh post.
Creating a sense of urgency is key on Instagram Live as people value immediacy and timeliness. Being on top of trends and staying consistent with post frequency can help boost engagement.
Encouraging interactive elements such as polls or Q & As not only draw viewers in but will put your audience at the center of an immersive experience. Gamifying lives to award exclusive access to discounts also helps customers take action quickly and drives higher turnout for your events.
By weaving subtle reminders into conversations throughout live streams, like “really perform a simple task before it’s too late” or “there are limited numbers left…” you create incentives that motivate customers to act fast and convert more prospects to loyal fans.
Do you want to maximize your presence on Instagram? Take advantage of Guides, a powerful and versatile feature that connects people with knowledge around topics they care about.
Partnering up with influencers is an excellent way to reach new audiences. Introducing Guides helps provide context and inspiration for your posts by publishing stories, articles, recommendations, and product collections-all available through Instagram's native format.
Whether sharing useful insights or highlighting notable locals within your city’s scene, Guides are the perfect medium to make lasting connections with genuinely interested followers.
The structure of Guide-posts allows creativity while compelling users to explore more content in intuitive ways by simply swiping through slideshows stylized like magazine covers embedded directly in each post description page.
Creating an Instagram Guide is a powerful way to establish yourself as an authority in your niche and connect further with your audience. A well-crafted Guide contains informative, precise advice so potential customers can learn from it and become more invested in you or your product.
Start by introducing the subject of the Guide and then providing specific, step-by-step instructions using sections to break down complicated topics into manageable pieces of information. Visuals are incredibly important when creating Guides – include helpful visuals so readers can get a better image of what you’re suggesting for them to do or accomplish.
Lastly, use clear language that will be easy for even beginners in the topic to understand. If done correctly, Guides have the power to show expertise while delighting potential customers. Don’t be afraid to experiment and get creative in order to engage your target audience.
In order to maximize the impact of your content while keeping engagement and visibility high, it’s important to analyze and optimize your posting schedule. This means assessing what times of day generate the highest levels of engagement from social media users, identifying the topics or media types that do well for your brand, as well as analyzing how often you should post based on both insights and intelligent experimentation. Use quarterly or monthly audits to determine trends in viewership levels according to the weekdays/weekends.
Your audience shifts over time, so you must keep track regularly to ensure that they are engaging with new posts at an active cadence—too many posts can yield diminishing returns, but too little might make them lose interest. Thus, balancing quantity versus quality is a continual game throughout your social media strategy, but an optimized posting schedule is a solid start for success.
Analyzing social media analytics is key to creating an effective Instagram marketing strategy. Utilize the data to understand which content resonates with your followers and when they're most active on the platform.
Pay special attention to posts that perform well and improve upon them in future publications by experimenting with visuals, story structure, text captions, hashtags, and relevant keywords. With this information, you can fine-tune a customized approach that meets your particular needs. Tailor-making the profile setup process—whether for a personal brand or an Instagram business profile—will save time in crafting inspiring ideas and formulating content plans.
Additionally, integrating user-generated content into your Instagram feed can boost engagement while showcasing authenticity. For those focused on Instagram influencer marketing strategy, collaborating with influencers who align with your brand can enhance your reach and credibility.
Leveraging insights & analytics is key for elevating your game in the ever-evolving world of Instagram—enabling long-term growth success will follow. Implementing Instagram growth hacks and optimizing your Instagram bio to reflect your brand identity further strengthens your Instagram presence, setting you up for sustained engagement and visibility.
Video content has become increasingly popular on Instagram throughout the years, with its integration into Reels and instagram Stories for easy access and convenient playback. Embracing this trend is a great way to create interactive and engaging experiences through visuals that won’t just steal an audience’s attention, but also make them stick around.
Utilizing powerful video editing platforms such as InShot or Capcut allows you to craft captivating videos in no time at all! Promote your brand message through short instructional clips from ‘how-to’ videos to square previews of your products or hold Q&A sessions with behind-the-gen scenes “watch party” reels.
Create meaningful viewership by stirring up excitement whilst tapping into one of the most powerful and effective online marketing channels.
Visually engaging videos can captivate your Instagram followers and drive unprecedented engagement. To stand out on a heavily saturated platform like Instagram, encoding such attractive visual features into brief micro-videos should be an utmost priority for businesses.
Sharing relatable content increases the appeal and steadier viewership hence allowing you to tell stories or take the Instagram users through your experiences – giving them a true taste of what their purchasing moment could be like; this will restore every glance with trustworthiness while maintaining amusing vibes which is naturally more overwhelmingly attention-absorbing than plain texts.
In addition, suitable music parts across an informative video help instill emotions that photos evidently lack and set just the exact brand narration you wanted from the beginning!
SourceWhen it comes to captivating audiences on Instagram, sometimes less is more. A well-crafted caption that strikes the balance between concise and emotive can tell a powerful story in just a few words.
This doesn’t simply mean typing what’s directly happening in the photo - use telling details to share insight into how you or whoever else is in your photo was feeling at that exact moment.
Why not create curiosity and humanize stories by conveying personal moments or with humor? Creative visuals plus mental images are highly engaging and evoke empathy, drawing eyes toward your post and acting as an extension of your brand messaging. Keep captions short yet impactful for pleasing results!
In order to strengthen the connection with your followers, you should engage and connect with them by crafting captivating stories through Instagram captions. Think beyond a "hashtag" momentum - telling viewers the story behind your posts helps evoke an emotional reaction that draws both loyalty and engagement truly worthwhile.
Try writing short copy in paragraphs about why you chose a particular photo or color palette for example. Make sure the message resonates well with audiences’ needs and positively talkers up your brand voice; adding meaning displays transparency which gets customers along on this journey of understanding rather than dispelling stanchly of thoughtless abandonment.
Furthermore, engaging new minds and sparking sweet memories is possible when words are carefully chosen as it says “words conjure tongues–be wise in intention”. Unique captions, unique experiences also; tagging supporters should not be exclusive to teams and family and can trigger words of appreciation just as satisfactory.
The introduction of Instagram Reels, Live streaming, Guides, Shopping opportunities, and video content has made mastering Instagram a competitive sport. It’s important to stay up-to-date with the latest tricks and hacks on this evolving platform.
Fully incorporating these advancements and updates into your content strategy doesn’t need to be a daunting endeavor – just set aside some time for research and creative exploration.
Start by leveraging the power that Instagram Reels have to offer in terms of creativity, engagement, and boosting reach using features such as shopping services and live videos based on a structured posting plan complete with insights and analytics – elevating above all else, adding captions with intrigue will tell an impactful story: one filled with compelling emotions that touch readers will go beyond the costless like.
With purposeful action and diligent effort, these Instagram hacks of 2023 will help take your business to a whole new level – elevating your engagement, staying ahead in the trends corridor, and enjoying newfound success all as you mold the future within this prized platform.
Ever since ChatGPT launched, marketers have been using it to scale their content creation.
For SEO in particular, AI-generated content seems like an excellent way to speed up the content marketing process and significantly cut costs. Unlike the black hat article spinners of the past, ChatGPT (and similar tools like Jasper and Google Bard) produce intelligent, original content that reads as if it were written by a human. To the untrained eye, it’s hard to tell the difference.
So, why would you want to detect content created by artificial intelligence? If the output reads well, what’s the problem?
The issue boils down to quality. AI-generated content might read well, but it lacks depth and nuance. It can rank well in the search engines, but it’s not likely to provide adequate value for a visitor unless the topic is something extremely basic, like instructions for removing a carpet stain or directions to a business. Unfortunately, if you publish content made just for search engines, it will be considered spam by Google.
You may have heard that Google considers all automatically generated content to be spam. This was their position at one time.
In an Office Hours video from April 1, 2022, John Mueller clarified Google’s official position on automatically generated content, and stated, "If you're using machine learning tools to kind of generate your content it’s essentially the same as if you’re just shuffling words around… for us it's still automatically generated content and that means for us it's still against the webmaster guidelines, so we would consider that to be spam.
"Google’s official stance has since changed. On February 8, 2023, Google announced that AI-generated content is not against their guidelines unless it’s created to manipulate search rankings. Useful content created by automation is perfectly acceptable.
Despite the well-written nature of generated content, it can be detected easily.
AI-content-generating algorithms are basically a glorified form of predictive text, where the system knows the words most likely to come after one another. To detect AI, this process is reverse-engineered, where the system predicts the most likely word to come before a certain word.
Even though AI content is allowed, you might want to avoid publishing it to your website. If you hire writers to create content for you, and you’re not sure if they’re using an AI tool, here’s how to detect it.
One of the best AI content detectors is GPT-2 Output Detector. It’s free and you don’t need to register for an account. This particular tool is highly accurate and allows you to paste in more copy than other tools.
This tool uses a scoring system of real/fake, so the higher your content scores as real, the more likely it was written by a human. This tool doesn’t seem to have a character limit, but the more content you paste, the longer it takes to analyze.
Another great tool to use is GPT-Writer. Although some people have said it isn’t as accurate as other tools, it depends on the subject. For some content, this tool scores human-written samples as 100% human-generated content, while other tools score the same content at 98% human-generated.GPT-Writer limits samples to 1500 characters, but that should be enough to get the information you need. If you aren’t sure, run multiple samples.
AI-Detector – Content at Scale is another highly accurate tool and has a 2500 character limit, which is more than enough to get a decent analysis.
There are a few tools that don’t make the cut for reliability, but you may find them useful. The first one is AI Detector Pro (the free version).
Your input is limited to 200 characters, which may not tell you much. However, the paid options might be more beneficial. Even so, with accurate free tools like GPT-2 Output Detector, there’s really no reason to pay for a tool unless you need the extras, like reporting.
Originality AI is a plagiarism and AI detector, so you get the best of both worlds with this tool. However, some people have said it was really easy to alter a little text to bypass the detections and get a human score.
Often, when people use AI tools to generate content, they keep the headings intact or alter them by a word or two. You can reverse engineer an article by plugging one heading at a time into some AI tools to see what content is generated. If the content was written using the same AI tool you’re using, each heading will likely generate text that can also be found in the body of the article you’re investigating.
For example, say the article you want to verify contains the heading, “Why is AI content bad?” If you type this heading into Google Bard, you’ll get several bullet points in response. If the content of those bullet points also appears in the article either word-for-word or very similarly, you can be fairly certain it was written using AI.
You can also plug in full paragraphs from the article in question. If the AI tool returns content that is also found in the article, it is more than likely AI-generated.
Tools are great for detecting AI-generated content, but you can also use manual methods. Here are some things to look for:
Although you don’t need to worry about AI-generated content hurting your search rankings simply for being AI, there are several reasons to avoid it:
There are two main ways to avoid using AI content: to spin scraped content and to fill space on your website.
Scraped content is spam and spinning scraped content is plagiarism. Google has algorithms that can detect scraped content that has been altered by an AI tool. Publishing scraped content has always been considered spam, and using ChatGPT or any other tool to alter it is still considered plagiarism. In other words, don’t steal other people’s content and use AI to rearrange it to make it look original because Google will know.
Another use case to avoid is filling space. If you’re generating long articles to populate your blog or other website pages just to fill it out, you’re probably not providing value to visitors.
Back in December 2022, Google announced a Helpful Content system update that promised to detect and suppress content made for search engines and promote websites designed for humans.
Many people noticed a drastic drop in rankings after this update, even sites with high-quality human-created content. It’s too risky to use AI tools to populate your website for the sake of filling space. You’ll waste your time, money, and you probably won’t rank.
Poor-quality content that doesn’t provide value isn’t going to rank whether it was created by a human or ChatGPT. Google can tell the difference between AI-generated content created to manipulate search rankings and content that exists to provide value to web visitors. If you choose to use AI tools like Jasper, ChatGPT, or Google Bard, be responsible.
There’s nothing wrong with AI-generated content as long as it is helpful and provides value to your visitors. As long as you follow Google’s E-E-A-T Guidelines (Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness), you can rank AI content in the search results just like any other page.
When it comes to sales and marketing, not all leads are created equal. Some prospects are ready to buy immediately, while others are just beginning to explore their options. If you spend too much time chasing unqualified leads, you risk wasting resources and missing out on high-value opportunities. That’s where lead scoring comes in.
Lead scoring is a systematic approach to evaluating and ranking prospects based on their likelihood to convert. By assigning scores to leads generated based on their behaviors, demographics, and engagement, you can prioritize your outreach, improve efficiency, and close more deals. If you’re not using lead scoring yet – or if your current system isn’t delivering results – this guide will walk you through the essentials of how to implement and optimize it.
Lead scoring is a method used by sales and marketing teams to rank potential customers based on their interest, engagement, and fit with your ideal customer profile. Each lead receives a numerical value, which helps your team determine which prospects to focus on first. Higher scores indicate leads that are more likely to convert, while lower scores suggest they may need more nurturing before they’re ready to make a purchase.
A well-defined lead scoring system ensures that sales teams focus on high-quality prospects rather than chasing every lead that enters the pipeline. It also improves collaboration between marketing and sales by setting clear expectations for when a lead is ready to be handed off.
To build an effective lead scoring model, you need to consider multiple factors that indicate a prospect’s readiness to buy. These typically fall into two main categories: explicit data and implicit data.
Explicit data includes firmographic and demographic information that helps you determine whether a lead is a good fit for your business. Common factors include:
Implicit data is based on a lead’s interactions with your brand. These behavioral signals indicate their level of interest and engagement. Key examples include:
Combining explicit and implicit data allows you to create a balanced scoring model that identifies leads with both a high level of interest and a strong likelihood of becoming a customer. This produces a better overall system.
A successful lead scoring system requires a structured approach. Follow these steps to build a model that works for your business.
Start by identifying the characteristics of your most valuable customers. Look at your existing customer base to determine common traits among your highest-value clients. Consider factors such as industry, company size, job title, and pain points.
Analyze past conversions to determine which actions signal strong buying intent. For example, do most customers request a demo before purchasing? Do they read multiple blog posts or visit your website several times before reaching out? Pinpoint these key behaviors so you can weigh them appropriately in your scoring model.
Once you’ve identified the attributes and behaviors that matter most, assign point values based on their level of importance. For example:
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Conversely, negative scoring can be applied for behaviors that indicate a lack of interest. For example:
This ensures that your scoring model stays dynamic and doesn’t waste resources on cold leads.
Determine the score at which a lead becomes an SQL – meaning they’re ready for outreach from sales. Leads who don’t meet the threshold should remain in the marketing funnel for further nurturing.
Lead scoring isn’t a one-time setup. Regularly review your model to ensure it accurately predicts conversions. Work with your sales team to gather feedback on lead quality and make necessary adjustments to your scoring criteria.
Even with the best intentions, many businesses make mistakes when implementing lead scoring. Here are some pitfalls to watch out for:
Not all prospect actions carry the same weight when it comes to predicting conversion. One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is assigning the same point value to vastly different activities. For example, someone who downloads a free eBook should not receive the same score as someone who requests a product demo.
If you fail to prioritize high-value actions, your lead scoring model may overinflate the importance of low-intent behaviors. Instead, focus on identifying which actions most reliably predict an actual sale. A lead who visits your pricing page multiple times or watches a product demo video should receive significantly more points than someone who simply follows your company on social media.
Many companies build their lead scoring models solely around behavioral factors, such as website visits or email opens, without considering whether the lead is even a good fit for their business. This results in sales teams chasing leads who might be highly engaged but ultimately not a good match for your product or service.
To avoid this, incorporate demographic and firmographic data into your scoring model. Is the lead in your ideal industry? Does their company size match your target market? Are they in the right geographic region? These factors should influence your lead score just as much as behavioral signals. A lead who interacts frequently with your content but doesn’t fit your customer profile shouldn’t be prioritized over a less-engaged lead who perfectly matches your ideal customer.
For a lead scoring system to be successful, your sales and marketing teams need to be on the same page. Too often, marketing teams define lead scoring models without input from sales, leading to misaligned expectations. If marketing hands off leads that sales doesn’t find valuable, it creates friction and results in wasted effort.
To prevent this, hold regular meetings between sales and marketing to discuss which leads are converting best and what key behaviors indicate readiness to buy. Sales teams have firsthand experience with which prospects are the most likely to convert, so their insights should shape your scoring criteria. When both teams collaborate, the lead scoring process becomes much more effective.
Most businesses focus on assigning positive scores to leads based on desirable behaviors, but they overlook the importance of negative lead scoring. Negative lead scoring removes points from a lead’s overall score when they exhibit behaviors that indicate disinterest or lack of fit.
For example, a lead who unsubscribes from your emails, visits your careers page (suggesting they’re job-hunting rather than shopping for your product), or has gone inactive for several months should have points deducted from their score. Without negative scoring, your sales team may continue to pursue leads who have already disengaged, leading to wasted effort.
Lead interest isn’t static – if someone interacts with your brand but doesn’t take action for months, their intent likely decreases. Yet many companies fail to implement lead decay in their scoring models. Lead decay means that as time passes without engagement, a lead’s score gradually decreases to reflect the reduced likelihood of conversion.
For example, if a lead downloads a whitepaper today, it might earn them 10 points. But if they don’t engage further within 30 days, those points should slowly diminish. This ensures that your sales team isn’t prioritizing leads that were once active but are now cold. Regularly refreshing your lead scores based on engagement helps keep your pipeline filled with prospects who are truly ready to buy.
Your business likely serves multiple customer segments with different needs, yet many companies build a single lead scoring model that treats all prospects the same. This can be a major oversight, as the behaviors and characteristics that indicate sales readiness may vary across different customer groups.
For example, if your company serves both small businesses and enterprise clients, the buying journey for each group will be different. A small business owner might make a decision quickly after downloading an eBook, while an enterprise buyer might need multiple touchpoints over several months. Trying to apply the same lead scoring criteria to both groups can lead to inaccurate prioritization.
Instead, consider segmenting your lead scoring model based on different personas or customer types. This allows for more accurate scoring and ensures that leads are evaluated based on the specific journey they are likely to take.
A lead scoring model is not a set-it-and-forget-it system. Market trends change, customer behaviors evolve, and sales strategies shift over time. If you don’t periodically review and refine your scoring model, it will quickly become outdated.
Schedule regular reviews – at least quarterly – to analyze your lead scoring effectiveness. Look at data to see if high-scoring leads are actually converting into customers. If not, you may need to adjust how you assign points or incorporate new factors. Engage with your sales team to get feedback on the quality of leads they’re receiving and make adjustments accordingly.
Any business can create a marketing strategy. The question is, does the strategy get results?
At Marketer.co, we don’t just build fancy strategies with colorful graphs and spreadsheets to impress the suits and black ties. We are disciplined, dynamic, and data-obsessed marketers who take pride in building scalable marketing campaigns that drive sustainable growth.
If you want to get better results, we want to talk. Contact us today!
In the competitive world of financial services, attracting and keeping clients is integral for long-term success.
But here’s the thing: Effective lead generation isn’t just about quantity – it’s about finding the right prospects who align with your services and have the potential to become loyal, long-term clients.
And, if we’re being honest, generating leads is only half the battle. You also need to build trust, nurture relationships, and deliver consistent value to retain those clients.
With this in mind, let this resource serve as a comprehensive guide to help you master lead generation and retention strategies tailored specifically for financial services.
In financial services, one size doesn’t fit all. If you try to appeal to everyone, you’ll end up resonating with no one. That’s why understanding your target audience is essential, and more importantly, why niching down can be the game-changer you’re looking for.
When you niche down, you focus your efforts on serving a specific group of people with unique needs. This approach allows you to become an expert in their pain points, goals, and challenges, positioning yourself as the go-to financial advisor for that audience.
A well-defined niche allows you to craft marketing messages that speak directly to your audience. Instead of using generic language like “We help with financial planning,” you can say, “We specialize in helping tech professionals maximize their stock options and build wealth.” This specificity captures attention and builds trust, as your audience feels like you truly understand their unique circumstances.
Niching down also helps you differentiate yourself in a sea of generalists. (And, let’s be honest, there are thousands of generalists in this field.) When you focus on a particular group, your expertise becomes your selling point. For example, if you specialize in serving physicians, your knowledge of their unique financial challenges – like managing medical school debt or navigating complex tax codes – sets you apart from advisors who take a more general approach.
To identify your niche, start by analyzing your current client base. Look for patterns in the types of clients you enjoy working with and those who bring the most value to your business. Consider factors like:
Once you identify your niche, dive deep into their world. What are their biggest financial pain points? What are their aspirations? What challenges do they face that you can solve? The more you understand, the better equipped you’ll be to offer tailored services and build trust.
Your website should act as a hub for your services. It should provide valuable content and help you capture leads through well-placed calls to action (CTAs). And if you’re going to win with digital marketing, you need to show a commitment to the following:
Investing in digital marketing not only brings in leads but also ensures that you stay top-of-mind for clients actively seeking financial services.
Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram can be powerful tools for connecting with potential clients. However, the key is to use these platforms strategically.
On LinkedIn, for example, you can position yourself as an expert by sharing articles, posting updates, and engaging with your network. On Facebook and Instagram, visual content like infographics or success stories can resonate with followers.
You can also leverage social media ads to target specific audiences. For instance, if you specialize in retirement planning, you can run targeted campaigns aimed at individuals aged 50 and older with specific income levels.
Clients in the financial services industry often approach providers with skepticism. To overcome this, you need to build trust by providing value before asking for anything in return.
One effective strategy is to offer free resources like:
These resources demonstrate your expertise and give potential clients a taste of the value you can offer. For example, a free guide titled “10 Steps to Maximize Your Retirement Savings” can attract leads who are actively seeking help in this area.
Referrals are another effective way to generate high-quality leads. A referral from a trusted source carries more weight than any marketing campaign, as it comes with a built-in level of trust.
Encourage your existing clients to refer friends, family, or colleagues by offering incentives like discounts, gift cards, or complimentary consultations. On top of this, you’ll want to build relationships with other professionals in your industry, such as accountants, attorneys, or real estate agents, who can refer clients to your services.
If your lead capture process is clunky or complicated, you risk losing potential clients before they even have a chance to connect with you. Make it easy for prospects to reach out by:
A streamlined lead capture process ensures that interested prospects can take the next step without frustration.
Not every lead will convert immediately. Some prospects may need time to evaluate their options or build trust in your services. Email marketing is an excellent way to stay connected with leads over time.
Create an email nurture sequence that provides consistent value, such as:
The goal is to keep your brand top-of-mind so that when the prospect is ready to act, they think of you first.
While lead generation is important, retaining existing clients is equally – if not more – critical. Satisfied clients are more likely to refer others and expand their use of your services over time.
There are hundreds of different techniques and strategies you can use to strengthen your client retention; however, here are a few of our favorites:
You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Regularly evaluate the performance of your lead generation and retention strategies to see what’s working and what needs adjustment.
Use tools like Google Analytics, email marketing platforms, and CRM software to track key metrics such as:
Sometimes, the best way to improve your lead generation and retention efforts is to bring in outside expertise. Partnering with marketing agencies, consultants, or software providers specializing in financial services can help you implement more effective strategies.
At Marketer, this is where we come in. We actively partner with businesses and brands that are looking to implement sound digital marketing strategies that produce high-quality leads that result in sales. Interested in learning more about what a partnership would look like? Please contact us today!
Regardless of your industry, strategic lead generation is your ticket to profitability, especially in a competitive market. Without a steady flow of prospects, you’ll struggle to generate sales. Although the fundamentals of marketing never change, the methods and strategies that get quality leads are constantly evolving. Each social media platform and other advertising channels require a slightly different approach. For example, what works on Facebook won’t necessarily work on TikTok, and some markets are virtually non-existent on Instagram.
Advertising your products and services is important, but if you aren’t growing your email list at the same time, you’re missing out on future, long-term sales. If you want to generate hot leads in 2025, you need strategies that work on every platform.
Lead generation is the first step toward:
· Building an email list of potential customers
· Generating sales from people interested in your brand
· Increasing brand awareness
All three of these factors are crucial for driving revenue. By prioritizing lead generation, you’ll build a database of potential customers who are already interested in what you offer. With the right strategy, converting those leads into paying customers becomes a smoother, more predictable process.
In general terms, a lead is an individual who expresses interest in your brand through actions like joining your email list, downloading a free resource, scheduling a demo, or buying a product or service. However, not all leads are equal and each type of lead requires a different approach to convert. Understanding the different types of leads is important, since each requires a unique approach to move them closer to conversion.
Marketing Qualified Leads: These are leads who have engaged with your advertising campaigns in some way, but are still doing research. This group includes people who have joined your email marketing list by downloading a free guide, or clicked on a PPC ad, showing curiosity, but not commitment.
Sales Qualified Leads: These leads have demonstrated the intent to purchase by taking actions like adding products to their cart, requesting a consultation, or asking pre-purchase questions. These are the leads your sales team will contact for a conversation or appointment because they are ready to buy.
Product Qualified Leads: These individuals have experienced your product or service firsthand, either through a free trial, a sample, or some type of free plan. They’re engaged and need a small amount of nurturing to convert into paying customers.
Service Qualified Leads: These leads are existing customers who have expressed an interest in upgrading, renewing, or purchasing additional products or services. They already trust your brand, so they’re typically the easiest leads to convert.
When you run a lead generation campaign, you’ll collect leads that fall into all of these categories. As you nurture them through various emails, many of them will progress through your funnel and become paying customers.
Now that we’ve briefly touched on the different types of leads, let’s dive into the strategies. Whether you’re a small business, a large corporation, an entrepreneur, or a startup, the following lead gen strategies will help you generate, nurture, and effectively convert your leads into buyers.
Your website has the potential to be a lead generation machine when optimized properly. Every targeted visitor is a potential lead, and the goal is to guide them toward taking action, whether it’s signing up for your email list, downloading a freebie, or buying a product or service.
Optimizing your website to capture leads begins with making it easy for visitors to get on your email list, whether you offer a lead magnet or just ask people to sign up for updates. You should have a visible signup form on every page, but you’ll want to pay special attention to your landing pages.
Unlike your regular website content, high-converting landing pages are specifically crafted to capture leads by offering something of value in exchange for a visitor’s email address. These pages are simple, clutter-free, and draw the user’s focus to your offer. The copy should include a compelling headline, persuasive copy, a strong call-to-action (CTA), and benefit-driven messaging to make your offer irresistible.
Lead magnets make it easy to capture emails, but the type of lead magnet matters. You have to know your audience extremely well to understand what they’ll find interesting and valuable enough to download. For example, if you’re in a highly technical field, you can probably hand out white papers and exclusive information, but if you’re a retail business or software company, discounts and free trials will be more effective.
Additional ways to optimize your website for lead gen include:
· Using pop-ups. Whether it’s an exit-intent pop-up or a form that shows up a few seconds after a page is loaded, pop-ups will help you capture more leads.
· Implementing dynamic forms. A dynamic web form will adjust its length based on user behavior. First-time visitors will be given a shorter form, while repeat visitors who have shown purchase intent will get longer forms, allowing you to capture more information.
· Using a chatbot. An AI-powered chatbot can engage visitors with questions and capture their email address on the spot.
Once you capture leads, you’ll need to implement email marketing to nurture and convert them over time. Email marketing is where all the magic happens. By creating a strategic email sequence for your leads, you’ll keep your brand at the top of their mind, build trust, and gradually move them through your sales funnel until they’re ready to buy.
Email marketing begins with a welcome email sent to every new lead. This is the perfect opportunity to make a good first impression by thanking your leads for subscribing, deliver your lead magnet, introduce your brand’s mission, and provide a clear next step you’d like them to take. Your welcome email should be short, friendly, and focused on value. Avoid overwhelming your leads with too much information because they might ghost you.
The next component in an email marketing strategy is segmentation. Not all leads are equal, and treating them the same will create missed opportunities. Segmentation is the key to sending the right message to the right people. By categorizing your leads based on their interests, behaviors, and demographics, you can craft highly targeted emails that generate better engagement and more conversions.
For example, if you run a pet store, you’ll want to segment your list based on what type of pets people own so you can send personalized content. Specific and relevant emails will generate higher open rates and more sales. For instance, dog owners will get emails about things like chew toys and training tips, while cat owners will get deals on scratching posts and information about feline nutrition.
Content marketing done right will educate, engage, and nurture leads until they’re ready to buy. By offering valuable, insightful, and relevant content, you’ll position your brand as a trusted authority while guiding prospects through your sales funnel.
There are many components to content marketing, but one of the most effective strategies is to publish authoritative content to your blog and optimize each post with an offer, like access to free resources that solve a problem for your market. For instance, if you offer a free ebook, webinar, or exclusive report, the right audience won’t hesitate to sign up. From there, you can use search engine optimization (SEO) to make your content show up in search results.
Paid ads are an excellent way to generate leads, especially since most platforms now have ad formats that collect email addresses seamlessly within the app. Instead of being taken to your website, when a user clicks your ad, a form will pop up and ask for their email address. When the user submits the form, they’re returned to their feed.
However, while lead forms are fast and easy, sometimes directing traffic to your website is the smarter move. For instance, if your goal is to educate people or showcase detailed product benefits, sending leads to a dedicated landing page can drive more conversions.
Video marketing for lead gen is no longer optional; it’s essential. According to survey data, 87% of consumers say a video has influenced a purchase, and 84% of marketers say video content has directly increased their sales. If you’re not leveraging video content for lead generation, you’re leaving money on the table. Videos help you generate leads by facilitating:
· Engaging stories. Instead of forcing people to read walls of text, videos allow you to tell a story in a more engaging way.
· Product demonstrations. Showcasing your products and services in real-time makes it easier for people to see the value in your offer.
· Customer testimonials. User-submitted video testimonials can convert even the most skeptical prospects.
· Live streams and webinars. Live, real-time interaction is worth its weight in gold for building relationships and trust.
· Short-form content. Attention spans are at an all-time low, and short-form video content can capture interest quickly, and unlike short text, which requires effort to read, video content is absorbed effortlessly.
No matter where you publish your videos, be sure to ask viewers to sign up for your list at the beginning and end of each video.
Artificial intelligence isn’t just for sci-fi movie plots anymore – it’s now a marketing essential. Generative AI chatbots in particular are helping businesses deliver the personalized marketing experiences that drive higher conversions.
A generative AI chatbot can help you convert leads by answering pre-purchase questions and providing information needed to make a confident buying decision. These chatbots use advanced Natural Language Processing (NLP) to provide instant, human-like responses in a conversational tone. Unlike chatbots of the past, AI-powered chatbots don’t regurgitate scripted answers; they are contextually aware and responses are tailored to an individual’s needs.
When your chatbot isn’t answering pre-purchase questions, it can upsell or cross-sell relevant products to potential buyers. For example, say a prospect is browsing your website at 3am and they engage with your company’s chatbot to ask a few questions about a product. Your chatbot can provide product details, suggest complementary items, share customer reviews, and offer a special discount, all while you’re asleep.
But it doesn’t stop there. Your chatbot can also be programmed to collect the user’s email address, ensuring that even if they don’t convert on the spot, a company representative can follow up and keep the conversation going. According to recent data, ecommerce businesses using chatbots see an average email open rate of 85% and a click-through rate (CTR) of 40%. That’s significantly higher than traditional email marketing. So, while you’re catching up on other important tasks, your chatbot will be hard at work engaging leads, personalizing their experience with your brand, and driving revenue all on autopilot.
It’s no longer an option to stick to one social media platform. With some exceptions, brands should have a presence on all the main social media sites, like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, and Twitter/X. Your leads are everywhere, and you should be, too.
Each social media platform has its own strengths, weaknesses, and ideal way of targeting a market. For example, Instagram is ideal for showcasing visually-appealing products (or at least creating aesthetically-pleasing marketing images) and is perfect for influencer marketing, LinkedIn is ideal for B2B leads, and TikTok is ideal for impulse purchases and promoting lead magnets. When it comes to Twitter/X, the ideal is to engage in thought leadership and trending conversations, while YouTube is perfect for publishing educational content and product demos.
Social media can serve as a tool for brand discovery and top-of-funnel awareness for lead generation. You’ll find all kinds of leads on different platforms, and you’ll have to experiment to find out what approach works best on each platform.
Successful marketing in 2025 is about getting the right leads from the start. The businesses that will thrive from here on out will be the ones that embrace AI, automation, and personalized marketing while delivering immense value to their customers.
The good news is you don’t have to figure it all out. At Marketer.co, we specialize in cutting-edge lead generation strategies that actually work. Whether it’s implementing an AI chatbot on your website, spearheading email campaigns that generate sales, or multi-channel social media strategies, we can help you turn more leads into paying customers. Contact us for a free consultation to assess your current lead generation strategy and uncover more opportunities to reach your market. Get in touch with us today and start turning your leads into revenue.
On the surface, lead generation and demand generation sound like different names for the same concept.
Leeds and demand definitely share a relationship. If you generate more demand for your product, you'll end up with more leads, and if you can generate more leads, you’ll naturally benefit from greater demand.
However, while there is some overlap between lead generation and demand generation, it's ideal for marketers to treat these strategies as distinct – and integrate both of them into your overall approach.
What exactly are the differences between lead generation and demand generation?
And why does your business need to use both?
Let's start with the basics.
Demand generation is all about stimulating demand and interest in products like yours. This process is often somewhat passive and focused on inbound approaches, and it doesn't always result in newly generated leads or customers. The goal is to create a landscape in which more people are aware of your brand and the reason it exists – and in which People are primed to think about or even buy products like yours.
Demand generation prioritizes the following:
· Introducing the problem. On the demand side of the equation, you typically focus on the problem more than the solution. If you're selling food, you first need to stimulate hunger. There's nothing wrong with introducing your solution or product at this stage, but the primary motivation of your actions should be to make people recognize that they need your solution or product.
· Highlighting brand authority. This is also an excellent opportunity to highlight your brand authority. Brand visibility plays an important role in both demand generation and lead generation, but it's especially valuable to establish your authority before you attempt to call your prospects to action.
· Utilizing free and accessible media. At the demand generation stage, most people are going to feel somewhat apathetic toward your brand. That's why it pays to use free and accessible media. People are much more likely to read articles, watch videos, and engage with social media content if it's freely available, and that's exactly what you want in the demand generation phase.
· Engaging a wide audience. Demand generation also requires you to engage a wide audience. At this point, you're focused on quantity as much as quality, since you're effectively “priming the pump” of customer demand. You may not have a concrete idea of who your best customers are going to be, so it's beneficial to cast the widest possible net.
· Top of funnel focus. Demand generation prioritizes action at the top of the sales funnel. At this stage, people may not even be aware of the problem they're facing. It's your job to introduce that to them, so they can feel comfortable and confident moving to the next stage of the funnel.
In contrast, lead generation is about taking advantage of the demand you've already generated so that you can cultivate more prospects and eventually customers. Most companies practicing lead generation use a mix of both inbound and outbound strategies, across a multitude of different channels.
Lead generation prioritizes the following:
· Introducing the solution. If you want someone to be interested in your product, you need to pitch it to them as a solution for a problem they know they're facing. If you have a good demand generation strategy in place, you probably have a multitude of prospects who are aware of a problem and are in search of a solution. This is your opportunity to introduce it to them.
· Highlighting specific benefits. Lead generation also enables you to highlight specific benefits of your product or service. There's nothing wrong with showcasing your brand authority and expertise at this stage, but if you want to convert people, you need to give them compelling reasons to do so. The more specific your pitch is, and the more persuasive it is, the better.
· Utilizing gated resources and media. During the lead generation stage, you need to get something from your audience. Depending on your strategy, that could mean persuading people to buy your products and services or simply getting them to provide their contact information. Either way, you need to utilize gated resources or media. Give people better-quality, premium resources in exchange for their contact information.
· Engaging a narrow audience. Instead of casting a wide net, lead generation typically benefits from engaging with a narrower audience. There's nothing wrong with generating a lot of leads, but you're typically better served focusing on quality over quantity. This way, you can reach the people most likely to buy from your brand – and avoid wasting time on people who aren't a good fit for it. Many lead generation strategies also include processes for ongoing lead nurturing, capitalizing on quality leads who didn't convert the first time around.
· Bottom of funnel focus. In contrast to demand generation, lead generation focuses on the bottom of the funnel. By this point, many of your prospects are going to be intimately familiar with your brand and its products, so you'll just have to close the deal.
There are many good reasons why you might focus on demand generation as part of your overarching marketing approach:
· Countless options. For starters, demand generation gives you countless options. Because you're focusing on a broad audience, and not a highly specific one, and because you're more focused on getting attention and stimulating thought than driving specific action, you can engage with people in practically limitless ways. You can take advantage of dozens of different free channels and experiment with a wide variety of tactics to drive results.
· A big net. This is also one of your best chances to cast a wide net and appeal to as many people as possible. Not everyone who interacts with your demand generation materials is going to become a loyal customer, but you don't need them to. You simply need to raise awareness of the problem your brand is trying to solve and make your brand more visible.
· Long-term value. Demand generation is a long-term strategy that yields results for years to come. Even if someone who engages with your demand generation materials doesn't buy from your brand right away, your brand will become more familiar to them, so they're more likely to buy from you in the future. They may even be more likely to recommend your brand to friends and family members who are ready to buy. Because of these effects and others, you can capitalize on demand generation dividends indefinitely.
· Secondary benefits. There are also some secondary benefits associated with demand generation. It's not just about stimulating thought and interest in your products; it's also about reengaging with customers who have already bought from you and building the credibility and broader familiarity of your brand.
There are many perks associated with lead generation as well:
· Harnessing the full power of demand. Lead generation is the best way to capitalize on power of the demand you generated – as well as whatever demand already innately existed for your product. With a focused, targeted approach, you can reach out to the people who are most interested in your products and most likely to buy from you so that you can persuade them more specifically.
· Quality selections. If demand generation is more about quantity, lead generation is more about quality. Instead of spamming a million people in the vague hope that some of them will go out of their way to engage with you, you can reach out to the select few people most likely to engage with you – and appeal to them directly.
· Cost effectiveness. If your lead generation strategies are sufficiently effective, they should yield a very strong return on investment (ROI). Demand generation should have a positive ROI as well, but it's harder to measure and takes longer to develop. By optimizing your lead generation strategy for results, you can get more value out of every dollar you spend.
· Systematic clarity. Lead generation strategies give you much more concrete feedback to work with. If someone declines to purchase your product in a phone conversation, you can ask them what's holding them back. If some of your inbound tactics have a lower conversion rate than others, you can study the data to learn what the differences are and readjust your approach. As long as you take this feedback seriously, you can gradually refine your approaches and significantly improve your results down the line.
Do you really need both lead generation and demand generation? A couple of simple thought experiments can help you decide.
First, let's think about what a company might look like if it focuses on lead generation without demand generation. It's capable of achieving relatively high conversion rates and targeting the people most likely to purchase specific products, but people may not be familiar with the brand and there will be fewer people even aware that a problem exists. In this scenario, the company might be genuinely pleased with results; if traffic is reasonable and conversion rates are high, the company can achieve profitability and relatively sustainable growth.
However, this company might be blind to the potential it could achieve with the help of demand generation. Because demand generation produces more potential leads to target and enriches your customer pool by showcasing brand authority and building familiarity, it greatly multiplies the impact of your lead generation strategy.
An even clearer example of why you need both is a hypothetical in which you utilize demand generation without lead generation. In this scenario, you've made thousands of people aware that there's a problem they need to solve – and you've potentially introduced your brand to them. This will almost certainly have an impact on your bottom line, driving more people to your business and improving engagement with your existing customers.
However, you'll never be able to harness the full potential of your demand generation without a lead generation strategy at the bottom of your funnel. You may have more people aware of the critical problem, but you're not pushing people to take action, nor are you specifically targeting the people most likely to buy from you.
Ultimately, the best approach for nearly every business is to use demand generation and lead generation together. With both of these strategies overlapping and connecting with each other, you'll be able to stimulate more interest, engagement, and ultimately conversions.
Of course, this can be a tricky puzzle to solve. How much, exactly, should you be investing in each side of this equation? How should you use tactics that could conceivably fit into either demand generation or lead generation? How can you use insights gleaned from one strategy to improve the other? And what do you do if you hit a dead end?
If you're relatively new to the digital marketing world, or if you've had unsatisfactory marketing results in the past, you may not know how to begin answering these questions. That's why it pays to work with a seasoned marketing agency, which can offer the expertise and insights necessary to help you create and execute the best possible mix of demand generation and lead generation.
If you’re ready to get started, reach out for a free discovery call today or take a look at our ultimate guide to lead generation!
Lead generation is the cornerstone of successful marketing, and social media is a goldmine for capturing high-quality leads. For years, businesses have leveraged platforms like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to build their email lists and grow their customer bases, and you can, too
The good news is you don’t need to be a major corporation with a massive marketing budget to get results. And since each platform has unique advantages and access to a variety of audiences, social media is ideal for generating leads in any industry. Whether your goal is to reach consumers or other businesses, try these platform-specific strategies to generate leads and grow your business faster than ever before.
Before exploring platform-specific strategies, it’s important to understand the overarching methods of generating leads through social media.
1. Understand and define your audience
Like every other marketing strategy, successful lead gen begins with identifying your market and crafting your messages and content to resonate with their desires and needs. On social media, attention is limited, so you need to capture attention quickly, and that requires knowing your audience.
2. Create valuable and engaging content
Since people scrolling through social media feeds tend to be multi-tasking and have limited attention, it’s crucial to craft content that captures attention immediately.
3. Optimize your profiles
Users will check your profile to see who you are and get a better sense of your legitimacy. Optimize your social media profiles with your business name, website, and any other important information.
4. Use paid advertising
Paid advertising is a huge component of social media lead generation and provides a significant advantage over just posting content.
5. Leverage user-generated content
When people create their own content featuring your products or services, you’ll naturally start to earn trust and that will positively influence purchase decisions. You can get people to create content by running contests or by creating an irresistible brand people love.
6. Don’t forget about sales
When you think of generating leads, don’t forget to include sales as part of your strategy. For example, some businesses sell a simple PDF guide for $15-$47 that delivers immense value just to capture relevant leads they can nurture and upsell later. The revenue from sales is nice, but the main point is to capture hot leads.
Selling a PDF guide works similarly to giving way a free lead magnet, and you might be surprised to see how well it works. Some people are more likely to give you their email address in exchange for a free download, but paying customers are more likely to buy upsells and make additional purchases.
7. Engage with your audience
Last, but not least, no matter what social media platform you use, it’s helpful to engage with your audience by responding to posts, shoutouts, questions, and even complaints. Interacting with people shows your customers and leads exactly who you are and why they should do business with you.
With that said, let’s take a deeper dive into generating leads on specific social media platforms.
Facebook has more than 3.06 billion monthly active users and is one of the most widely used platforms for lead generation. No matter your industry, there’s a good chance your target market hangs out on Facebook. Here’s how to reach them.
1. Leverage Facebook ads
Facebook offers several ad formats that support different end goals. For example, lead gen ads are specifically designed to generate leads, while standard ads are used for generating website traffic. While you can use standard ads to send people to a lead capture form on your website, there’s a difference.
Unlike traditional ads that send users to your website, lead gen ads keep the user on Facebook’s platform while they fill out a form in exchange for a lead magnet. Lead gen ads have been shown to get an average click-through rate (CTR) of 2.5% across all industries.
Don’t want to spend thousands on your first experimental ad campaign? You don’t need to. Facebook sets a different minimum daily budget based on how your account gets billed, but it can be as low as $1 per day. With a low cost of entry, you can start experimenting with any budget.
2. Use your website analytics data to choose keywords
Getting your ads in front of the right people begins with using the right keywords. While brainstorming can be a good place to start, using the keywords in your website analytics reports will be even better. These are the actual phrases people typed into search engines to find your site.
While looking through your reports, identify the keywords that make sense to use with your ads and test them out in a campaign. You can also use tools like Google’s Keyword Planner, Semrush, Ahrefs, and other SEO keyword research tools to find additional keywords and phrases.
3. Implement retargeting campaigns
Ad retargeting, also called remarketing, can increase conversions by 43% across all devices. This strategy allows you to show specific ads to people who have already interacted with your ads, viewed your ads, or visited your website. People who have already been exposed to your brand are more likely to engage, especially when you tailor your ads to feel more familiar. A user might see your ads three times before deciding to sign up for your free report.
4. Participate in relevant Facebook groups
Participating in Facebook groups or even creating your own group can significantly increase the number of leads you generate. It takes time to grow a group and cultivate a trustworthy vibe, so you’ll need to invest time and effort to get it going. Connecting with your audience fosters trust, and when done right, will position your brand as an industry leader or expert.
As a visual-centric platform, Instagram offers unique opportunities to capture leads. Here’s how.
1. Use Instagram stories
Instagram Stories will promote your content outside of your feed and can include “swipe up” calls to action. It’s not as good as paid ads, but it can help. Whenever you post stories, be sure to link to a landing page with a lead capture form.
2. Boost your posts
Boosting your Instagram posts can get you a better reach, but you don’t have control over your target audience. Still, it’s a decent way to get followers who may eventually see your ads and sign up for your email list.
3. Run Instagram ads
Since the algorithm makes organic reach difficult, paid ads are by far the best way to generate leads on Instagram. You can do this in three ways: instant forms, chats, and calls. When you use instant forms, leads will fill out your lead capture form without ever leaving Instagram.
If you sell services, the chat ads can help you acquire leads through direct communication. When an ad is clicked, it opens up a DM and you can connect with your prospects through messages. The call feature works by allowing users to call you by clicking your ad.
4. Collaborate with influencers
Building up an Instagram account from scratch is not an easy task. It’s tough to generate leads organically without a large following. Collaborating with an influencer who already has a big fanbase is the easiest way to grow your Instagram account and get those leads.
Most Instagram posts don’t reach a wide audience anymore, and that’s because the entire algorithm has been overhauled, including the search function. It happened gradually, but people noticed the impact as far back as 2017. Meta’s latest update was designed to “boost original content,” but Instagram still favors accounts with a large following. Influencer marketing can do wonders for your conversions.
Although TikTok is facing a potential ban in the United States, it’s still around for now and shouldn’t be overlooked. Here’s how you can generate leads from TikTok.
1. Build a trustworthy account
From your bio to your content, spend time creating a trustworthy, appealing account. There isn’t much room, so make every word count.
2. Use TikTok Lead Ads
Just like Facebook, TikTok offers lead gen ads that keep users on the app while they fill out your form.
3. Use image ads
TikTok makes it even easier to reach your audience with image ads. Rather than spending time and money producing videos, you can use existing images and turn them into ads. Image ads allow you to showcase multiple products or services in a carousel, creating an engaging experience without the high cost of video production.
4. Sign up for TikTok Shop
If what you sell qualifies for TikTok shop, sign up right away. Each sale also counts as a lead, and it’s an excellent way to grow your email list with leads who are more likely to buy again.
5. Create 1-minute videos
In the past, TikTok favored short content, but is now starting to push longer content, like one-minute videos. Longer videos are starting to get more views and engagement, and that’s your cue to follow suit with your regular content and ads.
A well-executed ad with a compelling call-to-action (CTA) can generate an enormous amount of leads. Although one-minute videos are doing well, test different video lengths for yourself – some creators find optimal success with videos between 15 and 30 seconds long.
Similar to Instagram, Pinterest is a visual-centric social media platform with plenty of opportunities for lead generation. With more than 480 million monthly active users, Pinterest is one of the most popular platforms around. If you’re not using Pinterest to expand your reach and attract new leads, now is the perfect time to start.
1. Use Pinterest Lead Ads
Just like other platforms, Pinterest Lead Ads are designed to capture leads while keeping the user on the app. Even if you’re getting great results from standard image and video ads, Lead Ads can make a big difference in your conversions.
2. Experiment with imperfection
One thing to note about Pinterest is that users don’t necessarily expect visual perfection like they do on Instagram. That’s because a large portion of Pinterest consists of screenshots of websites and random low-resolution text-only memes. While pixel-perfect, beautiful images will certainly capture attention, you may want to experiment with a more handmade, less-than-perfect approach to your visuals.
Boasting one billion users in 200 countries, LinkedIn has been the go-to platform for business professionals for years. Although spam is a big problem, LinkedIn remains an effective channel for high-quality lead acquisition when used correctly.
Although there are several ad formats for lead generation, Lead Gen Forms allow users to sign up for your email list without leaving LinkedIn. Key fields will be automatically populated based on the user’s profile, helping you get more information on your leads. This mobile-friendly format increases conversion rates and creates a better user experience.
Now that we’ve discussed ways to use specific social media platform for lead generation, let’s end with some tips that apply to all platforms.
1. Use powerful, simple CTAs
Regardless of the platform, a convincing call-to-action (CTA) is required to get clicks and signups. Your CTAs should be clear, direct, and action-oriented, telling users what you want them to do. For example, “buy now,” “sign up,” “learn more,” “get your free trial,” or “get started now.” Using strong verbs encourages fast action.
2. A/B testing (split testing)
Split testing will help you identify specific ad elements that perform best. Start by creating two different versions of the same ad, but only make one element different between them. For example, use different headlines and keep everything else the same. When you know which ad is performing better, keep that headline, copy the ad, change another element on the second version, and test your new ads against each other. Continue this process by testing one element at a time to create a highly optimized ad.
Note that while some high-performing elements may translate well to other platforms, sometimes that isn’t the case. Always split test your ads on every platform.
3. Optimize your landing pages
If your ads send people to your website, it’s crucial to have powerful, persuasive landing pages.
4. Don’t blindly copy your competitors
When you see ads from competitors, don’t automatically assume that they are performing well. Even ads with comments, likes, and shares aren’t necessarily generating sales or leads. Some ads gather quite a bit of activity and do next to nothing for the business. If you use your competitors’ ads as a base template, track your results and make adjustments accordingly.
5. Use ugly ads to your advantage
So-called “ugly ads” are ads that look like native content rather than a polished advertisement. These ads work well across social media platforms (especially TikTok) because they bypass the internal “ad filter” that makes people keep scrolling when they see something that resembles an ad. When you create ads that look like native content, users pay attention and you’re more likely to get the lead.
6. Play to the strengths of each platform
Finally, use strategies and content that work best for each platform. Users behave differently and have unique expectations for each platform. For example, use visuals with limited text on Instagram, and film your TikTok video ads vertically. If you’re not getting results on a particular platform, it might not be the right space.
Creating compelling content that resonates with your target audience is essential to any business's success. It brings immense benefits, from building relationships, promoting brands, marketing products and services, to improving return on investment (ROI).
In this outline, we will trace through the complete content creation process of writing content that is attention-grabbing and highly engaging for reaching intended viewers—starting from understanding the expectations of assigned groups all the way to analyzing the practice's impact on final results.
Chances are you have manufactured something astounding by turning every intention enclosed here into high-quality content carefully tailored to your target viewers.
Defining your target audience is a vital first step in content creation. Start writing engaging content with detailed buyer personas to help you better understand user segmentation by gender, age, and other demographics. Collect as much information as possible by reviewing recent sales data or surveying your active customers directly for valuable customer insights.
Analyzing your audience's demographics, interests, and behaviors is vitally important in crafting the most engaging content that will resonate with readers. To do this effectively, you need to gain an understanding of who will be consuming the content you create—their opinions, hobbies, needs, etc.
Analyzing these data points gives a strong insight into preferences guiding what engaging readers looks like! Utilize analysis methods such as social media feeds research or consumer surveys to develop more seeking population clusters within your overall target audience sphere for clearer market segmentation.
Focusing resources to further tailor and optimize messaging will help ensure maximum engagement from target audiences, whether through a well-crafted blog post, personal stories, or an adaptable writing style that speaks to your audience's interests.
Creating buyer personas is an important step in understanding your target audience and formulating a content marketing strategy. By defining personas, you can more easily visualize whom you’re aiming to reach. Drafting out well-defined personas makes it easier to target business goals with creating engaging content that aligns with audience needs.
Identifying trending topics within your industry can greatly help to create engaging content that resonates with your target audience. Utilizing various keyword research tools as well as analytics such as Google Trends and competitor watch apps are all beneficial in gaining insight into topics related to your products or services which would interest readers.
Consulting closely with incoming inquiries and customer feedback will help shape emerging trends and continuously update the market intelligence of online conversations around products or services oriented areas.
Utilizing keyword research tools is an important part of researching relevant topics for your content strategy. Keyword research will help you to understand the specific words/phrases that resonate with your target audience's demographics, interests, and behaviors. This insight into their search queries can be used to propel your content plan by creating optimized topic sets which stand to attract maximum attention from searchers in the search engine results page (SERP). Tracking key terms and carefully digesting current trends related to major topics can go a long way in delivering content that appeals to your audience.
Analyzing your competitors' content strategies can give insights into the most successful types of content and topics to engage your target audience.
Conducting an audit allows you to determine the areas where you need to focus content writing efforts in order to differentiate yourself from other players in the industry.
Recognize aspects such as their frequency, style, distribution channel and level of engagement with followers, and use such knowledge to create a unique yet useful value proposition for potential customers.
The importance of crafting attention-grabbing headlines cannot be overstated. Essentially functioning as an advertiser for an average reader, it must incite enough interest to prompt them to partake and read whatever they’re met with on the other side. An effective headline puts important information front and center and compels readers to click through.
Creating powerful headlines presents consequent opportunities provided the job is done correctly beyond elevating figures of engagement individuals have along their communications with prospective customers within businesses everywhere save traditional offline locations.
When writing headlines that capture your audience's attention, consider working on pertinent numbers and statistics. Integrating figures allows readers to tangibly comprehend a particular concept or idea which provides a notable impact mindset into taking ultimate action! Additionally, leveraging any research- paper cite creates validation and structured recommendations essential to calibrate consumer trust.
Visuals and multimedia elements help put context behind your writing, keeping your audience engaged while also selling the benefits of a message or prompting action. High-quality graphics or videos have been shown to boost engagement significantly by breaking up text-based content (even user generated) and appealing visually to viewers.
Moreover, diagrams provide visual depth into otherwise abstract concepts when used throughout an article or as infographics at the end for highlighting key points. Utilizing visuals wherever possible captures our mental —when done correctly— making it well worth the investment to have professionals handle your multimedia needs.
Creating content that resonates with your target audience successfully involves understanding and incorporating high-quality visuals and multimedia elements.
Images, illustrations, photographs, videos — all should be optimized by on-brand tones in color palette and messaging. Videos also contribute immensely to consumer engagement to leverage visual components effectively: evoking users' emotion with voiceovers or making audio enrich your brand message that cannot be conveyed some other way are essential over presentations of text-dependent statements alone. Professional graphic designers could go far toward the creation of narrations and display meaningful humanized visuals to capture attention.
Encouraging feedback and engagement from your target audience is an effective way to create interactive, authentic content that amplifies the reach of your message. Inviting listeners or readers to express their opinions strengthens trust between you and potential customers while generating interesting discussions on hot topics in the market.
Allowing online comments encourages debate between those with a similar perspective and leads to more informed conversations about brand values for loyal followers. Be open to constructive criticism in order to maintain credibility since well-thought-out suggestions may unlock ideas you have not yet considered.
Responding promptly to feedback from your target audience engages a two-way dialogue that further helps cultivate relationships between brands and customers. Going beyond simple replies, dive into deeper conversations by being helpful, honest, and true to your brand's identity in every communication you have with customers.
Utilize available support channels (e.g., emails, social media DMs) for a quick response either publicly or privately as appropriate -- such engagement then indicates to customers the importance of their input to help create positive changes and solve their needs factors that can form positive customer expectations.
Utilizing audience feedback is a key component of crafting effective content for your target audience. By extracting real-time extensive feedback through surveys and polls, you can gain automated opinion moments for improvements to enhance projects – be it policies, websites, or services.
Reviews like these generally become helpful insights that carry immense value as far as increasing digital presence on relevant platforms goes in the development of relationship establishment.
Utilizing analytics tools to measure content performance is key to evaluating the success of any strategy. Key metrics such as page views, engagements, and conversions are tracked and analyzed in order to measure how effective the content was in reaching its target audience.
Tools like Google Analytics provide powerful insights into the ways audiences engage with content which can be used to inform outbound campaigns. Knowing detailed metrics allows marketers to better fine-tune campaign plans for more efficient and productive strategies down the line.
Tracking key metrics such as page views, engagement rate, and conversions is essential in refining and improving content performance.
Utilize advanced analytics tools to gain useful insights on user behavior, content virality, commonly used words, and other features that can play an important role in composing successful—and stimulating—content for your target audiences.
Measure how well each piece of content resonates with them according to factors like audience location or device used to view the piece.
Creating resonating content that helps to connect with and engage your target audiences can be a daunting process. However, the benefits are equally as rewarding - both in terms of brand awareness and increasing conversions.
By putting ample time into understanding your target audience, researching relevant topics, crafting compelling headlines, developing storytelling narratives around your topic matter, implementing visual and multimedia elements judiciously, and encouraging feedback from readers along with promotion strategies – your content creation efforts will pay off through improved website traffic and future followership.
The data-driven sales strategy is a modern approach to sales usually powered by technology and data. Leveraging big data, artificial intelligence (AI), and machine learning (ML) tools today, digital businesses are able to analyze data and focus their resources on more targeted opportunities with higher returns.
The advantages of such sales strategy span from improved capability in decision-making processes, expanded customer understanding, enhanced sales effectiveness, and higher return on investment for companies. By integrating the thoughtfulness of human agents with powerful technologies capturing important insights, innovative businesses have begun threatening traditional approaches that once reigned in the market.
By leveraging historical sales data and market data, businesses can make informed decisions that improve efficiency and maximize sales revenue. Additionally, customer relationship management (CRM) tools play a crucial role in refining sales and marketing teams' outreach by enhancing engagement strategies and streamlining communication processes.
Even though approaches like this may seem at times intimidating due to its fast-paced, ever-changing environment, having a lack of proper adaptation ability can result in lags behind increased competitive enterprises. Sales leaders who fail to embrace a data-driven strategy risk falling behind competitors who optimize their processes with AI-powered tools and data insights.
We will be examining the different advantages and challenges that come with adopting a data-driven sales strategy, thoroughly discussing the improved efficiencies seen in this area of operation, and providing initiatives to follow through on such implementation.
Therefore, it can be argued that an optimal data-driven strategy is key for success today. By highlighting its potential impact on business performance—including lead generation, conversion rates, customer lifetime value, and customer communications quality—together with cost savings in customer acquisition cost, companies can stay ahead in an increasingly data-driven marketplace.
SourceAdopting a data-driven sales approach provides businesses with robust insights that can be used to inform decision-making and shape their marketing campaigns.
With real-time access to accurate customer data and analytics, employers can stay closely aligned with what the marketplace wants, look for trends in purchase behavior, target specific leads more effectively, and eliminate the guesswork normally associated with age-old methods.
This helps facilitate informed decision making on-the-fly which enhances business strategy by identifying potential paths to increase profitability or disrupt the market before fixed strategies become obsolete. Improved decisional visibility offers unprecedented agility when dealing with competing deadlines and even completely unanticipated market surprises.
SourceData-driven sales approaches enable businesses to increase their understanding of customer behavior and preferences. Accurate customer data derived from the analysis can be used to segment customers and optimize campaigns for improved engagement.
Customer profiles with detailed insights can equip marketers with further intel on how best to market products and services, as well as provide personalized responses through the meticulous study of customers’ behavior in terms of purchases, browsing history, interactions, etc.
Through customer segmentation, businessmen analyze gathered information to rethink buying journeys that boost results like conversions. A more solid understanding acquired by data-driven marketing allows companies to offer product bundles tailored carefully to complementary services clients want or need most often and will value highly.
In that way, it leads businesses to present the most customer-oriented experience possible and enables eliminating guesswork in people targeting and nurturing along their journey with the brand. The result is satisfied customers who engage more efficiently with companies according to their stated needs, leading to better overall ROI per individual buy.
SourceSales performance optimization is a key advantage of using data-driven sales approaches. The use of accurate, real-time data enables targeted decisions and actions to be taken for optimal outcomes. Data can be analyzed to discover trends and patterns to assist in creating effective customer segmentation.
This insight helps sales teams engage with customers more effectively by providing tailored services that are better suited to their needs, leading to improved client satisfaction.
Predicting the most valuable leads as well as future opportunities boosts company revenue potential, while optimizing existing processes often results in increased sales efficiency saving time and relevant resources.
With enhanced predictive analytics for sales forecasting providing a competitive edge all parties involved will profit from this approach‘s implementation securely on track toward a successful end goal attainment.
Improved efficiency and productivity are one of the major advantages achieved with a data-driven sales approach. Using accurate and real-time data, businesses can efficiently streamline their sales processes, eliminate guesswork and manual labor, reduce errors, save time and resources, and move quickly towards greater ROI and efficiency goals.
Automation further helps by automating routine tasks so that they take less time, are less prone to human error, and are more cost-effective in terms of resources.
This helps create better customer experiences as customers' needs are met faster without any need for manual effort which in turn improves sales conversions as well as customer satisfaction and loyalty scores. Overall these efficiencies play an important role in driving peak performance top-line growth over the long term.
SourceData-driven insights can serve as a powerful competitive differentiator when used effectively. By leveraging accurate insights generated from data analysis, businesses have the potential to gain a valuable edge over their competitors.
Teams can identify trends in customer behavior and anticipate market changes quickly. This information allows them to adjust strategies and react to external factors with agility before their rivals even recognize the opportunity.
Data-driven approaches also lend themselves nicely to identifying unexplored revenue sources or untapped markets, bringing fresh value that rivals cannot replicate easily. Ultimately, data-driven solutions can be an invaluable asset for gaining a real competitive advantage within any sector or industry.
SourceAdopting a data-driven sales approach offers numerous benefits, including increased revenue and ROI.
Businesses can use it to identify high-value leads and optimize their strategic practices to maximize returns on investments. Data-driven insights help companies segment customers and tailor their marketing efforts to specific target groups. Additionally, businesses benefit from improved forecasting that enables them to create sales strategies that yield maximum profits.
Overall, with accurate customer and product analytics along with automation of routine tasks, firms are able to improve lead generation while increasing conversion rates—ultimately generating higher revenues in the process.
These days, businesses are collecting data from diverse sources and platforms. As such, it’s more important than ever to ensure that this data is of high quality and reliability, as bad or greasy data can lead not only to increased costs in trying to capture accurate information but unreliable analyzed trends.
Companies need to identify key internal dashboard metrics as well as external indicators for an effective operations structure. Cross-checks should also be performed regularly against historically validated statures sectioned off into demographic areas through empirical modeling adaptation measures.
Additionally, a detailed review of the business software must take place routinely in order to mitigate any potential mal technics that could possibly sabotage the vigilance margin through deploying surveillance authorities over notable technical anomalies discernible by sufficient proficient remediation speed only partaken utilized and united through universal protocols.
By doing so, companies small and large can ensure that as more data is collected it will be of the highest quality and accuracy.
These days, businesses are collecting data from diverse sources and platforms. As such, it’s more important than ever to ensure that this data is of high quality and reliability, as bad or greasy data can lead not only to increased costs in trying to capture accurate information but unreliable analyzed trends.
Companies need to identify key internal dashboard metrics as well as external indicators for an effective operations structure. Cross-checks should also be performed regularly against historically validated statures sectioned off into demographic areas through empirical modeling adaptation measures.
Additionally, a detailed review of the business software must take place routinely in order to mitigate any potential maltechnics that could possibly sabotage the vigilance margin through deploying surveillance authorities over notable technical anomalies discernible by sufficient proficient remediation speed only partaken utilized and united through universal protocols. By doing so, companies small and large can ensure that as more
The handling of private customer information and the need for secure data protection are prominent concerns when proposing a data-driven sales approach. Accurate personal data—such as financial transactions, addresses, email IDs, and birthdates—must be highly secured from unauthorized access to provide customers with privacy and due trust.
Having safeguards in place during storage and transmission is highly recommended when dealing with sensitive challenges like cybersecurity threats, identity theft, or personal data breaches.
Businesses must adopt strong encryption protocols meant to strongly discourage malicious or potentially damaging activities found within their database networks. Companies likely also should invest adequate resources into early detection of possible risks that endanger stored customer data profiles as tackling them back may come out tedious later on.
Integration of data sources and systems is an important challenge to consider when starting a data-driven sales approach.
Although obtaining analytics can enable companies to make faster, smarter decisions, getting these resources into one comprehensive platform won’t be instantaneous — it takes time and focus.
All systems created in different platforms must be coordinated together and both workers and managers shaped with up-to-date skill sets. The architecture might range from clean IT integration processes sharing small encapsulated chunks of information that rely on mature architectures.
Ongoing training and skill development is essential when implementing a data-driven sales approach. In order for businesses to optimize data-driven methodology, individuals need to understand the technical skills necessary to analyze complex data sets and to interpret those findings into actionable strategies that produce effective outcomes.
This is one area where outsourcing via value added resellers (VARs) can be beneficial for scaling your systems.
Employees must also possess a keen understanding of all relevant software applications as well are appropriate methods for tactically applying distribution techniques.
Ensuring professional development through ongoing education will help ensure that all personnel remain abreast of changes in technology regardless of their level within the organization.
Data-driven sales approaches can provide a clear competitive advantage. By collecting and analyzing customer data, businesses can personalize their messages and offerings to increase customer satisfaction, loyalty, and ROI.
Additionally, these approaches offer tremendous benefits from improved decision-making to optimization of sales performance for businesses that view data as an asset.
In order to capture the most value with this many companies need to address the important data challenges such as quality control, privacy issues, and integration of systems while staying apprised of industry regulations and trends.
Overall, investing in a comprehensive data-driven approach will help companies stay ahead of emerging market conditions and ensure sustainable growth across new channels with maximum profitability.
Interactive content is indeed an increasingly important part of marketing strategies in the digital world. As modern consumers become acclimated to digital content on their devices, they are seeking methods of engagement and new visually appealing experiences.
Actually, taking advantage of this industry shift at a high level gives brands a competitive edge and a greater possibility for success. Although there are obvious benefits associated with using interactive content in campaigns, many marketers also face challenges when it comes to developing high-quality implementations due to difficulties like usability issues or executing desired designs even with exhaustive user testing.
This article explores effective strategies for overcoming these challenges while creating amazing interactive experiences within marketing campaigns to realize maximum potential.
Interactive content is a method of creating engaging experiences that allow users to interact beyond passive consumption.
Examples can range from building calculator apps that encourage questioning, fostering educational transformations through personalized assessments, sharing polling surveys for determining the appeal of certain services and ideas, and inviting engagement into fun quizzes or puzzles, among many others.
On a larger scale, they supplement engaging information journeys tailored solely towards choice customer imprinting as you learn more about their wants over definitive requirement choices walls evolving accordingly.
Interactive content is a great way to capture and engage the attention of customers. The most common benefits include enhanced user experience, improved customer engagement, and added brand exposure.
Interactive content gives users novel ways to control how populates information for them allowing them to shape their brand perception. Introducing an interactive element in marketing such as feeds, games quiz allows the marketers' story to resonate easier with hard-to-reach audiences such as Gen Z and Millennials.
When developing interactive content, mobile/cross-platform compatibility is one of the biggest technical challenges for marketers.
The software and code used to create an experience may need slight or even substantial changes made across different devices and platforms. Being aware of it ensures smooth design compatibility.
The necessary redirects will be invisible to the user while ensuring an optimized performance.
Integration with existing systems and technologies is one of the technical challenges faced when implementing interactive content for marketing. Sites must be built or modified to accommodate the unique interactions required by the content.
Additionally, most businesses operate in an environment that involves multiple complex services and systems due to their increasing reliance on technology for almost all business processes thus integrating a new interactive piece into the existing infrastructure can provide difficulties because of its interactivity component.
One of the main challenges in using interactive content (especially if it's user generated content) for a marketing campaign is securing adequate resources and technical expertise.
Limited resources often put financial constraints on technology use, while insufficient skills for coding can leave advancement and implementation at a standstill.
Technical knowledge must go beyond coding of websites or other digital platforms into calculations information control infrastructure and data communication between related elements of the generally complicated network attempting interactive experience.
When it comes to designing interactive content, creating visually appealing and effective experiences is key. It requires some creative thinking to actively engage users when providing them with information. Content should appeal to an agile audience, balanced with the user’s experience and marketing goals in mind using intuitive designs that are easy for visitors of all backgrounds to understand meaningfully.
Additionally, brand designs help create recognition of posted media, and ensure the design aligns the theme with stories from functional details as far as metaphors for interactions are concerned with interface markings that on some middle respond prompts to action.
Designing interactive content is not always an easy task. One of the key challenges faced is balancing user experience with marketing goals. Marketers must make sure that content marketing meets their objectives, without losing focus on creating a great user experience.
Including too much branding can take away from user interaction and engagement while avoiding promotional messaging altogether could have unfavorable performance results.
This requires careful guiding and feedback to maintain an effective balance between both user experience and thematically appropriate commercial elements.
Design challenges result from crafting great UI/UX while also planning effectively to ensure content is consistent, stylish, and purposeful. It’s especially important to keep accessibility in mind when creating interactive content so it can be optimized for users no matter the device or platform used – this includes providing features like audio feedback or built-in screen readers.
Evaluating usability should be a priority throughout the process too – analytics combined with user tests will allow marketers to understand how well users interact with an experience and make needed modifications to maximize visibility, boost brand loyalty, and increase conversions.
When it comes to creating captivating interactive content, one of the biggest challenges to consider is generating ideas. Brainstorming can greatly assist in this process—thinking up creative new angles or ways of approaching topics and making them fun or useful for whatever audience they’re designed for.
It isn’t always straightforward, but when considering existing challenges, resources, goals, and target audiences, approaching these conversations with business objectives in mind would help generate powerful and engaging interactive content. Incorporating interactive videos and interactive tools can make the experience more immersive while providing valuable user data to refine future marketing efforts.
Creating engaging content that is both relevant and valuable can pose one of the main challenges of content marketing strategy, especially when transitioning from static content to more dynamic formats. Developers need to learn what audiences are looking for and build interactive infographics or other interactive tools that offer valuable insights.
Additionally, marketers should look beyond branded products or sales material, such as brochures or whitepapers, when crafting user-focused experiences that drive user engagement. It is also necessary to take advantage of specialized data sources through APIs in order to power a stronger connection with niche markets while consistently updating earlier content if necessary.
Finally, consultants can provide additional support as successful interactive campaigns require organization, test runs, and the application of other insights. Optimizing for mobile devices is also essential to ensuring that interactive content strategy effectively reaches and engages users across the evolving digital landscape.
Aligning interactive content strategy with the overall content marketing strategy should heavily factor into a successful implementation. This challenge requires looking at what your target audience needs and filling that gap no matter how broad that influence may be.
By understanding consumer behavior related to interactive videos, you won't just make the experience specialized for one group but will also observe customer behavior and create something unique and incredibly user-focused. That will set it apart from all other engagements found via competitive marketing efforts or industry efforts alike.
Analyzing placement asks marketers to gather insight on the staying power of captivating interactive content that remains within a consumer’s reach online. Additionally, leveraging search engine rankings and refining lead generation tactics ensures that the interactive experience remains visible and valuable in a highly competitive digital landscape.
Defining clear goals and objectives for interactive content is key to achieving a successful outcome. By setting objective measurements, marketers can set expectations for the levels of engagement, conversions, or leads needed to judge success. When defining a goal it’s important to ensure that the data yielded is aligned with KPIs and ROI expectations.
The objectives should also create a view to accurately measure customer behaviors over time at different stages along a customer journey funnel, ensuring adherence to brand strategies no matter how small.
It is often important to understand the target audience when creating interactive content in order to maximize the effectiveness of any marketing activity. This starts by conducting thorough research into their needs, preferences, and motivations, and making sure this pricing, info architecture, and design tightly caters to that understanding.
Additionally, when building detailed customer profiles it is helpful to create relevant variables from which standard hypotheses can be formulated for themes that may appreciate customized colorful content experiences versus those that prefer quick “tap through” activities.
An essential best practice when integrating interactive content into a marketing strategy is promoting it through the appropriate channels. It’s important to ensure that the target audience is aware of it so that diversity among users and engagement metrics can be met.
This usually implies using known advertising/distribution structures such as teasers on social media or sent via platforms like newsletters, promo offers on organic posts featured in websites & applications, and lastly, disruptive formats and displays including influencers said offerings.
In order to understand the impact that interactive content has on marketing performance, it’s important to track results and measure how effectively various initiatives led by newly implemented user interactions perform.
Specific tracking measurements commonly compared may include metrics such as access points vs fulfilled engagements, engaged users/time spent viewing, conversations created via social media with subsequent growth in organic followers, or direct metrics registered through performance objectives established at the initiation of the adoption process (i.e any launches projected revenues).
Embarking on interactive initiatives is not a one shot deal; marketers need to track campaign analytics in order for them to be effective.
Leveraging user feedback and cross-channel comparisons gives you the ability to assess how your interactive content is performing among the target audience, as well as internet users more widely, allowing you to continually update existing campaigns or improve content for future endeavors.
Taking instances as learning experiences encourages experimentation and encourages changes as per the feedback received.
This article has looked at the importance of interactive content in successful marketing campaigns, diving into obstacles that can prevent proper implementation and exploring methods for success.
Challenges faced when using interactive content include technical challenges, design issues as well as content creation strategy development.
Best practices were highlighted to be sure to define objectives and understand target audiences while measuring effectiveness when introducing interactive content. Using illustrative case studies a more concrete look into making use of this powerful form of digital marketing was established; proving that with thoughtful implementation, positive outcomes can be expected.
For these — and countless other reasons — interactive content should continue to feature more progressively in modern digital marketing strategies.
The dedicated landing page has played a critical role in lead generation and online marketing over the past several decades. It continues to do so today, despite powerful changes taking place in digital markets and new trends emerging constantly. Although there is a significant debate on the continued relevance of landing pages, overall, they have adapted along with shifting consumer behavior forms.
Modern marketers understand that landing page quality directly impacts conversions, making creating landing pages an essential part of any marketing strategy. A well-designed dedicated landing can enhance user engagement and maximize lead generation, ensuring businesses effectively capture and nurture potential customers.
The traditional purpose of a successful landing page is to coach website visitors into taking the specified action or converting, for instance, purchasing a product. Typically, they feature short and powerful messages which specifically compel audiences towards that final goal while enhancing the landing page experience.
Common elements found in most traditional-style high converting landing pages include persuasive headline texts, ad copy that resonates with search intent, images/videos illustrating benefits, and white space limitations used intentionally with device-friendly visual designs maximizing convertibility rates.
In order to access everything detailed on the main topics, an external read-more link or text can be included, blocking up viewers long enough to figure out the next action.
As the internet becomes more mature and the sophistication of user devices is explored further, changes in technology have sparked new search engine optimization trends that also altered the traditional roles of seo friendly landing pages. Practitioners rapidly adopted click automation, analytics platforms, and delivery systems to employ the need for balance between process digitization and customer appeal.
Effectual responses to customers must be ubiquitous, offering swift personalization based on competitive conditions, with provided essentials running intricate interactivity through the fundamental structure of well-maintained, strong, dynamic menu-driven content. This approach not only improves the landing page experience but also enhances visibility in search engine results and strengthens ad positions, ultimately serving as the fruitful groundwork for impact and progress.
With advancements in digital technology, more consumers expect targeted and engaging experiences tailored to their individual preferences. Landing page design features such as interactive stories, personalized CTAs, and product recommendations based on user activity suggest optimized and intuitive navigation due to augmented intelligence processes.
Singing analytics are helping users produce detailed social marketing personas further improving scalability.
Such aspects are dramatically enlarging the end-consumer's scope for improvement as companies become genuinely customer-centric from handing out interruption banners or scripts insisting on a flash sale.
The emergence of innovative digital marketing trends and technologies has driven the evolution of landing pages. A notable advancement in this regard is conversational marketing, which utilizes artificial intelligence-driven chatbots to simulate human interactions with customers.
When used as part of an overarching acquisition strategy within web-based campaigns, chatbots can substantially improve user experiences by engaging visitors more effectively and authentically.
Moreover, good AI chatbot design allows companies to guide conversations successfully for conversion-driving outcomes that would otherwise be unattainable through generic website forms.
Landing pages have evolved beyond their traditional designs to keep up with new trends in technology and online marketing. As part of this evolution, social media platforms and messaging applications are integrated more heavily with these landing pages.
Now users can fill out forms easily on a simple web page responsible for collecting data such as account creations or product sales information, using their previously logged-in profiles from popular social networks like Facebook or Twitter.
Pre-chat interfaces for frequently asked customer questions via live chatbots (mesOTM) are also being incorporated in modern landing pages to establish leading user interactions.
Landing pages are still highly relevant in today's marketing realm. They retain their purpose to deliver a customized user experience distinct from general banners found elsewhere that tries to drive the reader towards conversions.
As businesses realize what’s effective for informing, intriguing, or even nudging prospects and customers down a purchase connection funnel- it necessitates will target content using responsible and tested engagement metrics.
Conversion optimization on landing pages has become increasingly important as an effective lead-generation asset. These pages not only enable the capture of quality leads, but also go even further and assess website engagement gains resulting from design changes, strategic content adaptation, and more.
Landing pages can host a multitude of advanced quantitative or qualitative metrics like page speed tests, split mobile testing campaigns, or CRM data to name a few.
Landing pages are integrated as a necessary component to track and measure the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns.
Those analytics give companies insights into user behavior, and ROI which can be used to constantly improve optimizations over time.
Campaign outcomes could range from viewing a page or repeated services/purchases. Specific platform analytics such as Google Analytics can advice on alterations.
The importance of landing pages has increased for organizations that seek to improve their online presence through search engine optimization (SEO) tactics.
Landing pages can play an influential role in garnering a website higher organic search rankings while being competent tools for managing, tracking, and monitoring customer traffic generated from relevant keywords.
Aside from delivering targeted leads to links featured on a business’ advertisements, using specific landing page content also helps companies rank far better than opponents found under related keywords.
The public's attention spans continue to decline in an increasingly digital and immersive age. As user impatience also grows, businesses must be more strategic and accommodating with their offerings. For landing pages to remain relevant, a balance between persuasion and anticipation for enhanced customer visits must exist — if this doesn't happen the likely result will reduce interest from online audiences.
Interactivity understanders prompt users to more creative engagement as they complete key action verbs along their pathway towards conversion rather than reading overwhelming or time-consuming walls of text.
Therefore, reducing user impatience by solving a hurdle for the ultimate "clickability" begs developers to give consideration when building funnels intended with conversion optimization in mind.
The role of apps and mobile-first interactions continues to grow in an interconnected online world.
Its decentralized architecture means that users are no longer reliant on individual landing pages with preset elements but rather move from one “service silo” to the next thanks to direct app-based communications via messaging applications, chatbot services, and other service architectures.
This leads to fragmentation which strips traditional roles from landing page functions such as awareness and conversion optimizations.
The Argument Against Landing Pages' Relevance includes changes that marketers are seeing as a result of immersing consumers within different platforms.
This notion is prominent in today's world where multimedia, especially videos, provide businesses to engage more audiences inducing deeper loyalty and trust.
Video-based content gives any prospective customer the overwhelming effect since it has more messages absorbed visually.
The fragmentation of modern online platforms and channels is often considered to be a significant reason for the purported decline in the relevance of landing pages.
In this day and age, we are more typically using specialized mobile apps directly aimed at certain platforms or services, as opposed to viewing content through websites that may contain multiple pages.
Also, customers' attention towards marketing material is fractured across various platforms and providers and such plays heavily into the usage frequency of rooted landing pages.
As online interactions become increasingly accessible, modern users demand smarter and more enjoyable user experiences.
Emergent advances in artificial intelligence (AI)and conversion rate optimization impact natural language processing and have forced Landing page creators to focus on emotional engagement that masks commercial agendas.
Such advancements bring successful conversational interfaces - with effective responses - tailored to provide user satisfaction.
To summarize, it is clear to see how landing pages have changed with the times over the past few decades in particular.
Technological advances and evolving user demands and preferences mean that engaging experiences must remain an integral medium within digital marketing efforts.
While there might, indeed, be some valid critiques on the relevance of employing typical web-based landing pages these days, these should not be taken as relegating them obsolete from modern online interaction and engagement courses.
Instead, they should be considered capable connectors on a dynamic-sized path - that adapts responsive actions based on customer cognition behavior. As it stands, targeted, adapted landing pages remain the ideal transition points when maneuvering customers for conversion within a dedicated user-defined site experience.
If your landing pages aren't working, get in touch. We can help!
In today’s digital landscape, content marketing plays a critical role in the success of any business. Despite its importance, however, there are many companies that are actually reluctant to invest in it or rely too much on luck when attempting to generate leads from their content marketing campaigns.
For that, the purpose of this article is to provide readers with an inside look at essential content marketing tips for achieving success and how they can plan ahead for long-term accomplishments rather than relying solely on chance outcomes. By letting us come with you in exploring these fundamental pillars, we hope that you'll gain the necessary knowledge needed so your investments turn out not only cost-effective but also altogether successful.
This is done by becoming informed users of what works best, specifically tailored towards each individual entity's unique circumstances—ensuring that your marketing campaign is built on relevant and valuable content rather than guesswork.
Luck is usually seen as an undeserved fortune that falls out of the sky temporarily allowing a person or organization to succeed beyond expectation.
However, luck in content marketing has become synonymous with waiting for something random to go viral without any practical action on the creator’s part; instead relying entirely upon chance and hoping that people will respond positively from their own free will towards organic engagement by mere coincidence.
SourceWith limited control over unpredictable outcomes, trying to get lucky may yield disappointing results or even reduce an organization's credibility in its target market.
Additionally, erroneously attributing success (or lack thereof) solely to luck eliminates any opportunity for learning from past experiences or improving a strategy going forward; insights that would benefit businesses immensely down the line.
Moreover, without proactive planning and execution of well-thought-out strategies – chances are really slim that ‘luck’ will result in long-term sustainable growth and true success within this highly competitive digital landscape.
Attempting to succeed without reliance on or understanding of industry standards leaves success up entirely to chance.
Moreover, a lack of preparedness for rapid changes within digital landscapes puts marketers at an even higher risk; relying solely on luck when planning out strategies means that abrupt shifts may take them completely by surprise—resulting in catastrophic consequences.
Understanding the target audience and their needs is key for building a successful content marketing strategy. Market research should be conducted to determine:
In order to tailor more meaningful experiences integrated with your brand’s mission or product offerings.
Additionally, interviews are also quite helpful when gathering testimonials from customers that help you gain insights into what resonates best with them as well as creating an emotional bond between audiences and products/ services marketed by companies.
Conducting thorough market research and competitor analysis is an essential strategy for achieving content marketing success. This actually involves researching the target audience, their needs and preferences, along with industry trends to ensure that all content created remains relevant for a long period of time.
Researching competitors enables one to identify what works (or does not work) in similar contexts which can help fine-tune various strategies of the firm.
Such insights also arm marketers with actionable data points on how they can differentiate themselves from the competition while offering valuable value propositions tailored to specific customer segments accordingly.
Setting clear and measurable goals is an essential element of any successful content marketing strategy. Goals should be tailored to the specific objectives of a particular campaign, helping marketers determine what they need to achieve in order to focus their efforts effectively.
The chosen goals must also be realistically achievable given available resources and time constraints – if targets are too lofty they can prove dispiriting for team members responsible for attaining them.
Establishing milestones along the way provides consistent motivation without creating an overwhelming sense of pressure or overly ambitious expectations that cannot reasonably be met within set parameters.
Data should be used to track interactions, identify popular topics or elements of a post that lead to high-engagement rates, compare performance across channels, determine peak times for publishing new material etc.
Using this information can surely help marketers tailor their offerings accordingly - avoiding flops while responding quickly when something performs unexpectedly well in order to capitalize on it as soon as possible.
Keyword research helps to identify the topics, phrases, or questions users are searching for when looking up a certain product or service in order to create relevant posts that get large amounts of organic traffic from search engines.
Additionally, proper use of on-page SEO ensures sufficient indexing by including high quality backlinks (which should come from reputable websites), internal linking between pages within the website/blog space; optimizing meta titles and description tags; implementing rich snippet schema markup, etc., so as to further boost visibility across digital platforms.
Tailoring content to align with audience preferences and trends is a necessary step in crafting a data-driven content strategy. Why?
Marketers must stay up to date on the latest consumer insights, industry developments, and emerging technologies that influence the digital behaviors of their target market.
Utilizing this information allows them to craft timely yet relevant messaging that resonates better with users for engagement purposes.
Additionally, marketers should analyze past performance metrics generated from prior campaigns or activities across various channels.
Such as website visits, bounce rate, etc., to understand user behavior even more accurately so they can adjust their future strategies accordingly. This helps optimize marketing efforts while ensuring maximum efficiency when delivering value through tailored messages.
Developing a unique brand voice and storytelling approach is essential for content success. An appropriate tone should be established in accordance with the values of the business , while conveying messages clearly among target audiences.
This is one of the areas where user generated content can shine. Storytelling can help to strengthen emotions involved in these interactions by vividly expressing ideas that resonate with users on an emotional level.
Providing useful and relevant information to stakeholders is the backbone of successful content marketing.
It requires a deep understanding of the target audience's needs, preferences, and habits to create comprehensive solutions that address their problems or improve some aspects of their lives.
As such, one must dedicate time for thorough research before diving into producing any type of content material as it will help optimize resources used while increasing traffic engagement with potential customers better than mediocre output pieces ever could.
Incorporating visual elements and multimedia into content can help maximize engagement with target audiences. Images, videos, podcasts, and other media can make articles more visually appealing while aiding in the comprehension of complex topics.
Studies have shown that consumers are drawn to visuals such as infographics or interactive maps since they’re simpler to digest than large amounts of text alone; thus creating greater opportunities for brand discovery across different channels.
By combining compelling visuals with written content, brands create an effective multi-dimensional customer experience that increases user attention span and encourages further exploration within a given topic area.
Creating a content marketing strategy that seriously stands out from the competition requires consistent publishing and to ensure content is regularly reaching your target audience, it is important to establish a consistent publishing schedule.
You heard us right! This means releasing content at specific intervals, such as daily, weekly, or monthly. Doing so will help build a loyal following and keep your readers engaged.
Maintaining quality standards and avoiding shortcuts are essential for successful content creation this is because quality content should be well researched, informative, and engaging. Shortcuts such as plagiarism, spinning, and keyword stuffing should be avoided at all costs as they can damage a brand's reputation and lead to lower engagement.
Consistency and persistence are also key to content creation success- it should be published on a consistent schedule, and quality should remain consistent throughout.
Quality content can be time-consuming to create, but the effort and resources put into creating content will surely pay off in the long run.
SourceThrough utilizing social media platforms and influencers, brands can extend reach, increase visibility, and generate engagement with their target audiences.
What is ultimately great about this technique is that it involves leveraging social media channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube or TikTok which is obviously popular right and very accessible right now, to create and share content, as well as connect with influencers who have a large and engaged following.
By integrating these strategies into their content marketing efforts, brands can gain more exposure and drive better results.
This is indeed an essential element of successful content marketing- thinking about it and applying actions through tracking KPIs such as website visits, conversions, and social media engagement, marketers can gain valuable insights into their content’s performance and identify areas for improvement.
Additionally, analytics surely provide data-driven insights into user behavior and preferences, which can inform content strategies and help marketers create more effective content. Alongside this, by consistently monitoring and analyzing KPIs and analytics, marketers can ensure that their content is reaching the right people at the right time.
How can we forget about analyzing user feedback? In every aspect of business, we can never undermine the importance of feedback as this can involve reviewing comments, reviews, and ratings from customers and other users.
It is important to take the time to understand the comments, because it can provide valuable insights into how the content is being received.
By understanding the feedback, content creators can adjust their strategies accordingly, such as changing the tone, format, or structure of the content.
They can use the feedback to create more relevant content that is tailored to the needs and preferences of the target audience.
Truly, content marketing is an essential component of a successful digital strategy and it requires a proactive approach to achieve success- by thoroughly understanding their target audience, conducting market research, setting clear goals, and leveraging data analytics, marketers can create a data-driven content strategy to craft valuable and engaging content.
As a matter of fact. it is always important to remember that luck has a limited role in content marketing success - relying solely on it carries considerable risks and challenges as it is unpredictable and uncontrollable.
Therefore, it is important for marketers to adopt a strategic mindset and focus on the strategies outlined in the article to achieve their desired goals- by proactively planning and executing these strategies, marketers can create a strong foundation for success in their content marketing endeavors.
Does your lead generation strategy need some more “oomph?” Blogging might just be your secret weapon. Not only will it keep your website fresh, but it can make Google happy, impress your market, and turn casual browsers into committed paying customers. Now, before you start generating leads, you’ll need to have an email marketing system set up to capture email addresses.
Let’s explore how blogging can fuel your lead generation tactics and work 24/7 on your behalf.
Articles you publish are like a magnet – except they attract potential customers, not rusty nails. Publishing fresh, new content to your blog periodically gives Google something new to look at, which can improve your rankings in the search results.
According to the data, websites with blogs get 55% more traffic than websites without a blog; you can’t afford to miss out on that extra traffic.
Traffic is nice, but we’re talking about generating leads here, right? Traffic is just the first step in acquiring leads through your blog. Once your content begins to show up in search results, you’ll have traffic, but there’s no guarantee they’ll convert. That’s where additional digital marketing strategies come into play.
Turning traffic into leads is done by:
· Writing convincing copy.
· Keeping people on the page.
· Keeping your web pages distraction-free.
· Having a good offer (usually this is a lead magnet).
· Making sure your offer matches your market’s needs.
· Having a compelling CTA.
· Capturing exiting traffic through pop-ups.
Let’s explore each of these components in-depth.
Once you have someone on your website reading your blog, you’ll need persuasive copy to convert them to an official lead. This includes using compelling headlines, outlining clear benefits for whatever it is you’re selling or giving away, and a directive telling them what to do next (also known as a call-to-action CTA).
If your blog article happens to be about something more general, and isn’t a direct sales pitch, you can insert your persuasive copy with a CTA at the end of your blog. In fact, this is good practice to do with every blog post you write.
It’s easier to get conversions when you’re pulling in targeted traffic, but people still tend to bounce fast if they don’t like what they see in the first few seconds. This is where interactive content can be helpful, if it’s relevant to your niche.
Quizzes, calculators, and niche-related assessments can be a great way to keep people engaged, and get them to sign up for your email list. People love getting personalized results from quizzes.
If interactive copy doesn’t work for your niche, you’ll need to rely on compelling headlines and possibly images or video to capture attention.
Leads convert better without distractions, so make sure your blog blends into your website seamlessly. Don’t make it fancy with elements all over the place. Keep it simple and direct the focus to your email capture form.
Originally, blogs had sidebars and looked somewhat like a newspaper, with a bunch of stories laid out all over the place. Unless you’re publishing an actual news blog, keep your design as simple as possible. Sidebars are good for desktop users, but on mobile, they just get in the way since they’re displayed in-line.
A lead magnet is something you offer in exchange for a visitor’s email address, and it needs to be good to work. People are inundated with emails and the last thing they want is to sign up for yet another list – unless you have something irresistible to give them.
A typical lead magnet is a PDF file, like an ebook, cheat sheet, white paper, or guide. Other effective lead magnets include links to watch a webinar, or a generous discount.
Lead magnets work because people love free stuff – especially if it solves a big problem or gives them insight into something they care about. However, it only works when the offer is aligned with your market’s interests. For example, if you’re a fitness coach, a “Meal Prepping for Busy Professionals” guide could be your golden ticket.
Don’t guess at what your market wants. Conduct market research to find out what your market’s pain points are, and use that information to create an irresistible offer that solves their pain.
A good CTA will gently nudge your visitors into taking the action you want them to take – like signing up for your email list. Make your CTAs action-oriented and benefit-driven, such as “Get Instant Access” or “Claim Your Spot Now.” Don’t forget to tell people what to do. The average visitor won’t take action unless prompted.
Place CTAs at various points throughout your high quality content. The best places are at the end of your blog posts, in pop-ups, and sometimes they work great in the middle of popular or long posts.
Exit-intent pop-ups are the best thing since sliced bread. This is a type of pop-up that appears when a user moves their mouse off the page, as if they’re about to close the browser window or tab.
Just because someone decides to leave your page doesn’t mean they can’t be converted. For instance, using an exit-intent pop-up can convert an extra 2%-4% of visitors and boost revenue by 30%.
Every time you publish an article on your blog, it’s like sending a love letter to Google, but without the awkwardness. The more posts you have, the more pages Google can index, which increases your chances of being found in the search engines. Statistics show that regular blogging can generate 434% more indexed pages in search engines.
While not every web page you publish will rank high, the best ones will generate traffic and bring you some qualified leads. The key is to start slow and keep a steady pace. Don’t publish 30 blogs in 30 days if you don’t plan on maintaining that flow. There is no exact number of articles you should publish in a set amount of time, but it’s generally advised to publish at least a couple every month.
SEO isn’t as straightforward as it used to be, now that Google uses more than 200 different ranking signals and nobody knows exactly how the algorithm works. However, there are several things you can do without having to hire a professional SEO agency.
Start by making sure your entire website is optimized with the basics of technical SEO, and then focus on writing valuable content. You can use keyword research tools, like Ahrefs or Semrush to find ideal keywords and phrases related to your niche, and then write your articles around those terms while keeping the focus on providing value.
Guest posting – a form of content marketing strategy– is a great way of generating high quality leads, but not all sites are created equal. To make it an effective lead generating strategy, you only want to guest post for websites that are in your niche. To get relevant traffic, you need to share a market with the site where your guest posts are published. Your ideal and valuable leads are people who are already interested in what you offer.
The fastest way to start guest posting is to look for blogs in your niche that accept guest posts. However, avoid sites that require payment because this can get you in trouble with Google. The best partnerships are ones that are mutually beneficial. Meaning, you’ll provide a quality article for the publisher’s target audience and in exchange, they’ll let you promote your products and services.
Everyone has a business or individual they consider a trusted authority on important topics. If you want people to think of your brand as an authority, blogging can help you earn that expert reputation in your niche.
Being a trusted brand in your niche can help you get not only leads, but immediate sales. In fact, 56% of people say they’ve bought something from a company after reading a blog post.
Building authority and trust with your audience is the cornerstone of successful blogging. Generally speaking, authority is earned by demonstrating expertise and knowledge, while trust is cultivated through consistency, transparency, and genuine connection. Here’s how to master both when you blog:
· Publish high-quality, well-researched, in-depth content. Readers trust blogs that cite their sources while delivering actionable and insightful content. The deeper you go, the more your expertise will shine.
· Highlight your credentials. If you have degrees, certifications, or if you’ve won awards in your industry, make sure your readers know. You can place your qualifications and accomplishments in the “about” section of your website, or in your author bio that shows up with each blog post.
· Write posts that address common problems or questions in your niche. Use credible sources when backing your claims, and try to include real-world examples from your own experience when possible.
· Post consistently. Reliability fosters trust. When readers can count on you to post regular content, they’ll be more likely to view you as an authority.
· Take a stand. Controversy tends to divide people, but that’s a positive thing when it comes to the lead generation process. When you take a stand on controversial topics relevant to your industry, you will divide people. However, the people who agree with you will become fiercely loyal, as opposed to your audience just being moderately interested. Your loyal fans will spend more money with you and bring more leads your way.
· Engage with your audience. When you interact with your audience, they feel heard and understood, and it shows them that you’re genuine. Respond to emails and social media posts when possible, especially when people have questions, concerns, or complaints. Doing this can actually help drive social media conversions.
You already know you’re an expert in your field; you just have to earn that reputation with your market. When your blogs effectively showcase your expertise, they help capture leads and turn them into qualified prospects.
When you deliver consistent, high-quality, valuable content through your blog, you build a relationship with your leads that makes them want to stick around for more. Although it’s not as direct as email marketing, it still works. Companies that nurture their leads generate 50% more sales.
Blogging allows you to nurture leads at every stage in the customer journey, even before they sign up for your email list. Some people read blogs for months or years before signing up. Don’t skip this valuable component.
Blogging can work some serious magic for your business if you give it a try. With benefits like increased traffic, better SEO, and more trust, it would be a shame to ignore this worthwhile strategy. Blogging isn’t just a trend – it’s one of the best lead generation strategies around. So get those words flowing and watch your leads grow faster than your to-do list on a Monday morning.
Are you struggling to turn your website visitors into quality B2b leads? If you feel like your lead generation ideas have hit a plateau, our lead gen experts are here to help. From creating winning strategies to publishing effective lead-capturing content, we’d love to work with you.
Contact us today for a free consultation to learn more about how we can help you turn traffic into qualified leads.
You don't build successful, intimate, beautiful relationships overnight.
Instead, you build them over the course of hundreds, if not thousands of little interactions that eventually aggregate into a fuller picture of the relationship as a whole.
Similarly, although it's possible for businesses to immediately persuade and win the business of certain target customers, it's much more effective for those businesses to build more familiar, warmer, deeper connections with their customers over the course of several interactions.
This is, essentially, the idea behind lead nurturing.
But what exactly does it mean to nurture leads?
Why is it so important?
And how can you get the most out of lead nurturing for your business?
You’re probably familiar with the basics of lead generation.
Basically, it's the process of generating new interest in your products or services. We use a ton of tactics for lead generation, including cold calling, cold emailing, social media, content marketing, and much, much more. If you're like most businesses in the modern era, you're doing something similar.
But what do you do with those leads once you generate them?
Unfortunately, many businesses have a simplistic, black and white approach. They reach out to leads or otherwise get them to a website, hope that each lead makes a purchase, and then discard any leads that don't successfully convert.
On some level, it's easy to see why this is the impulse. After all, if someone is interested in buying from you, why would you keep bugging them?
But the reality is much more complex. A person may have any number of reasons for not buying from you. Maybe it's not the right time. Maybe they don't have the money. Maybe they're on the fence between you and a competitor. Maybe they simply forgot to finalize the transaction. Maybe they're not familiar enough with your brand and they want to get to know you better before they follow through.
The solution to all of these “maybes” is lead nurturing, the ongoing process of communicating with and connecting to people with a relatively high likelihood of successfully becoming your customers.
As we'll see, lead nurturing can take many forms, but it's always focused on intermittently and consistently reaching out to leads, including those who have converted and those who have not. The end goal is to get these people more familiar and acquainted with your brand, motivate them to take the next step through the sales funnel, and ultimately guide them to conversion.
We've seen a number of successful lead nurturing campaigns that have multiplied conversions many times over. It's a simple additional measure that can make your lead generation efforts much more beneficial.
When done successfully, it can help you with:
· Keeping the sales funnel moving. The sales funnel isn't some stagnant, unmoving entity. It's a series of ever-moving processes. If you want to keep your sales funnel moving, you'll need to continuously reignite the momentum of your leads and push leads who haven't acted or converted to either take action or remove themselves from your funnel. Without lead nurturing, this momentum can quickly subside.
· Increasing the value of each lead. When executed properly, lead nurturing can help you increase the average value of each lead in your pipeline. Instead of simply dropping off the map, each lead has practically countless opportunities for engaging with your brand and buying from it. If you can recapture even a portion of leads who didn't convert initially, you can greatly increase the overall payoff of your lead generation strategy.
· Improving brand visibility and reputation. Even if your lead nurturing strategy doesn't result in many conversions directly, it can benefit your organization by improving your brand visibility and reputation. Each interaction with your leads and customers has the potential to make your brand more recognizable, more trusted, and more likely to be recommended to others. This is especially true if your content and messaging are on point.
· Gathering more data. One underrated benefit of lead nurturing is its ability to provide you with more data on your customers. By consistently interacting with your leads and paying attention to how they engage with your brand, you can learn more about what they value, how they feel about your brand, and how best to appeal to them. Just be aware that this benefit only exists if you're taking appropriate measurements and acting on your new insights.
There are many different approaches you can take to lead nurturing.
These are some of the most common channels and tactics to use:
· Drip email campaigns. One of the most common methods of lead nurturing is using a drip email campaign. It's inexpensive, it's capable of being automated, and it can be highly personalized and customized so that it's more relevant for each individual customer. Even if you plan on using other channels, you can use this as the backbone of your lead nurturing campaign.
· Email segmentation and personalization. In line with this, you should also take advantage of email segmentation and personalization. Lead nurturing is much more powerful when it reaches people on an individual level with unique, highly relevant messaging. Every time we've made the effort to segment lists and personalized messages, we've been happy with the results.
· Remarketing/retargeting. Remarketing and retargeting are essentially strategies designed to advertised directly to people who have already interacted with your brand in some way. For example, you might remind a customer that they have products in a cart on your website. It's a highly effective way to stay top of mind.
· Social media marketing. You already know that social media is a powerful channel for marketing and sales, but it’s also important for lead nurturing. It's one of the easiest and least expensive ways to interact with your customers directly.
· Phone calls. Depending on the nature of your business, it may also make sense to follow up with your leads via phone call. Even if your lead isn't picking up, they may be listening to your voicemails – and they may pick up in the future.
· Content marketing. You can also use a host of content marketing strategies to bolster your lead nurturing campaign. Hosting webinars, distributing white papers, and sending out educational materials can all help you demonstrate your expertise and authority while simultaneously keeping your leads better acquainted with your brand.
You can also devise different types of lead nurturing campaigns, and use several of them in conjunction with each other to get the best possible results.
· The welcome series. A common approach is to welcome new people to your brand community with a series of emails, phone calls, or other interactions designed to make them more familiar with your business. You can teach them how to use your app or website, give them helpful tip sheets for how to get started, explain the details of your products or services, or simply tell them what your brand is all about. It's a great way to build familiarity and trust.
· Reengagement campaigns. Reengagement campaigns are more focused on interacting with leads who have already interacted with your brand in a substantial way, but who have not become full-fledged customers. For example, they may have had ongoing conversations with salespeople or put products in their cart, without ever finishing a full transaction. These nurturing messages can focus on reigniting the initial spark, sending out reminders, or introducing people to new possibilities they haven't considered.
· Deep dives and information. Some brands focus on doing deep dives and sending out more information on products, services, or various problems their brand is trying to solve. For example, if you own a company that sells emergency supplies, you might have a campaign focused on distributing information related to survival or stockpiling.
· The omnichannel approach. The omnichannel approach is a bit less focused, but potentially more powerful, since it allows you to take advantage of practically every communication channel simultaneously. Rather than committing to a single, linear path of communication, you can keep your brand at top of mind regardless of where your leads interact on a regular basis.
· Promotional campaigns. You may also practice lead nurturing through promotional campaigns. Offering sales, discounts, and other specials can catch the eye of people who have considered your brand in the past without moving forward.
How do you create a successful lead nurturing strategy?
· Acquire (and use) the right tools. We found lead nurturing much easier once we started using the right tools. Finding and tracking your leads effectively, automating communications, and appropriately measuring and analyzing your results are all critical for success.
· Get to know your target audience. You also need to be intimately familiar with your target audience. If you don't know who your customers are, what they value, or what types of messages are relevant to them, none of your lead nurturing strategies are going to pay off. Do a deep dive on market research before you begin structuring anything in your lead nurturing arsenal.
· Document your customer journey. You also need to thoroughly understand your unique customer journey. What does the average person go through when they consider products and services like yours? What do they think about? What major obstacles do they encounter? What keeps them moving through the sales funnel and how do you exploit that?
· Account for all available channels. You don't need to use every communication channel in your strategy, but you're doing yourself a disservice if you write any of them off immediately. Thoughtfully consider all available communication channels as part of your lead generation efforts. These could include Linkedin, Facebook and other social media channels.
· Create compelling content. Compelling content can make lead nurturing much more effective. What qualifies as compelling changes slightly from industry to industry, but the hallmarks are always the same. Your content needs to be relevant, original, well-researched, and focused if you want it to make an impact.
· Score your leads. Different leads have different value to your organization, so make sure you use a consistent, objective scoring system. This way, you can focus on your most valuable leads and filter out irrelevant parties from your lead nurturing system.
· Automate everything you can. Lead nurturing is all about consistency and repetition, so it's practically impossible to execute manually, especially at scale. Don't be afraid to harness the power of automation to make your lead nurturing strategy work.
· Measure your results. Always objectively measure your results. Are people persuaded or at least entertained by your content? How many of your leads are you able to recover?
· Experiment and improve. Finally, be willing to experiment and apply new insights from those experiments. If you change the angle of your messaging, do your leads respond more favorably? If you employ a different communication channel, do you get better overall results?
You can also use these extra tips for success:
· Nail the timing. If you reach out to your leads too frequently, they could become annoyed at your presence and unsubscribe from your mailing lists. If you reach out too infrequently, they may totally forget about you. We've tried a variety of different timing strategies over the years, and we can confidently say there is no universal standard here. Nailing the timing requires you to deeply understand your target audience and cater to their wants and needs.
· Stay relevant. All your messaging needs to be specifically relevant, or else it's going to be lost in the white noise of our ever-buzzing digital world. Don't spam your customers or give them things they don't care about.
· Keep your brand visible and top of mind. Lead nurturing only works if it connects to your brand in some way, so always keep your brand visible and top of mind. You don't need a call to action or a sales pitch in every communication with your customers, but they should be aware that it's you doing the outreach.
· Personalize as much as possible. People don't appreciate being mass messaged. They may find some of your materials valuable even if they aren't fully personalized, but the more you can reach your audience at the individual level, the better. Personalize and individualize everything you can in your lead nurturing campaign.
· Start small and scale up. In lead nurturing, you should generally start small and scale up. Don't bombard your leads with sales pitches or information right away; instead, pace out your outreach and only scale up when it's appropriate to do so. Not only will this minimize the risk of turning away valuable leads, but this will also keep your investment to a minimum as you figure out the ropes of lead nurturing and improve your process.
· Give before asking. Finally, try to give before asking anything of your leads. Instead of immediately asking your leads to buy your products and services, give them something for free, such as a piece of premium content. The more you give, the more your leads will trust you – and the more likely they’ll be to buy from you when you finally make the ask.
Unfortunately, lead nurturing isn't always straightforward. Every business is unique, and so are their target customers. On top of that, the landscape of marketing and advertising is constantly in flux due to new technologies and changing consumer preferences.
Everything gets much easier when you work with an experienced marketing firm who has worked with hundreds of brands to perfect the art of lead generation. With a team of skilled experts to help you analyze your options, you can identify the right opportunities, perfect your messaging, and ultimately make a bigger profit.
If you’re ready to get started, contact us today!
LinkedIn has become one of the most powerful platforms for B2B lead generation. It’s where professionals go to network, share insights, and search for solutions to their business problems. With the right strategies, you can use LinkedIn to connect with decision-makers, showcase your expertise, and generate quality leads for your business.
If you’re looking to transform LinkedIn into your go-to platform for lead generation, here’s a step-by-step guide to help you get started.
Your LinkedIn profile is your digital storefront. It’s almost always the first impression potential leads will have of you, so it needs to be polished, professional, and value-driven.
Start with a professional headshot that conveys confidence and approachability. This should be a simple, distraction-free picture of you. Don’t use a picture of you at the most recent wedding you attended – cropping out the person next to you. And don’t choose a photo that’s five or ten years old. It should be a professional headshot taken within the past 18 months.
Next, craft a compelling headline that goes beyond your job title. Highlight what you do and how you help others. For example, instead of “CEO at XYZ Solutions,” write something like, “Helping SMBs Streamline Operations Through Custom Software Solutions.” The more specific and niche-focused your headline is, the better.
Your About section is prime real estate for showcasing your expertise and value proposition. Use it to tell your story, highlight your achievements, and make it clear how you can solve problems for your target audience. Include keywords relevant to your industry to boost your visibility in LinkedIn searches.
LinkedIn is all about connections, but it’s not just a numbers game. The quality of your network matters more than the quantity. Focus on connecting with individuals who fit your ideal customer profile, including decision-makers, influencers, and other key stakeholders in your target industries. (Thankfully, LinkedIn makes it easy to sort and filter when searching for connections.)
When sending connection requests, personalize your message. Mention why you’re reaching out or reference a common interest, group, or piece of content they’ve shared. This small effort can significantly increase your chances of a successful connection.
As your network grows, regularly engage with your connections by liking, commenting on, or sharing their posts. This keeps you on their radar and helps build relationships over time.
LinkedIn Groups are an underrated but highly effective way to connect with your target audience. By joining groups relevant to your industry or niche, you can engage in conversations, share insights, and position yourself as an expert in your field.
Focus on being helpful and providing value. Answer questions, share useful content, and avoid coming across as overly promotional. Over time, this builds trust and opens the door for potential leads to reach out to you directly.
You can also create your own LinkedIn Group tailored to your niche. Invite professionals who fit your target demographic and foster discussions around industry trends, challenges, and solutions. As the group’s moderator, you’ll be in a prime position to build relationships and generate leads.
Consistent, high-quality content is one of the best ways to attract and engage your audience on LinkedIn. When sharing posts, articles, and updates that provide genuine value, you can showcase your expertise, which keeps your brand top of mind.
Creating high quality content is probably the number one thing people struggle with and ask about (when it comes to winning with LinkedIn). With this in mind, here’s how to create content that resonates:
When creating content, always encourage engagement. You can do this by asking questions, inviting opinions, or creating polls. The more interactive your content, the more likely it is to generate meaningful conversations that lead to business opportunities.
LinkedIn’s Advanced Search feature is a powerful tool for finding potential leads. You can filter results by location, industry, company size, job title, and more to pinpoint exactly who you want to reach.
Once you’ve identified potential leads, take the time to research their profiles. Look for commonalities, such as shared connections or mutual interests, that you can mention in your outreach. Personalized messages are far more likely to get a response than generic ones.
Consider saving your searches to revisit them regularly and identify new leads as they join LinkedIn or update their profiles.
If you’re serious about B2B lead generation, investing in LinkedIn Sales Navigator can be a game-changer. This premium tool offers advanced search filters, lead recommendations, and insights into your prospects’ activities, allowing you to create more targeted and effective outreach campaigns.
Sales Navigator also lets you save leads and accounts, track their updates, and get alerts when they post new content or change roles. This helps you stay informed and reach out at the right time with a relevant message.
Cold outreach on LinkedIn can work, but only if it’s done thoughtfully. Generic, copy-paste messages will likely end up ignored or deleted. Instead, craft personalized messages that show you’ve taken the time to understand your prospect’s needs.
Start by referencing something specific from their profile, such as a recent post, shared connection, or career milestone. Clearly explain why you’re reaching out and how you can add value.
For example: “Hi [Name], I noticed your post about [topic] and found it really insightful. I work with companies like yours to [solve a specific problem or achieve a specific goal]. Would you be open to a quick call to discuss how we might collaborate?”
Keep your messages short, professional, and focused on building a relationship rather than making an immediate sale.
If you have a budget for paid advertising, LinkedIn Ads can be an excellent way to generate high-quality B2B leads. The platform’s advanced targeting capabilities allow you to reach specific audiences based on factors like job title, company size, industry, and location.
Some of the most effective LinkedIn ad formats for lead generation include:
Experiment with different ad types and track your performance metrics to refine your campaigns over time.
Like any marketing effort, success on LinkedIn requires ongoing analysis and adjustment. Use LinkedIn’s analytics tools to track key metrics, such as profile views, post engagement, and connection requests.
Pay attention to which types of content, outreach strategies, and campaigns generate the most leads, and double down on what works. Don’t be afraid to experiment with new approaches or pivot if something isn’t delivering results.
LinkedIn is a powerful starting point for lead generation, but it’s only the beginning. Once you’ve established a connection, move the relationship forward by scheduling calls, meetings, or in-person events.
Focus on building genuine relationships and providing value at every stage of the process. Whether it’s sharing insights, offering free resources, or connecting them with others in your network, these small gestures can go a long way in turning a prospect into a loyal client.
In order to build a successful brand in the 2020s, you need a cohesive, far-reaching digital strategy that puts you in front of the right people in the right places at the right times. At Marketer.co, we exist for the purpose of helping individuals and businesses create and implement marketing strategies that get results. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help!
Introducing effective strategies for optimizing sales and marketing alignment has indeed become increasingly important as businesses face challenges posed by global competition, changing customer behavior, and new technology.
Content is an essential factor in helping to foster collaboration between both functions which can actually result in more efficient processes, enhanced product visibility, and increased leads – ultimately driving better sharable results among teams that support each other’s goals.
In this article, we will discuss seven content-related approaches to bring closer together two departments whose goals should be aligned: Sales & Marketing.
Through meticulous cooperation efforts such as creating buyer personas collaboratively or developing a shared content calendar side by side; co-creating with sales team members valuable pieces of enablement assets ready to use during negotiations etc; leveraging powerful customer feedback stories along with joint assessment sessions – enabling metrics tracking for ongoing deep understanding on how exactly far your invested efforts just taking you.
All these constitute crucial aspects of a successful partnership that needed to aim for maximum success rate while building a strong relationship foundation style.
Creating buyer personas collaboratively is a key content strategy for enhancing sales and marketing alignment.
When both teams understand the desired customer, they become better equipped to meet their needs across collective campaigns. Jointly creating buyer personas also fosters dialogue that can reveal unique insights into how buyers interact with different channels or messaging styles.
By providing everyone on your team with an understanding of who you’re targeting, this shared insight enables them to focus their strategies more accurately while avoiding costly misfires caused by confusion among disparate tactics used by each department in isolation from one another.
Joint buyer persona workshops are an effective way for sales and marketing departments to gain a better understanding of the target audience. These collaborative sessions involve representatives from both departments gathering customer data, researching markets, analyzing competitive landscapes, and sharing insights to create more holistic picture of ideal prospects.
This greater collective awareness helps inform content creation strategies that capture attention with relevant messaging tailored specifically to desired audiences, resulting in improved response rates and positioning overall lead generation efforts on strong footing.
Creating buyer personas collaboratively is an important content strategy for enhancing sales and marketing functions. Developing a shared understanding of target customers helps to ensure that both teams are speaking the same language and have a common point of reference when creating content or conducting campaigns.
Joint persona-building workshops can be very effective in gathering collective intelligence from sales, marketing, product development, customer service personnel, and other stakeholders who interact with prospects regularly.
The insights gained through these workshops will help inform subsequent decision-making regarding message framing techniques as well as overall editorial direction for various types of content intended for different market segments so it’s tailored appropriately by type while staying aligned thematically across channels.
Having a unified content calendar is essential for achieving alignment between sales and marketing teams. A shared schedule makes it easy to ensure that all stakeholders are consistently aligned on the team's goals, messaging, and planned activities.
It also helps with coordinating efforts across multiple channels; since everyone can see what’s coming up from week to week or month to month at any given time, they can structure campaigns around each other instead of working in isolation.
By providing clear visibility into upcoming events such as product launches or promotions, this tool becomes an invaluable resource toward ensuring that everything runs smoothly – both internally among departments and externally among customers.
Creating a shared content calendar is an effective strategy for enhancing sales and marketing alignment. Collaborative planning allows both departments to work together in aligning the themes, objectives, topics of discussion, and timescale that should be considered when scheduling content.
This helps ensure all stakeholders are on board with upcoming activities as well as compatible expectations regarding their engagement or involvement within specific subject matters related to the company's products/services being promoted via digital channels such as email campaigns or social media platforms.
Scheduling also promotes transparency among creative teams so they can better assess what fits into overall timelines while minimizing any potential conflicts between conflicting rosters due to delays, changes in scope etc., helping guarantee smooth releases at consistent intervals without sacrificing quality near deadlines.
Through collaborative planning, the two teams can identify unified themes across different types of content assets (blogs, videos, webinars etc.) as well as align overall messaging to ensure consistency throughout campaigns.
This helps combine their efforts towards achieving common objectives while ensuring that every piece of created materials reflects the brand’s positioning in the minds of customers.
Furthermore, using project management tools like Trello or Asana supports both parties with efficient workflow execution by providing visibility into each other's progress at any given time along with task assignments and deadline reminders.
Co-creating content with sales teams is a great way to ensure that marketing and sales are aligned. By working together, both departments can improve the accuracy of their messaging and generate ideas for more effective campaigns.
Collaborative ideation sessions involve marketers listening proactively to what the sales team needs in terms of specific topics or angles they think might be successful so that detailed content creation plans can be developed from this joint dialogue.
The result will typically yield better idea execution as each party brings unique perspectives grounded on what works best in their respective fields which leads up to creating tailored buyer experiences overall.
Co-creating content with sales teams entails providing input from both the marketing and sales departments to develop crucial materials such as website copy, product literature, blog posts or even videos.
Incorporating real-world insights collected by experienced customer service representatives can bring significant added value to this process - helping ensure that critical topics relevant to prospects are addressed within a given message.
Sales teams should be encouraged in their efforts of gathering valuable intel on key obstacles during client interactions before creating buyer personas collaboratively together with marketers — to better indicate which elements contribute most prominently towards conversion success.
Doing so will allow them all to devise more informed content plans while tapping into much-needed resources already known at individual accounts or prospect levels.
Aligning content with sales objectives involves collaborating between marketing and sales teams on developing targeted assets for achieving desired results.
This process starts by understanding the needs, challenges, goals, strategies and current messaging of the sales force to develop relevant content that appeals across different buyer personas.
Marketing can help provide creative ideas based on customer research while leveraging insights from top-performing reps to hone in on what resonates best with prospects.
Joint sessions involving both departments are necessary so all stakeholders agree upon how well specific pieces support proactive outreach efforts such as cold prospecting or client nurturing campaigns.
With strong alignment between these groups around opportunities created through aligning purposeful types of narratives according to their stage in pipeline flow; capture a higher ROI – yielding better outcomes!
Providing sales enablement content is an essential part of fostering alignment between marketing and sales teams. The goal should be to develop targeted assets that support the objectives of both departments, but it begins with understanding the needs and challenges facing your sales reps in their everyday workflows. Establishing a dialogue with front-line personnel allows you to identify common themes or obstacles they face when presenting products or services to prospects and customers alike.
This enables marketers to create appropriate solutions like educational resources, comparison materials, PowerPoint presentations etc., which can give even more guidance on how best to navigate challenging conversations while helping build an airtight customer case for any solution being offered by your business.
Sales enablement may not just be for internal teams, but could effectively apply to your outside resellers as well.
Sales teams need relevant and valuable content assets to help them sell more effectively. This content isn't garbage user generated fluff.
Content creation for sales enablement should involve collaboration between marketing and sales, targeting specific buyer needs by understanding the common pain points faced in their roles or industries.
Developing these sale-centric content assets involves researching industry trends as well as customer challenges that can be addressed through deep-dive blog posts, infographics, email templates on outreach strategies, webinar slideshows about product features, or detailed whitepapers sharing research findings etc.
These materials must not just increase engagement but also provide actionable insights enabling eventual conversion into paying customers.
Such a unified approach will strengthen the sales pitching process acquiring confidence while standing out from competitors due to the differentiation of messaging.
Providing ongoing training and support is a key element of content-driven sales enablement. Sales teams need up-to-date information on products, services, customers, competitors and regulatory considerations to drive successful selling outcomes.
Marketers must continually refresh their library of digital resources to offer continual guidance for the sales team in response to these changes over time; this can often be achieved through webinars or online courses tailored around specific industries or market segments that are updated regularly each month.
New hire onboarding programs should also incorporate comprehensive sales materials developed by both marketing and/or product teams so everyone has access at all times — even when experienced personnel move onto new roles within an organization.
Customer success stories can be a powerful tool for providing evidence of value, acquiring new customers, and generating repeat business. Leveraging customer testimonials and case studies creates demonstrable proof points that are effective at addressing objections during the sales process.
Sharing these accounts with both the marketing team as well as sales provides consistency in messaging across channels and departments while building credibility amongst prospects through positive experiences shared by existing buyers of your product or service.
Product and service successes can be effectively communicated to a larger customer base through the sharing of stories with prospects. To ensure alignment between sales and marketing, it is important for sales teams to take part in the storytelling process around engaging customer success stories.
It allows them not only to influence content creation but also to benefit from promotional efforts by leveraging these testimonials or real-life case studies during meetings with potential customers thereby providing more value instead of hard selling tactics.
Sharing customer success stories is a powerful way to illustrate the value of your product or service while addressing common objections. Leveraging testimonials and case studies helps put potential customers at ease, providing assurance that they can trust what you are offering them.
It also serves as evidence for sales teams faced with tough questions from prospects - if someone else was able to turn their ROI problems into real results, then so too can this prospect do it in time!
Sharing these authentic accounts assists both marketing and sales by enabling more effective conversations across multiple channels throughout the funnel.
In conclusion, a content strategy that effectively aligns sales and marketing teams is fundamental for successful organizations. A collaborative effort requiring regular review sessions between the two departments will enable all stakeholders to come together in driving organizational objectives toward success.
Developing buyer personas collaboratively and creating shared calendar plans, co-creating customer-focused content with sales personnel, providing personalized assets for them as well as collecting testimonials from customers are some important actions that should be implemented or considered within this process of alignment.
Finally, syncing up metrics & KPIs on data points tracked can provide invaluable insight into areas where improvement may be needed- allowing mutual understanding across both Sales & Marketing divisions thus, elevating efficiency levels significantly.
As online user engagement is becoming increasingly important for businesses and organizations, the use of interactive content is on the rise.
Content such as quizzes, polls, surveys, games, and other forms of digital interactivity allows users to engage with a product or service in new ways that stand out from traditional websites or apps.
To make sure your organization reaps all the benefits these innovative contents have to offer however requires an efficient project management process so it can be deployed timely while still being top-notch quality-wise as well.
This outline details best practices when managing interactive content projects – beginning right at the pre-project planning phase where objectives are identified and roles defined through designing interfaces along with creating necessary multimedia elements up until the post-launch evaluation & optimization stage which ensures successful outcomes.
Interactive content refers to any type of digital or online experience that allows users to engage and interact with the material. Unlike static content, which simply presents information, interactive content actively involves the audience. This includes quizzes, polls, surveys, games, assessments—anything that facilitates user engagement in a way traditional content cannot.
This kind of active participation is increasingly important for brands looking to create interactive content that fosters increased engagement. By incorporating interactive videos and other visually appealing elements into their marketing campaigns, businesses can transform existing content into dynamic experiences.
Not only does this help brands learn more about customer preferences, but it also strengthens brand loyalty while driving desired outcomes at the same time.
Its key benefits lie in its ability to engage ideal customers by providing an interactive experience while driving results for the organization hosting it.
Interactive content can also be highly effective at enhancing user experiences due to its engaging nature, which encourages higher levels of engagement than standard formats like text-only posts or videos.
It has been shown in studies to lead directly to improved levels of website visit duration length and return rates compared with other types of non-interactive mediums.
Pre-Project Planning is an essential step in streamlining the management of interactive content. During this phase, project objectives and goals must be established to ensure commitment from all stakeholders involved.
Based on these objectives, a target audience should then be identified with user personas created for a deeper understanding of their needs and expectations. This can also help inform better designs when creating the actual content itself later on.
A feasibility analysis helps assess any technical requirements needed based on users’ preferences or other factors and influencers such as budget restrictions or time constraints that may affect development cycle length.
With specific parameters set out through a scope document now available, it will become simpler to choose who makes up part of your team so roles and responsibilities are best delegated accordingly (e..g., graphic/interaction designer, developer etc.).
Depending upon the resources at hand further specialists required like copywriters might need recruiting to ensure you plan thoroughly before work begins proper delivery timescales being met could hinge upon making smart choices here instead of rushing into decisions prematurely!
The Content Ideation and Concept Development stages of the project management process are crucial for successfully executing interactive content projects.
During this phase, it is important to brainstorm ideas that will align with established objectives as well as appeal to the target users. This can be achieved through conducting market research into similar existing products or competitor content and drawing inspiration from them when developing concepts.
To ensure those initial concepts effectively reach their goals, storyboards should then be created that outline how these interactions flow linearly within each piece of interactive media; visuals such as computer-aided design images are helpful here in outlining complex layouts if needed!
During development, stakeholders must also collaborate closely together on refining various aspects before finalizing any decisions made regarding format/style etc., meaning feedback needs to be obtained either internally or externally so adjustments can occur appropriately over time – allowing scenarios potentially identified by both parties alike once user acceptance testing takes place further down line during Quality Assurance Evaluation stage too.
Once complete though an editor might need engaging so all stylistic alterations plus readability checks have been conducted prior to proceeding to Integration Stage checklists — Where implementing presentational multimedia elements onto platforms commences while ensuring consistency.
At first, involving all stakeholders in a brainstorming activity can be useful when it comes to forming initial ideas about how features will look on-screen as well at what direction should the project take – this helps create wireframes and prototypes that effectively visualize such ideas into reality before beginning actual development work.
After understanding what feels right aesthetically or functionally, they must also begin designing clear User Interfaces (UI) coupled with great User Experience(UX); interactions so seamless that users are comfortable navigating within the given environment since experiencing smooth interactions enhances overall satisfaction levels experienced by them while having closed loops drive results sought out after launching said campaign/project.
Furthermore, Graphic designers & developers have their own expertise - collaborating ensures proper design language is followed along during frontend/backend engineering efforts.
The development of engaging content assets for interactive elements is an important element in streamlining the management of interactive content. Content creators must develop original and relevant materials that drive engagement with users, as well as adhere to brand guidelines or other specifications set by stakeholders and clients.
Examples include:
To ensure consistency throughout a project’s lifecycle it is essential to verify all created material adheres to branding requirements and accurately portrays its established idea before incorporating it into any platform or medium.
A comprehensive review process should be employed at every juncture during this phase to guarantee optimal alignment between concepts envisioned in idealized form versus reality when integrated online for public consumption.
Quality Assurance and User Acceptance Testing is an important step of the project management process when it comes to managing interactive content.
Comprehensive testing should be conducted on all elements of the content, like functionality, usability, error prevention/solving capabilities, etc., so compatibility and performance issues can be identified before they become visible in a production environment or worse yet by end users.
Additionally, user acceptance testing should involve stakeholders as well as actual prospective users to ensure that you are evaluating not only whether technical requirements have been met but also whether people will actually engage with your content.
Through this method, any glitches could easily be discovered prior to launch which might risk ruining user experience otherwise due to unavoidable bugs post-release.
The Deployment and Launch phase is the crucial step in getting interactive content live. First, the content needs to be finalized with all elements functioning properly before moving forward. To ensure a successful launch, it's important to prepare supporting materials such as user guides or tutorials that explain how people should interact with the content when they encounter it.
It may also help to collaborate with marketing teams for promotional activities related to its release so customers are aware of what new features you’re offering them via your interactive experience!
Once everything is ready and prepared for deployment, monitor closely during rollout; testing looks differently once released into an environment where users can actually access it—often issues arise at this stage that weren't noticed earlier due to not being able to use real data sets applicable.
Finally, collect initial user feedback after launching. Interactive content helps gauge customer satisfaction rates by looking at reactions to articles. Analyzing their comments/ideas might guide on improvements needed or clarification if the team did good job.
Post-launch evaluation and optimization is a key step in ensuring interactive content projects are successful. Once the content has been deployed, it's important to analyze user engagement metrics to assess its effectiveness.
This helps identify areas for improvement or enhancement that can be addressed on an ongoing basis by iteratively updating the interactive pieces of content based on insights gained from users' feedback or use patterns.
To ensure relevancy over time, regular maintenance is also necessary especially when new technologies emerge requiring additional capabilities due to changes in trends and preferences of target audiences.
Documenting lessons learned during each project as well as best practices should help streamline future workflows while minimizing the risk associated with such activities moving forward and maximizing success potentials across multiple objectives related to any given piece of interactive media material being developed within an organization’s operations setup/structure.
Creating engaging, interactive content requires a well-thought-out management process. Through this outline, we have discussed the importance of defining project objectives and deciding on technical requirements at the pre-project planning stage to ensure successful execution.
Subsequently, effective brainstorming sessions are necessary followed by user acceptance testing while moving towards the deployment and launch phase.
Streamlining each step thoughtfully boosts creative confidence which can pave the way for authentic connections between creator (business) - and viewer/consumer relation thus driving better outcomes all around from concept generation through launching the final interactive product.
Business-to-business (B2B) content marketing is a powerful tool for engaging and converting prospects in the digital age.
It involves creating timely, targeted media that provide valuable information to potential customers about products or services related to their industry. This type of communication works best when paired with sound data analysis, an understanding of individual customer needs, and intangibles like the brand personality too.
The purpose of this article is to showcase four remarkable types of B2B content marketing: educational content; entertaining content; inspirational content; and interactive tools - which can be utilized by organizations within different industries ranging from finance to technology.
Educational content is used in B2B marketing to help readers gain deeper knowledge about a certain topic and understand complex issues. Its purpose is to educate, inform and provide insights into industry trends or emerging technologies that would be useful for prospects making purchasing decisions.
How-to guides and tutorials are one of the most popular types of educational content in B2B marketing. They serve as a great resource to educate customers on specific topics or industry best practices, while providing insights into how your products can help them accomplish their goals.
How-to guides and tutorials are one of the most popular types of educational content in B2B marketing. They serve as a great resource to educate customers on specific topics or industry best practices while providing insights into how your products can help them accomplish their goals
.A well-crafted guide provides value through meaningful information without being overtly promotional, making it easier for prospects to trust you and eventually make purchasing decisions based on the knowledge they've received from your advisement/tutorials.
Webinars are powerful educational tools used in B2B content marketing. They allow businesses to present high-value topics and connect directly with their target audience. Online courses, on the other hand, provide an interactive learning experience composed of various modules that cover a given subject matter step by step.
Both webinars and online courses can be tailored towards specific buyers’ needs which helps demonstrate expertise while also providing relevant insights for customers making purchasing decisions within teams or organizations..
Educational B2B content helps establish expertise and thought leadership in a given market. By providing helpful instruction, insightful analysis, or industry knowledge through various mediums such as how-to guides, whitepapers, case studies, and webinars among others; organizations can demonstrate their authority on certain topics while gaining the trust of prospects.
Such educational materials are often valuable resources for decision makers which heighten brand visibility helping to shape reputations within target markets leading to a more effective sales funneling process overall.
Educational content is an essential part of B2B marketing. It provides prospects with helpful and valuable information about a company’s product or services, allowing them to make an informed decision when choosing their desired option.
Providing educational content such as how-to guides, tutorials, whitepapers, case studies, and webinars/online courses related to the buyer's journey stages from awareness through loyalty increases trust in your brand significantly.
You demonstrate real value for customers upfront without being pushy and by educating them on various topics concerning the industry, which quickly earns respect within prospective buyers' eyes.
Nurturing leads and driving conversions are some of the top benefits that educational content can have in B2B marketing. By creating valuable instructional information for prospects, businesses are able to provide meaningful guidance about their product or solution which ultimately increases trust between them and potential customers.
Educating prospective buyers also allows marketers to more accurately guide their target audience through various stages of the sales process, therefore helping to increase conversion rates over time.
Through well-crafted tutorials, whitepapers, case studies, and webinars – it becomes easier for brands to nurture interested parties further down the funnel toward sale completion.
The purpose of entertaining content in B2B marketing is to create an engaging and captivating experience for the audience while also highlighting relevant brand messaging.
Examples can range from memorable infographic visuals, humorous memes or videos, interactive quizzes, and games that capture attention as well as promote a positive impression on the company’s image.
This type of content provides brands with an increased level of visibility; plus it encourages people to share their experiences through social media channels which further boosts engagement rates among prospects or customers.
SourceInfographics and visual content are a great way to enhance B2B marketing. They can be used in websites, blogs, emails, or even printed material as long as they showcase useful data or insights related to the product/service being sold so prospects feel enticed by it.
Visuals tend to grab attention faster than textual information - this makes infographics ideal for enticing customers and generating leads with minimal effort on the part of marketers.
Furthermore, if done right (well-crafted design & appropriate color scheme), such visuals also reflect positively on your brand image!
Memes and humorous videos are some of the most popular forms of entertaining content for B2B marketing.
They can be used to convey a message in an engaging, creative way that catches people’s attention while still being relevant to your target audience's industry or sector. Memes and funny video clips inject humor into traditional advertising campaigns, humanizing a brand by making it more relatable to viewers.
By creating amusing visuals with catchy phrases or taking advantage of current pop culture events such as holidays, companies have been able to capitalize on user-generated engagement through these pieces in order to drive up their online presence successfully over time.
Interactive quizzes and gamified experiences are examples of entertaining content that can be used in B2B Marketing.
These interactive elements allow customers to engage with brands on a deeper level while having fun within the given context. Creating contests, puzzles or games related to your product/service helps prospects understand its features more effectively by simulating real-life scenarios.
Moreover, users have better chances of winning when participating in these types of activities directly competing against each other making it far more attractive than regular marketing materials like infographics or videos.
Using entertaining content in B2B marketing is an effective way to boost brand awareness and engagement. This type of content shifts users’ focus from advertising towards more fun elements, such as infographics, memes, or humorous videos that can capture attention better than a traditional advertisement.
It also creates positive associations with the brand by making them appear witty and meme-friendly – appealing aspects for many people these days. Marketing teams can incorporate this sort of engaging feature into digital campaigns, leveraging content marketing platforms and digital marketing tools to streamline campaign management.
By doing so, brands can invoke strong emotions that draw prospective customers' interest further while generating buzz on social media posts through automated sharing mechanisms like GIFs and memes! All aiming at increasing overall user reach and strengthening content marketing efforts.
Entertaining content in B2B marketing can help companies differentiate from competitors. By creating high-quality content, including memes, humorous videos, and other engaging visuals that appeal to their target audiences, businesses will stand out among the competition for providing something unique that adds value to customers’ lives.
This kind of engaging content also helps build brand recognition through content marketing strategies that involve keyword research and creative content ideas. By integrating these elements into their marketing efforts, businesses can enhance audience engagement, improve visibility, and deliver a more dynamic experience compared to traditional methods like blog posts or emails.
Inspirational content is an effective tool for B2B marketers to evoke emotions in their target audience and build stronger connections. This type of content focuses on inspiring, motivating, or positively influencing the readers by sharing uplifting stories as well as thought-provoking industry insights.
Success stories and client testimonials are two of the most powerful inspirational content types in B2B marketing. By featuring real-life customer experiences, businesses can connect with their target audience more emotionally and demonstrate how their products or services have made an impact.
This helps strengthen brand credibility by providing social proof that customers’ needs were met satisfactorily through using the company's solutions.
Moreover, success stories provide prospects with valuable contextual information that may help them make better decisions faster when selecting vendors for business projects.
Thought-provoking industry insights provide businesses in the B2B space with valuable content to inform their customers and attract potential leads. This can include research reports, data visualizations, expert interviews, or opinion pieces that are written by knowledgeable professionals in a given field.
These pieces help to establish trust between brands and their audiences while articulating key ideas about current trends across different industries like tech, finance, or manufacturing.
Thought-provoking industry insights also have immense value for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes as they create authority on relevant topics across digital channels such as social media networks and webpages—ultimately leading them higher up ranking lists when searched for via major search engines like Google and Bing.
Motivational quotes and stories can be a powerful tool in B2B content marketing. Popularized by influential leaders, these inspirational snippets of wisdom are often shared as part of promotional campaigns to spark an emotional connection with the audience.
Relevant industry experts or clients who have achieved success using your products can provide inspiring case studies that draw attention on social media channels.
As motivational tales create buzz among customers and prospects alike, brands gain credibility and stand out from competitors in the long run.
Building emotional connections with the audience is one of the main benefits of using inspirational content in B2B marketing. By presenting engaging stories and testimonials, companies can create meaningful experiences that evoke a positive response from their target customers.
This type of emotionally resonant content helps to establish an authentic relationship between brands and consumers, providing valuable insights into customer needs so that marketers can develop more effective strategies for growth.
Additionally, connecting on an emotional level gives businesses leverage when creating long-term loyalty among buyers since they are already familiar with and trust a company’s mission statements or core values.
Creating a positive brand image through inspirational content is essential in B2B marketing. Inspirational stories, quotes, and insights serve to evoke certain feelings within the audience that are associated with your company’s values and mission.
These can create an emotional connection between the customer and your business which will leave them feeling more positive about you as well as increase their loyalty towards you over time. This can result in improved word of mouth for our products or services, thus leading to more conversions from potential customers who have heard these great things firsthand from friends or family!
Inspirational content is an effective way of driving brand loyalty and advocacy in B2B marketing. Client testimonials, thought-provoking industry insights, and motivational stories can all be used to build emotional connections with the audience while creating a positive image for the brand.
Sharing inspiring stories that connect emotions such as happiness or sadness to your product or service will create lasting relationships between prospects and customers alike – leading them both down a path toward becoming loyal advocates of your business.
Interactive content is a type of B2B content marketing that engages the audience through an interactive experience. Its purpose is to capture attention, provide value and increase engagement with users, as well as collect data insights and enhance personalization.
Calculators and assessments are examples of interactive content in B2B marketing. These can take the form of financial calculators, cost estimations, return on investment (ROI) simulations, or even customer profiling quizzes.
Such interactive tools help companies present complex information to customers quickly while gaining valuable insights into their potential buyers’ preferences at the same time.
A great example is Cisco Systems' "Build Your Network" calculator which helps customers determine how many routers they need for their network size and budget constraints accurately without requiring any technical expertise from them.
Interactive videos and quizzes are powerful tools in B2B content marketing. Interactive videos can engage viewers while providing them with the information they need, allowing companies to get their message across quickly and effectively.
Quizzes target customers based on specific criteria related to their interests or buying history so that businesses can easily create relevant content for each customer segment.
This type of interactive media will also help build trust between brands and buyers by deepening consumer understanding of products/services offered by the company being promoted through it.
Virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) experiences are some of the most advanced interactive content options available for B2B marketing. VR lets users explore virtual 3D worlds with immersive visuals, audio cues, movement-tracking technology, and more while AR offers a layer of digital elements over real-world environments.
For example, retailers could use these technologies to allow customers to virtually construct furniture items in their own homes before making an online purchase decision or apply filters to digitally ‘try on’ clothing items during Livestream events prior to purchasing them.
Combined together they can create highly engaging experiences that not only influence brand perception but also drive traffic as well as sales conversions across multiple channels!
Interactive content such as assessments, quizzes, and virtual or augmented reality experiences has become an increasingly popular form of B2B marketing. Not only does it help to capture the attention of prospects but it acts like a magnet that can keep them engaged on your website for longer periods while they navigate these interactive experiences.
By providing relevant data in real-time and personalizing the user experience, businesses are able to increase engagement with potential customers significantly more than static web pages alone could provide.
Additionally, this type of active participation has been proven effective at driving conversions if properly linked into each consumer’s journey towards brand loyalty - all achieved by simply increasing time spent on their websites via interaction..
Interactive content offers one of the highest potentials for collecting valuable data and insights in B2B marketing. Calculators, assessments, quizzes, and gamified experiences that customers participate in give marketers opportunities to learn about customer needs more deeply.
This helps them develop effective targeted campaigns around their demographic’s preferences while giving them a deeper understanding of how likely prospects are to become paying customers.
Marketers can also leverage information collected through interactive content platforms at stages beyond acquisition by using it for market segmentation or developing customized buyer personas.
Interactive content offers an engaging, personalized experience to users that helps drive conversions in the B2B sector.
It enables businesses to provide valuable data and insights through calculators or assessments as well as interactive videos and quizzes designed for their target audience.
This type of content allows companies to offer a tailored user journey which is essential for boosting customer engagement levels while also collecting analytics-driven feedback on what customers prefer most.
As such, it can be used to craft more targeted marketing strategies with personalization at its core - allowing organizations the ability to enhance trust among those they serve while improving overall brand loyalty efforts too.
In conclusion, B2B content marketing is an essential strategy for any business-to-business company that’s looking to increase its reach and build meaningful relationships with prospects.
There are four remarkable types of B2B content which encompass educational, entertaining, inspirational, and interactive forms of media.
Each type has its own advantages depending on the goals you set out to achieve; from establishing thought leadership to fostering engagement or building brand loyalty.It is also important to ensure the alignment of sales and marketing objectives in your content campaigns.
It’s also important to take into consideration your target audience when creating a successful B2B content marketing campaign as this will help ensure your materials resonate well and create lasting impressions in their minds.
Ultimately, leveraging different types of quality material created specifically for each market segment can position businesses at the forefront of their industries – critically increasing leads while providing long-term success throughout the customer journey process!
The internet is awash with content, and in order to stand out amongst the noise it’s important for companies to have an effective digital marketing strategy.
Visual content or graphics are becoming increasingly vital elements of this modern strategy - they are eye-catching, attention-grabbing, and encourage consumer engagement.
This article aims to provide business owners with greater insight into the importance of visual content initiatives by presenting nine compelling statistics on how these strategies can revolutionize their digital approach.
Research shows that visuals not only capture a reader's interest but also drive higher website visits, increase brand recognition as well and improve SEO rankings; hence making them invaluable tools today when crafting campaigns online.
Read through our list of incredible stats below discussing various aspects from video consumption & mobile usage trends all the way up to impact branding & optimization techniques!
Visual content is indeed a powerful way to capture the attention of your target audience.
Studies have shown that including visuals in posts on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can help generate more engagement than text-only messages, with users being three times more likely to engage with visual content vs text alone.
Visuals are also helpful for breaking up long blocks of text which allows you to get important points across quickly and easily without distracting from the core message itself.
Visual content has quickly become an essential part of any digital marketing strategy. Studies have indicated that visuals are more likely to capture user attention when compared to text-only formats, making them vital for communicating information effectively.
Additionally, research suggests that the use of visual elements can even boost a person’s ability to retain and recall details presented within it by almost 30%.
Optimally combining images or videos with written messaging is key to reaching users efficiently while also having them remember your message longer.
Visual content is also surely an essential component of any successful visual content marketing strategy. Visual posts are found to be more engaging than text-based ones, as they tend to actually grab people’s attention and hold it for a longer period of time.
Research has consistently demonstrated that engaging visual content has the power to increase engagement on social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter significantly; this could mean higher reach across various audiences in these networks.
Therefore, businesses should make sure their advertising campaigns include creating visual content such as visually appealing images or video marketing that can help boost audience interaction with their brand or product offerings. Additionally, incorporating virtual reality into a visual content strategy can further enhance user experience, making content even more immersive and impactful.
The rise of visual-driven platforms like TikTok and Snapchat (home of Gen Zs) has revolutionized social media marketing. In just a few years, these platforms have gained immense popularity due to their highly engaging visuals.
With more people flocking to visually driven mediums, businesses need to be prepared with an arsenal of captivating content that will appeal to visual learners as well as engage the audience's eye effectively in order to stay ahead of the competition.
Businesses must adopt strategies aimed at leveraging these quickly growing networks so they can capture users' attention by embracing new forms of storytelling using short form video content, data visualizations, and other dynamic images beyond traditional social media posts.
A strong visual content creation process is key to crafting compelling material that not only boosts engagement but also helps generate leads. By integrating these elements into their marketing efforts, brands can create successful campaigns that truly resonate with audiences today.
According to statistics, video consumption is surging across multiple platforms such as YouTube and social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.
This highlights the importance of leveraging videos into your overall strategy if you want to capitalize on opportunities for higher brand visibility, improved user engagement rates, increased SEO performance, and more memorable messages that can quickly convey complex information with visuals coupled with audio effects.
Video content has become essential consumer fare so it's important not to ignore this rewarding form of communication when putting together powerful campaigns optimized for maximum impact online.
Visual content allows businesses to showcase products, create awareness for their brand, and establish a presence in the digital market space.
One particularly powerful benefit of using video content is its ability to convey complex messages that might otherwise be difficult - or even impossible - to accurately represent through text-only formats like blogs and articles.
By taking advantage of animation, visuals, and sound effects within videos, companies can provide viewers with engaging experiences while getting across nuanced points effectively without overwhelming them unnecessarily.
With this creative tool at their disposal, modern marketers have endless potential ways they use video content to spread complex ideas as far as possible.
Visual branding is key for businesses looking to create a recognizable and consistent brand identity. Visual elements such as logos, colors, fonts, imagery, videos, and design styles are essential in distinguishing your company from competitors.
Branding that isn't unified can be confusing to consumers so it's important that visual communication promotes consistency across all platforms.
By providing customers with an easily identifiable look-and-feel they feel more connected to the brand which increases customer loyalty over time.
Therefore utilizing visuals strategically through campaigns helps promote positive recognition of your business while also establishing familiarity with target audiences.
Visual content can have a huge impact on how customers perceive your brand. Attractive visuals, including designs for logos and websites as well as high-quality images related to the product or service you are offering, create an atmosphere of professionalism that reflects positively onto the company's image.
Additionally, aesthetic marketing materials such as brochures and posters help make more people aware of what you do while keeping them engaged through memorable experiences rather than boring text blocks.
Ultimately, engaging visual appeal encourages customer loyalty by making users associate certain products with their desired aesthetics – which highlights why good design is essential for branding success.
Studies have revealed that adding visual elements like images, videos, GIFs or infographics to a webpage can extend user visit duration by up to 100%.
Moreover, research has found that webpages with visuals are viewed an average of 34% longer than pages without them.
Increasing the quality and quantity of visual content is thus essential for keeping visitors engaged and providing a better overall browsing experience.
Visual content is becoming more important than ever when it comes to website engagement. Studies show that visual elements can have a huge impact on reducing bounce rates, as they make pages much more visually appealing and engaging.
The presence of video or relevant images contributes to higher levels of user satisfaction, keeping visitors interested enough to stick around longer and even explore the rest of your site!
Investing in effective visuals can be an excellent way for businesses to reduce their page's overall bounce rate while increasing ROI at the same time.
The prevalence of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets has resulted in a significant increase in the number of people accessing digital content on their phones.
According to research, nearly two-thirds of global web traffic now comes from mobile devices, indicating that more users are depending less heavily on computers for internet access.
This is indicative of how important it is for businesses to optimize visual content specifically for these types of portable technologies so that customers can easily consume the message without too much hassle or inconvenience.
Nowadays, mobile devices are the primary means of accessing content on digital platforms. This preference for visual content on smartphones and other handheld gadgets is clear with their easier consumption due to smaller screens and user-friendly formats like shorter videos that can be quickly digested while still providing essential information.
Companies looking to take advantage of this trend should focus more issues in visuals as it simplifies complex topics into easily consumable nuggets that have a higher chance of being interacted with by users than text-only content or any larger pieces requiring longer engagement timeframes.
Visual content has a significant impact on search engine optimization. Research shows that visuals are proven to be more likely to increase shares and links than text-only posts, making it an invaluable tool for SEO purposes.
Visuals act as highly shareable pieces of content that give the potential audience something attractive and engaging to look at which can then lead them back to your website or other digitally shared accounts.
Utilizing visual elements in conjunction with well-written copy is a sure way to optimize digital presence via higher levels of link sharing across various platforms.
One of the most important optimization techniques for improving visual content search rankings is to ensure it loads quickly and efficiently. This requires ensuring that file types are optimized, proper image size selection, use of browser caching and lazy loading features as well as minimizing redirects on page load.
Additionally, meta data associated with images should be properly included by including keywords in both ALT text descriptions and captions where applicable can make a big difference when optimizing visual content for SEO purposes.
Finally, ensuring appropriate sitemaps detailing media files used throughout website or digital marketing campaign can put businesses way ahead in terms of visibility online within SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages).
In conclusion, visual content marketing has become an essential aspect of digital marketing in today’s business landscape. The statistics presented demonstrate that there are countless benefits to incorporating visuals into your strategy including higher engagement rates on social media, improved brand perception and website visit duration as well as increased SEO rankings for optimized images or videos.
Additionally, mobile devices have made it easier than ever before for people to access engaging visual material online anytime anywhere.
For businesses wanting to stay ahead of the curve, these strategies should be embraced and carefully implemented throughout their digital presence from branding elements through optimization techniques designed with user experience in mind.
To sum up, effective use of visuals is not just a trend but a key ingredient if you wish to reap maximum profits from every investment in digital campaigns worldwide!
The world of content marketing is constantly changing, making it more important than ever for businesses to stay informed about the latest trends and best practices. The key to success lies in regularly assessing your current strategies, and finding weak points that need improvement or outdated tactics that should be scrapped altogether.
Content marketing assessments are an effective way to do just this – providing you with deep insight into how well your efforts are delivering and helping you plan future initiatives accordingly.
This assessment involves much more than simply measuring analytics; in addition to tracking performance indicators like website visitors and click-through rates, comprehensive evaluations involve scoping out competition engagement levels on social media platforms as well as analyzing customer relationships through CRM systems if needed.
In short, these tactical reviews take all aspects of a business’s online presence into account when determining areas where improvements can be made.
Benefits range from increased visibility within search engines (elevating rankings) right down to greater return on investment - giving brands grounds upon which they can grow their profits over time without ruining existing successes either.
Content marketing audits are incredibly important for businesses, as they provide insights into their target audience. Conducting a thorough content audit helps businesses assess their existing content and identify gaps that may prevent them from reaching their ideal customers and potential buyers. Understanding who a business’s target audience is can be the difference between successfully growing an online presence or having no success whatsoever.
When assessing content strategy, identifying a company's target audiences allows them to craft messaging that resonates with those specific people while also monitoring how well existing campaigns perform in reaching these desired demographics. With this content audit process, marketers can optimize landing pages, refine page titles, and enhance the meta description for improved search engine visibility—ultimately leading to better engagement rates across channels and higher conversion rates overall.
Content marketing audits provide a great way to analyze competitors and understand their strategies. Through assessing competitor tactics, such as the content assets they produce on social media channels or other websites, businesses can uncover what works for others to generate more relevant ideas of their own.
This analysis provides an overview of how well competitors are performing in terms of advertising and promotions within a certain industry vertical. It also helps identify potential weaknesses that could be exploited through careful decision-making. By leveraging audit data to analyze data effectively, companies can make strategic improvements in their technical SEO, boosting their performance and outpacing competitors.
Often, companies lack clarity about who is driving traffic, but when audits are conducted regularly, this problem is addressed from both strategic and tactical standpoints. Better decisions can then be made to optimize activities based on real-time data collection rather than leading blindly forward without clear direction or purposeful action steps.
Establishing goals is a crucial step in any successful content audit process. When establishing your goals, you need to determine both short-term and long-term objectives for the overall success of your business.
This can include increasing website traffic, expanding followers on social media platforms, driving more leads from campaigns, or improving customer engagement rates with new strategies. Once these are set up, it allows marketers to precisely measure their progress against key performance indicators. With actionable plans in place, marketers can ensure they are achieving their desired outcomes effectively and efficiently while optimizing content assets and improving search engine visibility.
Determining Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) is an important part of any content marketing audit. KPIs provide insight into how well your campaigns are performing and allow you to adjust if necessary.
They measure the effectiveness of activities such as website traffic, leads generated, number of views on social media posts, and engagement metrics like comments or shares from customers.
By knowing these key performance indicators for each activity within a given campaign, marketers can quickly analyze what’s working best with their audience in order to maximize ROI for future efforts.
Evaluating content strategy is one of the essential parts of a successful content marketing audit. Through evaluation, it's possible to identify strengths and weaknesses in order to optimize your efforts moving forward.
Analyzing which topics, keywords, or types of media are driving success can guide future strategies. Additionally, data on time spent by customers consuming certain pieces may suggest quality over quantity.
Defining objectives is the first and most crucial step when conducting a content marketing audit. This helps identify what specific goals need to be achieved through your content strategy in order for it to be successful.
Objectives can include increasing website traffic, converting leads into customers, boosting brand awareness, or engaging with social media followers – all of which enable businesses to measure progress toward their desired outcomes.
Identifying core objectives before beginning an audit assessment also ensures that evaluations are focused on areas where improvement will achieve results quickly or yield positive returns over time.
Gathering data is an important step in the content marketing assessment process. Before analyzing any information, it’s necessary to collect relevant metrics about a company’s website and social media platforms. This can involve tracking page views over time on different pages of a site or monitoring engagement from followers across various networks like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.
Market research surveys are also commonly used for gaining insights into audience preferences when it comes to branding initiatives such as messaging strategy or visual identity design elements.
Additionally, other tools such as heatmaps provide useful quantitative feedback regarding user behavior within webpages that allow companies to better understand user navigation paths during conversion-related tasks like online purchases or registration processes.
Analyzing Results is an essential step in content marketing audits, as it helps to identify patterns and correlations. It involves studying the data obtained from previous steps against current objectives to determine if there are any areas of improvement or opportunities for growth.
Organizations should also use analytics solutions such as Google Analytics and Social Media Analytics tools that offer detailed insights into performance metrics across channels, allowing marketers to better understand what’s working well—and where they may need more focus or adoption of new tactics altogether.
Additionally, reviews of customer feedback can provide valuable insight by highlighting trends in opinions which could ultimately affect their decision-making process going forward with future campaigns.
Making recommendations is a critical part of the content marketing audit process. After viewing and evaluating data, you can make concrete suggestions regarding your website or business objectives based on the findings.
Good advice can help bolster weak areas in strategy and create smarter plans for performance optimization going forward.
Content may also need to be reformatted or revised according to audience reception as well as search engine algorithms—all of which play an important role in making successful strategies from evaluations that are conducted during audits themselves!
Making accurate correlations between changes implemented with the progress made ensures steady improvement, but mostly comes down to analyzing hard data before coming up with actionable conclusions - essential elements when conducting these types of audits successfully.
After a content marketing assessment has been conducted, it is important to implement the changes that have been recommended. Developing an action plan can help you reach your goals in the most efficient manner possible. This should include timings and who will be responsible for each step of implementation.
Additionally, make sure to test any new strategies or technologies before rolling them out completely — this helps prevent potential issues from occurring down the line and ensures all processes are running smoothly prior to go-live timeframes being met.
After testing has concluded successfully and revisions/updates based on feedback have taken place if necessary, then aim for full deployment throughout channels as soon as possible so results may start coming in quickly!
Google Analytics is a powerful tool for conducting content marketing audits. It helps to identify important insights about user behavior, including which pages and topics are popular on your website.
You can also measure how long users stay on each page and track the source of traffic from search engines, social media sites, or direct links.
Additionally, you have access to extensive demographic information such as age ranges and geographic locations of visitors so that you can better understand their needs and adjust your strategy accordingly.
With Google Analytics, marketers gain actionable data they need in order to develop accurate objectives from content audit results.
Social media analytics is an extremely helpful tool for content marketing audits. It enables marketers to track user activity and engagement on different platforms, such as Twitter or Instagram, over a certain period of time.
With this data, businesses can determine which posts resonated with their audience the most in order to measure effectiveness and gain insight into what types of content produce high returns from users so that they are able to make more informed decisions going forward.
Additionally, social media analytics also allows users to identify patterns within all kinds of performance metrics like post reach or number of likes/shares per post; thereby enabling them to optimize future campaigns based on previously successful strategies while identifying trends among followers’ behaviors.
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Systems are commonly used in content marketing audits to better understand target audiences and build relationships with customers. CRMs capture customer data such as purchases, interactions, or feedback on campaigns or products that allow marketers to gain insight into user behavior and preferences.
With a good understanding of customers’ needs, companies can create relevant product offers personalized for their target market by segmenting them based on interests, age groups, etc., increasing the likelihood of conversions from those prospects.
In addition; this platform gives insights about potential markets which allows businesses to focus efforts towards more profitable areas instead of spreading resources evenly across all segments: optimizing strategy profitability & ROI ultimately improving your bottom line!
Content Management Systems (CMS), are an essential tool in Content Marketing Audits. CMS provides the necessary platform for creating and managing content effectively, giving businesses a centralized location to store their information visually and digitally.
A good quality CMS provides functionality including user-friendly editing tools as well as multiple users who have permission levels depending on what they need access to or can do with it; this makes publishing changes easier without reaching out to IT time after time every time something needs to be done.
Having all of your business’ marketing/content efforts stored within one place also helps you keep track of public opinion around different pieces while providing deep insights into which posts areas performing best – allowing decision-makers makers quickly pinpoint strengths & weaknesses that otherwise may take weeks using other methods like Focus Groups.
Content marketing audits can provide valuable insights into your business and help ensure you have a successful content strategy.
By identifying target audiences, analyzing competitors, establishing goals, and determining KPIs for success, businesses can better understand their needs and set about creating effective strategies to reach them.
Regular assessments will also allow brands to monitor changes in performance over time with the use of tools such as Google Analytics or CRM integrations which help track progress against objectives.
In conclusion, it is essential that regular content marketing audits be carried out by all types of organizations so they keep up-to-date on the latest trends within online consumers’ behavior while helping develop targeted campaigns catering to customer preferences alike.
Creating a high-converting landing page is an important component of any digital marketing strategy.
This step-by-step guide outlines the process for crafting and optimizing websites that generate higher clickthrough rates, conversions, leads, and sales. We’ll cover everything from identifying goals to understanding your target audience to designing a compelling call-to-action (CTA).
We'll also go over how to craft messages with impactful language; select eye-catching visuals; include social proof elements such as reviews or case studies; optimize mobile useability and loading speed performance—and more!
Finally, we will discuss testing your site so you can gather data on its effectiveness in order to further tweak it until it's just right.
By following our tips and recommended best practices carefully, marketers can create user experiences across all devices through an effective combination of content.
When creating a landing page, the first step is to identify and define its primary goal. This should be done in order to create an effective plan of action that moves viewers toward desired outcomes such as conversions or contact form submissions.
It’s critical for marketers to have a clear understanding of how they want their visitors to respond after viewing the content on their landing pages so they can craft messages with clarity and purpose. Identifying your primary goals will help make sure you are conveying this message effectively throughout each element on your page from visuals, headlines/subheads to CTAs (Call-to-Action).
When creating a high-converting landing page, understanding the target audience you are trying to reach is key. Identifying their needs and pain points will help inform your overall messaging strategy.
Researching competitor websites or using consumer surveys can provide insights into what problems your potential customers have that need solving and how they might perceive solutions in terms of cost/benefit analysis.
Asking open-ended questions about topics related to the goal of your landing page can also be beneficial for further understanding customer interests as well as any challenges or frustrations often experienced with current product offerings on the market today.
The headline and subheading of a landing page are arguably its most important elements. They need to be attention-grabbing, eye-catching, and capture the audience’s interest in order for them to click through.
The headline should clearly explain what visitors can expect from the offer/product as well as establish an emotional connection with readers by creating curiosity or using words that evoke action.
Subheadings allow you to add additional detail regarding your product or service without overwhelming users with too much information at once.
Both headlines and subheadings must provide enough explanation so individuals know exactly why they should take further action on it—this encourages clicks which leads more people to take part in whatever goal is set out by this specific landing page!
When crafting an effective headline and subheading, it is important to focus on simplicity yet clarity. Keep both headlines short and concise since visitors often skim rather than read web pages in full. Using active words that can evoke emotion also helps make the headline memorable - aim for something that makes your audience stop scrolling so they actually consider reading further into the page instead of moving onto another website or article without a thought.
Additionally, adding numbers within your headline encourages people to click as well; specific figures suggest you have factual proof about what you are offering which causes readership rates to swell proportionately!
Having a clear and concise message on your landing page is essential in conveying the value of what you are offering to visitors. With millions of competing products and services out there, it's important that users instantly understand why they should invest their time or money into yours. A well-written message can significantly impact your landing page conversion rate by simplifying complex information while communicating the unique qualities that make your product stand out from its competitors.
Crafting an effective call-to-action (CTA) also relies on having a single, easy-to-understand main point for visitors to take action upon—which is one of the landing page best practices and requires strong messaging upfront.
Writing a clear and concise message to appeal to your target audience is key to creating an effective landing page. You should make sure that you understand what the needs, pain points, or challenges of this group are so you can craft a relatable message that contributes to your landing page's success.
Make use of storytelling elements, as they tend to evoke stronger emotions from readers, helping them connect with the content better than dry facts could do alone.
For converting landing pages, incorporate supporting data (surveys, studies, etc.) where necessary for extra credibility, but don’t let it overtake details such as anecdotes or quotes that add humanity and relatability inside complex messages about products/services. Reviewing landing page examples and considering whether longer landing pages might better suit your audience can also make a big difference.
Using visuals on your landing page is essential for capturing attention and communicating key messages. High-quality visuals can help to enhance the user experience, emphasize important information, break up blocks of text, and add a sense of professionalism.
Visuals such as images, videos, or infographics can make it easier for users to understand what’s being offered quickly without taking much mental effort which encourages them to opt into their offer faster.
In addition, research shows that using relevant imagery within content increases engagement by 94%. Therefore high-quality visual elements should always be included in any successful landing page design.
When it comes to choosing visuals for your landing page it’s important to pick eye-catching ones that will resonate with the target audience and add value. Select images related specifically to what you are offering, as general stock photos can be off-putting.
Additionally, make sure all the visuals used on the site look professional and represent your brand well.
You should also optimize visual content items such as videos, gifs, or infographics in a way that encourages user engagement while providing valuable information about products/services being promoted on the landing page; include captions when needed so users understand them quickly and easily.
When creating an entire landing page, it is important to include social proof and other credibility indicators. This helps build users’ trust in your business or product, as well as conveys that the offer and value proposition you are presenting on your website has been validated by actual customers or partners of yours.
Examples of including social proof could be customer testimonials, case studies showcasing successes with clients related to what is being offered, or awards/badges from trusted sources showing validity (like BBB accreditations), etc. All these should align with your overall goal defined for this particular landing page—ultimately boosting your landing page conversion rate and converting more site visitors into paying customers!
Including social proof and credibility indicators on a great landing page is essential for building trust with the target audience. Utilizing customer testimonials, case studies, and trust badges are effective ways to boost an organization’s reputation among its customers.
Customer testimonials showcase how satisfied individuals have been with their purchase or experience while working with your company—building up potential leads' confidence in doing business with you as well. Case studies provide detailed insight into what results were achieved from using your product or service, which can turn first-time visitors into loyal customers.
And finally, utilizing industry-standard trust seals, such as BBB accreditation, signals safety when making online transactions and adds overall legitimacy and authority to brand websites. These elements are particularly effective when used across design landing pages or even entertainment landing pages, ensuring consistency and credibility across categories.
Creating a clear and prominent call-to-action (CTA) on your landing page is essential to its success. A CTA should be easy for visitors to spot, understand, and act upon. Without it, no conversions can takeplace.
By making the CTA highly visible through clever design or placement – such as using large buttons with contrasting colors that stand out from other elements of the page – users will know exactly what action they are supposed to perform next in order to get closer to achieving their goal(s).
When designing a call-to-action for your landing page, the goal should always be to create one that aligns with and reinforces the primary purpose of the page.
To do this effectively, you’ll need to make sure it stands out from other elements on the page and clearly delivers what action visitors are expected to take.
Using contrasting colors as well as smaller bits of graphics or icons can help draw attention without overwhelming people—though don’t skimp on copy either; explaining why they should act is just important!
Mobile devices have become the go-to way to search and explore content online. Having a landing page that is optimized for mobile users ensures an enjoyable user experience which can mean the difference between keeping or losing potential customers.
Optimizing your landing pages also helps with the overall performance of the website, making sure it loads quickly in order to reduce frustration on behalf of visitors waiting too long for the content they requested. Fast loading times are essential not just from a usability standpoint, but from ranking signals perspective as well - Google takes into consideration how fast webpages load in their Search Engine Results Pages (SEO).
Focusing efforts towards optimizing page speed will benefit both desktop and mobile audiences alike since most modern websites nowadays employ responsive designs capable of accurately adapting themselves according having different device specifics like screen size etc.
When optimizing a landing page for mobile devices, it's important to have a responsive design that automatically adjusts the content layout and images so they display properly on all screen sizes. Additionally, make sure buttons are large enough to be accurately tapped on touchscreens.
To reduce page load time — which is essential since most visitors will abandon your site if it takes too long to fully download– use smaller image files (which can easily be done using online tools like TinyPNG) as well as caching methods such as browser or server-side caching; this store's certain elements of website data in order speed up refresh times.
Furthermore, leverage Content Delivery Networks – networks of servers dedicated solely to delivering web content - and remove any unnecessary homepages and plugins from the site architecture before launch!
Testing and measuring the effectiveness of your landing page is an essential step in creating a high-converting one. By testing different versions on how the elements such as visuals, headlines, message copy, etc.--are placed within it you can make well-informed decisions when making necessary changes to enhance its performance.
from related factors–traffic sources, visitor clicks & dwell time –you will be able to gain insights into user behavior that inform which aspects are successful for improving conversion rates so that your efforts remain focused towards driving more leads effectively resulting in increased ROI.
Testing and measuring your landing page is crucial for establishing its effectiveness. A/B testing tools are a great way to test different versions of the same design in order to determine which one produces the best results.
It’s also helpful to review analytics data such as click-through rate, bounce rate, conversion rates, etc., so you can see how visitors interact with each version of your page.
You should always be looking for ways in which you can optimize based on what works and eliminate elements that don’t help reach goals or engage customers.
Consistent testing and optimization efforts like this over time will allow for creating an efficient high-converting funnel from the start (landing page) through the finish (transaction).
Creating a high-converting landing page is essential for the success of any online marketing campaign.
It’s important if you take these points into consideration it leads to increase conversions significantly. Keep in mind that what works best may be different from business to business – always experiment until optimal performance levels are achieved!
Some form of content marketing is now essential to reel in potential customers, keep them interested, and ultimately convert them.
It's not a trend that businesses can afford to ignore anymore - it's become an absolute must-have for B2B organizations who want to establish themselves as industry leaders with major street cred.
Thankfully, there are now quite a few options out there when it comes to B2B content marketing platforms that can help brands get their content organized, distributed effectively, and optimized too!
Keep reading for ten excellent suggestions that could take your company up several notches in terms of an online presence.
When it comes to content marketing platforms, HubSpot is definitely one of the biggest and worst (in a good way!). It's got an all-in-one approach that covers everything from content management to SEO, social media, email marketing - even analytics! What makes it stand out? Well, for starters, it has a super user-friendly interface that's easy on the eyes and the brain. Plus, its integration capabilities are pretty hard to beat, so businesses of every size can find value in using it.
What do marketers love about HubSpot most? That would be its ability to create customized content experiences specifically tailored to its target audience.
This personalization strategy helps generate more leads and ultimately ends up driving conversions too!
Marketo, which is actually part of the famous Adobe family, is a pretty impressive marketing automation platform that's all about making life easier for businesses. It's all about automating daily tasks and measuring engagement with customers in order to determine what works best.
What can you expect from Marketo? For starters, there are tons of features on offer here - we're talking content creation, email marketing tools, social media platforms support, customer engagement tactics, and analytics galore!
The good thing here is that no matter how unique your business needs may be, Marketo can tailor things just for you. And speaking of analytics,
Marketo definitely does not disappoint when it comes to providing deep insights into your target market's behavior.
This means you'll get the customer data you need in order to create strategy-driven content every single time!
When it comes to finding content platforms that are both flexible and scalable, Contentful definitely stands out. It's got something called a "headless CMS," which means that businesses can create, manage, and distribute their content across multiple channels - no fuss or stress involved!
One reason why Contentful is so great is that it separates the actual content from how it's presented.
This might sound confusing at first, but it means that you'll be able to deliver consistent experiences for folks visiting your site regardless of what device they're using.
Plus, personalization becomes a whole lot easier when you've already got everything separated like this on the backend!
Outbrain is an awesome content discovery platform that can help you get your message out there to a bigger audience - something that every B2B business dreams of!
By using this tool, you'll be able to promote your content on some of the most popular news websites, blogs, and other relevant spots online where folks are already hanging out. What's even cooler?
Outbrain's recommendation engine will make sure that your content gets seen by the right people at just the right time for maximum impact. This not only boosts visibility but also leads to more engagement with potential customers!
Kapost is a total game-changer when it comes to content marketing! It's basically like the one-stop shop for everything you need in order to manage your content across its entire lifecycle. This includes all sorts of good stuff - think content creation tools, collaboration platforms, distribution tactics, and even analytics that'll help you track how things are performing in real time.
Kapost isn't just about making life easier when it comes to creating new pieces of content, either. Their platform can also help businesses maintain brand consistency from start to finish while managing workflows seamlessly too! So whether you're working collaboratively with others or simply trying to keep yourself organized, Kapost is definitely worth checking out if you want your B2B business' online presence taken up a notch.
ClearVoice is a super useful content marketing platform that has some pretty unique features up its sleeve!
For starters, it's got an awesome integrated marketplace where you can hire expert freelancers for the ultimate in creative collaboration. That means your team can strategize and brainstorm ideas together from start to finish with ease.
Of course, ClearVoice offers more than just a place to find amazing writers and creatives - although that would be enough on its own!
This platform provides tons of digital marketing tools for businesses looking to manage their content workflows smoothly while distributing across multiple channels too.
And let's not forget about analytics because ClearVoice definitely doesn't skimp on this aspect, either! Get all the insights you need into how your content is performing so you can make data-driven decisions every step of the way.
BuzzSumo is an amazing content research and monitoring tool that can help B2B businesses get a real sense of what their audience is into! By using this platform, you'll be able to check out popular trends when it comes to content as well as identify important influencers in your industry.
Plus, BuzzSumo can give insight into how your competitors are doing with their own content - so you can see where they're succeeding and where they might need some improvement. Want even better news?
All of these data-driven insights from BuzzSumo will help guide your future content creation process too. You'll have all the info you need to develop pieces that truly speak to your target market and engage them in ways that haven't been seen before.
Trust us - once you start using BuzzSumo, things may never be quite the same again!
If you're looking for a content marketing platform that's all about quality over quantity, Contently is your go-to!
This tool offers an amazing collaboration platform where you can work with some of the best content creators in your industry, making it easy to produce pieces that really pack a punch.
But Contently isn't just about getting great creative minds together - they've also got tons of features aimed at helping businesses manage the entire production process from start to finish. And once your high-quality content has been unleashed onto the world?
Don't worry - because Contently has analytics for that too! You'll be able to dig deep into metrics like engagement rates and revenue generated so you always know what's working (and what might need some tweaking).
ScribbleLive is an awesome content cloud provider that can truly revolutionize how your B2B business approaches the entire lifecycle of its content. From the initial ideation to planning, creation, and even publication, they've got you covered on all fronts!
What's really cool about ScribbleLive is that their comprehensive suite includes so many different tools for businesses looking to take things up a notch in terms of audience engagement and experience management. Their platform features options for both creating new pieces as well as curating existing ones.
But what sets ScribbleLive apart from other providers out there? Well, it definitely has something called AI-powered predictive analytics, which might sound super technical but basically boils down to one thing: providing actionable insights that can help optimize your overall content marketing strategy! By using this tool effectively, you could improve customer journeys exponentially!
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Looking for a content experience platform that's all about customization and personalization? Look no further than Uberflip! This tool allows you to aggregate all your different types of content - from blog posts to eBooks, videos, and so on - into one central hub.
That means creating journeys that are customized specifically for your target audience has never been easier.
One thing we really love about Uberflip is how it integrates with other marketing tools too. By leveraging data in smart ways, businesses can drive engagement like never before while generating leads at an impressive rate as well.
If there's one platform out there that can help B2B companies make an impact when it comes to their online presence, we'd say this is definitely one worth checking out!
These days, there's no denying that content marketing is the name of the game when it comes to attracting and retaining customers in any industry. But with so many different tools and platforms out there, how can B2B businesses cut through all the noise? By finding the right content marketing platform to help streamline their content marketing efforts! It might sound like a lot of work upfront, but believe us - it's definitely worth it.
Once you've got your hands on a great tool or two to manage your campaign management and brainstorm fresh content ideas, driving customer engagement will be a breeze (well, easier, anyway!). And let's not forget about business goals either - with optimized marketing strategies and distribution channels in place, achieving those targets becomes much more doable too! Plus, with the ability to produce high-quality content and gain insights into your lead generation efforts, the payoff will speak for itself.
The customer lifecycle journey is an important concept for businesses to understand in order to develop successful strategies and drive growth.
A clear understanding of a business’s customers, their behaviors, motivations, and expectations throughout the entire span of their relationship with that company helps guide decisions on how best to engage them at each stage within this cycle – from initial awareness up through retention.
This comprehensive guide aims firstly at providing a definition and explanation around what the customer lifecycle process entails; it will then break down further into stages covering activities as well key objectives aimed towards engaging audiences effectively.
The awareness stage of a customer's lifecycle journey is when potential customers first become aware of products and services being offered by the business. This can be done through marketing campaigns, promotion materials, word-of-mouth referrals, or recommendations from previous customers.
In this stage, companies must create value for their brand and differentiate themselves in the market to capture new audiences' attention so that people move forward into further stages of consideration conversion & retention.
Through targeted content marketing strategies businesses should aim to build more trust with users as well as educate them on what their offerings are all about.
At the awareness stage, businesses should focus on raising brand visibility and generating leads. This can be achieved through a variety of digital marketing strategies such as:
They are all useful at this early point in the customer journey to cultivate relationships with prospects waiting for an offer they love before committing to your product or service.
The Consideration stage is when the consumer starts doing their research and evaluating different options.
They open web pages, read reviews or check out comparison charts in order to decide whether a product meets their needs.
During this phase of the customer lifecycle journey, it’s important for businesses to provide enough information that helps customers make smarter decisions while being mindful not to overwhelm them with content overload.
Additionally, offering special discounts can create an extra incentive as they are considering purchasing your product/service.
At the consideration stage, engaging customers is about providing content and personalization tailored to their needs. Companies can provide high-value information such as case studies or demos that align with customer interests and objectives.
Utilizing marketing automation technology allows businesses to deliver personalized emails and targeted campaigns that have been tailored based on data gathered from previous interactions.
In addition, leveraging retargeting ads through social media platforms also helps create real connections between companies/products and potential customers at this stage of the journey.
The conversion stage of the customer lifecycle journey is when a potential customer moves from consideration to making an actual purchase or signing up for services.
This is often considered one of the most important stages in determining whether customers become loyal and engaged with your business, as it shows that they are invested enough to take immediate action toward becoming paying users.
During this phase, businesses can focus on activities such as promotions, discounts and product feature education in order to maximize conversions from leads into sales or subscriptions.
At the Conversion stage, customers are ready to make a purchase. To maximize success at this phase, it is essential that companies focus on creating an effortless and personalized buying experience for each customer by continuing communication with them throughout their journey.
Some key activities that businesses should consider employing include:
It is also important to utilize tools such has A/B testing in order to measure effectiveness over time and continually optimize strategies accordingly - what works today may not necessarily work tomorrow!
Retention is the fourth stage of a customer lifecycle journey, and it refers to how long customers continue engaging with your business after making an initial purchase or conversion.
It’s focused on customer loyalty, satisfaction, communication, and service delivery quality—all contributing factors that will determine if they are likely to return in the future. The aim at this point should be to provide high-quality services consistently over time so as to build strong relationships between businesses and their potential repeat customers.
Retention is focused on keeping customers loyal and engaged. To do so, it’s important to provide value beyond the initial purchase or sign-up with continuous feedback interaction and personalized offers like subscription services.
Improving customer service can have a really big impact, as well as using incentives that increase loyalty such as rewards programs for purchases over time.
Put effort into creating an emotional connection with your brand through storytelling strategies like content marketing, influencer campaigns, and social media engagement activities which show appreciation for existing customers while also offering exclusive deals available only to them.
Advocacy is the final stage of a customer lifecycle journey and refers to when satisfied customers become highly loyal, vocal supporters of a brand.
Advocates serve as powerful word-of-mouth ambassadors for brands by sharing positive endorsements with friends, family, coworkers, or on social media platforms.
In this stage, businesses need to recognize and reward their advocates in order to strengthen customer loyalty even further.
At the advocacy stage, customers have become true evangelists of your brand and product. The goal here is to encourage existing loyal customers to spread positive word-of-mouth about their experience with you.
Strategies at this stage should focus on rewarding active referrals as well as providing engaging content (including user-generated) for sharing across social media channels or via other methods like email campaigns. Additionally, leveraging influencers who already have an engaged audience can be very beneficial in increasing brand awareness among target demographics.
Customer journey mapping is the process of understanding and visualizing a customer’s overall experience with a brand over time.
It involves tracking every interaction between customers and an organization and exploring any touchpoints that may be influencing their decision-making or behavior.
By seeing what happens at each step in the relationship, companies can better understand how to enhance and optimize user experiences throughout all stages of the lifecycle—from initial awareness through purchase, retention, and advocacy.
Mapping the customer journey is a critical part of understanding and strategizing for effective engagement with customers along different stages of their lifecycles.
Despite its importance, it often presents companies with numerous challenges due to complexities in data gathering, analyzing user behavior patterns as well as comprehension issues relating to technical specifications.
Other difficulties that arise from mapping the customer journey include:
Companies should take prudent steps when attempting to map out communications sent across multiple channels leading up until purchase decisions, are arrived at organically rather than rushing through product launches without taking into account past journeys.
Optimizing customer lifecycle journeys is essential for businesses to develop successful relationships with customers.
Customer feedback and data analysis are crucial processes in order to gain an accurate picture of the entire customer lifecycle management process, from awareness through conversions and beyond.
Gathering direct customer input allows businesses to track satisfaction levels as well as identify opportunities where they could improve upon or deliver more value.
This information should be tracked consistently over time so that it can be compared across different stages of a customer's relationship with your business, allowing you to pinpoint areas where improvements need to be made or highlight what works best for them during each phase individually.
Data analysis as well is key in helping to uncover any blinds pots that have gone undetected, address bugs and glitches found throughout the customer journey process, and surface untapped opportunities for expansion or improvement on current services/products customers are receiving.
Having this knowledge at your fingertips will help inform modifications you may want to make as these insights provide an inside look into what works best for each stage of a customer's lifecycle all while providing valuable insight into their overall customer satisfactions with the business.
In order to optimize the customer lifecycle journey and maximize engagement, businesses must focus on engaging customers at each stage in an effective way. Strategies for doing this can include:
Businesses must invest in understanding the customer lifecycle journey to create a successful customer experience. By mapping out each stage of this journey, businesses can develop strategies and activities tailored to maximizing conversions at every step.
Additionally, gathering feedback from customers throughout their engagement with your business is essential for measuring success accurately and identifying areas needing improvement.
When leveraged correctly, these practices provide invaluable insights that can further optimize every phase of the customer's buying cycle - resulting in improved customer experience and long-term loyalty.
If you work too many late nights and long hours, you’re going to get sick of your job and lose both motivation and momentum.
If you see the same commercial on TV at every break, with the same dumb lines and the same boring imagery, you’re going to get sick of seeing it and you might grow resentful of the company behind it. Fatigue, both physical and mental, can ruin an otherwise valuable relationship.
If your followers and readers start suffering from a similar kind of fatigue from your brand messages and ongoing content, the effects on your bottom line could be catastrophic.
It’s important to identify and deal with brand fatigue before it sets in too deeply and take corrective action so your brand stays fresh and interesting in your potential customers’ minds.
In today’s crowded and competitive market, refreshing your approach is crucial. You might need to refresh your brand identity and diversify your marketing mix to keep your customers engaged. Using different marketing channels ensures your message reaches a broader audience while maintaining interest.
If your customers aren’t tired of seeing your brand, there isn’t necessarily a problem. If they’re still engaging with you regularly and thrilled to see your material, there isn’t a reason to pursue a massive overhaul.
That being said, if brand fatigue is setting in, the earlier you catch it, the better. It’s far easier to reclaim an audience that’s starting to lose interest in your posts than an audience that is actively annoyed by your content.
Keep a close eye on the following metrics:
The number of people passively engaging with or showing interest in your brand’s material on social media.
The number of people actively sharing your content with their own audiences.
The number of people responding to and engaging with your material directly.
If you notice a significant drop in any of these metrics and all other factors of your campaign are relatively consistent, it could be evidence of brand fatigue.
A drop over the course of a week isn’t typically an accurate representation of a shift in user perspective, but if you notice it over a month, it could be time to take action.
Fatigue is a direct result of one thing: excessive repetition. If you jog outside, mile after mile, your body will grow weak and exhausted. Also, if you listen to the same pop song on the radio every morning, day in and day out, it’s eventually going to become annoying.
If repetition is the root cause of all fatigue, what you need to find in your content and social strategy is some form of repetition that is wearing on your audience’s minds.
These are a few examples of repetition that can grow tiresome over an extended period of time:
There are many types of content available, so don’t limit yourself to any one medium. For example, if almost all of your content is based on written articles, your audience could grow tired of reading it.
If all your content is based on videos, they could thirst for a changeup. Introduce a variety of different content types and mediums to keep your audience’s interest roused.
Your topics can also grow tiresome after a while. For example, if you sell weight loss supplements, and literally all of your content is about the basics of losing weight, people will eventually stop reading.
You need to vary things up by introducing related topics, more specific topics, and topics that you’ve never covered before. New, original material is always a good bet to preventing brand fatigue and saturation. Establishing an emotional connection with your target audience through fresh, engaging content is essential, especially for a luxury brand that relies on maintaining its exclusivity and appeal.
Social posting schedule. If you’re posting on social media with any kind of pre-arranged schedule, it’s easy for your followers to get tired of your posts. For example, if you post a new article every day around noon, your users may soon get bored with the predictable format.
Many brands’ marketing efforts fall into this trap. Try to shake things up by varying your schedule or including more random posts between your anchors.
Special promotions are almost always a good idea for social media—they get your audience’s attention with real value and social shareability.
But if you offer the same kinds of deals—like 10 percent off your order at checkout with a certain promotional code—your most loyal followers will inevitably lose interest.
Come up with new promotions to incentivize your longest-following users.
Last but not least, be aware that your responses need to be genuine. If you’re in the habit of using the same formulaic response for each compliment or anecdote shared by one of your interested followers, they’ll quickly grow to see your brand as robotic or predictable, which can harm your reputation. Manage any issues or crises using your CRM software.
As a general rule, the more diversified you can be in all these categories, the better. In your follow-up, address the repetition by introducing new forms of content. Don’t be afraid to experiment—if one strategy doesn’t work, all you have to do is remove it and start again with something new.
Brand fatigue isn’t necessarily reflective of a problem with your content marketing or social media campaign; it could merely be the result of a lack of change or differentiation.
If there’s a certain pizza place you love, and you start eating that pizza every night, you’ll eventually get tired of it and want a change; there’s nothing wrong with the pizza itself, but after a while, you need some variety.
Keep this in mind when you adjust your strategy; keep what makes your brand special, but add enough variety to keep your customers interested.
Businesses have a clever trick up their sleeves called "content gating" that helps them reel in potential customers, boost interaction rates, and get to know their target audience better. But listen up - it's not just about slapping a sign-up form on your content! There are tons of strategies involved when executing this tactic correctly.
Follow these 9 best practice tips for properly gating your content to scale your lead generation and sales. But first...
Have you ever tried to access some juicy content - like an eBook or webinar - only to realize that your personal information is being held hostage by a pesky content gate?
Well, my friend, you've experienced first-hand how marketing teams use this tactic to get valuable contact details from their audience.
But not all content-gating strategies are created equal - done wrong, and it can push people away (nobody has time for that).
However, when executed correctly, it can be an incredibly powerful tool in your marketing arsenal. So let's explore how you can hit all the right notes with content gating!
Here are nine indispensable tips for gating your content effectively, offering a strategic roadmap to generate quality leads, boost engagement, and drive conversions:
If you're thinking about putting up a content gate to snag some precious contact info from your audience, hold your horses for just one hot minute. Before you dive headfirst into it, make sure you know who you're dealing with. You need to understand their deepest needs and darkest fears (okay, that might be a bit much), but seriously though, pay attention to their interests and pain points. This will help you create gated content that they'll actually want to give up their info for.
How can you do this? Well, get ready to bust out some website analytics tools - check out what pages people are visiting most and what kind of content is getting the most clicks. Tune in on social media, too; see which posts are generating buzz or triggering comments.
Don't stop there - go deep with market research as well - talk directly with current and potential customers if possible. Once you have these insights tucked away in your back pocket, you can start crafting an epic content-gating strategy!
There's no denying that high-quality content is still king in the game of marketing. It's like the red carpet that attracts your audience to your door (or website). But here's the thing: if your content isn't truly valuable, people will quickly lose interest and hit that pesky "back" button faster than you can say "gated."
So ask yourself: is my gated content bringing real value to my audience? Make sure it goes above and beyond what they could find with a quick Google search.
Offer something unique, in-depth, and insightful that they won't be able to resist giving up their contact info for.
Put yourself in their shoes; would you willingly hand over your email or phone number just for this piece of content? If not, then it may be time to reassess and make some changes until you have created a masterpiece worth gating.
Now let's talk marketing strategy. Just because you can gate all your content doesn't mean you should. Let me tell you why! When people are first introduced to your brand or website, they might not be quite ready to commit, like getting married after the first date.
So, if they come across an article or blog post that interests them and it's behind a content gate, you may lose their interest quicker than a cat chasing after a laser pointer. It's best to leave those introductory resources open for everyone to access without any pesky barriers.
However, when it comes to in-depth resources such as eBooks or webinars, these examples of gated content offer substantial value that can help position your brand as an authority in its field.
Providing these goodies only enhances the perceived worth of what you have on offer, which makes people more willing and excited even to share their personal details with you. Plus, gating this kind of resource keeps out any free-riders who just want quick fixes instead of building up some depth and knowledge where needed.
Landing pages are where all the magic happens. They're like the front door to your gated content, and you better believe that first impressions matter more than ever in marketing. So listen up, folks - make sure your landing page is designed with care - keep it simple yet persuasive. Your audience should be able to navigate it without feeling lost or overwhelmed by options.
The focus needs to stay on what matters: explaining why this piece of gated content is worth their precious personal info - no distractions allowed! Make sure they clearly understand the value they will get if they exchange their contact details to gain access.
And now let's talk forms – I wouldn't want anyone getting scared off at this critical stage! You might be tempted to ask for everything under the sun when someone lands on your page – but don't do that! Be selective with what info you request; only capture data that is absolutely necessary (like email addresses).
Keep things short and sweet; length, complexity or landing page irrelevance can kill conversions faster than fruit flies swarm overripe bananas. Hone your message, finesse those forms, and watch those leads roll in!
We've come to the final piece of the puzzle! Having amazing gated content won't get you anywhere if nobody knows about it. No one wants their hard work to go unnoticed. So listen carefully; this is where your marketing skills should shine!
First things first - use every tool at your disposal: social media, email newsletters, blog posts - anything that will help spread the word and reach your audience.
Communicate supernova-level value in each promotional effort. Make sure people know what they're potentially missing out on if they don't provide their contact info. But wait just a minute - don't just throw everything everywhere like spaghetti on the wall waiting for something to stick. Be strategic with promotion placement and messaging to avoid burnout or irritating those who have seen too much.
Don't forget who you're trying to attract! Ensure that all promotion efforts are directed towards relevant groups of individuals who would actually find this kind of information valuable.
Master these tactics! Good marketing requires content strategy, creativity, and, most importantly, consistency. Done right - watch as those leads shoot up faster than fireworks over New York City!
You've crafted an amazing piece of gated content, and people are filling out those forms and providing their precious contact details. What now? Don't just sit there twiddling your thumbs! This is where the real magic begins – nurturing that lead.
Think about it like this: The person who provided their email address in exchange for access to your gated content has expressed some level of interest in what you have to offer; take advantage of that momentum! Use all the info collected from them as building blocks for a relationship. Nurture them with relevant and valuable content - articles, infographics, or whatever they might find valuable.
Offer additional resources or insights. Try getting personal, too – instead of sending robotic blasts - engage with them on social media platforms - and build rapport. Why go through such an effort? Building relationships boosts prospective customer loyalty over time which ultimately drives sales, and isn't that why we started all this anyway?
Remember: seamless user experience is key at every stage - keep it authentic, and don't be afraid to invest yourself into what you're offering. It's not rocket science, but it takes effort!
So keep up the hustle - consistent engagement equals customer satisfaction!
Just because you've set up your content-gating strategy doesn't mean it's time to kick off your shoes and go on vacation. Content gating requires continuous improvement. It's like gardening - plant some seeds, nurture them regularly, and watch as they grow into beautiful flowers (or delicious fruit).
So get ready for the exciting part - testing and analyzing! A/B tests different elements. Try out different landing pages, shorten or lengthen forms, and experiment with various types of gated content to see what sticks. Don't stop there either - keep trying new promotional strategies.
But how do you know if it's working? Of course, through hard work and analytics tools. Analytics help identify which areas are successful in driving traffic while others aren't doing so hot. Insights gained from data analysis can be used to tweak your strategy or to try something completely new.
And don't forget; nothing is perfect the first time around. Imperfection is okay - use every iteration as an opportunity for growth! Keep experimenting until you find what works best.
Here's an important one you don't want to mess up – privacy concerns. Safeguarding your audience's personal information is key in this era where trust has become such a fragile thing. When collecting sensitive data through gated content, it's crucial that everyone feels confident in what happens with their info - because nobody likes unwanted website visitors (especially when they come knocking on our inbox doors).
To avoid any confusion or anxiety, be very transparent about how you will use their contact information, who will see it, and how long we plan to keep them around.
Privacy policy - make sure it's updated and clearly visible for all eyes (not just those eagle-eyed folks) so people know exactly what they're getting into. Don't stop there either - go above and beyond by avoiding spammy behavior. Who likes being spammed anyway?
Sending irrelevant messages only spells doom - personalization is king! Take these privacy measures seriously. Building trust takes time, but losing it can happen in seconds, so let's work smarter, not harder (or sloppy)!
When it comes down to content gating, using the right tools is like having all your gadgets and gears ready for an adventure. You wouldn't head out into unknown territory without a sturdy map (or GPS if that's more your thing), would you?
So what kind of tools do we need in our arsenal? First things first, you'll require something to host your gated content. Think about using a Content Management System (CMS) - but don't stop there! You'll also need software for designing user-friendly forms that collect contact information seamlessly.
You're not done yet, though - this is just the starting point! Now let's consider follow-up efforts. Emailing marketing platforms is essential when reaching out with juicy offers or helpful resources, as well as keeping track of email campaign success rates.
Finally, tracking performance - how else will you determine whether your strategy works? Before signing on those dotted lines, make sure these systems can work together harmoniously! There might be "all-in-one" solutions that have everything under one roof, such as HubSpot or Marketo - perfect for streamlining processes and making things easier.
Content gating is a game-changer when it comes to generating leads, gaining insights into your audience, and boosting sales. However, like any marketing tactic worth its salt, it requires careful planning and execution.
To make the most of this strategy, you need to know your target group inside out. Provide them with top-notch content, gate the appropriate pieces at the right time, optimize your landing pages for maximum impact, and promote these offerings effectively across platforms that matter to them.
Don't just stop there! Once they've signed up for gated content or downloaded something juicy from you in exchange for their details - show them some love too! Nurture those leads by offering more valuable resources tailored to their interests and needs. Keep testing different approaches until you hit upon what works best, and always respect their privacy as well!
Remember: above all else - value rules supreme in gating your content successfully! Offer your audience something worth having & they'll become eager subscribers who can't wait to see what other goodies are on offer down the line. And remember, in some cases, you may want to gate content that is user generated as it could cause legal issues if you don't have a way to properly police it.
The crux of gating lies in building long-lasting relationships founded on trust & mutual gain between both parties involved - so don't forget that either!
As technology keeps advancing, businesses are always on the lookout for ways to catch potential customers' interest and turn them into loyal patrons. That's where strategies such as content marketing and lead generation come in.
They work together like two peas in a pod to up your conversions and ultimately grow your business.
In this article, we'll be diving deep into eight surefire strategies that harness both content marketing and lead generation to help push more sales through the door.
It's no secret that reaching people online can be tough — but with these tips under your belt, you'll be one step ahead of the competition!
When it comes to digital marketing, content is the kingpin. Crafting valuable and high-quality content is the building block of any successful strategy in this realm.
Whether it's a blog post, an eBook, a video, an infographic, a live webinar, or even a podcast - your goal should be to provide value that answers your audience's questions and provides them with insights they find useful. Keep in mind, though, quality beats quantity every time.
It's better to pour all your energy into creating one piece of excellent content that delivers immense value rather than spewing out several low-quality ones. It's essential to create content that resonates with your audience and meets their needs.
Good quality will undoubtedly attract more significant traffic, increase engagement, and, most importantly, generate leads and convert customers for you!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a superhero when it comes to getting your content in front of more people.
Optimizing your website with the right keywords, meta descriptions, and alt text and following other SEO best practices can significantly increase your chances of ranking high on search engine results pages (SERPs).
These higher rankings inevitably lead to more clicks and traffic headed straight toward you!
It's not rocket science - the greater your visibility on search engines, the higher the possibility that visitors will choose to click on your content.
And what do we know? More traffic equals more conversions! So if you want to grow your business via digital marketing successfully, then investing time into mastering SEO should be a top priority for you.
Gated content is a term used to describe any piece of content that demands users to enter their information, like filling out forms or giving up contact details before they can access it. This could be anything from an eBook, whitepaper, webinar, or even a case study with all the juicy details.
This technique works great since it offers something valuable in exchange for a potential client's contact info. But here's the thing - you need to make sure what you're gating is worth your user's time and effort! Nobody likes wasting them either by signing up for unremarkable content or having their inbox cluttered with irrelevant messages.
So if employed correctly and offering high-quality resources gated behind easy-to-complete forms – this gives visitors clear value while expanding your customer base through collecting leads!
Social media channels are the superheroes of today's digital world when it comes to promoting content. They offer you a powerful way to up your reach and visibility by sharing your content through platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or Instagram.
The beauty of social media is that a share can set off an avalanche - which, in this case, translates into organic growth in both traffic and qualified leads headed toward you!
And let's be honest here - who doesn't love free advertising? Plus, social sharing also helps create brand awareness without costing you anything upfront.
So make sure that once your valuable content is published on your site, it gets shared far and wide across all available channels – allowing for maximum visibility while attracting new followers organically.
Email marketing is still the king of lead generation, and there's no debating that! Once you have your list of email addresses—possibly through gated content or other means—you can start sending out regular newsletters, updates, and promos directly to potential customers via their inboxes.
So go ahead and get creative with it—personalize your messaging (with names if possible) based on user preferences. This not only significantly increases open rates but also boosts conversions! Integrating lead generation marketing strategies into your email campaigns, such as creating content that aligns with your audience’s interests, can amplify results.
Don't shy away from digging into analytics or insights gathered on each recipient to make the most informed decisions about what each person wants to hear from you specifically. These lead generation efforts work wonders when it comes time for closing deals!
Getting leads is just the first step in your sales journey. You need to nurture those prospects and guide them towards becoming paying customers. But how do you accomplish that? Well, this is where content marketing comes into play! Content marketing allows you to provide valuable and tailored content through each stage of your prospect's buying process. This can be accomplished by sending personalized emails, showcasing specific ads based on their behavior and interests, or recommending products they would like- all of which increase the likelihood of them making a purchase with your brand.
Ultimately, creating high quality content helps build trust between potential buyers and brands as it addresses their specific needs at every touchpoint during their buying process journey.
By doing so, customers are more likely to engage with a company having had an enriched experience while interacting with its brand messages than those who didn't receive such attention or engagement from companies.
Thus, investing time in crafting content marketing strategies pays off in terms of building lasting relationships with customers that will lead to loyalty and long-term success for any business or brand!
Like all marketing strategies, it's crucial to keep a keen eye on your progress and analyze the data. Trying different techniques might be required for business owners to find out what works best. Things like A/B testing content types or headlines, trying out new email tactics, and SEO strategies could help yield better results. For example, monitoring website traffic can reveal which aspects of your lead generation campaign are working effectively.
It's essential that you collect information through analytics tools so you can measure how well your plan is working. Through this process of tracking traffic engagement and conversion rates, unique insights about customer preferences and behavior can be learned.
This knowledge allows brands to tweak their approach continually until they get optimal outcomes because, after all, you want your audience to engage with your brand's message effectively.
Analytics are more important now than ever before in today's world of online and social media marketing as they help businesses make informed decisions based on real-time data rather than assumptions alone. In summary, constant monitoring, analysis and optimization of marketing efforts will help push any business towards its goals- happy customers!
User-generated content (UGC), is a marketing technique that has experienced a surge in popularity over time. UGC refers to any form of media, from photos and videos to audio, comments, and reviews created by your target audience or customers on social media platforms.
Collaborating with your customers to share their experiences with the world about your brand online can be an effective way to boost credibility as these are people speaking candidly about their direct interactions with services or products provided by businesses they trust. After all, there's nothing quite like an endorsement from someone you already know and respect!
It's essential that small businesses encourage their customers and followers to create UGC for them if it fits within the company's values.
Sharing this kind of User-Generated Content across various social media platforms can help increase engagement rates while also enhancing authenticity because other people are recommending the brand instead of just themselves.
In summary; using User-Generated content is one way companies can encourage more customer interaction and participation online that amplifies trustworthiness at no additional cost!
By doing so, Small-Medium Enterprises (SMEs) have access to powerful marketing tools that will enable them not only to attract but retain loyal clients who value quality service delivery above anything else.
When it comes to digital marketing, there are two things you absolutely need - content marketing strategy and lead generation strategy. These two components work together like peanut butter and jelly (or almond butter and jam, if you prefer) to attract potential customers and drive conversions for your business.
Whether you're starting small or running an established company, these tactics will help you step up your overall marketing game a notch.
Measuring content performance is essential for businesses to understand the impact of their efforts and drive growth. Content plays a significant role in marketing, as it can help brands capture new customers while engaging existing ones.
It’s important that marketers have an understanding of how effective their content strategies are—this requires detailed content marketing measurement and analysis.
In this outline, we will discuss what exactly measuring your brand’s content means; five key things you should keep in mind when assessing performance; and why accurate data on customer engagement with your business's digital presence is so critical.
We'll then conclude by emphasizing just how valuable analyzing the success rate of each piece published truly is for gaining insights into who buys from or chooses not to engage with particular companies online today -all relevant information necessary for businesses seeking success!
Content measurement is the process of tracking and analyzing data related to content performance. It involves assessing content metrics such as:
To measure how effective a piece of content has been in achieving its goals.
Through these results, organizations can gain valuable insights into what types of content are successful and which channels work best for their business objectives.
By understanding user behavior through measurements companies get an idea about how people interact with their digital assets online so they can make informed decisions that drive long-term growth.
Content measurement refers to the process of measuring and analyzing data from content marketing campaigns.
Its purpose is to understand how effective a campaign is in achieving its objectives, such as driving engagement or generating leads.
Content measurements typically involve tracking key metrics such as reach, view time/duration, click-through rates (CTRs), number of shares/likes/comments, etc., so that marketers can iteratively improve their strategies for better results over time.
Key metrics for measuring content performance include:
Analyzing these measurements can provide useful insights into which types of content are most engaging with audiences so that businesses can optimize their strategies accordingly.
Measuring content performance starts with defining your goals and objectives. It’s essential to have a well-defined content marketing strategy in order for any measurement efforts to be successful.
When establishing these goals, think about what outcome you want from the content marketing campaign; such as increasing brand awareness or generating leads. Do some market research beforehand so that those targets are realistic and achievable within specified deadlines.
With clear goals set out beforehand, it will make tracking progress much simpler throughout all stages of production allowing more accurate analysis of return rates and providing insight into how best to optimize future strategies according to continual growth across various platforms online.
You should begin by defining the impact you want your content to have on business performance, such as increased brand awareness or higher ROI, and then determine which metrics will best measure these results.
The chosen metrics should accurately reflect how well your content performs against pre-defined criteria; this could include website visits generated through articles published, the number of newsletter subscribers attained from specific campaigns etcetera.
Additionally, there are more advanced options that can be used depending on what type of desired outcome you’re looking at:
Determining the relevant metrics for content measurement is essential to achieving great results. Different types of metrics can be used to measure success, such as consumption, engagement, and outcome metrics.
When determining which metric is most useful for tracking your specific goals and objectives it may also be helpful to assess other more oblique variables like sentiment analysis in social media interactions with customer feedback surveys etc.
Technology is an important part of content measurement. The data gathered from metrics helps to create insights that can inform and shape your overall content strategy.
When choosing the right analytics tools for measuring performance, look for those that will provide you with detailed analytics about engagement rates, user behavior, conversions, etc.
Consider tools such as Google Analytics or social listening platforms like Brandwatch to track how people interact with your brand online in real time; these give valuable insight into what’s working well and areas where improvement could be made.
Additionally, there are further marketing intelligence solutions available that allow a comprehensive analysis of competitor strategies across multiple channels - this level of insight allows more informed decisions regarding developing effective campaigns going forward.
For measuring content performance, it is important to select the right tools that effectively gather data and insights.
When selecting these tools there are a few key aspects to consider such as how user-friendly they are, what kind of performance metrics they track (both qualitative and quantitative), can you use them for cross-agency collaboration or multi-channel tracking.
It's also beneficial if the tool has visualization capabilities which makes it easier to interpret data quickly.
Additionally, make sure your chosen solution integrates easily with other software like web analytics systems so all collected information updates in one single place giving you a comprehensive overview of your campaigns’ success.
Analyzing data is an important part of content performance measurement. Gathering data from multiple sources gives you a better insight into how your content performs.
For example, looking at the referral traffic coming to your website can provide valuable information about which channels and types of existing content are driving higher engagement with users.
Another source to look for meaningful insights would be social media platforms like Facebook or Twitter where people actively engage in discussions related to topics that interest them most often. This could help determine what type of language resonates best among different groups and demographic segments within those communities as well as any subject matter gaps in the industry. It may open up potential opportunities for creating helpful new pieces of original content on certain popular subjects but not yet being covered sufficiently by others already engaging there.
Data analysis is an essential step in measuring content performance. With the right tools, it’s possible to gather data from multiple sources and gain valuable insights into your content efforts.
Analyzing this data enables you to determine which strategies are most successful so that they can be repeated or improved upon with new campaigns.
You should also look for trends over time and benchmark success against your competitors to give yourself a competitive edge in gaining customers and increasing engagement rates on social media platforms.
Additionally, analyzing consumer behavior helps inform future decision-making when creating engaging stories or refining existing ones for greater reach.
By analyzing the data you gather, it is possible to gain insight into what visitors are engaging with and make further improvements.
Analyzing key content marketing metrics such as page visits, bounce rate, or time spent on pages allows content marketers to identify how users interact with their content in order to deliver better experiences for them.
This can be used to refine existing material or create new pieces that target customer needs more precisely.
In addition, tools like A/B testing enable quick evaluation of different versions of webpages – enabling brands to learn quickly from user interactions and optimize accordingly without having a long development cycle associated with software product changes.
It’s important to continuously improve content based on the data from measurements.
Testing and refining different versions of content can help understand what works best for the target audience, which enables better results in terms of conversions or other predetermined goals.
Furthermore, continual testing helps generate insights about user preferences and motivations which will give a deeper understanding of personas developed through analytics - creating more effective marketing messages over time with improved targeting capabilities.
By using complex A/B tests, businesses can accurately compare two versions of their content side by side when released simultaneously at scale serving as useful experiments that lead to great improvements down the road.
Additionally combining quantitative analysis such as heat maps tracking user clicks together with qualitative feedback like surveys increases opportunities for improving strategies even further.
Content measurement is an essential process for assessing the effectiveness of your content marketing efforts. From setting clear objectives to choosing the right metrics and tools, measuring content marketing performance helps you understand exactly how well (or not) your chosen strategies are working so that you can adjust them accordingly.
Only by understanding what works—and why—can you continuously refine and improve upon it, ensuring greater content marketing success in all areas of digital engagement.
By using analytical data as a basis for making decisions about future campaigns, businesses can also ensure their content remains relevant and engaging over time; therefore increasing both reach and ROI potential along with overall customer satisfaction levels.
If there's one thing we have learned from this overview on effective ways to measure content strategy performance, its importance cannot be underestimated - without accurate measures in place after each campaign or piece of communication has been distributed business risks miss out on big opportunities offered via digital channels today!
The advent of the digital age has drastically changed how we interact with and consume content.
Interactive content provides a unique format for users to engage in meaningful conversations about products, services, or topics that matter most.
This type of media is highly effective at driving engagement while providing value-filled experiences through strategic storytelling techniques such as polls and surveys, games, interactive quizzes, interactive infographics, and more.
But creating these types of interactions isn't straightforward; it requires careful thought so effort put into engaging pieces doesn’t outweigh what users gain from them on an intellectual level – thus maintaining a balance between user engagement & valuable knowledge acquisition by viewers/participants.
Interactive Content can provide immense opportunities to capture attention but comes with a great responsibility to create something both useful & enjoyable for consumers simultaneously - striking the right balance between higher levels of efforts placed against greater values gained from participation becomes challenging here!
Quizzes are a popular form of interactive content that allows users to test their knowledge and learn new information. They can be used as marketing tools, educational resources, or solely for entertainment purposes.Quiz types range from multiple choice questions to sliding puzzles and drag-and-drop interaction games – making them great at engaging users with different interests in mind.
Polls and surveys are the simplest types of interactive content. They can involve questions or ratings that users answer in order to provide insight on a product, service, individual opinion, etc.
Games like puzzles and word games require user engagement for entertaining purposes often coupled with advertising objectives as well.
Interactive Infographics present data and information in a visual, organized format. They provide an engaging way to package complex topics into visuals that are easy for audiences to understand.
This type of Interactive Content can be used as an educational tool or marketing asset depending on the user's needs.
Incorporating interactive elements such as interactive maps, timelines, scrolling images/videos, and clickable hotspots enhances engagement with users by allowing them to access deeper levels of interaction within the infographic itself.
Integrating interactive content offers many advantages to businesses. These advantages include:
Visual appeal is one of the key factors that can affect user engagement.
In order to capture and maintain viewers’ attention, interactive content must have an attractive design with compelling visuals like videos, graphics, and images.
Many users will decide whether or not they should interact with a piece of content based on its appearance alone.
The level of difficulty is an important factor that affects user engagement with interactive content.
Finding just the right balance in terms of challenge can be key when striving for optimal user engagement with your Interactive Content.
Time investment is an important factor that enhance user engagement when creating interactive content. As users prefer to spend less time on tasks, keeping the task as straightforward and simple as possible is essential in order to maximize their experience with your content.
Accuracy and relevance are important factors that affect content value. Content should be accurate, fact-based information presented in an easy-to-understand way for the target audience.
In addition, it must remain relevant by providing answers and solutions related to current trends or topics of interest. Keeping this balance ensures readers gain valuable insights while also having a positive user experience with the interactive content provided.
Uniqueness is an important factor when it comes to content value, creating new, interesting, and unique content for your audience.
Educational value also affects the overall quality of a piece as well by providing useful information that readers can apply in their lives or jobs.
Both these factors should be taken into consideration when creating interactive pieces so they are both engaging and informative at the same time.
Using A/B testing is one way of balancing effort and value when creating interactive content.
This technique involves deploying two variations on a single piece of content to compare users' responses and identify which version performs better according to predetermined metrics such as user engagement, click-through rate, and conversion rate.
This can enable you to get direct feedback regarding how successful your efforts were and make data-driven decisions moving forward that further increase ROI for future endeavors.
User testing is an effective way to identify and measure user engagement, as well as determine if the content's effort matches its value.
Testing should include feedback from a variety of users with different abilities in order to gain valuable insight into how they interact with interactive content.
This can provide an indication of which areas need improvement in terms of usability and design before it goes live or be modified according to audience preferences or technological capabilities.
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In order to properly engage potential users and maximize the impact of your interactive content, it is essential to understand who you are targeting.
Take into account factors such as age group, interests/hobbies, or even geographic location when creating a clear picture of what kind of audience you hope to reach.
This ensures that every step taken in crafting this type of content – from planning through distribution – moves with purpose toward realizing predetermined goals and objectives.
Identifying goals and objectives is an important part of planning and research when creating interactive content. Knowing what success looks like, what information needs to be conveyed or collected, and the audience you are targeting will help with any creative decisions that need to be made throughout the development process.
This step can also determine which type of interactive content best meets your desired outcome such as a quiz or game versus a poll/survey.
Researching the competition is essential in Planning and researching when creating Interactive Content.
It can be helpful to understand what content other companies are producing, so that yours stands out from competitors’ work.
Running keyword searches on topics related to your business or viewing popular pieces of interactive content within a particular industry—researching may provide valuable insights into potential success metrics as well as effective implementation strategies for campaigns.
Storytelling is an essential component of designing and developing interactive content. It helps to capture the audience's attention, provides relevant context for the interaction, motivates users to continue engaging with your content, and reinforces key learning objectives.
Taking account of user needs when crafting a narrative will generate interest in participating which can lead to meaningful connections between brand messages or product experiences with readers' own personal interests.
Design and development of interactive content should focus on creating visuals that are eye-catching, engaging, and informative.
Graphics such as images, videos, infographics, or animations help to hold user's interest while providing valuable information.
It is important to select the right colors and font sizes so they complement each other without overwhelming readers with too much text or unnecessary visual elements.
Through testing various graphics options prior to launch, developers can ensure their visuals will result in an increase in engagement from users who access them online
User experience should be seamless, intuitive, engaging, and enjoyable to ensure a high level of user engagement.
Accessibility is also important in order to provide equal opportunities for users with physical or cognitive disabilities who may use assistive tools such as screen readers or speech recognition software when interacting with digital media.
Ensuring that the design elements follow standard Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2 standards helps promote an inclusive web environment where everyone can participate fully, regardless of their abilities.
Social media is an important tool for promoting and distributing interactive content. It can help increase reach, engagement, and conversions, as well as create a community of followers who will be more likely to consume the content in the future.
Additionally, it allows marketers to track analytics such as views or shares that provide key insights on user preferences, which helps improve strategies and audience segmentation capabilities.
Email marketing is one of the most effective ways to promote interactive content. It enables you to reach a larger audience and build relationships with them.
You can use email newsletters, automated emails, or even personalized emails to make sure your message resonates with readers.
By adding visuals such as images and interactive videos, it increases engagement further by providing an engaging visual experience for users that encourages interaction from subscribers who are eager for more information about what they've seen in their inboxes!
Influencer marketing is an effective way to boost the promotion and distribution of interactive content. It involves partnering with experts in your industry or influencers on social media platforms to help spread the word about your content.
Influencers have a strong following, so tapping into their network can be incredibly beneficial for getting more eyes on what you create.
This type of promotional strategy helps increase engagement by reaching potential new audiences who may not otherwise know about your work but will respond positively if given evidence-backed information from someone they trust.
Interactive content offers a great way for organizations to engage with their audience and provide valuable information that can help strengthen relationships.
This approach will ensure maximum user engagement while providing relevant educational or entertaining materials, which will lead to long-term customer loyalty later on.
Ephemeral marketing has become an increasingly popular form of digital advertising, especially as more and more individuals utilize social media platforms on a daily basis.
Snapchat is largely responsible for making ephemeral content mainstream due to its focus on disappearing messages and stories that users are able to view only within specific time frames.
This article looks at the rise of Snapchat in relation to ephemeral marketing while also discussing best practices brands can use when engaging with this type of strategy as well as potential risks they may face along the way.
The concept behind ephemerality centers around creating short-term campaigns that leverage high levels of user engagement, excitement, and anticipation among their target audience.
It includes crafting experiences or promotions that last anywhere from a few seconds to 24 hours, depending on whether they’re shared through images, videos, or written text posts across various social networks.
Understanding Ephemeral Marketing
Ephemeral marketing is a type of content that has a temporary lifespan, often lasting only 24 hours or less.
It does not remain on the web indefinitely as traditional digital marketing typically would, but instead disappears after its set period of time.
Examples include:
All great ways to engage with consumers in real-time interactivity while simultaneously providing them with limited access to promotional material such as discounts or new products before they disappear forever.
Pros:
Cons:
Despite this challenge, many companies have seen great success using ephemeral marketing due to an increased level of user interaction through creating engaging stories and providing exclusive experiences over shorter bursts compared to other forms of media such as television ads or print magazines.Which actually involves longer processes making crafting effective strategies even trickier - requiring careful planning if executed correctly can reap tremendous rewards.
Ephemeral marketing is different from traditional, static advertising in that it creates a sense of urgency and exclusivity.
Ephemeral content has a limited lifespan; after the predetermined expiration date, messages are automatically deleted or no longer accessible to the public.
In contrast, most traditional forms of marketing focus on long-term engagement and creating lasting impressions with consumers by utilizing various ad networks such as television commercials or print campaigns.
With ephemeral content there’s less pressure for brands to create perfectly polished snapchat ads; instead, they can interact more directly and intimately with their audience through timely responses which often build greater trust than typical advertisements do.
Since its launch in 2011, Snapchat has risen to become one of the most popular social media messaging platforms.
It allows users to send dynamic footage and images that self-destruct either after a few seconds or whenever the user chooses. These features have made it an attractive marketing medium for brands looking to capture their audiences' attention with fleeting moments of content.
By 2020, over 468 million daily active users were accessing Snapchat's innovative video filters and location features, such as Snap Maps. These features provided businesses with powerful opportunities for interactive promotions that enhanced customer experiences significantly above traditional methods like print ads or TV commercials.
Snapchat started as a photo-messaging app, but it rapidly grew in popularity over the years. Snapchat’s distinct feature of disappearing content has allowed marketers to create hype around campaigns quickly by creating urgency among users who want access before the content disappears forever.
Additionally, fun filters, lenses, polls, and other interactive experiences allow companies to engage customers on an emotional level and build stronger connections than ever before possible through static ads or email blasts alone. By leveraging tools like Ads Manager, businesses can easily create and manage Snap Ads that are tailored to their campaigns. These tools help companies maximize ad awareness and create relevant audiences, ensuring that their messages reach the right people.
As such Snapchat is no longer just another social media platform; instead it can be used as an effective tool that helps businesses boost engagement while fostering creativity at every step along the way.
Snapping its way to the top, Snapchat has quickly become a powerful force in social media marketing.
Companies of all sizes have seen tremendous success using the platform for ephemeral content and interactive experiences with their target audience.
Notable successes include:
These stories are evidence that when used correctly Snapchat can be not just effective but also extremely rewarding for brands looking to capitalize upon exciting trends like ephemeral marketing.
Understanding the target audience is one of the most important best practices for successful ephemeral marketing.
Gathering relevant data about users' interests and behaviors helps marketers tailor content to better engage their viewers.
Knowing who your base demographic is, as well as what platforms they use and how often, allows you to create effective campaigns that inform or entertain them in meaningful ways.
Additionally, understanding where different age groups tend to flock online can help maximize outreach potentials without overspending on ads targeting a wider range than necessary.
Storytelling is an essential part of ephemeral marketing.
It allows brands to tell their story in a more personal and engaging way by creating content with emotion, humor, or other forms of storytelling that resonate better with audiences than traditional ads do.
Brands should focus on having dynamic visuals to hook viewers attention as well as quality sound for those watching without headphones since it has a shorter time duration compared to the last-longer type of video such as YouTube videos.
Also important is utilizing relevant hashtags so users can find the stories faster and reach a wider audience base through user-generated tagging systems used commonly in platforms like Instagram Stories & TikTok Reels.
Exclusive content can help brands create a sense of urgency and drive engagement with their audiences. It also builds an interactive element of exclusivity that encourages users to return or stay tuned in order to see upcoming updates, offers, new products etc.
Brands should provide unique experiences that cannot be found anywhere else so they stand out from competitors while offering something valuable to customers at the same time.
By working with micro-influencers who have a direct connection to the target audience, brands are able to reach more potential customers in less time due to their already-established reputation and influence.
Furthermore, collaborating with multiple influencers offers greater visibility, as each content post can potentially increase engagement from followers across different social media platforms.
Ultimately, these connections help drive conversions while amplifying messages beyond traditional advertising opportunities like television or print ads.
Creating interactive experiences should be a cornerstone of any ephemeral marketing strategy. To engage and keep the audience engaged, consider using Snapchat-specific features such as lenses or filters.
Also use calls to action in your stories - ask people to:
It allows snapchat users to interact directly with content they find interesting and useful while building engagement around it overall.
Utilizing analytics to measure success is one the important best practices for ephemeral marketing.
This involves tracking metrics like engagement rate, views, and impressions to gauge how effective the campaign has been.
Brands should also monitor different platforms and channels used in their campaigns as well as any user-generated content that could provide valuable insights into a brand's performance over time.
By effectively using data, marketers can make better decisions about campaigning on Snapchat or other social networks with a limited shelf life of content.
Privacy concerns are a significant challenge for ephemeral marketing. Due to Snapchat's transient nature, messages, photos, and videos shared may not be immediately available as proof should any issues arise due to user disclosure or misuse of content by third parties.
Furthermore, companies that run campaigns across multiple social media platforms need to consider how different privacy regulations could affect them when distributing their message on local markets with varying laws governing customer data protection and usage rights.
One of the main challenges associated with ephemeral marketing is its limited lifespan.
Snapchat’s stories only last for 24 hours, and other platforms have their own specific guidelines on how long content lasts before it expires or gets replaced by newer posts.
This forces marketers to be creative in order to maximize visibility among target audiences - often requiring multiple iterations so that messages can reach as many people as possible within a short period of time.
Additionally, because consumers are used to getting fresh new content every day, brands must continuously develop unique ideas and strategies to produce trending pieces while remaining relevant.
Keeping up with updates and changes is an ongoing challenge for marketers utilizing ephemeral marketing.
Platforms such as Snapchat are constantly evolving, introducing new features or making design tweaks that require companies to stay current in order to keep their campaigns effective.
Marketers must be aware of all major releases from any platforms they use so that the overall campaign strategy isn’t compromised by out-of-date materials or missing newly released tools.
In conclusion, ephemeral marketing provides a unique way for brands to get creative and build more personal relationships with their target audiences. Snapchat was one of the first major players to popularize it, leveraging its features to innovate how we market products today.
When done correctly, influencer marketing can provide many benefits, including increased reach from exclusive content and interactive experiences and higher conversion rates. However, certain challenges still exist, such as privacy concerns or the limited lifespan of content, so brands need to be aware before fully committing resources to this type of approach.
After all these years, Snapchat remains an integral part of any successful digital strategy. It informs us about new trends even now, saying much about the resilience behind them despite changes along the road.
Visual content plays a vital role in event marketing and can make or break the success of an organizational endeavor.
It is defined as any visual material used to convey information, such as photos, videos, illustrations, and infographics.
This guide seeks to provide comprehensive insight into how organizations should optimize their visual content. So they can have a maximum positive impact on all aspects related to planning, creating, implementing, and measuring its effectiveness during events that are part of campaigns intended towards acquiring leads/customers.
In order to effectively plan visual content for event marketing, it is important to first understand the target audience. This involves:
Through this process, one will be able untap into potential customer insights which provide valuable guidance in creating effective visual campaigns tailored specifically towards fulfilling targets set at the planning stage.
When planning visual content for event marketing, it is important to set clear and achievable goals. This includes:
Additionally, you should also identify key performance indicators (KPIs) that can be used later on to track progress and measure success when analyzing results after the event has taken place.Having these specific objectives in mind will help ensure any visual content developed supports overall strategy by actively working towards predetermined success metrics from inception all through execution.
When it comes to planning visual content for event marketing, defining the brand identity and message is essential.
This involves considering what values you want your visuals to communicate and how they should reflect your company’s mission statement.
It also means identifying which types of graphics best represent those values so that when people look at them, they instantly recognize who or what organization created them.
Thinking through these elements before taking a creative approach can help guide creative decisions while keeping everyone on track in terms of following branding guidelines
Choosing appropriate visual content for event marketing is essential to connecting with target audiences and achieving desired outcomes.
To do so, marketers must first understand their audience’s preferences and goals before researching potential visuals like graphics, logos, photos, or videos that might resonate best with them.
Once this data has been collected it should be used in choosing the proper messaging for each piece of content being created.
This way each element stays within brand guidelines while also resonating correctly among specific customers' tastes and needs
Selecting high-quality images and videos is one of the most important steps when creating effective visual content for event marketing.
Additionally, it’s useful to utilize color theory knowledge so that you are able to create cohesive visuals using complementary hues and textures.
Finally, try selecting photos from stock image websites instead of taking them yourself – this ensures better quality control before publication!
Incorporating branding elements into visual content for event marketing is essential to create an engaging and consistent message.
Branding elements will help solidify the identity of your event, making it easier to recognize across platforms. Your branding should be instantly recognizable in all images used - think logos, font styles, color palettes, etc.
Every aspect of visuals should convey professionalism while staying relevant to modern design trends so you can cut through crowded messaging on social media platforms or other forms of promotion like flyers or websites.
Utilizing color theory when creating visual content for event marketing can help engage and draw attention to the target audience.
Colors evoke different emotions in people, so it's important to choose colors wisely based on the message of a brand or campaign.
For example, bright colors are known to be more eye-catching than muted tones while warm colors create an inviting atmosphere.
Additionally, using analogous and complementary hues helps bring balance into visuals and make them harmonious yet striking at the same time.
Creating effective visual content for event marketing requires ensuring accessibility and inclusivity.
This means designing visuals that can be viewed, interacted with, or consumed by people who may have limited vision capacity due to physical disability as well as those from different cultural backgrounds.
Videos should specifically incorporate subtitles, captions and audio descriptions, while images need properly contrasted colors or colorblind features available when needed. Designers must also consider international standards of sizes such as fonts so everyone can easily understand messages conveyed through the content.
Choosing the right platform for distribution is essential when implementing visual content in event marketing.
Platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are some of the most popular choices that can help reach a wide audience with minimal effort. Additionally, it's important to determine whether paid advertising should be incorporated into your campaign strategy depending on budget restrictions or desired outcomes.
Choosing platforms according to target audiences’ preferences will allow digital marketers to maximize their impact by disseminating visuals across multiple channels at once while utilizing each channel's unique features where applicable.
Creating a cohesive visual marketing campaign is essential when implementing visual content in event marketing.
It starts with having an established brand identity and message, and then selecting suitable visual elements to represent the theme of the event.
Distribution should be done through appropriate platforms to reach maximum enhance engagement from your chosen target audience. Utilizing social media posts and video content can help elevate brand visibility as well as marketing efforts.
Additionally, leveraging user-generated content provides further promotion opportunities, especially prior to and during events, enabling connection with a diverse audience.
Utilizing social media effectively is key for the successful implementation of visual content in event marketing.
Platforms such as Instagram and Twitter are critical channels to share visuals, engaging captions, and stories related to your event which can help increase visibility among target audiences.
When using these platforms it is important to ensure your posts look professional by having consistent branding elements, and accurate descriptions with relevant hashtags or keywords- ensuring they reach the right people at the right time!
Encouraging user-generated content is an important part of implementing visual content in event marketing.
This can be done through campaigns that invite attendees to share photos and videos from the event, using specific hashtags for tracking purposes.
It also encourages people to participate by giving them a chance to have their work featured on social media platforms or other promotional materials.
User-generated content builds buzz around the event while providing marketers with valuable insights into what resonates best among their demographic base.
Measuring Visual Content Success in Event Marketing involves defining key performance indicators (KPIs) that are specific to the event and its marketing goals.KPIs should include metrics such as:
Additionally understanding return on investment (ROI) is important to ensuring success of any campaign.ROI gauges whether profits exceed expenses associated with creating and distributing meaningful visuals during an event-marketing campaign.
Measuring Visual Content Success in Event Marketing involves evaluating the return on investment (ROI).
This requires collecting data such as metrics, analytics, and feedback to assess how successful a visual content campaign was compared to its cost.
Tracking attendance at events or sales numbers can help measure whether viewers were influenced by event marketing visuals.
Companies should also take into account factors like brand awareness, customer engagement, and satisfaction when calculating ROI for event-based visual content campaigns.
Best practices for using visual content in event marketing involve consistency in branding and messaging.
Ensuring that all visuals used adhere to the same color palette, font families, and logo placements is key when creating a cohesive campaign across different media outlets.
Additionally, it's important to limit text on any imagery so as not to clutter or confuse messages which can impact their effectiveness significantly. Keep images simple yet memorable- captivating viewers with one strong aspect of your brand identity instead of overwhelming them with multiple elements focusing on only those necessary for conveying the message quickly and efficiently.
Incorporating visual storytelling into visual content strategy is one of the best practices for event marketing. A good story should be engaging and captivating so that it can draw attention from viewers.
Visual storytelling helps to create an emotional connection between brands, events, and customers while also helping drive engagement with visuals such as videos, data visualizations, or images. It’s important to keep stories concise yet interesting by using just enough detail without revealing too much right away; this will help maximize user interaction with your brand or event's message.
Creating shareable content is definitely one of the important best practices to consider when planning visual marketing for events- especially in this attention-seeking world.
Sharing your high quality visual content via relevant platforms and using catchy titles, hashtags, or captions can help draw attention to the event. Crafting visually appealing designs with short yet effective messages as part of your content strategy will ensure users see them as valuable resources worth sharing.
It is essential to stay up-to-date with the latest design trends and technologies when creating visual content for event marketing. This can help your engagement significantly as people are more likely to pay attention if they find your visuals appealing and modern.
Additionally, familiarize yourself with different platforms’ standards in terms of visuals so that all material will be suitable across various channels—this helps create a consistent look throughout campaigns which appeals even better to viewers.
Finally, use stats or research results backed by data points wherever possible within visuals- this allows audiences to feel confident about what they're engaging with.
The effective implementation of visual content in event marketing can be the difference between success and failure.
In this comprehensive guide, we explored planning for, creating, and implementing high-quality visuals that best represent a brand's identity and message to influence audience engagement.
Additionally, it is essential to measure KPIs such as ROI from campaigns when optimizing these materials along with staying up-to-date on design trends or technologies.
This will ensure consistency in branding efforts through storytelling experience leading towards successful events.
So, you want to get your business’s name out there. More importantly, you want to get it in front of key decision-makers in your industry.
But what if your business is relatively small and you’re on a tight marketing budget? How do you make the right connections and get good brand mentions?
The answer is public relations (PR). Though PR may seem like something only for big brands, this isn’t true. Even small businesses can take advantage of PR strategies, and fortunately, they don’t require big marketing budgets.
In this article, we’ll go over what PR means and our top tips for improving your PR outreach at a minimal cost. Let’s get started!
PR refers to managing and maintaining a positive public image of your brand. Typically, this is done by seeking out positive exposure on media platforms that your target audience follows.
For example, PR could involve reaching out to a news outlet to do a story about your business, publishing a press release for a new product launch, pitching a story to an industry magazine, or featuring as a guest on an industry-relevant podcast. There are many ways to approach PR.
That said, PR is not to be confused with marketing. Both are concerned with building your business, but marketing is ultimately focused on boosting your bottom line by increasing revenue, whereas PR is primarily concerned with cultivating a good business reputation.
Source: https://www.kochiesbusinessbuilders.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/public-relations.jpg
Now that you know what PR is, here are some tips to improve your PR outreach:
Before you start reaching out to media outlets, make sure your business has a good online presence. This means going over your business website, social media profiles, and other online accounts to make sure they look clean and professional.
Get rid of any broken pages or links on your website and make sure you have a professional photo on your social media accounts and that you actively use them. There’s nothing that says your business is out of touch more than an outdated website or an unused social media account.
Another way to improve your online presence is to create a professional media kit. This is a small document that includes information about you and your company such as a bio and a professional photo. By including your media kit every time you pitch a media outlet, you make it easy for relevant journalists to cite and feature you.
If you’re planning a successful pr outreach campaign, having access to the right pr outreach tools can streamline the process and help you target the appropriate contacts. These tools make it easier to build strong media relations and establish credibility among pr professionals and the wider media industry.
Next, determine who you want your PR efforts to reach. In other words, who is your target audience and what media outlets do they follow most?
For example, if you own a fintech company, you may want to target business owners by pitching a news outlet like Forbes or Fast Company. Or if you own a real estate business, you might aim for a feature in Inman or Housingwire.
The goal is to find out where your target market hangs out and get your company name talked about in those circles. If you’re not sure where your target market is, consider surveying your existing customers to find out.
Also, keep in mind that the definition of media is expanding. In addition to getting featured in traditional publications like the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) or the New York Times (NYT), you may want to target various social media platforms, blogs, and independent publications.
Whatever you do, make sure the outlets you reach out to serve your target market and cover what your business is about.
If some of the news outlets mentioned so far sound out of reach, that’s okay. You don’t have to start by pitching top newspapers. In fact, you probably shouldn’t. It takes time to cultivate good PR.
Instead, set realistic and manageable PR goals. Start by pitching smaller publications and then gradually work your way up to pitching bigger ones. You’re more likely to get in with bigger outlets if you already have some smaller media mentions.
Once you’ve established some realistic PR goals, you can work them into a long-term PR strategy.
Another way to get your company name out there is to share your expertise online. This could mean publishing free content on your business’s blog or on social media.
For example, if you run a wealth management firm, you could post your top tips on how millennials can save for retirement. Or if you own a personal injury law firm, you might post about ways to win a car accident lawsuit.
The idea is to become a thought leader in your industry niche. That way, media outlets will be more inclined to feature you (because you already have a following), and in some cases, they may even reach out to you.
When it comes to actually pitching media outlets, make sure you have a newsworthy story to tell with a unique angle. Media companies get pitched stories all the time, so yours needs to stand out to get their attention.
Focus on what makes your company unique but don’t forget to pitch a story that will be useful to the publication. Research their audience and what types of content they have published in the past. This will give you a clue as to what they’re looking for.
That said, almost everything is a potential story, so dig deep. Company milestones, corporate events, or industry insights can all make for good stories if you know how to tell them right.
If you’re having trouble finding media outlets to reach out to, there are many PR tools and resources out there that can help. Here are just a few:
On top of using social media to connect with journalists, you can use it to identify and build relationships with industry leaders. For example, you can use it to connect with influencers who may agree to advocate for your brand or sponsor one of your products.
The beauty of using social media for PR is that it’s free. You don’t have to spend any money to get into the right circles. However, you will need to dedicate time and effort to being active on the platform. That’s true whether you’re using Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn.
Whenever you do get featured in the media, it’s important to share it. For example, if you’re a guest on a podcast, share the link to the episode across social media. Or if your brand is featured in a news article, share it online and tag the outlet and journalist.
This not only helps spread your brand name online but helps strengthens your relationships with media outlets and journalists, who may then tap your shoulder for future features.
If you haven’t been able to tell already, relationships are the foundation of good PR. Without them, getting good press will be extremely difficult.
One way to improve your media relationships is to start building them early. Don’t wait until you get a feature in an article or podcast. Begin getting to know the right people now by offering your help and expertise. Take a value-first approach, where you give, give, give, and only ask once you have a reason to expect something in return. That way, you’re more likely to get the media features you’re after.
Another way to build good relationships is to get involved in community events and charities. This helps you get to know different people you may not otherwise meet and can lead to good PR opportunities.
Lastly, there’s no point in investing in PR if you don’t track your results. As the late Peter Drucker said, “You can’t improve what you don’t measure.
”How do you measure PR results? Start by following the news and social media to see when your company name gets mentioned. Many platforms like Twitter allow you to track different keywords or hashtags, for example.
Another easy way to do this is to set up a Google Alert. This lets you collect online mentions of different keywords, such as your company name or industry, via daily or weekly emails.
The point is to track how often your brand is mentioned so you can see what is working in your PR strategy and what isn’t and then adapt.
If this all sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. PR outreach can be challenging, especially when you’re just starting out. What you don’t want to do is blast as many PR pitches to as many outlets as you can think of. There are better ways.
To take your brand recognition to the next level, consider partnering with Marketer.co. We have established relationships with some of the internet’s top publications, and we can help get your company’s name featured in them in no time. Contact us today to learn more! We look forward to learning more about you and all your PR needs.
The eCommerce industry is constantly growing, evolving, and providing businesses with phenomenal opportunities to profit.
To take advantage of this ever-expanding sector, businesses need to develop powerful marketing strategies that reach the right audience at the right time.
It can make your online store more visible and capture the attention of potential customers who are actively looking for products and services- like yours in major search engines, social media platforms, and other digital channels.
In this blog, we will discuss paid eCommerce marketing strategies such as Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Social Media Advertising, Display Advertising, and more.
We'll also provide some examples from different companies so you can see which ones are succeeding in an increasingly crowded market filled with competitors eager to snatch away a piece of your pie before it even cools off!
Search Engine Marketing (SEM) is a type of internet marketing that involves using paid advertisements to rank highly in search engine results.
It includes optimizing landing pages as well as improving visibility and relevance through other methods such as pay-per-click (PPC), keyword research, and targeted ad placement.
Google Ads, which uses targeted advertising placed at the top of SERP results, and Yahoo marketing which focuses on contextual ads.
Other SEM strategies such as Bing & MSN have also become increasingly popular due to their low-cost options and ability to target specific demographics with paid search.
Social Media Advertising is a type of paid digital marketing that places ads on different social media platforms such as Facebook, YouTube , Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn.It helps businesses reach their target market through sponsored posts, carousel adverts and video adverts to spark interactions with potential customers by sharing relevant content in an engaging way.
Examples of successful Social Media Advertising campaigns range from Nestlé's Oat Bites product launch to Burger King's #ScaryGoodCostaRica hashtag campaign.
Each one created content that was relevant and engaging to the target market, helping them increase brand recognition, visibility, and loyalty with customers.
Display advertising is a type of marketing strategy that involves placing ads on different websites in display format. This includes everything from banners and videos to interactive media ads, so businesses can get their message across to consumers through visuals or sound.
Examples of display advertising campaigns include using retargeting to serve ads to warm leads , Native Ads which blend into the website and targeted banners placed on high traffic sites related to your product or service.
Influencer marketing is a type of online marketing where influencers, which are individuals with high-level reach and engagement, promote brands' products or services to their large audience base. It incorporates content creation and shares through multiple digital channels such as blog posts, social media platforms, video campaigns, and more.
These are integrated into platforms such as YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other popular websites in order to increase brand reach and engagement.
Affiliate Marketing is a type of e-commerce marketing that enables brands to increase their customer base by partnering with other businesses (affiliates) and incentivizing them to promote the brand's products or services. In exchange, affiliates receive a commission for each sale generated from their referrals; this is mostly a popular strategy now considering its many benefits.
Examples of successful affiliate marketing campaigns include Amazon's program, where the brand engages millions of affiliates around the world to help promote its products. Other companies such as REI and Blue Apron have also seen great success with their affiliate programs by providing incentives to customers for referring friends or followers to purchase their goods and services.
Email marketing is a form of digital marketing that involves sending promotional emails to potential and current customers. It allows businesses to build relationships, deliver value, promote their products, keep customers informed, and drive ecommerce sales.
Benefits of Email Marketing
Key Components of Email Marketing
This will enable businesses to craft messages that resonate with the customers and deliver value at every step of their journey. This is particularly important for ecommerce stores looking to enhance their ecommerce marketing tactics.
Examples of Email Marketing Campaigns
Companies can also use automation to trigger certain events based on customers' activities for a more personalized experience.
Retargeting is a type of online advertising whose main purpose is to re-engage customers who have previously interacted with a business or its marketing campaigns. It uses tracking codes placed on websites and segments users through cookies in order to show ads only to relevant audiences.
Benefits of Retargeting
Key Components of Retargeting
Examples of Retargeting Campaigns
Each campaign provides a unique opportunity for businesses to re-engage with their audiences by addressing specific interests. This is an effective tactic in any ecommerce marketing plan.
Video Advertising is an effective way to reach potential customers. It involves creating compelling visual pieces, often using multimedia platforms such as YouTube or Vimeo, that send a powerful verbal and non-verbal message about the advertised product or service. It furthers brand recognition and increases engagement among your target audience for increased ROI.
Benefits of Video Advertising
It also allows marketers to track viewer behavior, like how long they watched, which provides valuable insight into optimization efforts for ecommerce brands.
Key Components of Video Advertising
Examples of Video Advertising Campaigns
Choosing the right Paid ecommerce marketing strategy for your business can be a daunting task. It is important to understand what goals you are trying to achieve, who your target audience is, and how they use various marketing channels before settling on one strategy or another.
You should carefully weigh the advantages and disadvantages of each strategy, as well as their associated costs and labor-intensive elements, to choose one that best fits your needs. Knowing these will give you insight into devising strategies tailored towards specific customer segments, thus optimizing results within budgeted ecommerce marketing efforts. This will directly influence your online sales.
Running a successful Google ad campaign is hard work. It requires crafting compelling ad copy, bidding on competitive keywords, and creating engaging landing pages.
It also requires having a handle on ad Quality Score. As the name suggests, this is Google’s official metric for measuring the quality of your ads. The higher your ad’s Quality Score, the higher Google will rank the ad and the less you will be charged for it. It's part of the ad rank formula.
In this article, we’ll go over exactly what the Quality Score is, how it’s measured, how it impacts Google Ads quality score, your Google ad performance, and more. You will also learn how to optimize your Google Ads account. Let’s get started!
Google Quality Score rates the quality of your ads in terms of their relevance to the search keywords you are targeting and their usefulness to users. It does this by comparing your ads to those of other advertisers on a scale of 1 to 10.
According to Google, you can use Quality Score as a diagnostic tool to “identify where it might be beneficial to improve your ads, landing pages, or keyword selection.”
The first step to improving an ad’s low-quality score is to understand how the metric is calculated in the first place.
There are three main components of Google’s Quality Score:
Source: https://instapage.com/blog/quality-score
Each of these factors is given a rating of “above average,” “average,” or “below average” by Google’s machine learning (ML) algorithms, which use historical data from other advertisers over the last 90 days.
In other words, good Quality Score is based entirely on the “wisdom of the crowds” (Google users) as opposed to that of Google employees.
While Google doesn’t disclose the relative weighting of each Quality Score component, the click-through rate (CTR) appears to be the most important.
Why? Because at the end of the day, the number of people that actually click on your ad is the strongest indicator of its relevance to users.
Plus, Google relies heavily on ad revenue, and the only way it makes money from ads is if users click on them. Then Google collects money from advertisers. That’s how the cost-per-click (CPC) ad model works.
So, Google has a strong incentive to ensure its ads are high quality.
Quality score impacts your Google Ad performance in a few important ways:
First, the Quality Score helps determine which ads are eligible to enter the ad auction for a particular keyword. If your ad’s Quality score doesn’t reach a certain threshold, it won’t be considered.
Second, Quality Score helps determine how eligible ads are ranked in search results. The better the Quality Score, the higher the ad will appear.
Lastly (and perhaps most importantly), Quality Score helps determine an ad’s cost per click (CPC). Google discounts ads that have higher Quality Scores because it knows those ads will get clicked on more, leading to more ad revenue.
Again, without clicks, Google doesn’t make any money. So, if it can get generate more clicks by offering a discount to advertisers with higher-quality ads, it will.
The opposite is also true. If your ad’s Quality Score is lower than your competition, then Google will penalize you by requiring you to pay a higher CPC.
At the end of the day, Google just wants to make as much money as possible, and discounting and penalizing CPC is how it offsets differences in ad Quality Scores.
Source: https://www.clairejarrett.com/how-to-increase-quality-score-in-google-ads/
To improve your Google Ads’ Quality Scores, there are a few things you can do:
Knowing which keywords to target with your ads is essential to gaining a good quality score. Some keywords may seem relevant to your product or service but, in fact, are not. To find out which keywords your target customers are actually searching for requires thorough research into users' search queries. When you get your keywords right, your ad CTRs will increase, and so will your keyword quality scores.
Another way to improve the ad group Quality Score is to tightly group target keywords. You want to make sure the ad groups aren’t too broad, or else your ad relevance will suffer. If needed, split your ad groups into smaller, more tightly themed subgroups to enhance your ad and landing page relevance.
You can’t expect a high ad level Quality Score without writing high-quality ad copy. After all, the content of the ad is what gets users to click on it. So focus on keeping ad copy short and to the point. Don’t try to be clever. Speak directly to your target customer’s heart so that they will be more inclined to click, leading to better ad positions.
Of course, even the most compelling ads won’t do you any good if they lead to a landing page that isn’t relevant or useful. So you need to make sure your landing page quality connects directly to your ad groups and provides a seamless experience for users from the initial ad to conversion. Do this by creating a visual hierarchy, using minimal text, adding high-quality photos, and having different landing pages for different keywords and products. This ensures you’ll avoid low quality score keywords dragging down your campaign.
Lastly, add negative keywords to your Google ads campaign. This excludes certain keywords that are irrelevant to your product or business so that you don’t waste any budget on them.
While not directly related to your Google Ads quality score, the quality of your brand's perception online can also be improved by deleting bad Google reviews. It won't matter if you're driving a bunch of traffic and you have a one star average with reviews from previous customers!
Ultimately, ad Quality Score is all about making your ads more relevant to users. Now that you understand how to do that, you can expect your ads to perform better in terms of CTR (performance) and CPC (cost).
That said, if you need extra help, PPC.co is here for you. Our expert marketers have decades of experience in running successful ad campaigns, and we’re confident we can take yours to the next level, too.
Contact us today for a free proposal. We look forward to chatting!
Digital marketing is a practical necessity if you're interested in greater brand visibility, generating more traffic for your website, landing more sales, or a combination of these.
But how do you handle that digital marketing?
One option is to hire a digital marketing agency – a special type of business designed to provide digital marketing services in exchange for recurring fees.
Unfortunately, digital marketing agencies are rarely cheap. If you're swimming in extra money, you probably don't need a digital marketing agency in the first place, which means most potential digital marketing agency clients need to think critically about whether hiring an agency is truly worth the money.
Are digital marketing agencies worth it? And how can you tell for sure?
A digital marketing agency is a business that provides many different types of digital marketing strategies and services to its clients. These services can include things like:
Digital marketing companies typically employ individual specialists, including strategists, data analysts, designers, writers, and account specialists, to take care of this work. Because they also have an extended network of contacts and resources they can draw upon, working with a digital marketing agency is typically scalable. When you're first starting out, you can take advantage of a relatively inexpensive plan, and as your business grows and your needs change, you can tap into those extra resources.
Digital marketing professionals typically charge money in one of three ways. They may charge a monthly retainer fee, based on the number of hours you used during a specific time period, or based on individual projects.
The digital marketing strategies implemented by your agency’s efforts will likely boost brand visibility and reputation, increase web traffic, and increase conversions—though agencies rarely guarantee these types of improvements.
A digital marketing agency isn't your only option.
There are also several alternatives to consider.
In a discussion of whether a digital marketing agency is worth the money, we need to know what we're comparing against; a $500 hamburger might be worth it if you're starving, but probably isn't worth it if you can make a similar hamburger for a couple of dollars at home.
The problem is tracking down and continuously working with freelancers who are truly reliable experts. If you depend on a network of contractors, half of your marketing responsibilities will be finding new freelancers and coordinating them. While inexpensive, freelancers are less consistent and less reliable.
There's no clearly superior alternative, though some businesses will clearly prefer one of the above options over digital marketing agencies for one reason or another.
We also need to consider the cost of digital marketing agencies. Obviously, the price of a digital marketing agency will depend on many factors, including the agency's experience level and specialty, the services you require, the extent of those services, how the payment plan is structured, and more.
Still, we can make a high-level assessment of the price of the average digital marketing agency.
Currently, digital marketing agencies charge about $2,500 to $12,000 per month for small- to mid-sized business clients. That equates to an hourly rate between $50 and $500 (for most agencies), or $1,000 to $7,500 per project (though this varies significantly based on the nature of the project).
Depending on what you need, you can expect to pay at least a few thousand dollars every month for these services.
Is a digital marketing agency worth the money?
That depends on how you define “worth” – in other words, how you define the value an agency gives you. In our previous example, a $500 hamburger is worth it when you're starving, because the alternative is death, thus making the value of the hamburger “life” itself. Most of us would estimate that the value of a human life is far more than $500, making this a deal. But if the value is simply a slightly bigger hamburger, most of us would agree that the extra money is a waste. In most situations, the best tool to measure digital marketing agency value is your return on investment, or ROI, though this isn’t always easy or straightforward to calculate.
Essentially, you want to figure out how much material value the digital marketing agency is generating for your brand, relative to the amount of money you’re spending with the agency. You'll also need to consider this metric as it relates to alternative options.
For example, let's say you spend $10,000 per month with your digital marketing agency of choice. If they generate $5,000 in new sales for your business, you can clearly see a problem; you'll essentially be losing $5,000 every month, proving that this digital marketing agency is not worth the money. If they generate $50,000 in new sales for your business, the agency is very obviously worth the money.
Unfortunately, ROI can be difficult to calculate. There are simply too many variables to account for. If your agency is charging you a flat rate for services, this can streamline things, but you'll still need to take into account subtler cost variables, like how much time you spend talking on the phone with your account representative.
On the benefit side of the equation, it's important to consider the net value of meaningful actions generated by your agency, which isn't always straightforward. For example, let's say your digital marketing agency sends 100,000 people to your website. To understand how much value this has, you need to understand the average value of a website visitor.
We must also consider how we attribute things to the digital marketing agency. If 100,000 people visit your website, are you confident that all of them visited because of the actions your digital marketing agency took? What if you have independent marketing strategies running in the background? What would have happened if you executed this campaign, instead of your digital marketing agency?
Complicating things further, we need to consider forms of value that digital marketing agencies provide that can't be easily calculated. For example, if a digital marketing strategist teaches you a new principle that changes how you construct landing pages forever, multiplying your conversion rates many times over, how do you represent this in your ROI equation?
Because of these complicating variables, we can’t even begin to ballpark the “average” or expected ROI of a digital marketing agency. Even if we could, there would be digital marketing agencies seeing results far above and far below this figure. What’s important is that you have some kind of ROI-centric value equation you can use to approximate the value of the agency you work with. Your agency will likely attempt to prove its value as well, in a bid to keep you as a satisfied client.
Though certainly not guaranteed, most digital marketing agencies will return value that exceeds what you spend on them. If an agency can’t at least meet this threshold for service, it typically loses clients quickly and fades into oblivion; if an agency has been around and serving many clients for many years, you can usually count on a relatively high ROI.
Since our default assumption is that digital marketing agencies are usually worth the money, it might be easier to explain the situations and circumstances that make a digital marketing agency not worth the money.
As long as you have decent standards for agencies you hire, you can generally count on finding an agency that returns a sufficient amount of value to your organization. The real question is whether you're able to find the best possible digital marketing agency for your brand.
In other words, assuming nearly all digital marketing agencies are “worth the money,” how do you find the agency that returns the greatest amount of value for the money you spend?
Define this, and pay especially close attention to the agency’s areas of specialty, years of experience, current client portfolio, reviews, and general reputation within the marketing community. Due diligence is essential if you want to make the best choice.
Additionally, be ready to collaborate with your digital marketing agency to push your results even higher. A positive ROI is a good thing, but there's no upper limit to how high your ROI can climb when you're ready to push for it.
So, what's the bottom line here? For most businesses in most situations, a digital marketing agency is worth the money, assuming that a digital marketing agency is sufficiently experienced and competent.
There are many forms of value to consider when estimating worth, making ROI equations complicated, but you should still be able to estimate the prospective value of digital marketing agencies you're considering.
Are you interested in working with a digital marketing agency that can prove its value? Or are you just interested in seeing what types of digital marketing agencies are out there? Start here. Contact us for a free consultation today!
Running an e-commerce business means constantly looking for ways to drive more traffic, convert leads into sales, and turn one-time buyers into loyal customers. But it’s not just about getting people to your site. You also have to capture their interest, engage them with value, and build relationships that last. Lead generation is the backbone of this process, and when done right, it can take your ecomm business to new heights.
Here are some actionable tips to help you generate leads, drive sales, and foster customer loyalty in your e-commerce business.
A lead magnet is something valuable you offer in exchange for a customer’s contact information. For an e-commerce store, this could be a discount code, a free guide, or exclusive access to sales. The key is to make the offer so compelling that potential customers can’t resist signing up.
For example, if you sell fitness gear, offer a free e-book on “10 Quick Workouts for Busy Professionals” when customers sign up for your email list. Or, if you specialize in beauty products, provide a 15 percent discount code for new subscribers.
Make sure your lead magnet is easy to claim and aligns with your audience’s interests. Once you have their email, you can nurture the relationship and encourage them to make a purchase.
Your website is the central hub for your e-commerce business, and if it’s not optimized for lead capture, you’re leaving money on the table. Every visitor to your site is a potential customer, but without the right tools and strategies in place, they may leave without taking any action.
To turn visitors into leads, you need to make it as easy as possible for them to engage with your brand and share their information.
Don’t underestimate the power of timing. Exit-intent pop-ups are an effective way to capture leads just before visitors leave your site. These pop-ups detect when someone is about to close the page or navigate away and present an enticing offer, such as “Wait! Here’s 10% off your first order – sign up now!” This last-minute effort can convert hesitant visitors into leads.
A clean, user-friendly design also plays a big role. Use clear headings, concise descriptions, and visually appealing layouts that draw attention to your forms. A prominent call-to-action (CTA) like “Subscribe Now” or “Get My Discount” should guide users to take the next step.
The key is to ensure your offer aligns with the interests and needs of your audience. For example, if you sell skincare products, offer a free guide to building a skincare routine or a sample-size product for new subscribers.
Adding social proof near your lead capture forms can also boost credibility. For example, include testimonials or a statement like “Join over 10,000 happy subscribers!” to show that others trust your brand.
Consider incorporating visuals like icons, images, or videos that enhance the appeal of your lead capture efforts. For example, a short video explaining the benefits of subscribing can add a personal touch that resonates with visitors.
For example, if your exit-intent pop-ups have a low conversion rate, try tweaking the offer or design. If your homepage form isn’t performing well, consider moving it to a more prominent location or simplifying the sign-up process.
Social media platforms are goldmines for finding and engaging potential customers. Create content that resonates with your target audience and drives them to your site.
Run contests or giveaways that require participants to provide their email addresses. Promote your lead magnets through ads or organic posts, and use CTAs to direct followers to landing pages where they can sign up.
Interactive content like polls, quizzes, and live Q&A sessions can also help you engage with your audience while collecting valuable information. Don’t forget to include links to your website and sign-up forms in your profiles and posts.
Paid ads can supercharge your lead generation efforts if used correctly. Platforms like Google Ads, Facebook, and Instagram allow you to target specific demographics, making it easier to reach people who are most likely to be interested in your products.
Focus on creating ads that highlight your lead magnets or special offers. For example, run a Facebook ad promoting a limited-time discount for email subscribers. Use retargeting ads to re-engage visitors who’ve browsed your site but didn’t make a purchase.
(As an aside, always monitor your ad performance and adjust your strategy based on what works best for your audience. Ad effectiveness ebbs and flows and it’s easy for a profitable ad to turn sour without much notice. By staying on top of the analytics, you can quickly pivot and evolve.)
Email marketing is one of the most powerful tools in your e-commerce arsenal. It allows you to connect with leads and customers directly in their inbox, where they’re most likely to engage with your brand on a personal level. But for email marketing to work effectively, it needs to provide real value – not just promotions and sales pitches.
Start by segmenting your email list based on customer behaviors, interests, and purchasing history. For instance, if someone signed up after downloading a free guide, you might send them follow-up emails that offer related products or helpful tips aligned with that guide. Personalization is key to making your emails feel relevant and engaging.
Once you’ve segmented your audience, focus on delivering content that resonates with their needs and interests. For example, if you sell kitchen appliances, send recipes, how-to guides, or cleaning hacks alongside product recommendations. These value-packed emails build trust and establish your brand as a helpful resource, increasing the likelihood that recipients will open future emails and make purchases.
Welcome emails are a critical first step in building a connection. When someone signs up for your email list, greet them with a friendly and informative message. Introduce your brand, share your unique selling points, and include an incentive like a discount code to encourage their first purchase.
Consistency matters just as much as content. Develop a regular email cadence to stay on your audience’s radar without overwhelming them. Weekly or bi-weekly updates are a good starting point, but always prioritize quality over quantity. Use email to highlight new arrivals, exclusive promotions, and seasonal sales, but balance these with content that feels genuinely helpful or entertaining.
Automation can take your email marketing to the next level by ensuring timely, relevant communication. For example, set up automated workflows for abandoned cart emails to remind customers about items they left behind, or post-purchase emails to thank them for their order and suggest complementary products. These touchpoints keep your brand top-of-mind while encouraging repeat business.
Finally, don’t forget to include strong calls-to-action (CTAs) in every email. Whether it’s “Shop Now,” “Learn More,” or “Claim Your Discount,” make it clear what the recipient should do next. Pair these CTAs with visually appealing designs and mobile-friendly layouts to ensure a seamless experience.
Trust is a critical factor in lead generation. People are more likely to engage with your business if they see proof that others have had positive experiences.
Encourage satisfied customers to leave reviews and testimonials on your website, social media, or third-party platforms like Yelp or Trustpilot. Feature these reviews prominently on your site, especially near CTAs or lead capture forms.
Video testimonials or user-generated content showcasing real customers using your products can be particularly persuasive. The more authentic and relatable the feedback, the more likely potential leads are to trust your brand.
A smooth shopping experience is essential for turning leads into customers. If your site is difficult to navigate, slow, or buggy, you’ll lose potential buyers.
Optimize your website for speed and mobile devices, as many users shop on their phones. Make the checkout process as straightforward as possible – avoid requiring account creation, minimize the number of steps, and offer multiple payment options. By removing friction from the shopping process, you’ll improve conversion rates and encourage repeat business.
Lead generation doesn’t stop at the first sale. Building loyalty is equally important for long-term success. Implement a loyalty program that rewards customers for repeat purchases, referrals, or social media engagement.
For example, offer points for every dollar spent that can be redeemed for discounts or free products. Create exclusive perks for loyal customers, such as early access to new arrivals or special promotions.
Loyalty programs not only encourage repeat business but also turn satisfied customers into brand ambassadors who promote your business to others.
Lead generation is not a one-size-fits-all process. What works for one business might not work for another, so it’s essential to continuously analyze your results and refine your approach.
Use tools like Google Analytics, social media insights, and email marketing software to track metrics such as conversion rates, click-through rates, and engagement levels. Identify what’s working and what isn’t, and adjust your campaigns accordingly.
Experiment with different lead magnets, CTAs, and content formats to find the most effective combination for your audience.
Ultimately, the goal of lead generation is not just to make a sale but to build lasting relationships with your customers. Treat every lead as a person, not just a potential transaction.
Engage with your audience authentically – respond to comments and messages, personalize your communications, and show genuine appreciation for their support. When you commit to fostering trust and loyalty, you’ll turn one-time buyers into lifelong advocates for your brand.
At Marketer.co, our team of experienced marketing professionals and creatives want to work with you to create a cohesive marketing strategy for your e-commerce business so that you can scale with ease. Contact us today to learn more!
Generating leads from social media can be tricky; each platform requires a slightly different approach that matches the user base and works with the algorithm. While Facebook is arguably the most popular option, there’s one social media platform that can yield much bigger returns for the same investment: TikTok.
With 1.04 billion active users, TikTok is one of the most effective lead-generating social media platforms out there, and if you’re not already using it, it’s time to get on board. But before diving into the details, let’s bust a common, pervasive myth that might be holding you back.
Status: Busted.
If you think TikTok is just for teens to perfect their dance moves and lip-sync to songs for attention, grab your business hat, because TikTok has quickly evolved from ‘teen sensation’ to ‘marketing domination.’ Believing TikTok is just an endless stream of lip-syncing videos is like thinking email is only good for sending cat GIFs to your grandma (although that’s a perfectly acceptable way to use email).
You might be surprised to learn that many businesses say TikTok yields the most conversions they’ve ever achieved on social media, and they consider TikTok to be a lead-generating machine.
But TikTok conversion rates aren’t just comparatively high.
They’re astronomical.
Where conversion rates are concerned, even the most popular platforms are lacking: Instagram averages 1.08%, YouTube crawls in at 1.4%, and Twitter barely qualifies for a mention with an average conversion rate of 0.77%.
Facebook’s average CVR is a little better at 9.21%, but many industries barely reach 2.82% (like travel). That’s higher than Google Ads, but it’s barely a blip on the radar compared to TikTok.
TikTok marketing blows everyone out of the water, and for good reason.
Many businesses are able to achieve a 20-40%+ conversion rate. Don’t believe it? Check out this case study about an e-commerce platform called Lazada that got a 47% conversion rate within the first week of their campaign. A whopping 47% of leads generated through TikTok became sellers on Lazada’s marketplace in just a week!
Another successful campaign using TikTok’s “Instant Form” brought fragrance maker, Nina Ricci, a 41.85% conversion rate and reduced the cost per lead by 83%.
If you ignore using TikTok for lead generation, you’re leaving serious cash on the table.
There’s more than one way to generate a lead, but not all methods are equal. Effective lead gen isn’t just about running an ad, getting a click, and having convincing copy that converts. Although that’s how it’s been done for years, TikTok simplifies this process and makes it even easier. They’ve also made the entire process more effective. According to TikTok’s own research data, 57% of TikTok users say they’re likely to buy from a business after viewing a lead generation ad.
When it comes to lead generation, TikTok’s method reigns supreme. Sure, other social media platforms can drum up leads – like how a kazoo can technically make music. But TikTok? TikTok is the orchestra that plays at Carnegie Hall.
Generating leads on other platforms is like tossing your ads into the digital void and praying users will be interested enough to click and visit your landing page. And then praying some more that your landing page is good enough to get them to sign up for your email list. Users might be initially excited when they see your ad, but instantly deflate when viewing your landing page.
TikTok’s in-app lead generation solution eliminates the need for users to navigate away from the app in order for you to get their contact information. They don’t have to visit your website at all. Instead, they provide contact information directly within the TikTok app. This alone plays a major role in TikTok’s higher conversion rate (CVR) compared to other platforms.
It’s an inconvenience to be taken off the app; people are more likely to sign up for your email list if they can enter their contact information immediately and go back to scrolling.
Getting leads inside of the TikTok app eliminates a host of common problems that cause users to bounce before they become leads, like:
· Copy that doesn’t convert
· An off-putting design
· A landing page that isn’t mobile-friendly
· Copy that isn’t clear
· A CTA that doesn’t make sense
· A “bait-and-switch,” where the lead magnet doesn’t match what the ad promised
· Users changing their mind after they click because they want to keep scrolling on TikTok
There are countless reasons users bounce before giving you their email address on an external landing page. Keeping lead gen on the TikTok app eliminates nearly all of those reasons.
As you probably know, generating leads begins with reaching your target market. On TikTok, that’s easy. Ads are easy to set up, and there are plenty of specific demographics you can target.
Many businesses say that TikTok does an excellent job at getting their content in front of the right market, even if they fail to select specific demographics. This makes sense. Since users spend more time interacting with content on TikTok compared to other platforms, user interests are dialed in more precisely. This works in your favor when you use the right keywords.
On TikTok, there are three lead gen methods available: organic reach, TikTok Ads, and TikTok Shop. Although many businesses create and grow their account organically, collecting followers and plenty of likes along the way, that’s not required to start generating leads. If you have even a small budget, you can start running ads and get leads right away.
Having your own content is great, but it takes time to build a reputation that will earn organic followers and a massive reach.
With TikTok Ads, you can reach a highly targeted market and start generating leads immediately while you work on developing your presence. In fact, you don’t need to create any content at all if all you do is run ads.
TikTok shop lets you set up a storefront right on TikTok where people can purchase from you directly within the TikTok app. If you have products that meet the requirements, this is an excellent way to earn trust, build your reputation, and grow your email list.
Now that you know why TikTok is great for lead gen and isn’t just for lip-syncing teens and cat videos, let’s get into some strategies you can start using right meow (I bet you saw that coming).
1. Use Instant Forms
Once you’ve been approved for TikTok Ads, you can start running lead generation campaigns that use the “Instant Form” feature. Here’s a breakdown of how to do this:
1. Inside your Ads Manager, create a “Lead Generation” campaign
2. Select “Instant Form” as the optimization location within the ad group settings
3. At the ad level, go to the “Destination” section and create your Instant Form (or use an existing one)
4. Customize your Instant Form for your intended ad
5. Publish your ad, track the results, and adjust as necessary
2. Create faceless ads using the native text overlay feature
Faceless marketing involves creating ads with stock photos and stock videos rather than using images and videos of real people. It seems less personal, but it can be incredibly successful when done right.
These faceless videos with text overlays have a sweet spot that rests between “I accidentally opened iMovie” and “Martin Scorsese directed my video.” The secret is creating videos that look well-made, but not so polished that they scream ‘corporate.’ Think of it as the equivalent to business casual – you want your videos to look good, but like you didn’t try too hard (because nothing says ‘keep scrolling’ like an ad that looks like it’s trying to win an Oscar).
Polished videos stand out as ads, which kill inspiration and attention. Making your faceless video within TikTok’s app and using the native text overlay feature will make your video blend in and appear just like any other piece of content.
3. Create highly entertaining, fun content
Take some time to watch some of the best performing videos on TikTok’s Creator Center to get an idea of what makes content entertaining and fun. It may not be what you think.
Videos that perform well on TikTok have a different vibe than successful videos on other platforms, and it’s not just that they’re short. They’re typically visually pleasing with a simple, concise message that is displayed as text over the video. Oh, and the music is usually upbeat and highly engaging.
4. Capture attention within 3 seconds
Since users are often scrolling through TikTok like there’s no tomorrow, you need to capture attention fast. Three seconds is about all you’ll get to make a user pause and watch your video. If you can master these first three seconds, you’ll have a greater chance at getting leads.
5. Make your text-based videos short on purpose
When people watch your videos in full, it tells the algorithm your content is worth sharing, and it will show up in more feeds.
One way business owners are getting people to watch a whole video is by displaying text that takes a little longer to read than the length of the video. For example, if a video lasts 5 seconds, and the text takes 8 seconds to read, most users will let the video repeat so they can read the whole text.
If your marketing strategy includes super short faceless videos, this little tidbit can help you boost your visibility within TikTok’s algorithm.
6. Use strong calls to action (CTAs)
Short calls to action win on TikTok, as long as they’re enticing. Phrases like:
· Hurry!
· Offer ends soon!
· Final Days!
· Final Hours!
· Get it now!
Of course, TikTok goes above and beyond yet again by recommending CTAs to businesses based on the content of their ad, industry, past ad performance, and competitor ads using similar objectives. There’s even an option to generate dynamic CTAs so you can test a variety of them.
7. Always use captions
Today’s users love closed captions and subtitles, and some people rely on them if they have a disability or turn the sound off. Never rely on your audio to capture your market’s attention.
8. Hire a TikTok marketing expert from Marketer.co
If you’re ready to take your lead generation to the next level, hiring a TikTok marketing expert can be your golden ticket to success. At Marketer.co, we’ve spent decades helping clients generate more leads effectively, efficiently, and affordably. We’d love to do the same for you!
Let’s face it, running paid ads for lead gen can be confusing. Even when the platform seems simple, there are always hang ups when you aren’t familiar with the process. If you don’t have the time, energy, or interest to become a marketing expert, there’s a good chance you’ll make some mistakes. With paid ads, mistakes can cost you quite a bit of money.
Instead of fumbling around, trying to figure it all out on your own, let us do all the hard work. We’d love to help you generate leads on TikTok.
Contact us right now – let’s join forces and make some marketing magic happen!
If you search for information about what social media platforms you should be using, you’ll find articles explaining why every business needs a presence on Facebook, LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, and TikTok. At first glance, this seems to make sense. What’s the harm in reaching your audience on as many platforms as possible?
Although it seems strategic, not every social media platform will be equally effective. Taking this approach to social media marketing campaigns can prevent you from concentrating your resources on top-performing channels. Your marketing resources – including time, money, and creative energy – are limited. If you invest your resources in low-performing social media efforts, you might get a few leads and sales, but it will take a ton of effort to get those small returns. Your resources will be tied up and unavailable to invest in more effective channels, making it harder to scale your efforts.
What makes a social media platform high-performing will be determined by your market, budget, and goals. Some businesses excel on Facebook, while others corner their market on TikTok.
Whether you’re just getting started, or you’re already using multiple social media platforms, here’s why you need to be selective.
If your social media marketing strategy involves posting daily content to as many platforms as possible, that’s not going to work. Rumor has it that businesses need to maintain a presence on every social media platform, but that’s simply not true. Having a presence won’t automatically generate conversions, nor will it do much of anything for your brand if you don’t have a social media strategy.
Social media marketing efforts require in-depth knowledge about your market, including knowing where your market hangs out online. It’s safe to assume that most people have a Facebook account, but they might spend more time on other platforms. Your goal should be to reach your market where they hang out and where they are most likely to convert.
For example, X is not a good platform for generating sales. Even if 100% of your market hangs out on X, you’ll struggle to get sales through this platform, and that’s intentional. It’s not designed for selling – it’s meant to keep people scrolling while consuming content.
There’s a good chance that your target audience doesn't use every social media platform equally, if at all. For effective paid social media advertising, you’ll need to sort out where they actually spend time and focus your efforts there.
According to research data, here’s a breakdown of where consumers say they’ve made purchases:
· Facebook (75%)
· Instagram (50%)
· YouTube (29%)
· TikTok (18%)
Although these numbers make Facebook look like the ideal platform, that may not be the case. It depends on your market and your paid advertising budget.
Most brands have to spend a lot of money on Facebook Ads to get results. Due to the complex nature of running Facebook Ads, it usually requires hiring an agency, and that makes it even more expensive. You’ll get more sales than you would on your own, but it will take more effort and money. That doesn’t mean it’s not worth investing in Facebook Ads. On the contrary, paid ads are one of the most efficient and fastest ways to grow your business, but it requires a significant budget on Facebook.
If you have a generous Pay-Per-Click (PPC) budget and can afford to hire a marketing agency, Facebook Ads can work in your favor to get you a steady stream of leads and sales. However, if you’re trying to save money and are working with a small budget, it will be a struggle to gain traction. If you’re on a tight budget, it’s better to focus your efforts on platforms that make paid ads a little easier. Namely, Instagram and TikTok.
Unlike Facebook Ads, it’s easy to set up and start running your own TikTok ads in minutes, and the conversion rate for many industries is typically higher. While fewer people overall buy on TikTok compared to Facebook, the returns are better for brands with a market that spends a lot of time on TikTok simply because the conversion rate is higher.
Instagram ads are equally easy to set up and run. However, the market on Instagram is much different than TikTok. Still, it’s worth experimenting with both if you haven’t already.
When experts recommend social media platforms to businesses, X is always at the top of the list. However, X is not what it used to be, and it’s no longer marketing-friendly.
Sharing links to your website is fundamental to social media management, but you won’t get far with that on X. Many X users have noticed that after Elon Musk bought Twitter and altered the algorithm, social media posts with external links have been heavily suppressed.
Financial Analyst Jesse Colombo noticed this and ran an experiment where he published the same content one day apart, but only inserted an external link in one of his posts. His first post, which contained an external link to an informational report he wrote, received 3,670 views, 3 comments, 13 reposts, 40 favorites, and 12 bookmarks. His second post – posted the next day without the link – received 65,400 views, 74 comments, 258 reposts, 873 favorites, and 97 bookmarks.
Reviewing his past threads on X, Colombo noticed that many other posts with external links only received a fraction of the reach and engagement compared to posts without external links. His observations may be anecdotal, but they aren’t without merit. Elon Musk confirmed that X posts with external links aren’t prioritized in the algorithm because he doesn’t want people to be taken off the platform.
Knowing this about X should give you a good reason to assess whether or not you need to maintain social media campaigns on the platform.
X might be a good fit for your business if you:
· Can post interesting, engaging, and informative information on a regular basis related to your business. If you own a plumbing company, you probably won’t do well on X. People aren’t going to get excited about tips for unclogging drains.
· Aren’t solely focused on trying to get people to visit your website. If your main goal is to capture leads and send people to sales pages, X isn’t the right platform.
· Want to build a personal connection with your market, and can post about topics they’ll find engaging. If you don’t have time to connect with your market, or there’s nothing for them to talk about on their own, X is probably not a good fit.
Like all marketing channels, you’ll need to assess your intention and goals for having a presence on X and it needs to make sense based on how the platform works. If your approach is aggressive self-promotion with little to no user-focused content, your resources will be better spent establishing yourself on other platforms.
Maybe your research says that your target market spends a lot of time on Facebook, X (Twitter), TikTok, and Instagram. That’s great information, but it still doesn’t mean you’ll effectively reach your market on all of those platforms. It depends on what you’re selling, how you sell it, and what state of mind your market is in when they encounter your content.
Each of the aforementioned apps – Facebook, X, TikTok, and Instagram – require a unique approach to marketing because people have a different mindset when they’re on each platform.
People on X are looking for interesting content they can absorb at-a-glance or within a few seconds while scrolling. Short content works great for brand building and creating rapport with your market, but as previously discussed, it’s not ideal for lead generation because external links get suppressed. If you can’t send people to your online store, a sales page, or your email signup form, X might not be all that useful.
On Instagram, many people are intentionally searching for products to buy, but will only interact with a post or ad if it has stunning aesthetics. Users may never actually read your text-based caption, but if you post engaging videos and images, Instagram can be highly effective.
You can post links on Facebook without fear of suppression, but people still scroll rather quickly through their feed, and you’ll need a good visual to catch your market’s attention. The problem with Facebook is you have to get people to click to play your videos.
TikTok is even more rapid fire. People are scrolling through their feed at lightning speed, wanting to be entertained by short and engaging videos. Since videos automatically play, it’s easier to capture attention with your ads. TikTok ads average a 5-16% engagement rate, leaving Facebook (0.09%) and Instagram (1.22%) in the dust.
Although it began as a music-centered app, TokTok has become one of the best social media platforms for ecommerce. TikTok Shop makes it easy to reach your market, and a whopping 30% of daily users say they’ve bought something from TikTok Shop.
TikTok Ads also work exceptionally well. However, you’ll need to be creative to get those conversions. Still, even when users see your ads, but don’t interact, you’ll benefit. According to recent data, 41% of users say they trust a brand just by seeing an ad on TikTok.
Unlike other platforms, TikTok ads are always videos, and you need to capture a user’s attention in the first few seconds or they’ll just keep scrolling. This requires planning and strategy. Another key to success on TikTok is to make your ads look like native TikTok videos by adding your text overlays and music directly from the app. Video ads that look too polished and professional can be off-putting to users. If you can do this or hire out the task to a video production company, TikTok could be your best social media marketing channel.
Something else that sets TikTok apart is that the company constantly analyzes their best-performing ads, and makes the data available for free through their Creative Center. They also consistently publish content to help business owners reach more people. Compared to other social media platforms, TikTok is extremely business-friendly.
Not all platforms are ideal for every type of conversion. For example, TikTok, Facebook, and Instagram are great for generating impulse sales and building your email list, but don’t use TikTok solely for lead generation. The user base tends to be younger, they’re looking for entertainment, and are unlikely to be in the mood to download a PDF guide. They will, however, click a few buttons to make an impulse buy
Some platforms aren’t good for any kind of conversion, like X (due to the suppression of external links). However, if your goal is to create brand awareness or establish expertise in your industry, then X can be useful. And while many people still use LinkedIn, it’s not ideal for marketing, and its effectiveness for networking is questionable.
Remember that successful marketing requires precision targeting rather than a broad reach. Trying to market on every social media platform will only waste your resources. Success comes from being selective. Understand where your target customers spend their time, and establish a strong presence on those platforms. With a targeted approach, you’ll reach a larger portion of your market and get more of the conversions you want.
Lead generation carries a different connotation with every business owner.
For some, it's a crucial stream of new prospects that keeps the business alive.
For others, it's a waste of money that shouldn't be considered.
For still others, it's a potentially massive benefit that they just can't seem to crack.
So what does lead generation mean to us?
Well, on some days, it's a headache, to be perfectly honest. But generally, we recognize lead generation as one of the most important elements of any sales and marketing strategy.
What exactly is lead generation and why is it so important for your business?
Lead generation is the process of generating leads.
Duh.
But really, lead generation services include a series of strategies and tactics designed to find, target, and connect with people who are likely to buy your products and services. In this way, it straddles the middle line between marketing and sales. Many lead generation strategies are also marketing strategies, but they differ in the sense that they're specifically designed to produce quality leads.
A successful lead generation strategy will provide you with a steady stream of people who are primed and ready to buy your products. Depending on the nuances of your strategy, it might mean that they're much more likely to buy products and services through your website, or it might mean that they're ready to receive a call from your most talented sales team.
In any case, if you can master the art of lead generation, you'll always have a steady stream of new and excited customers for your business.
Also, if you truly master the art of lead generation, let us know because you can probably teach us a thing or two…
Why Does Lead Generation Matter for Your Business?
There’s a reason why more than half of marketers consider lead generation to be a top priority in their marketing efforts.
And it's not because more than half of marketers are stupid.
It's because lead generation matters for your business in a multitude of ways.
· Sales and revenue. The first and most obvious benefit of better lead generation is a path to greater sales and revenue. If you have a good lead generation strategy in place and you use it well, you'll naturally increase the number of leads generated. More people who are ostensibly interested in your products will have the immediate opportunity to buy them, and more people who have never heard of your products before will have an opportunity to hear about them. Assuming your targeting is on point and your messaging is persuasive, you should have no trouble multiplying your earnings with superior lead generation.
· Brand awareness. Marketers also appreciate the capacity for lead generation to increase brand awareness. Even if your marketing qualified leads or sales qualified leads don't buy your products right away, they'll become more aware of your brand and more likely to buy from you in the future. By taking steps to nurture leads, you can build stronger relationships with potential customers. They may also be likely to recommend your brand to other people. In any case, the greater brand awareness you develop through your lead generation can have a secondary impact on your business development.
· Customer relationships. Lead generation can also be an opportunity to build customer relationships early, even before your prospects become full-fledged customers. Often, you'll engage with individual customers either directly, with calls and emails, or indirectly, with drip email campaigns, social media messages, and more. Either way, your new customers will have an opportunity to engage with your brand and its representatives repeatedly. This warms them up and helps them build a stronger relationship with your brand. Eventually, this can increase sales and customer retention.
· Growth. Lead generation is a growth strategy. If you want to grow your business, investing in lead generation is one of the best ways to do it. The more you spend, the more reach you can achieve, the more prospects you can persuade, and the more customers you can bring onboard. If you start feeling confident about the way your lead generation efforts work, you can greatly increase your investments in them, hopefully multiplying their impact many times over.
· Less wasted time. You probably passively generate high quality leads through your existing marketing and sales tactics already. However, a more thoroughly vetted, targeted approach will work in your interest. Once you improve your targeting and polish your lead generation approaches to perfection, you'll waste less time, you'll waste less money, and your lead generation strategy will become far more efficient.
Lead generation takes many forms.
Essentially, there are two big categories: outbound and inbound lead generation. In outbound lead generation, you'll be specifically reaching out to new prospects and targets, filtering out irrelevant parties and following up with and nurturing appropriate targets.
These are a handful of examples:
· Cold email. Cold email is one of the most popular forms of outbound lead generation, even today. Yes, we've all had bad experiences with spam in our inboxes, and it's true that most cold emails don't get a response. But with the right targeting, enough relevance, and a broad enough reach, you can generate a significant flow of qualified leads through email alone. You can also use cold emails in combination with other lead generation tactics, so those messages aren't so cold. It's also highly cost-effective and easy to automate, so it has a place in almost any lead generation strategy.
· Cold calling. It’s true that 87 percent of people routinely ignore calls from numbers they don’t know. It's also true that people are spammed to the brink of madness with irrelevant, robotic phone calls. But that doesn't mean that cold calling is dead. Again, with the right targeting, with relevant messaging, and with a prioritization of quality and human connection, cold calling can be a valuable addition to your outbound lead generation portfolio.
· Social selling. Businesses integrate social selling into their outbound lead generation strategy. Essentially, this means networking with relevant people, expanding your web of connections, and trying to find people who are a good fit for your business and its products. This tactic is very hard to scale, but it's much warmer and more likely to produce results with each interaction.
· Pay per click (PPC) ads. Another highly accessible outbound lead generation strategy comes in the form of pay per click (PPC) ads. As the name suggests, these ads allow you to generate traffic for your website or a specific landing page as long as you're willing to pay for each lead that you generate. You can place PPC ads on a variety of channels, including Google, Bing, and most social media platforms. You can also use strategic lead generation tools to reach only the customers who are most relevant to your brand. Accordingly, it can be highly cost-effective and customized to achieve nearly any conceivable lead generation goal your business has.
Inbound lead generation strategies are differentiated by the fact that they attempt to naturally capitalize on existing interest. Instead of going out and tracking down potential sales leads, you'll create beacons that invite them in, like moths to a flame – but with a much less dangerous setup.
These are some of the best examples:
· Search engine optimization (SEO). By now, you've probably heard about search engine optimization (SEO). The basic idea is to modify your website and build links to increase its likelihood of ranking for strategically valuable keywords and phrases. When done properly, it's much more likely for people to find your business in search results, which means you'll generate more organic traffic to your website. It's a way of naturally capitalizing on searches people are already doing, and it's very cost-effective when done properly. The biggest drawback is that it takes time to build authority and gain rankings, so it's best complemented with outbound lead generation tactics.
· Content marketing. It's almost unfair to mention content marketing as a separate point from SEO because the two strategies are so tightly intertwined. It's almost impossible to practice SEO without content marketing, and if you practice content marketing, you'll probably experience some SEO benefits without even trying. In any case, you can also practice content marketing with a more specific focus on lead generation; for example, you can produce premium pieces of content known as lead magnets and distribute them for free in exchange for contact information from your most valuable prospects. It's one of the most convenient ways to build an email list.
· Social media marketing. Social media is another popular channel for inbound lead generation, if you use it to make posts, distribute content, build an audience, and naturally attract people who would be interested in your brand. Note that it can also be used for outbound lead generation in the form of social selling, PPC ads, and more. With so many channels to choose from and so many potential audiences to harness, the lead generation possibilities with social media are practically unlimited.
· Retargeting ads. It's also common for businesses to use retargeting ads as a form of inbound lead generation. Retargeting ads are ads that appear to people after they've already visited your website or engaged with your brand in some meaningful way. It's a passive and inexpensive way to capitalize on people who have already expressed genuine interest in your products or services.
· Webinars. Do you have knowledge or wisdom to impart to your target audience? If so, consider presenting it in the form of a free webinar. People will likely sign up in droves, providing their contact information in the process, giving you an opportunity to demonstrate your expertise and follow up in the future.
Because outbound and inbound lead generation strategies have different strengths and weaknesses, it's a good idea to include both in your lead generation approach.
At this point, we've answered the central questions.
You came to this article because you wanted to know what lead generation is and why it matters your business, and if your reading comprehension skills are on point, you now know it.
But we didn't want to leave you hanging.
So we're going to leave you with some quick tips for more effective sales lead generation in your business.
· Work with experts. Lead generation can be overwhelming. It's hard to know who to target, how to target them, and how to get the most value from your money. That's why it's a good idea to work with experts, especially at the beginning. Consider reaching out to a lead generation firm (like ours!) for more guidance.
· Know your audience. Much of your lead generation success depends on your knowledge of your audience. If you target people who aren't interested in your brand, you'll waste all your time and money. If you target the right people in the wrong way, your messaging won't be impactful. Accordingly, you should spend the bulk of your early efforts focused on researching and better understanding your target demographics.
· Target as specifically as possible. With that in mind, you also need to target as specifically as possible. Broad, generic strategies meant to be relevant to everyone simply aren't going to work. You have to narrowly target your potential customers if you want to run an efficient lead generation process.
· Prioritize organic lead generation. It’s possible (and tempting) to buy leads for your business. However, most businesses are much more successful when they prioritize organic lead generation. That's because leads generated organically are much more relevant, much warmer, and ultimately, much more likely to buy from your business.
· Take advantage of multiple channels. These days, omnichannel marketing and lead generation strategies are dominant. That's because there are an incredible number of communication channels available, and each one has something uniquely beneficial to offer. Only by taking advantage of an array of different solutions will you be able to maintain a well-rounded lead generation approach.
· Automate what you can. Automate as much as possible in your lead generation strategy. Automation allows you to eliminate manual effort, saving both time and money, and it can actually increase the consistency of your execution at the same time.
· Be ready to adapt. Finally, be ready to learn and adapt. Good lead generation strategies aren't stagnant; They constantly evolve in response to the development of new technologies, the formation of new trends, and the machinations of industry competitors.
Are you ready to transform your qualified lead generation approach for the better?
Or are you interested in better understanding the landscape of your marketing, sales, and lead generation strategies?
The lead generation experts at Marketer.co are on standby and ready to help.
Contact us today for more information!
Social media advertising has become an increasingly important tool for businesses of all sizes to drive conversions and sales.
By reaching a targeted audience and showcasing products or services, social media ads can be an effective way to drive traffic, generate leads, and boost sales.
However, with so many options like reputable digital marketing agencies, it can be challenging to know where to start. In this article, we'll discuss the best practices for driving conversions and sales through social media advertising.
Social media advertising refers to paid advertising on social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn.
These ads can appear in a variety of formats, including sponsored posts, banner ads, and in-stream video ads. Social media advertising differs from organic social media marketing strategy, which refers to unpaid social media posts created by businesses to engage with their audience.
The first step in any social media advertising campaign is to set specific and measurable goals.
Common goals for social media campaigns include increasing website traffic, generating leads, boosting sales, or increasing brand awareness. Setting clear goals from the outset will help to ensure that your advertising efforts are focused and effective.
Here are some tips to help you set clear and measurable goals:
Social media advertising offers an unparalleled advantage over traditional forms of marketing: the power to pinpoint your target audience with laser precision. By leveraging demographic, behavioral, and interest-based data, you can craft buyer personas that will guide your advertising strategy toward the audience that matters most.
Through social media audience targeting, you can significantly boost the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing efforts, allowing you to reach the right people, at the right time, and in the right place. With this game-changing approach to advertising, you can maximize your ROI and see real results like never before.
Below are some valuable tips to help you effectively target your audience through social media advertising:
Crafting impactful social media ads demands meticulous attention to detail and an in-depth comprehension of each platform's functionality.
Optimum practices for creating compelling social media ads consist of employing striking visuals, powerful headlines, explicit calls-to-action, and experimenting with diverse ad formats.
Remember, social media advertising is a dynamic space; therefore, be willing to adjust your approach as the landscape continues to evolve.
Here are some tips for crafting effective social media ads:
Once your social media advertising campaigns are up and running, it's crucial to track and analyze their performance. Key metrics to track include click-through rate, social media conversion rate, cost per acquisition, and return on investment.
By monitoring and measuring the success of your social media advertising campaigns, you can identify what's working and what's not and make informed decisions about how to optimize your social media strategy going forward.
Here are some tips for monitoring and measuring the success of your social media advertising campaigns:
Social media advertising can be a powerful tool for businesses looking to drive conversions and sales. By setting specific goals, targeting the right audience, crafting effective ads, and monitoring and measuring success, businesses can make the most of their social media marketing efforts. Additionally, a well-thought-out social media conversion strategy can help businesses capitalize on the growing number of social media users, turning engagement into tangible results.
As social media platforms continue to evolve, it's important to stay up-to-date on the latest trends and best practices to ensure your social media advertising campaigns are as effective as possible. Maintaining a strong social media presence and focusing on strategies to increase social media traffic can further amplify the impact of your campaigns.
Imagine a hypothetical reality in which your website was the only one with any content related to how to buy a car. Yes, it sounds preposterous. But let’s run with it.
In this hypothetical reality, SEO would be trivially easy. When someone searches for “how to buy a car,” your website would be ranked one. In fact, your “rank one” position wouldn’t even matter – there wouldn’t be any other entries competing with you. You’d get all the possible organic traffic produced by people searching for this phrase.
Obviously, we live in a very different reality. Search for “how to buy a car” and you’ll see “about 3,990,000,000” results. And at the top of those results, you’ll see massively powerful brands like Edmunds, KBB, and NPR.
If you want to rank for this phrase, you’d have your work cut out for you – and even if you invest heavily in this pursuit, there’s no guarantee you’d ever get to page one, let alone rank one.
In your industry, you might be facing similarly intimidating odds and equally tough competitors.
So how do you manage it?
How do you beat your toughest SEO competitors without destroying your marketing budget in the process?
The competition problem in SEO essentially boils down to this: powerful competitors make it economically challenging and borderline impossible to compete in direct and traditional ways.
These are brands that have likely spent years if not decades, and hundreds of thousands of dollars reinforcing their positions. To disrupt them would take an even bigger effort – and even then, you’re not guaranteed to beat them.
Do you just ignore them and abandon SEO for a different, less competitive strategy? Not if we can help it.
There are actually several different approaches available to you – and each of them has the potential to help you achieve your SEO goals, no matter how fierce your competition is.
Up first is the brute force approach, and you can probably guess the main strategy here. Whatever your competitor is doing, you’re going to do more. If they spend $10,000 a month, you must spend $15,000 a month. If they’re building 20 backlinks a month, you must build 25 backlinks a month. This requires a thorough SEO competitive analysis, including examining your competitors' backlink profiles to identify gaps and opportunities. If you keep up this pressure without sacrificing quality, you’ll overtake your top competitor eventually.
If you’re on the highway going 65 mph and you’re trying to catch someone going 60 mph, it’s only a matter of time before you catch up – no matter how much of a head start they have. If they slow down or stop, you’ll catch up even faster. The big problem with this strategy is that it’s not economically efficient. Sure, you might be able to spend your way to rank one, but if you don’t generate enough organic traffic from that rank-one position, it could end up being a loss.
In most cases, the better approach is to invest your money in more economically efficient strategies; why spend $15,000 a month outcompeting a dominant SEO player when you could spend $10,000 on PPC ads and get even more traffic? Conducting competitor analysis with an SEO competitor analysis tool can help you determine where your competitors are investing their efforts and where you can allocate your resources more effectively.
However, every situation is unique and requires careful analysis.
The “skyscraper technique” is so named because it calls to mind the image of a city skyline filled with skyscrapers. The tallest skyscraper is the one that catches your attention first – and oftentimes, the one that becomes the representative symbol of the city. This desirable position has driven countless architects and civil engineers to engage in fierce competition to outdo each other with taller, more attractive skyscrapers.
The skyscraper approach to battling competitors is functionally similar. But instead of building a single tall skyscraper in a single city, it’s more like building taller skyscrapers in a bunch of different cities.
Here’s what we mean by this. If your competitor has an awesome piece of content with tons of links pointing to it, your goal is to produce something even better – so you can attract even more links and outcompete them. If your competitors rank highly for certain search terms, your goal should also include creating content that targets the same keywords effectively, ensuring you gain visibility on the search engine results pages (SERPs). If your competitor has a backlink profile with a dozen high-quality links, your goal is to earn similar links from the same sources – and then a few extra.
Keep this up, and it’s only a matter of time before you’re in a better SEO position. You don’t need to pick fights on every front, of course; even a handful of superior assets can be valuable for your brand. Conducting thorough SEO competitor research will help you identify key opportunities, especially when analyzing competitors' domains and their strategies to engage the same target audience.
The biggest weakness of this approach is that it demands strategic focus. This is true of any SEO strategy, but it’s particularly important here since you’ll need to outdo your competitors in “low-hanging fruit” areas that are both accessible and valuable. These points of vulnerability can be hard to find and often depend on how your competitors' content appears in search results.
The antagonistic approach is more directly confrontational, putting you in a position to undermine your top competitors – or at least prove your comparative value.
Here, your goal isn’t necessarily to outcompete your rivals, but instead to position yourself as a meaningful alternative in an environment where they’d have near-exclusive control.
The most common territory to target here is branded keywords. Let’s say you sell paper towels and your biggest competitor is a brand called O-Sheets. O-Sheets would, by default, dominate the SERPs for any words or phrases containing “O-Sheets” or other branded terms. It’s practically impossible to outrank them for these terms – but you can aspire to reach rank two.
Let’s say you reach rank two with a piece of content like “Are O-Sheets Truly the Best Paper Towels?” On the page, you compare O-Sheets paper towels to yours, proving that yours are more absorbent, less expensive, and more comfortable to use. Even if you only capture a fraction of the traffic for O-Sheets branded terms, you’ll be siphoning traffic from your rivals and converting fans from their brand to yours.
You can also use a similar siphoning strategy in your PPC ad campaign.
Obviously, rank two isn’t quite as good as rank one, and if you start a direct brand conflict like this, you’re inviting retaliation. This approach is also limited in its potential; there are only so many branded terms to cover and only so much damage you can do.
We also have the avoidance approach. No, this isn't about closing up your business because you can no longer compete. Instead, it's about finding strategic ways to avoid directly confronting your competitors while still actively competing with them.
In most cases, this boils down to finding critical ways to differentiate your brand from those of your competitors. For example, you can sell slightly different products. You can reach a slightly different audience. You can target users in a different area or optimize for different groups of keywords.
Your goal is to find meaningful, valuable areas where your competitors aren't so dominant; without these rivals standing in your way, you'll have a clear path to the top of the SERPs. There are a few small weaknesses with this approach, though it tends to perform consistently when used properly. For starters, your competitors are likely dominant in the most valuable areas of optimization.
Choosing to avoid those in favor of less competitive ground means you'll be pursuing inherently less valuable targets in most cases. Additionally, it's hard to avoid competitors entirely; there may be fewer competitors or less fierce competitors in a new area, but you'll still need to have some way to differentiate and improve the value of your work.
Do note that you're not limited to following any single approach or strategy. Instead, you can use a combination of these strategies or all of them together. For example, you can optimize for competitor-branded keyword terms, avoid competitors by targeting a different audience, and still follow the skyscraper approach to outcompete them in specific areas.
Also, this list is not exhaustive. In some cases, it may pay to collaborate or directly partner up with your competitors, rather than pitting yourself against them. And of course, you’re free to exercise your own creativity to come up with a novel strategy.
Are you dealing with SEO competitors you just can’t seem to dethrone? Or are you ready to launch into your industry, guns blazing, to dominate the competitors who have been at the top too long? We’ve got the strategists and resources you need to thrive.
Content marketing, our old friend, the king of digital marketing strategies, and the foundation of any SEO strategy, is in bad shape.At least, according to some online commentators.
Content marketing pessimists insist this strategy is dying, or that it's already dead, encouraging content marketers and search optimizers everywhere to find a different target for their marketing dollars.
But is content marketing really dying? And if so, what should you do about it?
In case you're new here, content marketing is the practice of developing valuable content for a specific target audience, with the hopes of naturally attracting that target audience to a specific destination, usually a website.
For example, if you have the world's best blog on how to bake chocolate chip cookies, everyone interested in baking cookies is eventually going to find it. From there, you can sell them chocolate chips, cookbooks, or whatever else you want.
Content marketing rose in popularity in the late 2000s, and really came to prominence in the 2010s. Now that we're squarely in the 2020s, it's no longer fair to call content marketing a new strategy – but it was game-changing when it first started emerging.
We need to understand why content marketing rose to prominence if we're going to understand if and why it's dying.
Broadly speaking, we can explain content marketing's popularity with the following three influences:
First, let's talk to the Internet and the power of inbound marketing. Historically, marketing and advertising strategies have been outbound, actively seeking people and trying to get their attention. Inbound marketing is a totally different approach to outbound marketing, luring people in with something they genuinely desire.
This only became truly effective when the internet reached mainstream popularity. Once people figured out they could find anything and everything with a simple search, Google started seeing millions, then billions of searches per day. Almost all of us use online search engines multiple times a day now, which means there are far more people trying to discover new content. This, in turn, makes discoverable content much more valuable.
Second, after being inundated with traditional advertising for decades, consumers finally began to grow distrustful of their persuasive messages. Every company in the world tried aggressively to convince people that their products were worth buying; as a downstream result, consumers became much less open to direct persuasion. That doesn't mean traditional advertising doesn't work or can't work, but savvy marketers knew they needed to find an alternative.
If advertising isn't as powerful because consumers don't trust you, one solution is to simply gain more trust however you can. Content marketing is the perfect strategy for building that genuine trust.
Third, any search optimization expert can tell you that conventional SEO campaigns are practically impossible without a content marketing strategy. Content is your main way of building authority, optimizing for specific keyword terms, and even link building. Because SEO is so valuable, it was only natural for content marketing to take over the digital marketing world.
Why do some people think that content marketing is dying?There are several competing explanations, and all of them may play some role in influencing this sentiment.
We just listed a host of reasons to be pessimistic about the future of content marketing. But realistically, content marketing is still valuable – and for several reasons. For starters, it's still a crucial component of any SEO strategy. Even if human readers were completely turned off from reading online content, these pieces of content would still be valuable for search engine indexes.
Additionally, content comes in many forms and can be produced in countless different ways. If the biggest problems with content marketing are the written medium and low effort, you can make up for these by incorporating more visuals and investing more effort. Also, it’s rare for marketing strategies to ever become truly obsolete.
Printed newspapers are rarer than they used to be, but newspaper ads can still be valuable in some circumstances; in fact, in many instances, they're cheaper than ever. Content marketing certainly isn't the same as it was 10 years ago, but that doesn't mean the strategy is truly dying.
So what steps can you take to make sure your content marketing strategy stays alive and valuable for your brand?
Are you concerned about the long-term value or effectiveness of your current content marketing strategy? Or have you hit a content marketing plateau? We have content marketing experts who can help you, from strategy and planning to development and publication. Contact us today for a free consultation!
Generating conversions from PPC ads isn’t hard, but you This article will explain some of the key factors that influence (or deter) conversions.
Once a user clicks on your ad, it will be your corresponding landing page that drives home conversions. A well-designed page will reassure people that your site is trustworthy. A poorly designed page can give the impression that the offer might be a scam or low-quality.Make sure your landing page has the following elements:
Focused landing pages increase conversion rates. Instead of sending prospects to your home page and letting them explore your site, send them to a specific, dedicated, and focused landing page designed specifically for each offer.
The process of interacting with your ads and landing on your website should be a continuous experience. For example, if your ad promotes 10% off of cartoon-printed socks, the user will expect your website to present that exact offer. When they click on your ad, your landing page should be dedicated to that specific offer, depicting all the cartoon-printed socks you sell.
You don’t want to send people to your “Sock Company” home page because it breaks the continuity and that’s when a lot of people will bounce. To maximize conversions, keep your landing page focused on the offer in your paid ad.
Copy is just a fancy word for “text” and it happens to be one of the most influential factors in PPC conversions. Your ad may not have more than a headline and a few words as a description, but the right words can get more clicks and the wrong words can turn people off.
If you want to increase conversions, your copy needs to be persuasive. Your ad headline needs to be enticing enough to get clicks, and your landing page copy needs to be compelling enough to generate conversions, like sales or signups.
Writing persuasive copy isn’t easy when you aren’t a professional writer, so the best way to get a strong copy is to hire a copywriter who specializes in content marketing.
Color is extremely important for your conversions. You won’t find many landing pages with bright purple “buy now” buttons for a reason – it’s not the right color.
While there are a variety of color schemes that can work, studies have shown certain colors to be more effective. For example, HubSpot conducted a test that put green against red. Normally, red is perceived as “stop” and green is perceived as “go,” so you might think the green button would win.
Surprisingly, the red button outperformed the green by 21%. This doesn’t mean red is the only color that works, but it seems to be highly effective.
The people you target are arguably the most important factor in your conversion rate. If the people who see your ads aren’t your ideal customers, you won’t get conversions. This is the first place to start when optimizing your conversion rate.
Make sure your ads are targeting the correct market. You might need to revisit your market research to ensure you have that market properly defined.
When people read your offer, how well your value is presented will influence conversions. You want your proposition to tell people why they should buy from you over the competition.A strong value proposition will help you generate more conversions. However, this isn’t easy to nail, so if you’re struggling to get it right, digital marketing services can help.
Anything that distracts visitors can prevent them from converting. Distractions include things like flashing animations, pop-ups irrelevant to your offer, external links, and internal links that go to other pages on your website.
To increase conversions, and decrease distractions. Keep your prospects on your offer page and don’t give them any reason to leave.
You can have the best offer in the world, but if you don’t directly ask for the sale and create urgency around following your CTA, you’ll miss out on plenty of conversions.It’s important to create a sense of urgency around your offer. You can use a countdown timer to a deadline or use other marketing tactics like offering a limited supply.
Testimonials contribute to the decision to buy. Not having testimonials on your PPC landing pages can hinder conversions. Good testimonials are the social proof many people need to make a purchase. According to Volume 8 of the Conversion Index created by Bazaarvoice, businesses generate 58% more conversions from visitors who read reviews and testimonials.
If your goal is to generate sales, the price point of your offer can influence or deter conversions. A price point set too low will make people think your offer is cheap. However, if your price is set too high, it can make people bounce.
The key is to set the right price for your offer and your target audience. Sometimes this requires adjusting your audience. For example, everyone would love to have a life coach, but if you want to charge $500 per month for your services, you need to target a more affluent client base.
Last, but not least, a good checkout process will ensure your inspired prospects continue with their purchase. If it becomes a struggle or something isn’t working right, people will bounce.
Always verify your checkout process to ensure it’s smooth and easy. For example, avoid forcing people to create an account just to buy from you, and make sure all shipping calculations are shown before the user enters their payment information. You can lose a lot of conversions with a frustrating checkout system.
Now that we’ve discussed all the factors that influence your conversion rate, it’s time to dive into increasing your conversions. If you want more sales, signups, and followers from your PPC ads, here’s how to achieve that.
You can’t improve your conversion rate if you don’t know which elements are contributing to or hindering your success. If you try to adjust your PPC ad campaigns to generate better results without this information, you might end up making the wrong changes.
Always run a split-testing campaign with your PPC ads and landing pages to identify successful elements and experiment to fine-tune your improvements.
There are a handful of common technical causes for low conversion rates. For example:
Other factors that diminish conversions include:
Most of these factors are within your control and they’re not hard to improve. You can use the LIFT Model discussed in the next point to cover your bases here.
The LIFT Model consists of optimizing and managing six factors that drive conversions – Value Proposition, Relevance, Clarity, Distraction, Urgency, and Anxiety.
Chances are, that $5,000 item won’t generate immediate sales from your PPC campaign. That’s a big investment, and most people will need time to think before they act. One way to get around this is to use a tripwire. A tripwire is a lower-priced item that you offer people first. Once someone makes a small purchase, it’s easier for them to spend more money. This strategy can help boost your PPC conversion by moving hesitant buyers into your sales funnel.
To maximize its effectiveness, ensure your ad copy highlights the benefits of the tripwire offer. Tripwire is an effective method for earning trust and generating hot leads to nurture larger purchases through email marketing, and it can significantly increase your PPC conversion over time.
Companies that offer money-back guarantees are more likely to generate sales from hesitant prospects. While your average PPC conversion rates may initially reflect a slight increase in refunds, you’ll gain a generous amount of purchases to make up for it.
There are so many offers out there, and if your company isn’t already well-known, people will be hesitant to buy from you. Offering a money-back guarantee alleviates those concerns and makes people feel safer in their decision to buy. When combined with data from Google Ads averages, this can be a powerful way to fine-tune your PPC efforts and improve trust metrics. If you have an amazing product or service, it’s unlikely that you’ll get flooded with refund requests.
Even today, some people won’t use their credit card online, but they will use PayPal or Klarna. Make sure you offer credit card alternatives. Many consumers prefer PayPal because they offer protection for buyers, and it’s easier to resolve a dispute through PayPal than a credit card company.
Additionally, payment method variety can appeal to users on mobile devices, a key demographic for PPC ad platforms. If you're tracking your PPC conversion rate formula, consider how adding multiple payment methods could calculate PPC conversions more accurately and improve your overall sales funnel efficiency.
Whether it’s styles, colors, sizes, or other options, minimize the number of choices you offer. The more choices you provide, the fewer purchases you’ll get. This is backed up by the famous “jam experiment.” The results, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (JPSP, Vol. 79, No. 6), showed that grocery store customers presented with 6 flavors of jam to sample were ten times more likely to make a purchase than those presented with 24 flavors to try.
Are you ready to supercharge your PPC landing pages to get more conversions? Marketer.co can help. Contact us for more information – we’d love to work with you and help you achieve your goals!
If you’re like most business owners, you've been reading the economic tea leaves to figure out how you should strategically adapt for the next few months and years. Inflation is high, the supply chain is still shaken up from the COVID-19 pandemic, and consumers are starting to worry; while there are some positive economic indicators in play, most people are exercising caution and planning conservatively, reducing spending in these uncertain economic times.
Understandably, one of the first areas to receive budget cuts in a business is marketing. Marketing isn't considered integral to central operations, since it's an indirect source of revenue generation dependent on operations throughout the rest of the company.
I'd argue that marketing is practically necessary, even in the hardest economic times. Without a way to build brand equity, raise awareness, and drive new customers to your business, a moderate economic challenge could become an insurmountable problem.
That said, reducing your marketing budget could be a smart move – as long as you plan appropriately.
Here’s how to do it.
If I had to boil everything down to three main rules, it's these:
With these rules in mind, the following strategies can help you make the most of this economically uncertain era – and keep seeing great results on even a thin budget.
An economic recession is no excuse to close your marketing department, but it makes sense to reduce your budget if you do it intelligently. Focusing on strategic efficiency and maximizing value can help you extract much better results even from the tiniest amounts of spending. You can always scale back up in the future.
While there may be many methods for generating leads organically, there are some circumstances when buying leads can be a quick and efficient alternative to scaling your marketing efforts.
Nonetheless, not all lead sellers and business lead providers are created equal, and with the extensive range of options existing, it can be challenging to decide who or what to contact for support.
The LinkedIn platform is even more effective as a tool for generating leads thanks to the LinkedIn Sales Navigator service.
Given how successful LinkedIn is right now, this is a major improvement. You have a wide range of search criteria at your disposal when using Sales Navigator to look for leads. These criteria include things like the job title, the sector, the location, and other elements.
Also, you have the option to save leads and accounts so that you can keep tabs on their happenings and see how involved these accounts are with your company. You have access to this function if you decide to save leads and accounts.
If you are serious about producing sales leads for your organization, advancing in Sales Navigator will more than pay for itself despite being relatively costly.
UpLead is a platform for generating leads in the cloud with many different features. Real-time email verification, lead enrichment, and interfaces with common customer relationship management (CRM) systems are a few of these features.
With UpLead, you may look for leads based on a number of aspects, like the job title, the size of the company, and the geography.
The application also provides users with a Google Chrome add-on that enables them to look up possible leads while browsing the web. You can download this add-on from the system's website.
With the help of the website visitor tracking tool Leadfeeder, you can determine which businesses have visited your website even if they haven't submitted a form or gotten in touch with you. Because Leadfeeder is a visitor tracking system, this is possible. This is now possible thanks to Leadfeeder, which lets you identify the companies that have visited your website.
By using Leadfeeder, you can learn which pages the company viewed, how long they spent on your website, and what search terms they entered into the search field to discover you.
It is also simple to convert website visits into leads thanks to the platform's collaboration with widely used customer relationship management (CRM) solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot. This gives it an edge over rival platforms.
A business-focused database called ZoomInfo gives its users access to millions of organizations and connections that are spread out around the globe. You can use ZoomInfo to find leads by using a range of criteria, including the job title, the industry, and the location. To guarantee that the business leads you get are current and accurate, the platform also offers a wide range of services, like lead enrichment and email verification.
The business-to-business (B2B) sales and marketing intelligence platform from DiscoverOrg offers customers access to a variety of data about businesses and contacts throughout the world. You can use DiscoverOrg to look for relevant leads based on factors like job title, industry, and location. The platform provides capabilities for account-based digital marketing and lead enrichment, which can be used to locate and interact with clients that are the best fit for your business.
With the use of the website visitor monitoring application LeadForensics, you can track down companies that have visited your website even if they haven't submitted a form or gotten in touch with you. You may find out which pages on your website the business visited, how long they spent there, and what search terms they used to discover you. It is simple to turn website visits into qualified leads thanks to the platform's interaction with widely used customer relationship management (CRM) solutions like Salesforce and HubSpot.
A platform for generating leads for B2B companies called LeadGenius gives them admission to a network of more than 500,000 researchers and data scientists. You may use LeadGenius to find leads based on factors like industry, geography, and job title. Also, you can screen leads depending on the size of the business, income, and other factors. LeadGenius uses a mixture of artificial intelligence and human researchers to collect data, resulting in leads that are surely focused and well-targeted.
A platform for B2B lead development, D&B Hoovers gives users access to more than 120 million company contacts globally. Users of the portal can look for leads using a variation of criteria, including industry, business size, job title, and more. Users can also sort leads based on criteria like revenue, employee count, and others. The in-depth information on each company, including financial data, corporate history, and news stories, is one of the main advantages of using D&B Hoovers and is useful when contacting potential customers.
Data.com is a well-liked option for finding potential clients because it has a large database of company contacts. To preserve accuracy, the database is frequently updated with new information. In order to assist consumers in finding fresh leads pertinent to their target market, Data.com also offers a lead-generating service.
With over 30 million records in its contact database, Salesfully is a lead supplier. Users can utilize the website's filters to focus on certain industry sectors, job functions, and geographical regions. Email verification, corporate information, and lead commendations based on user preferences are among the other services offered by Salesfully. One benefit of Salesfully is its pay-as-you-go pricing structure, which enables users to buy business leads that they actually need for their organization.
Another lead supplier with access to a contact database with more than 10 million records is AeroLeads. The website offers a number of filters that visitors can use to focus on particular industry sectors, job functions, and geographical regions. In addition, AeroLeads delivers lead recommendations based on user preferences, company information, and email authentication. Users may find and save leads more easily when cruising the web with the help of a browser plugin.
One of the significant benefits of using Lead411 is its flexible pay-as-you-go pricing model, making it an excellent option for organizations that don't need a large number of leads. This pricing model permits businesses to control their lead generation costs and only pay for the leads they need, without any long-term commitments or contracts. Lead411 also offers a range of integrations with popular CRM and marketing automation tools, making it easy for businesses to import their leads and start using them right away. Additionally, the platform is user-friendly and intuitive, making it easy for businesses of all sizes to use and benefit from.
To sum up, generating high-quality leads might be difficult, but these top five lead-buying locations give businesses the instruments and materials they need to speed up the procedure. Every platform, from Hushly to LinkedIn Sales Navigator, has distinct advantages that are personalized to a particular business kinds. Because of the many pricing options, businesses may select a lead generation program that fits their budget while still generating high-quality leads to help them grow and expand.
There are many factors to consider while looking for a lead provider. Some of the most important factors to think about are listed below:
The most important consideration when choosing a lead supplier is the quality of the leads. Excellent leads have a higher chance of becoming clients, so it's critical to pick a source that provides accurate and current leads. When purchasing leads, look for a vendor who has a track record of delivering high-quality leads, and make sure the leads are established and authenticated.
Depending on the provider, the cost of leads can vary significantly. It's key to picking a supplier who charges fairly for high-quality leads. Be sure the cost is reasonable given the caliber of the leads you will acquire by comparing the prices of various sources.
Filters A lead generation tool would be incomplete without filters. The greater your chances are of discovering leads that fit your target demographic, the more filters a supplier offers. In order to target particular industries, job titles, regions, and more, look for a supplier who provides a wide selection of filters.
When choosing a provider to buy sales leads, customer support should be a top consideration.. No matter if it's a technical problem or a query concerning the leads, you want to be confident that you can get assistance when you need it. Choose a supplier who provides responsive customer service, including phone and email support.
Data security is essential when buying leads. Be sure the vendor you select takes general data protection regulation seriously and adheres to industry standards. Choose a supplier who is open about their data protection practices and has a solid track record of keeping client information safe.
Finally, when deciding to buy leads online, it’s critical to consider the supplier’s ratings and reputation. To learn about the supplier's advantages and disadvantages, read user reviews. Take into account the supplier's standing in the market and history of producing leads of the highest caliber.
To sum up, there are numerous locations where you may buy leads for your company, but not all vendors are created equal. It's crucial to take into account aspects like lead quality, price, filters, support, data protection, and reviews when choosing a lead supplier. You can ensure that you get leads of the highest caliber to aid in the expansion of your company by taking the time to select the ideal supplier.
Is email dead? With the rise of social media, instant messaging, and other forms of online communication, you might think so.
But the truth is that email is far from dead. In fact, McKinsey & Company reports that it is 40 times more effective at acquiring customers than Facebook and Twitter combined.“That’s because 91 percent of all US consumers still use email daily, and the rate at which emails prompt purchases is not only estimated to be at least three times that of social media, but the average order value is also 17 percent higher,” the report says. Still, writing effective marketing emails can be difficult, especially if it’s a cold email.
In this article, we’ll go over what a cold email is, the benefits and challenges of cold emailing, different types of cold emails, how to write cold emails that convert cold leads into warm leads, and more.
Let’s get started!
A cold email is an unsolicited email sent to someone you have no prior connection with (aka a cold lead). It’s basically the email equivalent of cold calling.
Cold emails are most often sent to potential customers or someone with whom you want to build a business relationship and add to your network. However, if not done correctly, they can easily end up in the spam folder, reducing their effectiveness.
It’s important to note, however, that cold emails are different from spam. Unlike spam emails that are sent indiscriminately, cold emails are sent to qualified leads only. In addition, cold emails are personalized and not just a carbon copy of an email sent to many recipients.
Some of the main benefits of cold emailing are that it’s something you can do for free, it’s completely in your control, and it’s easy to scale.
The biggest challenge of cold emailing is that it’s hard to do well. According to a study of 12 million cold emails conducted by Backlinko, the vast majority of cold emails are ignored. The average response rate for cold emails is 8.5%, which means if you sent out 100 cold emails, only 8 or 9 of them would get a reply.
That said, when done right, cold emails can have a huge ROI. Depending on what kind of product or service you are pitching, a successful cold email campaign has the potential to generate thousands of dollars in revenue.
Cold emails can serve different ends. Some common ones include:
When it comes to actually crafting an effective cold email, follow these steps:
If the subject line doesn’t grab the recipient’s attention, it won’t matter how good the rest of the email body is because they won’t see it. So, you’ve got to nail the subject line.
To do this, make it short and sweet, personal, and interesting. You might ask a question, include an emoji, or use numbers (e.g., “How I earned $9,781 in one day").
The point is to grab your recipient’s attention, so they don’t overlook your email. Just make sure that your subject line isn’t clickbait. It must actually relate to what’s inside the email.
This is an easy step to forget, but it’s an important one. You want to tell the recipient why you are reaching out to them specifically as opposed to anyone else. People are more likely to respond when they feel uniquely qualified to help. Say you’re emailing a fintech executive. By telling them upfront that you’re interested in networking with an experienced fintech executive, they may be more likely to oblige.
Give the reader a reason to listen to you. This is an excellent opportunity to list off some of your credentials, past accolades, and experience. If you can work in some social proof by mentioning past clients or partners you’ve worked with, do it. The point is to validate yourself so that the reader is more likely to take you seriously. If you don’t yet have much credibility, find something you share in common instead. For example, you could point out that you and your reader both enjoy rock climbing (this takes some research, obviously). The rarer the commonality, the better.
As humans, we work much harder to avoid pain than to gain pleasure. You can use this to your advantage. Research what’s bothering or hurting your reader and tap into that. Perhaps they’re a workaholic struggling to find a healthy work-life balance.
Acknowledge that making time for family, hobbies, and relaxation can be difficult. This will help your message resonate more with your readers and they will be more inclined to read on.
Don’t bring up your reader’s pain points without pointing them to a solution. Ideally, the solution is your product or service. This is the whole point of the cold outreach campaign, after all. So be specific about what you have to offer and how it can add value to your recipient.
For example, you might have a software scheduling tool that can eliminate the administrative burden of making appointments. Try to quantify your solution by saying how much time or money it could save your prospect.
Every cold email needs a compelling CTA. This is how you lead your readers to do whatever you want them to do, whether that’s booking a consultation, requesting a free audit, or placing an order.
You want to make it as easy as possible for them to take the next step. Leaving them confused about what to do next is missing a huge opportunity.
Your email signature consists of the information below your name. Most email providers let you create one that automatically sends with each message.
A nice email signature can reaffirm your credibility by showing your title, the company you work for, and a logo. It can also make it easier to reach out to you by including your phone number, address, and alternate email.
At the end of the day, crafting effective email outreach campaigns is an art. It takes practice and a lot of trial and error. However, there are some tried-and-true principles that can help make your cold emails stand out. Here they are:
Hopefully, you now feel more confident about sending cold emails. If you still need help, Marketer.co is here for you. Our marketing experts have years of experience in crafting powerful cold emails that generate lots of leads. Work with us to take your business’s marketing to the next level.
Feel free to contact us today for a free consultation. We look forward to learning more about your marketing needs and seeing how we can help.
In the sphere of search engine optimization (SEO), duplicate content looms as a notorious adversary that has the potential to cause grave harm to your website's rankings.
Whenever search engines come across numerous pages with indistinguishable or remarkably analogous content, it may prove to be a Herculean task for them to ascertain which page deserves to be ranked higher in the search results.
The result? Your website could be afflicted with reduced visibility, diminished traffic, and an attenuated ability to allure and retain potential customers.
In this dissertation, we shall delve into what duplicate content is, how it impacts your search engine rankings, and what you can do to obviate it from pulling down your website's visibility.
Duplicate content, in essence, refers to any content that appears in multiple places on the internet. This could encompass textual matter, images, videos, or any other type of content that is replicated across several web pages. Duplicate content can manifest on the same website or across distinct domains. Duplicate content can be categorized into two fundamental types: internal and external.
Internal duplicate content refers to pages within the same website that contain identical or very similar content. External duplicate content, on the flip side, occurs when the same content is published on different websites.
For instance, if you possess two pages on your website with indistinguishable content, that would be classified as internal duplicate content. If you publish an article on your blog and then republish it on another website, that would be categorized as external duplicate content.
Duplicate content can exert a momentous impact on your website's search engine rankings. When search engines stumble upon several pages with identical or very similar content, they may encounter considerable difficulty in determining which page merits being ranked higher in the search results.
This can culminate in a cornucopia of negative consequences for your website, including:
Preventing duplicate content is crucial to preserving a robust online presence and circumventing the negative consequences we've discussed. Here are some tips for forestalling duplicate content issues on your website:
Duplicate content can be a pernicious adversary to your website's search engine rankings, visibility, and overall online presence. To avoid these deleterious consequences, it's indispensable to create unique, top-quality content, use canonical tags, consolidate analogous pages, set up 301 redirects, use meta robots tags, dodge duplicate content on e-commerce websites, and monitor your website for duplicate content issues.
By adhering to these measures, you can help ensure that your website is well-optimized for search engines, providing a positive user experience, and drawing in potential customers to your business. Remember, high-quality content is the crux of a flourishing online presence, and expending the time and effort to craft unparalleled, valuable content will aid in guaranteeing that your website is well-regarded by search engines and users alike.
Lots of digital marketers openly proclaim that search engine optimization (SEO) is the best marketing strategy for most businesses.
But what makes a marketing strategy the best? Obviously, that question is subjective. However one of the most common ways to evaluate the quality or effectiveness of a marketing strategy is to measure SEO ROI– its return on investment.
In other words, we want to know whether a strategy makes more money for a business than it costs them to keep the strategy going. If you spend $10 on ads, do you get at least $10 back?
The higher the ROI, the more valuable a marketing strategy is – at least, by this metric.
So what is the ROI for an average SEO campaign?
How do you calculate SEO ROI?
And does this justify investing in the strategy?
ROI is important because it's one of the most effective tools for ballparking the true value of the digital marketing strategy.
We can't simply look at performance, because this doesn't take cost into consideration. For example, let's say a new marketing strategy brings you $5 million of new revenue, but it costs you $6 million to plan and execute; even though this strategy brought in lots of money, it's still technically a net loss.
If the ROI of a marketing strategy is positive, we can consider it a sound investment. We can also use relative ROI to compare different marketing strategies and determine which, among them, is most worthy of our investment dollars.
Ultimately, ROI calculation serves many purposes at once:
So what do we expect, on average, from an SEO campaign? The expected ROI of SEO is going to vary depending on what, exactly, you’re measuring and who’s doing the calculating. Marketing strategies, in general, are considered a great success if you have a 500 percent ROI – in other words, getting back $5 for every $1 you spend. ROI for an SEO campaign could be as high as 1,220 percent – or even higher – but if the campaign is mismanaged, you could come up negative. Generally, we expect the ROI for any SEO campaign to be roughly positive. In other words, you should make back all the money you spent on SEO, assuming you already have a profitable business in place. As for the degree of positive ROI you see, that depends on many variables, such as:
It’s also important to realize that SEO is a long-term strategy. Over time, you'll accumulate more on site content, you'll build more links, and you'll generate more authority and trustworthiness for your domains. The more you invest, the more powerful you'll grow, and the easier it will be for you to get new pages to rank. The early days of SEO are usually difficult because you won't see any immediate progress from your first round of SEO efforts. Because of this effect, the ROI for an SEO strategy is usually low, or even negative, in the first couple of months. By the time you've spent a few months practicing this strategy, you should be consistently positive. After a few years, you should see much better, more positive results.
To gauge the performance of your campaign, and evaluate whether your spending is “worth it,” you’ll need to calculate marketing ROI for your own efforts.
The most basic method to calculate SEO ROI is very simple. You simply need to compare the revenue this strategy has generated with the money you've spent on it.
In practice, any effort to calculate SEO ROI can get complicated fast.
Let's start by looking at what you spend on SEO. If you want your calculation to be as accurate as possible, you'll need to incorporate all your expenses.
That includes whatever you're paying for SEO agency services and SEO contractors, as well as the salaries of internal SEO personnel and the true costs of any time you spend managing your campaigns.
On-site optimization, content development, link building, and analytics all have individual costs that need to be accounted for.
Once you calculate SEO ROI for a given period, you can estimate how much of a return you're getting from your organic search.
There are a few different approaches you could take here, but it's easiest to start by looking at the behavioral patterns of your organic traffic.
Organic traffic to your website is generated exclusively by organic search engine results pages (SERPs), so it's an excellent way to look at the people coming to your website because they discovered you through search.
First, regularly monitor and check your Google Analytics dashboard.
How many organic visitors are you generating? What is your conversion rate for these visitors? And what is your customer lifetime value (CLV) among these customers?
As a simple example, let's say you generate 10,000 organic visitors per month with a conversion rate of 2 percent. That means your organic traffic is leading your business to win 200 new customers each month. If each customer has a lifetime value of $1,000, this represents $200,000 of returns. Even if you're spending $10,000 a month on SEO, this spending is clearly worth it.
There are other variables you should look at as well, including the difference between new visitors and repeat visitors and the value of each individual conversion. But these guidelines should lead you to a fairly accurate estimate when you look to calculate SEO ROI.
Now that we know how to calculate ROI, what steps can we take to maximize it for your SEO campaign? These are some of the best ways to get the greatest possible return out of your SEO investment:
It's hard to give a blanket statement about whether SEO is worth or if your SEO ROI is truly positive, since there are so many different variables to consider and so many different scenarios that could unfold.
More difficult still is even understanding how to properly measure SEO ROI in the first place! It's nebulous and much more difficult to track, especially given the flux and volatility of SEO over the last several years.
However, the average business benefits enormously from SEO, seeing a positive SEO ROI that more than justifies the initial investment and SEO efforts. If you're curious to learn more about how SEO could benefit your business, or if you're ready to start a full campaign, contact us for a free consultation today!
Over the past decade, social media has become seriously involved in the way brands engage with customers and users. Last year (2012) there was a huge shift in the general attitude towards social media: big brands began using social media much more than just as a tool to promote their products, independent business owners started using social media campaigns to engage their users, banks and product-selling companies broke the ice to use social media as a customer support system besides figuring out how to use it to collect reviews and surveys too.
Social media is a grand part of our lives. Billions of people use Facebook and Twitter (combined). The networks are so important today that even Google tries to capture social signals in ranking your webpages. As a webmaster, and an SEO ROI expert, if there’s one thing that you can’t miss in your cocktail, it’s social media marketing.
But does that mean you just post links and share interesting things on your social media platforms? Unfortunately, many websites assume just this and go about posting and sharing links to things they find interesting. Yet, there’s no “engagement,” no “likes,” no “retweets,” no “click-throughs” and basically not much of anything else either. Why?
You’ve probably heard this a million times before, but social media efforts is about three things, predominantly.
1. Content
2. Timing
3. Engagement
What you share – interesting or not, in the generic sense – is not exactly the reason why people don’t click, don’t share, don’t retweet; or in short, don’t engage. I’ve seen pages with followers in the mere hundreds engage voraciously and pages with thousands of followers remain relatively obscure. And they both share content that’s generally interesting. The reason?
The rules of content on social media are pretty much similar to the ones in a marketing copy.
Bit.ly (the URL shortening service that runs prominently on several social channels) posted about the best times to share content on social media. It’s one of the most important lessons you can apply to maximize your social media marketing efforts.
Time is relative so the sane way of interpreting this is to take into account the time zones of your followers and figure out the most common time zone. And the following doesn’t apply to “breaking news” kinds, obviously.
But it doesn’t end there. This is just a base template for you to start working on. Remember that the trends of social media tools are rapidly evolving. With mobile devices in tow, people spend more time on Twitter and Facebook in the dead zones too (after 4pm, after 8pm etc.)
Run a test on Twitter for a week. Share links every 3 hours. Figure out the results from social media analytics. Then, you’ll have an idea of what generates the highest clicks and when so you can calculate social media ROI, later on.
But of course, the hardest part of social media marketing campaigns is engagement.
Most social profiles of websites and brands that I see do very little to engage with their audiences, followers, and other social media team leaders in their niche. This is exactly the opposite of how you should use social media strategy.
Engagement is (broken down into the most basic ‘actionable’ steps you can take right away):
Like everything you do, social media marketing strategies aren't really worthwhile if you’re not tracking the progress. Is your strategy generating enough engagement? More followers? More fans? More shares/retweets? What time is your target audience engaging the most? How’s your traffic from your own social channels?
There are a ton of things you can and should test when it comes to social media campaign. After all, you’re putting a lot of time into it (or should be!).
The best way to go forward is to analyze where you are and figure out where you want to go from here. Take up one goal at a time on one specific channel (Facebook/Twitter/Pinterest etc.). And then run the tests. Find out what works best and repeat the process with refinements till you’ve perfected one particular mode that maximizes your efforts and achieve social media ROI.
When it comes to social media success, your focus should be on the content that you share, as well as social media engagement. If it’s performed in a high-quality manner and done naturally and genuinely, you’ll see quicker results. Don’t spam. Don’t overdo it.
Optimize every step by measuring social media ROI and selecting the ones that are best suited.
Tracking social media has become extremely useful, especially for those who want to build brand reputation and ROI from their social media marketing initiative. Social channels directly link to traffic, following, and engagement, so measuring them can assist your business in a variety of ways.
Social media is an important part of the equation that brings traffic and target audience following, resulting in the growth of brands. From the largest brands to the smallest startups, social media has been used and continues to be used strategically for a variety of purposes. Though I haven’t found a great social media analytics software yet, brands and startups that do social media marketing have a clear need and desire to measure their ROI meticulously.
A social media infographic that surfaced about a year ago reveals what marketers look for in social media analytic tools:
All that data comes from people who measure social media metrics. Clearly, they regard social media analytics as important. But why?
I’ll try to answer that and explain ways in which social media analytics can be simplified so it’s highly effective.
About a year ago, social media was used for marketing and ad campaigns, but it wasn’t very easy to determine ROI. One reason was that social campaigns were unlike traditional online campaigns, such as banner ads or squeeze page promotions.
In the latter, you would track every click, total the conversions, and calculate the ROI; but with the former, this isn’t possible. A user might look at your social ad/campaign and not click at all — but make a purchase directly some weeks later. Your social campaign might get shared and retweeted but it may not convert into something tangible.
Furthermore, there was no way to measure these metrics to figure out whether your social media marketing was doing any good. This was one of the reasons General Motors pulled its Facebook campaign before plunging back into conventional fan pages and traditional media engagement.
If it’s a link, you measure the clicks. If it’s an ad, you measure the impressions. If it’s a video, you measure the views. If it’s a blog post, you measure comments and traffic.
But if it’s social media, what do you measure? Likes, shares, favorites, retweets, comments, replies, mentions, subscriptions, Diggs, upvotes… perhaps the length and variety of this list stumps the average marketer or business owner who’s trying to figure out ROI from their social media platforms marketing efforts.
Let’s go back to the infographic again:
Traffic numbers, growth of followers, quantity of interaction, quality of interaction — let’s assume these are the four basic things to track (although there are many more, like demography, gender, age group, time of day, etc.).In order to get the best out of every social campaign, you need to know what to measure. To determine this, you need to understand the purpose of running the social media marketing campaign. As is the case, the end goals dictate the measurement metric.
Some brands need to measure more metrics. A brand like Dove would want to measure the number of women who have clicked through a socially shared link. A brand like Apple might want to measure the peak time of shares and the traffic it generates say, during a product launch.
It all boils down to intention: the ultimate goal you want to achieve corresponds to the metric to be measured.
It should be evident that likes, retweets, and shares don’t occupy an important metric goal because they are not of direct consequence here. For a small business, measuring the number of likes, shares, or retweets is pointless if none of it generates traffic/following/interaction/revenue or any other goal you have set for your social campaigns.
Furthermore, social is not just Facebook and Twitter; intensely passionate social media marketers know that an enormous source of traffic lies beyond these important social hubs. These include Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, LinkedIn, Delicious, and more.
Every effort you put in, especially toward marketing, should be planned and calculated.
Let’s say you take up guest blogging as a strategy to drive traffic to your website. As you go along with your guest blogging strategy, how do you identify the publishers that drive good traffic? How do you focus only on the ones that are effective?
All of that comes from analytics: you set up tools like Google Analytics and Webmaster Tools to figure out which ones are really good traffic sources and realign your marketing efforts to focus on those websites.
It’s the same with social media strategy, too.
At a time when social media marketing has become enormously important, it’s even more critical to measure the social media performance you run.
Put differently, that which we measure can be improved because we know what we are looking at!
Even if something is difficult to measure (e.g. SEO ROI), it's still worth the time and effort to try to apply a baseline measurement against it.
This is the big question: how do you measure the ROI of social media campaigns? Tracking social metrics was hard in the past, but with some really amazing tools these days, it has become easy while retaining sophistication, with a ton of features.
For instance, here’s a list of tools that help in a complete and thorough social media analytics:
Google Analytics Social (http://www.google.com/analytics/features/social.html)In most campaigns, this should be more than enough. Most of us measure traffic through multiple social media channels. Google identifies and tracks over 400 social channels, so this tool gets most of the social media data for you. With specific funnels/filters, you can track advanced metrics like conversions and the corresponding value of the traffic that funnels in through social websites.
Brandify (http://brandify.com/) This tool focuses on brand management through social channels. It’s used by some of the industry’s bigwigs. It’s all about social media analytics reports; Brandify monitors the social media activity around your brand (website) and helps you manage and enhance through recommendations. And it’s free.Awe.sm (http://totally.awe.sm/) Arguably the best tool designed to collect complete data about shares. Comes with a free trial.
RowFeeder (https://rowfeeder.com/) is Powerful social analytics that’s built for advanced users and brands that want to track a lot of things.
Engagor (http://engagor.com/) is Yet another powerful social media metric tool that brings complete control over your social media campaigns.
Crowdbooster (http://crowdbooster.com/) A more focused metric tool designed to provide recommendations based on successful social media strategies, with HootSuite-like multiple-social media management features.
Resources As usual, the web is often inundated with tons of resources.
Although I’ve not been much of a fan of Facebook Insights, it does offer some good information on the growth and reach of your Facebook fan page. Tracy Sestili’s post gives a good sense of the various metrics that can be useful.
This post is a must-read if you’re looking to make the best out of Google’s Social Analytics as it has evolved over the months. And this one takes it a step further to help you measure ROI generated by your social media campaigns.
Minilytics helps you understand the demographics of Facebook by letting you know which type of posts generate engagement, what time is optimal for posting, and how many fans you reach.
Social media campaigns are much more powerful than the usual ads run on websites. For starters, most campaigns are cost-effective, when the only costs involved are the human resource and time. Social campaigns are often more personal because they occur on a platform that’s trusted. And with metrics in hand, social campaigns can be enormously fruitful.
Agile software development methodologies have been used for decades.
It's only in more recent years that agile frameworks have been used as a means to enhance digital marketing processes and campaigns.
In today's ever-changing marketing environment, it is essential to have marketing strategies that can quickly adapt to changing market conditions.
Enter agile marketing.
Agile marketing has become a popular approach for businesses looking to become more efficient, diversify their marketing mix and ultimately increase their marketing return on investment (ROI).
This article will discuss what enterprise agile marketing transformations are and why it’s important, as well as provide tips and advice on how you can use agile marketing solutions in your own business.
We'll also discuss the "how" and "why" pivoting to an agile approach can help enhance, increase and improve the return on investment (ROI) for your business.
Let's dive in!
Agile frameworks allow for rapid response to changes in the marketplace and ensure that a company’s marketing strategy is always up-to-date.
This approach focuses on using data to measure, analyze, and adjust quickly based on ever-evolving customer needs.
It's essentially using data to react quickly to changes and feedback to ensure you're doing the things you should do to get ROI and avoid the pitfalls of insanity:
In addition, agile marketing encourages collaboration between agile marketers within the agile marketing department, with each team having different roles and responsibilities.
This should, in theory, allow for quicker decisions and solutions that work best for the organization as a whole.
Agile marketing teams thrive on the ability to pivot strategies based on the data-driven insights provided in an agile marketing report, allowing them to make informed decisions that maximize ROI.
Through streamlining agile marketing implementation across agile teams, organizations can ensure that their marketing programs remain aligned with core values and customer needs. This fosters a responsive and collaborative environment that adapts to the dynamic market landscape.
The traditional approach to marketing can be slow to respond to changes in the market, which can lead to outdated strategies and decreased ROI.
Agile methods allow companies to respond quickly and effectively to customer needs.
This means that businesses are able to stay ahead of the competition by better understanding their target audience and adapting their strategies accordingly.
Additionally, agile solutions make it easier for the agile team members within the organization to collaborate more effectively which can lead to improved efficiency overall.
In short, agile marketing is closely tied to lean, startup marketing.
It's nimble and allows for quick pivots, but true success requires discipline.
Agile marketing starts with a strong foundation in agile principles, transforming marketing teams from traditional marketing silos into dynamic, collaborative groups driven by core values and continuous improvement.
This shift from traditional to modern marketing enables agile marketing work to be more adaptable and customer-focused, which is essential for achieving agile success in today’s fast-paced market.
Agile marketing solutions are quickly becoming an essential part of many businesses' marketing strategies.
Implementing these solutions can help you better understand your customer needs, stay ahead of the competition, and increase your ROI.
Here are some tips for implementing agile marketing solutions into your business
1. Establish Goals & Objectives: Before you start planning your marketing strategy, it is important to set goals and objectives for your team. This will ensure that everyone is on the same page about what needs to be accomplished and how best to achieve those goals.
2. Create A Flexible Plan: Agile requires a flexible plan that can easily adapt to changing conditions in the market. This will help you stay up-to-date with your strategies and ensure that your team is always prepared.
3. Automate Processes: Automating processes like content creation, social media management, and email marketing can help save time and effort when implementing agile marketing solutions into your business. With automation, you can focus on the more pressing tasks while the automated systems take care of the rest. But, keep in mind, that automation can only take you so far. What you can't automate often requires the frontal cortex of some wicked-smart people on your team.
4. Hire Right: Hire the right people to handle agile marketing team requirements. Make sure you have someone on staff who understands the agile marketing process and can provide guidance and direction to other members of the team. This is one of the more critical aspects of going agile. Getting a driver who can get the whole marketing team on board, ensuring the maintenance discipline in how the team functions, and staying focused on the end goal is an essential element of success
5. Experiment & Optimize: Agile marketing encourages experimentation and iteration. Don’t be afraid to try new strategies and tactics as you learn how to best optimize your campaigns for success. As a team, we are constantly experimenting internally before we go external and share our successful findings with our clients outwardly. Be sure to make risky experiments in your journey in silos or on projects that don't matter as much to the revenue of your core business operations.
6. Leverage Technology: Utilize the latest marketing technology in order to stay up-to-date with the changing market trends and customer behaviors. In fact, technology is one of the best ways to automate and make your team as efficient as possible. This can help you quickly pivot when needed and ensure that you are always on the cutting edge. We use the latest project and task management tools and have daily and weekly in-person and virtual SCRUM team meetings, ensuring everyone is on-task and optimized.
7. Measure & Analyze: Measuring and analyzing performance data is essential to making sure your digital marketing is actually delivering results. With the right analytics tools, you can track ROI and make necessary adjustments in order to optimize your campaigns for success.
8. Report With Case Studies: You can use case studies to share your successes and failures with other teams and departments within the organization. This will help everyone understand how agile digital marketing solutions are benefiting the business as a whole.
Case studies are also great cannon fodder for selling new potential clients on why an Agile approach might be best. Case studies have proven to be one of our best marketing tools for winning marketing RFPs and telling a great story.
Implementing an agile marketing framework to your business is not likely to be all sunshine and roses.You can expect a few bumps in the road.Here we outline a few potential issues and hopefully some solutions so you can preemptively look at your plan to go agile and be properly prepared when your strategy falls a bit off the rails.
Initially, there may be a lack of alignment between different teams within the organization in terms of goals, objectives, and strategies.
Without stakeholder buy-in, including senior marketing leaders, it can be difficult to get everyone on the same page with an agile marketing approach.
One of the biggest issues we find in executing an agile approach is the nimbleness agile marketing tactics foster relative to the clunky, traditional framework to which larger organizations adhere. Agile works great and is more easily implemented in a startup marketing environment but is vastly more difficult to execute and implement for larger enterprises with an entrenched culture. And it may not be a lack of stakeholder buy-in on the part of the organization.
You may have all stakeholders and every level on board with agile marketing, but moving the Titanic is easier said than done. A full marketing implementation of agile marketing solutions will require discipline, focus, and perseverance. You may encounter some difficulties throughout the process but with the right resources and support, your business can reap the inevitable ROI rewards of an agile marketing approach.
Another potential roadblock to implementing agile marketing frameworks is the lack of resources available.
Companies may not have enough personnel to devote to developing and managing agile marketing campaigns, or they may not have the budget or technology needed to successfully implement these strategies.
And remember, resources may not all be monetary. Time and labor constraints may prove an issue. The most committed organizations will hire agile marketing mavens that can be available to provide the support and drive needed to truly execute an agile approach.
Measuring the return on investment (ROI) of agile marketing can be challenging, but with the right tools and strategies in place, it is possible to track and measure the success of your efforts. The key is to identify which metrics are most meaningful when it comes to measuring ROI and then use those metrics as a benchmark for success.
One of the most important aspects of agile marketing is measuring its return on investment (ROI). This helps organizations to understand how well their efforts are paying off and determine whether they should continue with the strategy or adjust it as needed.
A few of the ways that ROI can be measured in an agile marketing approach include:
By tracking your metric(s) of choice, you can gain insight into which campaigns are most successful and determine where adjustments need to be made in order to maximize your return on investment (ROI).
Keep in mind that the ROI of agile marketing is not always immediate, as it can take time (even years) to see the results of your efforts. Don’t be discouraged if you don’t immediately see a return on investment.
Instead, focus on understanding and tracking key metrics in order to measure success over time.
A case study can be a means of convincing internal management and external clients and customers of the benefits of using agile for the implementation of marketing best practices and customer focused collaboration.
Creating an internal case study for a successful agile project can be a great way to demonstrate the efficiency and effectiveness of agile methodologies.
A case study allows you to go into detail about the project, detailing the methodology and results, making it easier to share with other internal marketing teams or organizations.
When creating an internal case study for a successful agile project, it’s important to focus on both the process and results.
This will help demonstrate how effective agile methodologies can be when applied correctly.
We worked with a major e-commerce brand in creating a siloed approach toward agile, implementing agile digital marketing team frameworks into their paid and social campaigns.
In doing so, we created a proof-is-in-the-pudding case study to showcase the value of implementing agile on a broader scale across the entirety of their marketing organization.
Similar results were had across all their paid and organic SEO campaigns after full implementation with the help of marketing and agile software development teams.
Upper management wanted proof and we delivered.
Sometimes agile consulting is used to drive awareness to internal management (which is something we can assist with), but most often it's used to help drive better results for client campaigns.
External case studies are extremely valuable for businesses as they provide proof that their agile practices are working, attracting new customers, and creating a positive ROI.
External case studies should focus on the real-world application of agile methodologies and how they helped increase ROI for a business.
They can also highlight other important aspects of the process, such as collaboration, customer engagement, and innovation.
In nearly every client campaign where we achieve an outsized return on investment (ROI) using agile digital marketing techniques, we create a beautiful case study to showcase the work.
These case studies then become downloadable assets that we can use on new clients and potential customers.
Just like this one, from the keyword rankings for a client in the digital reviews niche:
Agile marketing is a great way to stay ahead of the competition and increase your return on investment (ROI).
By implementing agile marketing solutions and measuring results, you can ensure that your business is always adapting to changing conditions in both your business and the overall market.
In other words, learn to market adaptively like a startup (by finding the right digital marketing agency for your business).
Agile will help you see the results just as rapidly.
Businesses have been using email to promote their products and services since the 1990s. Since then, many new forms of marketing have come along: social media marketing, influencer marketing, YouTube ads, and more.
And yet, email is still one of the most effective marketing tools out there.
In fact, a report by McKinsey & Company shows that email marketing is 40 times more effective at gaining new customers than Facebook and Twitter combined!
If you want to leverage email marketing to grow your business, you’ve come to the right place.
Here at Marketer.co, we’ve developed some email marketing tips that you can apply to your own email marketing campaigns for better results.
Here they are:
Before you can start sending marketing emails, you need to develop an email list, which is basically a list of email addresses from interested leads.
One of the best ways to collect email addresses is to create a lead magnet. A lead magnet is a page on your business website that offers visitors a free resource in exchange for their email address and name. The free resource could be an ebook, webinar invite, white book, or newsletter sign-up. Whatever it is, it serves as an incentive for visitors to give you their email addresses.
Once submitted, the email address is saved to your email list.
One of the biggest mistakes that beginner marketers make is sending emails to their entire email list. Don’t do this.
Instead, segment your email list into different groups. You can split them by demographics (age, gender, income, etc.), their interests, and whether they are new or old customers.
Why do this? It allows you to tailor your marketing emails to different groups.
For example, say you run a real estate agent business. Instead of sending an email about the home-buying process to your entire email list, you can send it to only your first-time buyer leads. That way, you avoid annoying subscribers who may not be interested in (or may already be familiar with) the homebuying process (e.g., seller leads or past clients).
By segmenting your email list, you can create more tailored emails—emails that include only content, offers, news, and promotions that are relevant to the recipient in question. If an email isn’t relevant, a reader is more likely to ignore it, unsubscribe, or even mark it as spam.
If the personalized subject lines of your marketing emails aren’t compelling, it won’t matter how good the actual email is.
Why?
Because if your subscribers aren’t drawn by the subject line, they won’t click to open the email in the first place.
In other words, the subject line is the most important part of a marketing email. To make it stand out, there are a few things you can do:
You can create a sense of urgency with your email subject line: keep it short and sweet, pose a compelling question, tease what’s inside the email, use emojis, and make it personal. Whatever you do, don’t use all caps or multiple exclamation marks. This just makes you look desperate for attention and most recipients will shy away.
On top of personalizing the subject line, you want to make the entire email personal. This helps you connect with subscribers and earn their trust.
Start by addressing the recipient by their first name. Most marketing email software lets you automatically customize emails with different recipients’ names.
You have to make sure you collect and store people’s names alongside their email addresses.
Another way to make your emails more personal is to write in the second person. That means using words like “you,” “your,” and so on (just like this post is doing). By addressing your desired target audience directly, you help them feel more involved and pull them through the email copy.
Lastly, you can personalize your marketing emails by addressing your readers’ specific pain points, not just sending them to a generic blog post or landing page.
Think back to how you segmented your email list. What are the particular needs and wants of the segment you are writing to? For example, if you’re writing to home seller leads, you may consider acknowledging how hard it can be to sell a house in the current real estate market.
Whatever you do, make sure the email feels like it’s being written directly from you to your reader. The less corporate it sounds, the better.
As with many business processes, a lot of your email marketing success depends on how much you can automate.
Email itself is a form of automation. Think about how much more time it would take to send physical letters to your subscriber list or, worse yet, to type each letter individually.
But there’s more to email automation than that. Email marketing software lets you schedule transactional emails to send at certain times. You can even automate an entire email sequence that’s triggered every time someone signs up for your email list (aka a drip email campaign). This could be a welcome series that educates new customers on your products and services to help build trust in your brand.
The point is you can use automation through some of today's robust email marketing channel and email service providers to become more efficient as an email marketer.
The more you automate, the less time you need to spend on tedious work and the more time you can spend on more important work.
Did you know that far more people check email on mobile devices than on computers? According to statistics reported by Easysendy, nearly 1.7 billion users check email on mobile phones compared to 0.9 billion users who check it on desktops.
This means that you need to optimize your marketing emails for mobile screens.
Any images or videos contained within your emails should be easily viewed on a phone. Users should also be able to click on any links and promotions and be directed to your website on their mobile web browser.
To ensure this is the case, test opening your marketing emails on different devices. They should adapt to various screen sizes without a problem.
One of the tips for improving email marketing is to use A/B testing.
What is A/B testing? Basically, it’s creating two slightly different versions of various email templates, sending them to a sample email segment, and seeing which performs better on common marketing email metrics, such as open rate, conversion rate, unsubscribe rate, and so on.
Once you have a winner, you can send the better version of two emails to the entire email segment.
You can A/B test almost anything: subject lines, email copy, images, landing pages, font style, links, and more. The key is to keep the variation between the two email versions subtle. That way, you can better home in on what it is that’s making the difference.
Then follow what the data tells you. By regularly performing A/B tests, you can gradually improve the performance (i.e. open rate, click-through rate, and general ROI) of your marketing emails overall.
A surprising amount of your marketing email success comes down to timing. Think about it. A recipient may give an email less attention if it lands in their inbox in the middle of the night or on the weekend compared to at the start of their workday. Of course, it all depends on your recipients’ schedules and time zones. The point is that timing is a real factor.
So, use analytics software to help you determine when the best send time is for your subscribers (you can do this through the A/B testing method explained in the last point). You might find that your open rate is better when you send emails in the morning rather than in the evening or vice versa.
Whatever the case may be, double down on whatever gets you the best results. Schedule your emails to automatically send when they have the highest chance of being opened.
From there, you can try to develop a regular email cadence. That way, your subscribers will also learn when they can expect to hear from you and be more likely to look out for your emails as a result.
Getting emails, you can’t unsubscribe from is incredibly frustrating. Don’t be that company that sends marketing emails without providing a way to opt out with an unsubscribe link.
Better yet, let your subscribers customize their email preferences. For example, you could let them select how frequently to receive your emails (daily, weekly, monthly, etc.) or what types of emails to receive (news, promotions, special sales, educational pieces, etc.).
The more autonomy you give email subscribers in managing their email preferences, the less likely they are to get annoyed with you. If they no longer want to get your emails, they’ll know exactly how to get off your list.
This may sound counterintuitive, but you should regularly rid your email list of any subscribers who haven’t opened your emails in a while. Why?
First, if they’re not opening your emails, they’re not doing you much good anyway.
Second, by cleaning up your email list, you avoid annoying people and giving them a negative impression of your brand. And third, updating your email list helps boost your scores on common email metrics like open rates. If you want more accurate email marketing performance data, you have to regularly scrub your email list.
Implementing an effective email marketing strategy is both an art and a science. It’s not something that you can master overnight. But if you follow the tips to improve your approach, you’ll see improvements in no time.
Don’t have the time, skills, or resources to run successful email marketing campaigns? No worries. Marketer.co can help. Our talented team of email marketers can assist you in creating segmented email campaigns and crafting personalized messages that resonate with both new and existing customers. From designing welcome emails to optimizing inbox placement, we’ll help you take your business to the next level by adhering to every email marketing best practice outlined here and other marketing strategies.
Contact us today for a free consultation. We look forward to chatting!
Your business needs marketing and advertising.
Unless your business is the recipient of some mystical blessing that allows it to naturally generate more paying customers, it's on you to build awareness, make your brand more appealing, and ultimately get more people to buy what you're selling.
The problem is, that marketing is hard to do on your own. If you don't have much experience or knowledge on the subject, it may seem intimidatingly complex. There's no guarantee that your strategies are going to be effective, and even if they are, you could end up overpaying for what you get.
That's why so many businesses turn to the help of a great digital marketing agency for all their digital marketing and advertising needs. But this has a problem associated with it as well; there are literally hundreds, if not thousands of digital marketing agencies available to serve you.
How can you choose the best digital marketing agency for your business?
Why would you consider working with a digital marketing agency? It should be self-evident that working with a professional marketing team, or at least a handful of digital marketing professionals, can help you see better results in the marketing world. You'll get better advice, better resources, and more supportive digital marketing solutions.
That said, there are a few different ways you can enjoy these benefits. You could hire a team of your own internally, you could work with freelancers, or you could even hire a temporary consultant to help you improve your digital marketing efforts.
Digital marketing agencies still have several advantages over these other methods, including:
One important thing to understand before we move further is that no two digital marketing agencies are the same, and no two clients are the same.
Some may provide social media management and search engine optimization services, but perhaps you're looking for paid marketing management. Digital marketing is broad, but most agencies don't cover the gambit or have the internal bench depth and expertise to provide end-to-end digital services.
Many of the claims we made about the advantageous nature of digital marketing agencies can't be applied to every agency on the planet; some of them aren't experienced or trustworthy enough to help you see favorable results.
Similarly, just because a digital marketing agency did a good job for one of their clients in the past doesn't mean they're going to do an identically good job for your brand. You have to consider the unique fit in addition to core competencies.
Before you start researching digital marketing agencies, it's a good idea to prepare yourself by assessing your own needs and goals. Why are you hoping to hire A digital marketing agency? Which types of marketing strategies do you want to follow? What are your biggest objectives and do you have specific numbers you're trying to hit? How much are you willing to spend and how much control do you want to retain over your tactics? I love to use a content marketing matrix (like the one below) to ensure the core competencies of the agency match our own internal needs/goals
Each company is going to look for something different. There's no such thing as a perfect digital marketing agency that works for every business. Accordingly, you may have very different priorities than the average business, and you may look for a marketing agency in a totally different way than one of your competitors. Still, this list should effectively capture some of your biggest priorities when researching and evaluating different digital marketing agencies:
Which of these factors are most important to you? Which ones are you willing to compromise on? Think through these questions carefully before proceeding.
At this point, you should be ready to start the discovery and research process. That means coming up with a long list of different digital marketing agencies you might want to work with.
It also means uncovering more details about those agencies and evaluating how good of a fit they're going to offer.
Throughout this process, you should focus on the following:
Hopefully, this guide has given you the resources, concepts, and frameworks necessary to make a better decision for hiring the right digital marketing agency for your brand.
But your responsibilities don't end there.
If you want to have the best working relationship with your digital marketing agency, there are some important ways you'll need to prepare yourself:
There are a lot of digital marketing agencies out there, but we strive to distinguish ourselves from the masses. On top of offering almost everything you need for a comprehensive digital marketing strategy, including white label SEO services, content marketing services, paid advertising services, and more, we have specialized experts from a variety of marketing niches – and account managers ready to work with you one-on-one on your next project. Contact us for a free consultation today!
Content marketing strategies demand multiple mediums and multiple outlets in order to be effective. Too many content marketers rely on a traditional, basic structure, writing blog post after blog post in the same format and syndicating them on social media. This strategy is effective, since it will gradually build your brand reputation, earn you more direct traffic, and improve your rankings in search engines, but for a full-fledged content marketing campaign, it should only serve as the foundation.
Adding a landing page, a dedicated page under your domain to house incoming traffic can be a viable strategy to improve your conversion rates and funnel your traffic. While it will take some extra work and maintenance to keep up, the return on investment (ROI) makes it all worth it.
Consider these seven reasons why landing pages can improve your campaign:
First and foremost, a landing page can improve your conversion rates. Rather than relying on customers eventually finding their way to your contact page (or anywhere else you seek to convert them), your users will be immediately confronted with the opportunity to convert. Using a landing page builder can simplify the process of creating high converting landing pages that are tailored to your audience.
There are several ways you can approach this. For example, you could set up a landing page as a kind of barrier to your content, presenting a link to a downloadable whitepaper in exchange for some information about the user. This standalone web page serves as a focused environment to achieve your target conversion. In this case, retrieving the whitepaper becomes your target conversion, and you can use your blogs and social channels to increase traffic and the likelihood of eventually converting.
If you’re more interested in selling one of your products, you can set up a specific landing page for one. Leverage landing page templates to design an effective layout quickly and professionally. Use social media or other content-based channels to attract traffic, then use the landing page as their immediate destination.
Landing pages can also be used to funnel your traffic into more specific areas. This is particularly useful for companies with a wide range of products or services. For example, if you sell bikes and rollerblades, you can segment your traffic appropriately through separate landing pages. To do this effectively, start by creating custom landing pages tailored to each category.
Rather than sending all of your traffic to your main site, or individual product pages, you can easily split your users into appropriate categories.
Let’s say you blog about bikes and rollerblades individually. People interested in buying rollerblades will respond more to posts about rollerblades, and the same is true for bikes. A good landing page for each category can help align your content with user intent.
When you’re communicating with a large pool of followers, however, it’s difficult to distinguish which followers are interested in which. Rather than resorting to general messaging, create a landing page for each specific product or service using a landing page template as a starting point. Drawing users into all your landing pages will allow you to speak more specifically to each portion of your audience and give you the chance to collect and store their information for future use.
Sometimes, it’s difficult to show off the best characteristics of your brand while working in the confines of a blog post or social media schedule. Content marketing is designed to show off your expertise passively, giving users a valuable experience while hoping they associate that experience with your brand. Calling out your brand specifically or openly bragging can actually turn people away from your content strategy.
Using landing pages gives you more freedom to show off what makes your brand great. With the best landing page builder, you can easily create landing pages that highlight your unique brand identity. You’ll be able to create a design that obviously shows off your brand elements, and you’ll have the space to show off your brand’s greatness with testimonials or other statistics. Carefully crafted landing page content ensures your message resonates with your target audience.
By using your content to funnel users into a specific landing page, you’ll get the opportunity to get your brand squarely in your users’ faces without alienating them in the process. When you build landing pages with a focus on effective landing page design, you can engage users while maintaining their trust and interest.
Content marketing programs sometimes suffer from a lack of direction. Instead of focusing in on a specific user goal, they’re designed to communicate generally with an audience, and gradually build a reputation. That might be useful for generating lots of traffic to your site, but if that traffic never converts or doesn’t know where to go, that traffic is essentially useless.
Landing pages provide a quick fix for that problem. Instead of worrying about where your users are going after they read your material, or crossing your fingers and hoping for the best, you can use your landing page to ensure your traffic gets to a worthwhile destination.
Some content marketers grow frustrated because of how difficult it is to measure the success of a campaign. Since one of the primary goals of content marketing is to increase brand familiarity and brand loyalty, two very subjective qualities, it can be hard to put a dollar amount on your content marketing results.
Landing pages make the process much more objective. By using sales metrics, you can easily determine how much value each conversion brings you, and by using goal metrics (which you can set up in Google Analytics), you can easily determine the number of conversions your content is bringing in. With those two metrics, you should be able to accurately project an objective estimate of how much value your content marketing strategy is bringing.
Landing pages are also great because they allow you to perform A/B tests. If you have two competing products and you aren’t sure which one to spend more time promoting, you can set up two individual landing pages under the same conditions and see which one generates the greatest number of conversions.
Alternatively, if you’re toying around with your branding and advertising strategy, you can easily use an “A” version and a “B” version of your landing page to gain valuable insights on your design and copy. You can then take this information and use it in your broader marketing and advertising campaign.
Like A/B testing, user behavior testing is to determine the most valuable parts of your landing pages. For example, by using heat maps, you can track exactly where your users are looking and interacting with your landing page. If they tend to congregate around the testimonials and you’re enjoying a high conversion rate, you better start using those testimonials on other applications. If your users focus on a bulleted list of product benefits and your conversion rate is low, you know you need to spend time refining how you market your product. Setting up a landing page with some kind of user behavior tracking is key to gaining insights about your audience.
Unfortunately, just setting up a landing page isn’t enough. You also need to pay close attention to the design, placement, and written copy of your landing page to maximize your chances of conversion. Landing pages demand a different set of standards than traditional web pages, so prioritize the following qualities:
If you can design a landing page with these qualities and integrate it smoothly into your content marketing campaign, you’ll start seeing the benefits as soon as it goes live.
In today's digitized epoch, establishing a content strategy is a crucial component of any business's marketing blueprint. Amid the proliferation of digital avenues and the ever-evolving consumer demeanor, businesses must concoct content that appeals to their target audience and propels business consequences.
However, executing a content strategy can prove to be a herculean task, particularly for businesses that lack a dedicated marketing team. This is where ChatGPT, an AI-powered tool trained by OpenAI, can lend a helping hand.
ChatGPT is a colossal language model that can aid businesses in executing their content strategy. With its natural language processing capabilities, it can dissect the language of a business's target audience and engender content ideas that are pertinent and captivating. Here are some steps to execute a content strategy using ChatGPT.
The first step in executing a content strategy is to delineate your target audience. ChatGPT can help you unravel the language patterns and predilections of your target audience. By scrutinizing the language employed by your audience in their online interactions, ChatGPT can furnish insights into their interests, afflictions, and motivations. This intel can facilitate you in creating content that resonates with your target audience.
Once you have identified your target audience, the subsequent step is to fashion content ideas that are germane and enthralling. ChatGPT can aid you in this process by generating content ideas based on your audience's language patterns and preferences.
By inputting a few keywords associated with your business and your target audience, ChatGPT, as a large language model trained on extensive training data, can generate a plethora of content ideas that you can leverage for your digital marketing and marketing campaigns.
These AI-driven tools also integrate well with marketing automation platforms, streamlining your content creation process and saving you time.
After you have crafted content ideas, the next step is to bring them to fruition. ChatGPT can assist you in creating top-notch content that is relevant to your target audience. By analyzing the language patterns of your target audience, ChatGPT can proffer sentence structures, grammar, and diction that are most likely to strike a chord with your target audience. This can be particularly beneficial for content marketers looking to streamline their content creation process while ensuring their messaging aligns with their audience's preferences.
Additionally, ChatGPT can lend a hand in writing headlines, introductions, and calls-to-action that are optimized for engagement. By incorporating relevant keywords, your blog post or other marketing efforts can gain better visibility for search engine optimization (SEO) purposes. For those involved in social media marketing, ChatGPT and other AI tools can help craft posts that not only generate human-like text but also convey emotional intelligence to resonate with your audience. This makes your content creation strategy remains authentic and impactful.
Lastly, it's time to publish and promote your content. ChatGPT can help you optimize your content for search engines by suggesting pertinent keywords and meta descriptions. Furthermore, ChatGPT can lend a hand in promoting your content on social media by recommending the optimal times to post and the most efficacious social media platforms for your target audience.
In conclusion, ChatGPT can be an invaluable tool for executing a content strategy. By harnessing its natural language processing capabilities, businesses can create content that resonates with their target audience and drives business consequences. However, it's imperative to note that ChatGPT is just a tool, and it should be wielded in conjunction with human proficiency to ensure that the content strategy aligns with the overall business objectives. With the right approach, ChatGPT can assist businesses in executing a successful content strategy and accomplishing their marketing goals.
Search engines are evolving in strange new ways. Mobile searches have overtaken desktop searches (at long last), and competitors like Bing and Yahoo are growing more and more like Google every day, unifying the capacity of every major search brand.
As if that weren’t enough, a wave of virtual assistants like Siri, Google Now, and Cortana have begun to emerge to redefine the search process—rather than opening a browser window, going to a search engine site, and plugging in an entry only to wade through a string of possible results, users can now use conversational commands and queries to engage with a human-like advanced computer program and be met with an almost immediate answer.
Modern virtual assistants function almost as intermediaries, with search engines themselves operating in the background. Oftentimes, traffic from searches is completely negated—users get the answers they need without browsing or navigating to individual websites—and in other cases, personal assistants take you to websites directly based on your queries. This capability is driven by machine learning and natural language processing, enabling these systems to interpret user queries with remarkable accuracy.
Also, voice recognition technology makes these interactions seamless and accessible, allowing users to speak naturally while the system processes and responds appropriately. With this new paradigm of search in place, is it even possible to optimize your site for a digital assistant?
On the surface, most digital assistants find results in a process similar to the search engines we’ve all become familiar with. There are, however, a few critical distinctions:
It’s also worth mentioning that not all digital assistants function identically, just as individual search engines never functioned identically. Their similarities can be grouped as generalizations worth noting, but idiosyncrasies and unique characteristics will still keep them differentiated.
Still, the most popular digital assistants rely on artificial intelligence-driven algorithms for certain types of queries—i.e., ones that can only be sufficiently answered by directing a user to a specific website. For example, if you ask your digital assistant about a product that’s only offered by one e-commerce platform (however unlikely that scenario might be), you’ll likely be redirected to that website. It gets a little trickier if that product is offered on multiple platforms, especially if a mobile app is one of them, but if the key is to offer something unique that can only be found on your website—and can’t be summarized with a simple informational breakdown.
Knowing this information, there are a few key takeaways you can incorporate into your current SEO strategy to account for the rise of digital assistants:
Digital assistants aren’t the most used form of search today, but they’re growing more popular and could one day replace the typical browser-based search engine entirely. When that happens, users will become reliant on immediate answers and local solutions for everything, and overall visits to websites will diminish. Already, giants like Wikipedia are feeling the effects of the Knowledge Graph and similar quick-answer programs. When the trend develops further, SEO as we know it could vanish entirely, replaced by a new means of achieving digital visibility with users and resellers.
Until that time comes, it’s worth your time and money to invest in your online presence. Hedge your bets by covering as much ground as possible with great, diverse content, and a presence on as many external platforms and apps as possible. The goal is visibility, however, you can get it.
The most important part of social media marketing is the “social” element. Your effectiveness doesn’t depend on how hard you sell products, or how often you post, or even how many interesting things you offer. What matters is that you connect with an audience, on some fundamental level, enough to increase their admiration for your brand or come to your website for more information.
To solve this perpetual problem, your first step is to identify and target the right audience. Facebook, the most popular social media platform in the world, gives you every opportunity to do this—even beyond the tools it offers for paid advertisers (which are ample). In fact, most social media platforms have the functionality and capacity for you to do this, but only a fraction of marketers end up taking advantage of it.
I want you to become a part of that fraction.
This section is more of a disclaimer than it is an actual guide, but it’s important to address before we ever start talking about how to target your key demographics. After all, how can you target your key demographics if you don’t know who they are? Imagine, for a moment, an extreme example:
(Image Source: Luvs/Adweek)
This message, by a diaper company, is targeted toward mothers—and even more than that, is targeted toward mothers of multiple children. It’s clever, concise, and original, so you can imagine it performing well when syndicated to an audience of second or third-time mothers. How would you expect it to perform if syndicated to an audience of teenage boys? Or an audience of retired, single septuagenarians? As part of effective audience optimization, this shows the importance of aligning content with specific interest tags and demographics.
As I said, this example is extreme, but it illustrates my point. This article will tell you how to create and distribute appropriate messages to your target audience, but this advice is useless unless you know who your audience is. Don’t make assumptions. Do the research, and figure out who’s going to buy your product. Use tools like geo targeting and preferred language filters to refine your audience insights.
You may have multiple target audiences, but for the purposes of this guide, I’m going to imagine you have only one. You can replicate the steps below for any of your audiences. Incorporate strategies like adding interest tags or location tagging to better define your audience in platforms like Facebook marketing or other social media management tools.
Do you have an audience in mind? Okay. Let’s start targeting.
First, I want to take a look at what kind of people actually use Facebook. This is a section I’ll include for all my platform-based guides, and you’ll find that each platform boasts a different type of audience. Some of those audiences will overlap with your target demographics; others will bear no resemblance. This will help you choose which platforms to add to your social media arsenal (hint: it shouldn’t be all of them by default).
Essentially, we’re asking: is it worth it for your brand to be on Facebook?Facebook has 1.59 billion monthly active users, worldwide, making it the biggest and furthest-reaching social media platform around today. This probably isn’t news to you; most of the people you know have, and actively use, a personal Facebook profile.
But what kinds of people are on this platform?
According to Facebook’s own breakdown page, 83.6 percent of its users are outside the U.S. and Canada, meaning about 260,760,000 users are in the United States (for reference, the U.S. population is close to 320 million). Promo Republic offers the following breakdown:
Some highlights to consider: the gender and ethnic split is negligible, with between 66-77 percent of each demographic segment participating as an active monthly user. Though increasing age does correspond with decreasing user numbers, the drop-offs are not significant until age 50. Education and salary don’t play much into the demographic makeup, nor does geographic location.
Aside from this data, it’s also important to note that almost all Facebook profiles are verified, by individual users, who are using Facebook for personal purposes (usually keeping in contact with friends and family members).
This means Facebook is pretty much open season, with a few key exceptions. Now let’s take a look at some businesses that stand to win or lose automatically based on this data.
If you don’t belong to the second category, Facebook is likely a reasonable place to start pinning your audience down. Now, let’s get to the meaty part: actively selecting your audience from the vast pool of Facebook users.
You can’t target the entire Facebook population all at once (though some of you might try, given the chance). Even if you could, this wouldn’t be a good use of your resources. For the most part, any content you publish on Facebook (assuming you’re using a business/organization page) is only inherently visible to people who have already liked your brand. It’s only shown to people outside your follower base if one of their contacts has “shared” it, or if they specifically seek you out.
To make matters harder for brands, Facebook’s organic reach has been steadily declining for some time, meaning even if someone follows you, there’s no guarantee they’ll see everything you post. Accordingly, every piece of news or content you publish has to be a home run. You can’t afford to waste time or target an indifferent audience.
There are two components to effective audience targeting: choosing the right message and making that message visible to the right people. Before you start combing through your audience, run a check to make sure your content is appropriate for your audience.
There’s no “easy” way to tell if your message is effective for your demographics. You have to know what your users want to see, which is tricky to predict unless you have reliable data. You can generate ideas for this based on market research, what your competitors are doing, or even anecdotal evidence you’ve experienced in the field. Verify this is the case by AB testing your messages (possibly on Facebook itself; don’t hesitate to use it as a testing ground). Trust the numbers.
When it comes to Facebook posts, certain factors almost always make a post inherently more valuable, so polish your message by shaping it into a format with the following qualities:
Don’t just take my word for it; take a look at data from BlitzLocal’s study on the matter:
This barely scratches the surface of what makes a “good” Facebook post (a topic for another time), but these are the most important takeaways regarding how to target your Facebook audience through messaging.
Now, you’ve got the message. You know what you want to post to your users, and it’s just a matter of doing the actual posting. How can you make sure your message is seen by the greatest number of people in your target audience while excluding those outside it?
Until recently, this was only possible through paid advertising tools. Now, every company and organization page has the ability to filter their audiences for every post.
This screenshot is doing my job for me. When you log into your company page and start typing a draft, you’ll notice a new(ish) button to the left of the Publish button that looks like a target—how appropriate. Click it, and you’ll be introduced to a variety of new demographic targeting options to ensure your message lands in the right newsfeeds.
From here, you’ll see two tabs—Preferred Audience and Audience Restrictions. You can guess what each of these is used for.
(Image Source: Social Media Examiner)
Your Preferred Audience allows you to select interests that might be popular in your target demographics. Remember my diaper ad example from earlier? Luvs’s target audience might be interested in things like “parenting” or “child care.” Again, don’t select these randomly; see what you can find about your target audience based on empirical, fact-based research.
(Image Source: MarketingLand)
Your Audience Restrictions gives you more quantitative control. There’s significantly less guesswork here, so base your restrictions on what you know to be true for your target audience. Don’t be afraid to step a little outside your niche; you can always refine your content for tighter or broader segments of your audience later. Currently, Facebook allows you to control your audience based on age, gender, location, and preferred language.Once posted, you’ll be able to tap into the performance metrics for each available post. Here, you can track engagement rates among different segments of your demographics; for example, you’ll be able to tell how well your post did for users with an interest in “monster trucks” versus users with an interest in “cotton candy.”Use this data to your advantage, and experiment with interests and quantitative identifiers that you might not instinctively prefer. You’ll find that at least some audience behaviors conflict with your preconceived notions, so make changes based on what the data tells you.
Together, these methods of audience targeting work well—but they only work for people who are already members of your audience. What about all the members of your target audience who aren’t yet following your brand? What about all the people following your brand who don’t belong to your target demographics?
Let’s address the latter question first. You’ll undoubtedly attract followers who don’t really have an interest in your brand or service; for example, they might have clicked “like” accidentally or as part of a contest unrelated to purchasing from your brand. Obviously, you want your social following to be as comprised of your target demographics as possible, but does this mean you should weed out those who don’t belong?
The simple answer is no, for two reasons:
Accordingly, don’t worry about the outsiders who trickle in.
Instead, invest your efforts in acquiring new followers who match your ideal demographics. There are powerful ways to do this:
As great as audience targeting on Facebook is, there are still some key limitations. First, the organic reach of business posts is diminishing—and will presumably continue to decline. Even though you’ll improve your visibility by selecting only your most relevant audiences, you can expect this value to decline over time.
Next, your audience segmentation strategy is only as strong as the audience you already have. It can increase the effectiveness of your messaging and strengthen brand loyalty, but it can’t inject fresh blood into your system.
Finally, no matter how well you know your audience, your tactics are still dependent on the strength of your content. I’ll be doing similar guides for how to improve your content quality, including one specifically for Facebook posts, but it exists as a separate effort.
Facebook’s paid advertising system is one of the most robust ad features of any social media platform. With it, you have access to far more sophisticated audience targeting options than your organic reach will allow, and you’ll even get to reach people who don’t currently follow you.
For example, in addition to age, gender, location, language, and interests, you can target users based on behaviors (like previous purchases) or current connections.
These are valuable, but whether it’s worth your investment is up to you, your goals, and your budget. With the right content strategy, you can achieve almost any marketing goal without investing in direct advertising, but it’s a significant option you should be aware of.
I hope this guide has helped you make sense of the audience targeting tools and strategies necessary to craft and publicize organic marketing messages on Facebook. Like with any strategy, the theory is helpful, but it’s the practice that truly matters. Put your ideas and your knowledge to the test in a live environment, dutifully learning from your mistakes and adjusting for efficient improvements. Because every brand has a unique audience and a unique product, the only way to learn effectively is to try something and see what happens.
If you liked this guide, you can look forward to my upcoming feature on audience targeting via Twitter, or read up on what it takes to launch a successful content marketing or SEO campaign.
As a website proprietor, you understand that maintaining a website can be an excellent approach to allure novel clients, provide valuable facts, and generate revenue.
But what transpires when your website's rankings begin to dwindle dramatically? Your website might become less conspicuous to budding customers, leading to an unfavorable impact on your enterprise.
In this composition, we will furnish you with some suggestions on how to address your plummeting website rankings.
The primary step in resolving your falling website rankings is to execute a website review. This assessment will assist you in pinpointing the areas that necessitate improvement. Some issues to look out for include:
Broken links Sluggish loading speed Duplicate content Missing meta descriptions Inferior quality content Inadequate user experience.
After identifying the issues, commence correcting them individually. You can avail of a website audit instrument to facilitate you in identifying these issues.
One of the most crucial elements that determine your website rankings is the eminence of your content. You should guarantee that your website contains exceptional and high-quality content that is pertinent to your target audience. The content should also be optimized for search engines. This signifies that you should incorporate pertinent keywords in your content and meta descriptions.
Furthermore, you should ensure that your website is updated recurrently. This will aid in improving your website rankings and keeping your target audience engrossed. You can accomplish this by appending blog posts, news updates, or any other kind of content that is pertinent to your audience.
Take the time to run relevant scans on your content using the latest semantic language tools, including Google Natural Language AI, Cora by SEOToolLab and SurferSEO.
Each of these tools, especially when used in tandem, can help you find what makes your page or post (and even your site overall) deficient compared to a competing post.
When you use these tools correctly, you will find what statistically relevant keywords are missing, how your site's content length may be too low (or too high) and what H1-H6 words you're not using (but which you should be).
You will also find out what others are doing that you may not be, so you can bridge the content gap with other competing sites.
Because the most relevant ranking factor online is that your site is diversified among the ranking factors, tuning your content for SEO (search engine optimization) is more important than anything else, including backlinks!
Create quality content and then tune it up with the right keywords.
Link building services are an important component of a holistic digital marketing strategy. It involves acquiring hyperlinks from other websites that point back to your website. These links are viewed as votes of confidence by search engines, indicating that other websites consider your content to be valuable and relevant. As a result, search engines tend to rank websites with a greater number of high-quality links higher in their search results.
However, it's important to note that link building should be done in a strategic and thoughtful way. Simply adding too many anchor text links indiscriminately can actually have a negative impact on your overall search engine ranking.
Search engines have become more sophisticated in recent years (from Panda 3.3 to Panda 3.4--in the early years to more recent SpamLink and content quality Google updates), and they can detect when websites are engaging in manipulative link building tactics to artificially inflate their ranking.
Mobile devices are gaining momentum as a popular medium for browsing the internet. Hence, it is crucial to optimize your website for mobile devices. This implies that your website should be user-friendly, load promptly, and be responsive to diverse screen sizes.
If your website is not optimized for mobile devices, you might encounter a decline in rankings. You can employ an instrument such as Google's Mobile-Friendly Test to verify whether your website is optimized for mobile devices.
Backlinks are a vital factor in enhancing your website rankings. Backlinks are links that other websites use to link to your website. The quality and quantity of these links can have a substantial influence on your website's search engine rankings.
To foster high-quality backlinks, you can reach out to other websites in your industry and request them to link to your website. You can also create high-quality content that other websites will want to link to. It is paramount to note that you should only foster backlinks from respectable and high-quality websites.
Social media is a first-rate approach to promote your website and improve your website rankings. By disseminating your content on social media, you can amplify your website's visibility, allure novel clients, and enhance your website's rankings.
To utilize social media effectively, you should ensure that your social media profiles are optimized for search engines. This implies that you should incorporate pertinent keywords in your profiles and descriptions. You should also ensure that your content is shareable and engaging. This will aid in increasing your social media following and improving your website rankings.
Monitoring your website performance is critical in addressing your plummeting website rankings. By monitoring your website's performance, you can pinpoint the areas that necessitate improvement and take action before it is too late.
Several instruments can help you monitor your website's performance. Google Analytics is an excellent instrument that can aid you in monitoring your website's traffic, bounce rate, and other crucial metrics. You can also avail of an instrument such as SEMrush to monitor your website's rankings and track your competitors.
Google Search Console is a free instrument that can aid you in monitoring your website's performance in Google search results. It is a valuable resource that can help you to identify any issues that may be affecting your website's SEO rankings. By using this tool, you can track your website's search performance, identify any errors or issues, and ensure that your website is optimized for search engines.
In conclusion, fixing falling website rankings in the SERPs (search engine results pages) can be a formidable task, but by following these tips and utilizing various online tools, you can augment your website's visibility to potential customers, attract more traffic, and generate more sales.
These days, when someone wants to buy a product or service from a business, they turned to Google for information.
If a business has lots of good reviews and very few neutral or bad reviews, they’ll be much more likely to move forward.
But even a single bad review can throw a wrench in things.
Obviously, as a business owner, you have good motivation to delete those bad Google reviews and improve the visibility, reputation, and sales of your brand.
So what's the best way to do it?
Google reviews are relatively short business reviews left by other people who have patronized your business, at least ostensibly. Users can find your business through a basic search, click to view your Business Profile, and write a review based on their experience. Users typically have to be signed into their Google account to leave such a review.
People have the option of rating your business on a scale of 1 to 5 stars, and they have the option to leave a more qualitative review as well. Once submitted, the review will automatically be scanned and evaluated; if it seems to be spammy, harassing, or otherwise unacceptable, it's going to be weeded out. Otherwise, the review will become publicly available.
Users have the option to delete or edit their reviews at any time. However, as a business owner, you don't have much direct control over how Google reviews get posted or what happens to them once they're up. You can always leave comments and feedback, and you'll have the option to contact users directly, but you can't easily or directly delete negative Google reviews.
Why are Google reviews so important for local businesses on Google Maps?
· First impressions. For starters, Google reviews are a solid foundation for the first impressions of most people researching your brand. Google reviews are extremely visible and highly valued by users investigating various businesses. An abundance of good reviews can make them feel more comfortable patronizing a business, while even a small number of bad reviews can make them second guess their decision. Individually, this may not seem like much, but it can accumulate to have a massive impact on your business. According to one report, even a single bad review can cost you up to 25 percent of your total business revenue.
· Due diligence. Your savviest customers are going to do their due diligence before they even consider buying from you. They're not just going to look at your star rating; they're going to read the details of each review posted about your brand. If something distasteful catches their eye in a bad review, they may float to a competitor for the sake of safety.
· SEO value. Reviews also play a role in your search engine optimization (SEO). Having more reviews and better reviews is a positive signal, supporting you in the local rankings especially. A single bad review won't be enough to tank your entire SEO strategy, but you should generally strive for as many good reviews as possible. Finding a way to limit, delete, and prevent bad reviews can help you rank higher in search engines and generate more organic traffic overall.
Now to the main point: how are you supposed to delete Google reviews?
Remember, there's no way for a business to delete bad Google reviews directly. However, businesses do have the power to flag Google Reviews for human evaluation. If a bad review violates any of Google's policies, you can flag it, and hopefully, a human evaluator will decide to remove it.
These are some of the reasons you can flag a bad Google review:
· Off topic. Google wants reviews to be focused on reviewing. They encourage reviewers to write about the direct experience they had with the brand, rather than venturing off into personal opinions, speculative territory, or slander. If you feel that a bad Google review is not fully topically focused on the experience of your business, consider flagging it for removal.
· Spam. Google is pretty good at catching spam, but every once in a while, something slips through the cracks. If a Google review seems like it's hawking another product or if it's so low quality that it could easily be mistaken as spam, flag it.
· Conflict of interest. There are also policies in place to control conflicts of interest. If you can demonstrate that this bad review was written or facilitated by a close competitor, you can probably get it removed. Anyone with a financial interest in smearing the reputation of your business you should not be posting bad reviews about it.
· Profanity. Again, Google is usually good at catching negative reviews with excessive profanity, but sometimes, things slip through. If an inappropriate review features offensive language or obscenities, you'll be in a good position to have it removed.
· Bullying or harassment. One of the more nebulous policies of Google is a firm stance against bullying and harassment. This is a somewhat subjective standard, so it can be difficult to prove. If Google is too strict with this standard, bullying and harassment can persist indefinitely, but if Google is too lax with this standard, almost every negative review would be removed under the pretense that it's harassing the business owner. The line isn't always clear here, but if you sincerely believe that this review is more focused on attacking, threatening, or otherwise damaging your business than it is spreading honest information, flag it.
· Discrimination or hate speech. You should have no trouble getting a negative review removed if it includes any language that could be interpreted as discriminatory or containing hate speech. If someone insults you or your business due to race, ethnicity, religion, or other characteristics, flag the review and get it removed.
· Personal information. Google also has a policy against sharing personal information. If you find any sensitive information in a bad review, you can probably flag it for removal.
· Not helpful. Perhaps the most ambiguous category here is describing a review as “not helpful.” Obviously, Google wants all of its publicized reviews to be helpful to the people reading them. If a review is not helpful because it's not clear, because it's too obviously subjective, or because the details are too unbelievable, it's clearly not helpful for the people reading it. Be ready to justify what you think is not helpful about this review before you flag the review for this.
Remember that Google has built-in, automatic screening systems to identify problematic and negative reviews, so it's quite rare to find a Google review that’s publicly posted and in violation of one of Google's policies. Not every bad review for your business is going to be flaggable.
Obviously, there are some problems with this approach:
· No straightforward process. Unfortunately, the process is not always straightforward. You may have an issue with a bad review that was left for your brand, but it may not fit neatly into any one category for flagging for removal. In some cases, you may not be able to flag a bad review for anything.
· A slow process. If you do flag the review, it can take some time for someone to evaluate it. In the meantime, customers and prospects will be seeing and considering the review. Even if the review does eventually get removed, it can do some damage in the meantime.
· Unreliable results. There's no guarantee that the flagged review is going to be removed, even if you have a genuinely good reason for flagging it. Unfortunately, results here are highly unreliable.
· The Streisand effect. The Streisand effect is an internet phenomenon in which a person's attempts to bury or obfuscate a piece of information end up generating more attention on that piece of information. If your business relentlessly tries to hide or bury bad reviews, you might end up bringing more attention to your business and those bad reviews. Sometimes, the best course of action is to simply respond and let the negative review stand.
Instead of simply deleting every bad Google review you find, or bending over backwards to find ways to flag Google reviews for human evaluation, consider using the following strategies as alternatives for dealing with bad Google reviews:
· Authenticate and investigate. Take some time to investigate the review and authenticate what it claims. For example, if someone complains about the quality of the spaghetti you served them on Thursday night, and your receipts show that nobody ordered spaghetti on Thursday night, you'll have a basis for flagging the review – or responding with evidence that the review is in bad faith. The more information you can gather, the better.
· Respond in good faith. Consider responding publicly to the negative review and do so in good faith. Remain polite, accommodating, and concise in your response. In some cases, it's a good idea to apologize; in others, it's a good idea to provide supplementary information to properly contextualize the claim. For example, you may apologize that the customer didn't get the experience they want but point out that they arrived at your establishment five minutes after closing.
· Reach out to the customer directly. If you feel comfortable doing so, you can reach out to the customer directly. Ask them if there's anything you can do to resolve the problem or make up for the bad experience. In many cases, customers will be willing to take down their bad reviews in exchange for a refund, or replacement, or some other incentive. This isn't bribing someone to take down a negative review; Instead, it's an attempt to fix an underlying problem or offer a resolution where there wasn't one before. Again, be polite and straightforward in your communications with them.
· Follow up. If you don't get an immediate response, or if the customer doesn't take down their bad review, consider following up with them, especially if it's an inappropriate review. In private communications, you can move the conversation forward and hopefully work out a mutually agreeable course forward. If you can't make any progress, consider posting publicly that you reached out in private and offered to make things right. Even if users encounter the bad review, they'll see that your company genuinely cares about its customers and will try to resolve issues if they arise.
· Update your business practices. Even if you don’t fully understand or agree with the person who posted the negative review, there’s probably something you can learn about your target audience from this engagement. What can you change about your business to prevent this type of bad review in the future?
· Get more positive reviews. One of the best ways to drown-out negative reviews or fake reviews is to find a way to scale-up your positive reviews. The more positive reviews you get, it will dimish the impact of a couple of negative or fake Google reviews.
No business wants to get bad Google reviews, but even the best businesses must contend with them from time to time. If any bad Google reviews violate Google's policies and best practices, you can easily flag them for manual review and removal. Otherwise, there are plenty of alternative strategies that can help you mitigate and control those bad reviews.
Google reviews are just one aspect of your digital marketing strategy and overall online presence.
Juggling them with all your other priorities, like SEO, PPC ads, and social media marketing, can be challenging – which is why so many businesses choose to work with a comprehensive digital marketing firm for consulting, execution, and overall support. If you’re ready to get started, contact us for a free consultation today!
In the wake of recent Google updates, there have been varying opinions on how you can try to recover if your site was hit.
One thing has stayed solid — something we’ve been saying for a very long time: Using social media is vital to your site’s success. Social signals are a very strong Google ranking factor.
In the past, links pointing to your site were one of the main things that would tell Google your website was important and should rank higher.
But Search Engine Optimization (SEO) seems to have been turned on its head with the release of Google’s animal farm – pandas, penguins, and such.
Sites that had enjoyed top search rankings before were now getting hammered down so far in the search engines results that no one would ever find them. Some of these sites had spent a lot of time (not to mention money) on backlinks. It made sense. That’s what had worked forever.
But times have changed and undoubtedly will continue to do so. The one thing that has remained constant is that your site should continually get mentioned in social media by other users. The SEO world calls these “social signals,” and social signals may become even more important as time goes on.
So you may think: “Well, that’s easy enough. I have seen lots of places where I can buy thousands of Facebook Likes and retweets!” Whoa, slow down. Yes, there are plenty of places where you can buy mass Facebook Likes, retweets, repins, etc., … but you should steer clear of this kind of thing.
Sometimes these services will deliver what they promise; but a few weeks later, the accounts they used to do it with are gone. They mass-produce accounts and create nothing but spam links for their clients. This often results in those accounts being banned. Even if those clients take the trouble to enact measures necessary to avoid getting banned, it isn’t worth it.
You want to get likes, retweets, and such from real users with a real interest in your product or service. It’s even better if they themselves are viewed as some sort of authority in your industry and have their own collection of followers.
The mass services might have accounts with thousands of followers, but do you think those followers are real? Do you think they ever pay attention to the spam they’re sending out on an hourly basis? No.
So to get the most out of social media, you should be dedicating time each day to reach1) others in your industry, and) your target audience doesn’t mean you have to spend three hours every day on social. Often, setting aside 30 minutes or an hour will be just fine.
The trick is to stick to it. Share your high quality content (we know you’re creating awesome, helpful and relevant content that others will WANT to share, right?), but share other content and relevant news as well. Ask questions, answer questions. The nitty gritty on the “how” would be an entire post in itself, but that should get you started.
If you truly cannot find the time to do this, assign someone in your company to do it. Just make sure they get a little training for it. You can also hire it out to a professional. Just like traditional SEO isn’t a one-time thing, social media strategy should also be long-term for the best results.
I’m sure you know about Facebook. You know about Twitter. You probably know about Google+. But the world of social media certainly doesn’t end there, and the type of business or site you run plays a big role in determining which social media platforms are the best for you to use.
If you have something that would appeal to women, then one of the hottest social media channels you should look into is Pinterest. In October of 2011, the site had about three million visitors per month. In just one year that number has skyrocketed. It now receives an average of 25 million visitors (according to Compete.com).
When it took off, social media users were mostly made up of women in their 20s and 30s. Although men have joined in, it’s still mostly women. Half of them have kids. Check out this infographic from SearchEngineJournal:
Susan, the owner of SueBdo, owns a seasonal boutique that sells accessories, jewelry, signs, and babywear. She says she has racked up more sales in a single month after she started using Pinterest than she did in an entire year. She describes her products as preppy, timeless, and classic. After having a look at her site, I can see why she does exceptionally well on Pinterest. SueBdo and Pinterest are a perfect fit!
But the possibilities are wide open here. Photographer? Showcase some of your best work and categorize it into boards for the different types of photography you do weddings, high school portraits, babies, etc.
Do you own a restaurant? Pinterest users love all things food. Take some great shots (or get a food photographer) and get to posting. Blogger? Here are a few ways you too can use Pinterest.
There’s a lot of speculation about just how Google uses social signals for your site, but everyone agrees that they DO use it. In the midst of such drastic changes in SEO, this is one of the best and safest ways to protect your business. But don’t try to game it and take shortcuts. Not only will a well-planned social media marketing strategy help you rank better, but it is also a valuable source of targeted traffic to your site.
A robust digital marketing strategy that prioritizes social media engagement can significantly boost social media visibility and increase brand awareness across social platforms. By optimizing your social media pages, you enhance your social media signals, leading to more website traffic and potential conversions on your own websites.
Social media marketing depends on content as a type of fuel to drive interactions and increase follower counts. While social-exclusive, text-based updates can be effective, especially when made regularly, the true anchors to your social media campaign are the heavy-hitting pieces of content that you circulate on your chosen platforms.
Unfortunately, it’s not enough to simply post random bits of content and hope for the best. Your content must be high-quality, it must be developed specifically for your target audience, and it must be appropriate for your chosen medium. Some types of content simply fare better than others in the social world, and these seven types of content tend to fare the best:
And, by extension, how-to or instructional types of posts. Listicles are powerful for a reason; they are always concise and typically short, and they offer practical information in a familiar and easily scannable format. The result is a piece that any reader can quickly peruse for as much or as little information as they want—and because the headline usually contains a number or another indication of its formatting, it’s an attention-grabbing title in the sea of social media posts. While listicles are sometimes frowned upon as an “inferior” type of content compared to a longer article or whitepaper, they’re essential fodder for growing a social following from the ground up.
Listicles can also serve as the foundation for creating more engaging posts by incorporating visual content or interactive elements that encourage users to explore further. Content marketers and social media marketers alike can easily adapt listicles into valuable content for blog posts, making them more accessible and appealing to target audiences who prefer concise information over more traditional forms like long form content. This type of post can also highlight your brand's personality while offering content ideas that resonate with your followers.
This type of content is typically written but is much more involved than the typical listicle. Rather than consolidating lots of general information into a digestible, easy-to-read format, this content is all about breaking new ground with new data, new metrics, or new insights. For most companies, this means digging deep with some original research and publishing the results. You’ll spend more time and more money developing these types of pieces and you won’t generate as much attention as you will with a listicle, but the attention you do generate will be far stronger, and you’ll earn a much greater reputation for it in the long run. Use both in balance throughout your campaign.
Infographics have long been a favorite in the SEO community, and for good reason. Infographics take original research and insights and condense them into an aesthetically pleasing, easily navigable graphic image. Infographics are shared more than almost any other type of content, giving your brand extra visibility.
In addition, infographics tend to attract a ton of inbound links as other external sources cite your information, so your domain authority—and your search ranks—will increase as a result. The one downside to infographics is the amount of time and/or money they take to produce, so use them sparingly.
Infographics also perform exceptionally well on social media platforms, as social media users are more likely to engage with visually appealing content. Incorporating infographics into your content marketing strategy can complement your blog content and written content, offering a dynamic way to communicate key information.
For many companies, videos seem like an intimidating challenge that requires a dedicated expert or technical equipment. In actuality, videos don’t have to be professionally produced in order to have a great impact. Something simple, like a video recording of a speaking event your CEO attended, can carry just as much weight as something more complicated you spent weeks trying to film and produce. Share these videos when you can, but try to keep them on the short side—people tend to watch and share shorter videos more often than those longer than five minutes or so.
Videos also provide an excellent opportunity to showcase your brand voice and deliver entertaining content that resonates with your audience. By sharing video content on social platforms, you can boost your social media presence and create a more engaging digital marketing approach. A successful content strategy should incorporate videos not only on social media but also on your web pages to encourage user interaction and boost visibility.
Interviews are great pieces of content for a number of reasons, but there’s one quality that makes them perfect for social sharing: the fact that there are two authorities involved. As the interviewer, you’ll be seen as an authority and you’ll be able to share the material with your own followers.
The great advantage here is that your interviewee will also be seen as an authority, and they will be highly likely to share the interview with their own network of followers, greatly increasing the cumulative impact of the share. Audio and video formats work best, but make sure to include a written transcript on your site.
News events tend to attract a lot of attention, as your followers are always hungry for new information. Industry news is a perfect opportunity for this—simply share an article (yours or someone else’s) and include your own commentary on it. Start a discussion and get the community involved. You can also do the same with any company news you might have to offer, such as the launch of a new product or the hiring of a new employee.
Social media platforms serve as a gateway into other people’s realities, and real-time event updates make great use of this functionality. While you’re attending a local event, tradeshow, or conference, post regular images and updates as the event rolls on—and include the event’s hashtag if you can. Your followers will love the first-person perspective, and if they happen to be attending the event, you’ll earn extra attention and credibility.
Incorporate all seven of these types of content updates into your social media marketing campaign, no matter which platforms you use or which industry you belong to. Of course, the actual content you choose to create within these broad categories must be based on what your audience actually wants to read or view.
Performing some initial market and competitive research should help you start with a solid direction, but remember to adjust your strategy over time as you learn more about how your content impacts your social strategy.
Clients always ask, "How long does it take to rank on Google?" It's a loaded question, partly because:
We have noticed a disappointing trend, particularly as it relates to high-volume, global keywords:
The process for ranking and vesting, which used to take 6-9 months, now takes closer to 3-5 years.
In some cases, and for some keywords, it takes even longer.
That's a heart-wrenching prospect, particularly for a startup that may want to outrank a long-standing competitor.
We put together a comprehensive list of all the most highly correlated Google ranking factors.
But chief among them, which is not listed, is TIME. That includes a vesting time for:
Keep in mind that this vesting assumes all else as being equal to other high-ranking websites, including the quality of the site's content in driving organic traffic.
Let's explore some of these issues a bit further.
If you wanted to give users the best possible online experience, would you want flash-in-the-pan upstarts with a little technical system-gaming know-how to be able to unseat 50 to 100-year-old established brands?
The search engine doesn't think so.
You need to build trust, and trust takes time.
Backlinks are only one of the Google rankings factors that help determine trust.
Trust comes from search engine crawlers, working to understand your site structure and how it fits in with the rest of the web.
So, here's the good news: as your website ages past the three and 5-year mark, you will notice something, and it will suddenly become easier to rank.
Your backlinks didn't change, and your content may not have updated in a while, but suddenly, your site finally starts to rank for things that matter to you.
Consider the following two studies by Moz and Ahrefs:
The older your page is, the higher the likelihood it will have of achieving higher Google rankings in the SERPs.
Consider this: the average age of position 1 in Google is nearly 950 days old! That's the average!
If you've been blogging like a beast for two years, tuning all your pages and doing plenty of off-site promotion, and you're wondering why you can't seem to beat the "XYZ brand," who outranks you in search, just give it time.
If you've been engaging in link schemes, buying paid links, or otherwise pushing too heavily in one area but ignoring factors in another, your web page may be subject to a reshuffle.
There are also algorithm weights that change with each update in Google's algorithm, which may trigger re-shifts in your Google rankings.
A reshuffled is also known as the Google Dance and can last for a day or for months at a time until you make the necessary changes.
Here are just a few.
If you wanted to change from:
SEO.co/backlinks to SEO.co/link-building or even from BobsMarketingAgency.com to Marketer.co, you are likely to see a negative impact on your site's rankings.
While it goes without saying that, in doing so, you would also create the appropriate 301 redirects in either your .htaccess or REGEX file, you should also consider the rankings impact of such a decision.
While most of the ranking will continue to flow, your redirect may pose its own issues and even cause a drop in rankings or, worse still, a reset of your vesting for a particular phrase or term. A vesting reset can drop you back and take months or even years to resurrect fully.
While admins at Google will tell you they ignore spammy backlinks for ranking, they don't tell you that the worst backlinks can actually cause your rankings to be pushed down even more.
Negative SEO (aka, "Google bowling") typically consists of either site hacks or pointing backlinks to a competitor's site from nefarious neighborhoods on the web.
While you can disavow and request the removal of these links, they may have a negative impact that could add months to your site vesting and keep your rankings suppressed for a very long time.
If you work to scale your total indexed pages in a relatively short period with increased content velocity, you may see an overall drop in your rankings for the following reasons:
You need enough content to rank but be sure you don't garble the message by creating content just for the sake of SEO content.
You'll want to create relevant content that adds value to your target audience.
When your website is not diversified in its ranking factors, there is a higher likelihood of receiving an algorithmic adjustment downward, particularly in the next Google algorithm update.
Notice I did not title it "algorithmic penalties."
An algorithmic penalty is a misnomer.
Search engines will mete out manual penalties or manual actions, but the algorithm only adjusts based on math and weights.
What may look to be a penalty may simply be the algorithm:
Unless you have had a manual action, algorithmic blocks are typically not permanent and can be reversed, but you just have to focus on fundamental search engine optimization (SEO) strategy on-page and off-page.
When it comes to ranking more quickly, there are a few questions you will need to ask, particularly as it relates to your content marketing strategy:
We have found the best way to shorten the gap to rank is as follows:
Your content doesn't need to be longer, nor does it use the Skyscraper technique (length does not always equal higher quality), but it does need to be better.
It needs to be MORE informative, MORE engaging, and MORE entertaining.
We have an internal formula that we implement for that.
ChatGPT or other AI tools can help create structure, but they mostly regurgitate for landing pages.
They are not as good at creating content quality that hits all the buttons.
In short, your content needs to draw website visitors in and keep them on the page, following along.
Compare your content to the top-ranking pages and posts and fill the gap.
We suggest using the following SEO tools:
These tools scan your pages and add the appropriate target keywords and LSI keywords to the body, title tags, headers, and meta descriptions so you are comparable to the competition.
To dive deeper, tools like Google Search Console and Ahrefs will also show you where you are deficient relative to your competitors and show you how you can close the gap.
Deficiencies could include more than just your written content but might encompass technical SEO like loading speed of the page, keeping in mind that sometimes tunes will indicate page load times should increase (typically because the content page is exhaustive and loads more slowly).
But beware not to over-tune or overoptimize!
Content promotion and link building outreach services are critical, but if your content is epic enough, it will promote itself.
So, if you can make it viral, then others are more likely to link to it, reference it or share it on social media. Just be careful where it is you are acquiring your backlinks from. It's better to get quality than to even touch low-quality links that can drag down your search engine rankings.
While not a direct Google ranking factor, fixing negative Google reviews can help with overall brand perception, particularly if you're in a local market.
Good things come to those who wait, especially in search engine rankings.
We often suggest working less on new sites and putting more time into older, more established sites.
It can be discouraging when new sites don't receive the rankings gains you want, even after a year or two of work.
Be patient. To rank in less than a year is partially based on luck, partially based on lots of input and hard work.
But your time will come if you focus on fundamentals and white-hat SEO strategies.
Google does not index every site on the internet.
The year-over-year percentage of the web that is indexed continues to decline.
With nearly 2 billion websites on the internet, it would prove excessively costly and make little business sense to index every possible page the internet has to offer.
Especially when nearly 10% of internet sites are scams at worst and spammy at best.
For the web's most competitive search terms, most users still don't scroll past the first page on Google.
Would it even make sense to have more than 100 indexed little blue links for a single query?
Not really, especially when 90% of clicks will go to the first few results above the fold.
Hence, the latest trend in Google's arsenal is the deindexation of low-quality, low-discoverability content.
Here's what that looks like in Google Search Console (GSC) under Indexing>> Pages:
In an effort to fight spam, search engines are cracking down on:
The latest trend to scale up content using AI (without much human intervention) reminds me of a brilliant statement made by Syndrome from The Incredibles:
The latest Helpful Content Update (or the Unhelpful Content Demotion as we like to call it) and SpamBrain update are the perfect combos to help fight what Google sees as a massive garbling of internet content devoid of true quality inputs to encourage active human consumption.
In other words, they're fighting content created for search engines and not for humans.
The ranking algorithm's new regime is especially deleterious to marketers who engage in heavy link building campaigns.
As Google and other search engines continue to deindex pages they deem irrelevant or spammy, the link building efforts of even some high-profile sites are likely to see a negative downward pressure on some sites' rankings due to search results indexing issues and redirect errors.
Think about how it would look in practice:
A site with hundreds of low-quality backlinks suddenly experiences a massive deindexation of a large percentage of its link graph, pushing its rankings down.
Adding insult to injury, pages in similar neighborhoods as other deindexed pages are more likely to also experience similar deindexation issues due to dynamic page requests, server errors, and bad or empty URLs, as their content is marked as irrelevant and bumped out of the index.
The good news is that Google is also kind enough to show you where your deficiencies lie so you can adapt accordingly.
Examples from GSC include:
Most of the issues listed above are simple fixes for a knowledgeable webmaster.
The two bolded are a bit more nuanced and worth further discussion.
While the chart above might get your cortisol levels rising, there are solutions to both avoiding deindexation and reversing the tide of existing deindexation across your website.
When you submit a brand new sitemap to Google, the web crawlers may take some time before they crawl your sitemap.
When your sitemap is crawled, the search spiders will notice pages to be crawled, but they will likely only crawl a small portion of your overall sitemap with each subsequent pass.
A site can have pages that are in a sitemap (which is a clear indication a webmaster would prefer to have them crawled and indexed in search), but that doesn't necessarily mean that:
The following two graphs are from the same site listed above, just for continuity.
Even when the search engines DO crawl, they may choose not to index your pages:
GSC will show you exactly which pages have been crawled but not indexed.
Any solution always starts with the quality of your content assets.
You may need a content quality audit which could use one or more of the following tools:
While some tools are meant to be AI plagiarism checkers, others are better at finding what keywords may be missing in the body of your text that would make them comparable and uniquely created.
Cora and Surfer do a great job of providing prompts for inputting the right LSI (latent semantic Indexing) and entity keywords that will be critical for a particular page to be statistically on par with other pages in top positions.
Furthermore, these and other software tools can show you other ways in which your page may be deficient compared to higher-ranking competitors.
We outline the most statistically significant factors here.
But the most important on-site factors to consider are:
If you have been using an AI tool to help generate pages, you will need to perform some human upgrades, but not necessarily a full rewrite of the content itself.
Robots (and even people) can tell when content has been created using GPT-3 and other natural language processing or machine learning tools.
Machine learning algorithms may not be able to discover the internet's ghostwriting problems, but they can discover AI-generated content.
A good content editor or editing team can also be incredibly helpful in upgrading your content, making edits, and otherwise improving.
There is a fun manual scan tool in the Google Search Console.
When you are done upgrading and updating your content, be sure to show the precise URL as a prompt in GSC for Google to add to the priority crawl queue.
While your sitemap will post any newly updated items to the top of the list when bots come to recrawl the site, this is more likely to speed up the time to get a recrawl and reassessment of the quality of your content.
Your content needs to be discoverable to search engine crawlers.
If you're not giving them the right signals, you will continue to have pages that are not indexed or fall out of the index. Build more links using relevant anchor text to the most important pages of your site, particularly those you want to have discovered, crawled, indexed, and ranked. It's that simple.
Just because a page or post is in your sitemap doesn't mean search engines feel it's worth ranking. You need to show them what is important through the proper use of search words, redirect URLs, and an efficient indexing process.
When users search for a particular search word, you want your category pages to be prominent in the search results. Simply having a page listed in your sitemap doesn't guarantee its importance to search engines—you need to indicate clearly which pages matter most.
Get the word out to industry-specific influencers, writers, and promoters about the value of your content and your site.
Notice this heading did not say, "Go out and build links.
"While link building can be helpful, it's also a double-edged sword when it comes to promotion, and the power of links continues to wane.
Yes, link building is a subset of your promotion efforts, but you should remain very picky about where and how your inbound links are acquired.
Other reputation management techniques, like cleaning up negative Google reviews can have an ancillary benefit as well.
The question you ultimately need to ask is, "Is my content truly an asset, or is it a liability?"
In some cases, and depending on search intent, long-form skyscraper content is completely dead.
Focus on answering a specific query, solving a real-life problem for someone's online search, and doing it better than your competitors, and you will win traffic.
If you want to rank for competitive terms, you will need to work page by painstaking page.
As a concept, content marketing is a relatively straightforward strategy. You write content that people want to read, publish, and syndicate it often, and eventually, you’ll build a loyal audience who likes your content, loves your brand, and buys more products and services from you. Unfortunately, the mechanics behind this process aren’t always as simple as they seem on paper. It’s not uncommon for content marketers to hit major obstacles along the way, disrupting their workflows and leaving them with inexplicable gaps in their results analysis.
These are seven of the most common roadblocks I see in the content marketing world:
The first pain point usually comes before you’ve even written an article. A great article must start with a great topic, so if you can’t think of any great topic ideas, you can find yourself in a difficult position. The same can be said if the topics you do come up with fail to have an impact on your target audience—you can measure this based on how many clicks your headlines are getting. In either scenario, the solution is to look in new places for topic inspiration. Start with industry news sources to stay up-to-date and discover new information about your niche, then move on to the blogs and websites of your competitors. Learn from what they’re doing—what do their customers like to read about?—just don’t copy their strategy exactly.
Many content marketers underestimate the importance of brand voice consistency. Your entire company’s identity is represented by its brand, and it’s up to you to showcase that brand accurately. If you deviate from the characteristics that define your brand or publish blogs with inconsistent tones, your audience can quickly become alienated. However, diagnosing these problems can be difficult even for experienced content marketers. Address the problem by gathering all your writers together and doing collective exercises that highlight what is and what is not appropriate for the brand. Make sure everyone is on the same page by the end of the meeting, and use one focal editor to do a final review of all subsequent articles before they’re published.
Too many business owners and marketers think that content marketing is about writing articles whenever you have time and publishing them whenever you think about it. This approach almost instantly vanquishes the possibility of building a loyal audience. If you want people to keep coming back to you for more, you have to have a reliable, predictable schedule. Create an editorial calendar with clear and consistent publication dates—if you’re just getting started, one post a week may be enough for your purposes—then assign responsible parties to ensure that those deadlines are always met, no matter what. In today’s fast-paced digital world, a well-organized content schedule is essential to thriving in a digital marketing transformation. Beyond just posting regularly, maintaining quality control over each blog post ensures that your content remains relevant and delivers a superior customer experience, even as you adopt new technologies to stay ahead of the competition.
One of the most important stages of quality content marketing is distributing your material so the greatest number of new people can see it. Typically, that means shopping your content around to different offsite publishers and syndicating your content through various social media channels. If you’re having trouble getting your work published offsite, do an audit of the types of sources you’re pursuing. Start off with local and industry-specific sources to build your reputation, and make sure your topics fit in with their respective niches. Then, work your way up to more authoritative sources. If you’re having trouble syndicating your content consistently, try scheduling your posts in advance, and use the time you save to engage with your audience in one-on-one interactions. Communities can only develop through engagement.
Content marketing is a demanding strategy. Two posts a week doesn’t sound like a lot until you’re in the thick of things, scrambling to get your posts published while juggling all your other responsibilities. Hiring a staff writer is one option, and hiring a freelancer is another, but one of the most valuable solutions is hiring a content agency to handle the work for you. Because content agencies are specialists, they’ll be able to do the work faster, quicker, and more reliably than someone off the street—even if they have an impressive resume. Content agencies not only enhance your company's ability to manage competing priorities, but they also bring new ideas and technologies to the table, elevating your overall content creation process. By working with a team of strong leaders, you can ensure your content aligns with your marketing strategy and style guide, allowing for different formats and a seamless integration with your existing content, all without requiring more budget than hiring a full-time writer.
At its foundation, marketing efforts are all about gathering, analyzing, and applying data in meaningful ways. When that data shows major hiccups or other anomalies, with no apparent explanation, it can be worrisome. Let’s say each of your posts gets 100 shares, then one day, your posts start getting around 20 shares. These anomalies could be the result of any number of factors, from your search engine rankings to topics to random seasonal changes that are simply unpredictable. Instead of trying to figure out what the problem is, adjust your line of thinking and start figuring out what the problem isn’t. Eliminate possibilities one by one until you’ve exhausted your resources or have found the problem.
Stagnation is another problem that most content marketers face at one point or another. Obviously, you want your audience and your traffic to grow steadily, for months and years after your initial digital marketing strategy development. Unfortunately, you’ll likely hit a plateau at some point, generating interest but little further growth. When this happens, inject your campaign with new life by adding an additional content channel, seeking new types of publishers to host your content, or simply stepping up the quantity and quality of the articles you produce.
When you hit one of these roadblocks as a content marketer, as you invariably will, don’t panic. It’s a normal part of the ebb and flow of the strategy. All you can do is analyze the situation, respond accordingly, and continue to make adjustments to perfect your approach.
If you haven’t been putting the power of Pinterest to use for your business, now’s the time to do so. This isn’t the first time we’ve talked about it, but Pinterest is worth writing about again since it has broken into the top 50 sites. According to ComScore, Pinterest was the 50th most visited site in the U.S. in September, with about 25 million visits.
Not that this should be much of a surprise. The growth of Pinterest over the past year or two has been enormous. Image sharing is definitely in, which explains why Instagram and Tumblr took spots on the list, too.
So the question is: Are you taking advantage of it? If your site or business is of interest to women and you aren’t on Pinterest, you are definitely missing out. Big time. Almost 20% of all the females on the Internet are using Pinterest.
Pinterest is a hybrid social bookmarking site where users can post (“pin”) photos and videos of just about anything to a “pin board.” Anything pinned to these Pinterest boards becomes publicly or privately viewable, depending on settings. It gives users a simple, clean way of sharing anything that people find visually interesting.
Users are finding lots of ways to make Pinterest useful, from planning a wedding to saving a favorite recipe, to redecorating a home.
From an SEO standpoint, Pinterest is a great tool for link building; every image pinned can be hyperlinked to any destination URL.
Even though Pinterest is still in its infancy, it already has lots going on:
If you are running a business, it’s time to register a Pinterest business account. You probably don’t need a tutorial on how to create one, as signing up for one is very simple.
Learn as much as you can about how to use Pinterest, its best practices, and learn from others about how best to use the site to share interesting things.
While it’s obvious by now that Pinterest is here to stay, businesses should use the site with caution. As with any website, Pinterest was created for real people with interesting things to share. It’s fine to promote things and make online sales but make a point of providing real value that other people will appreciate.
If you’re running a small business, it’s crucial to gain access to the benefits of a Pinterest business account. With over 400 million weekly users, your Pinterest profile can effectively showcase your products or services through engaging visual content and DIY ideas that resonate with your audience.
You might think that keeping your Facebook page up to date would be a higher priority than getting involved in a newer site like Pinterest.
But we strongly urge you to reconsider your social media marketing plan. To stay competitive, you have to evolve and stay on top of emerging trends. Take a look at the graph below (courtesy of BizRate Insights) and you’ll see that Pinterest users are much more plugged into buying mode than Facebook users.
Yes, there are many more bodies on Facebook and you should continue to interact with users there. However, the number of Pinterest users and people who know what Pinterest is continues to climb steadily. In January of this year, Shareaholic announced that Pinterest was driving more traffic than YouTube, Google Plus, and LinkedIn COMBINED. See that report here.
Because Pinterest has become such an important site for brands and businesses to be involved with, there have been some interesting tools and sites developed to help you get the most from it. Here are just a few that can boost your Pinterest marketing strategy.
You can view all the pins anyone has done from your site by entering http://pinterest.com/source/ and adding your domain to the end of that.
It can be tedious, though. PinAlerts makes it easy to know when someone pins something from your site. It’s still in beta, but it looks like a nifty little tool.
Not only can you use it to find out who’s pinning your stuff (helpful to see what’s being pinned, and to go and comment or thank them), but you can monitor multiple domains. So you could also use this to see what kind of content your competitors are using successfully and getting pins for.
Want to know what kind of value you have on Pinterest? PinPuff gives you a reach score (what kind of reach you have on Pinterest), activity score (how active you are), and virality score (the likelihood of something you pin going viral). You can use this to monitor your own Pinterest account, but you could also use it to identify influential people in your industry so you can follow them or invite them to contribute to your board.
When someone becomes a contributor to your board, he or she can obviously post pins (contribute) to the board. But what’s awesome about this is that now your board will also show up on that person’s page of boards. If you can get several authorities in your industry to contribute and they happen to have a large number of followers, this can quickly expand the number of targeted followers on your board.
When a user receives a request to become a contributor, the request appears at the top of his or her board page (visible only to the page owner) like this:
Here’s an example of a board with several contributors. Notice there isn’t a ton of pins (fewer than 100), but more than 4,000 followers have linked to this board:
Pinerly gives you access to powerful analytics information for your Pinterest ads marketing campaigns. You can identify popular pins, schedule and follow your pins to see how much attention they get, find people to follow, or unfollow people.
Pinterest can be a powerful marketing tool if used correctly. The chance of something going viral is very high, since according to RJMetrics more than 80% of all pins are repins.
You’ve already got a content marketing program in place. You may have been at it for a week, a year, or even longer, but you’re not sure whether or not your content is performing effectively. You may not even be sure how to tell whether your content is performing effectively.
That’s where this article will come in handy. There are actually several ways to define the “effectiveness” of content, depending on your goals—including whether the content is effective at getting people’s attention, at building your authority, or at increasing your page ranks—and all these types of effectiveness can be objectively measured using a handful of data-based insights.
You can start by using Google Search Console to track key performance indicators (KPIs) such as keyword rankings and traffic. Additionally, analyzing content marketing metrics like engagement and conversions will help determine if your blog post resonates with your target audience and contributes to content marketing success. These insights can reveal how well your content is performing in search engine results.
The easiest line of insight you can get into the effectiveness of your content is how your followers react to it on social media. If you aren’t currently syndicating your content through social media, your first step is to get started with it.
There are several signals to look for, and each is important. Look for user comments on your pieces, user “likes” or “favorites,” and perhaps most importantly—the number of times users have shared your content. Shared content is the highest compliment you can receive, so if you aren’t receiving any shares, you may have to reevaluate your content strategy. Also take some time to look at your “social” visits in Google Analytics—how many people are visiting your site after clicking the link to your content? If the number is high, you’re doing great. If not, you’ll have to take a look at your content marketing efforts.
Onsite comments can give you fantastic clues into the effectiveness of your content. At a glance, the number of comments you receive on your blog posts can illustrate how impactful your content is. Is it stirring up conversation or sitting stagnant on your page?
The type of comments you get is also important. Do you notice other industry influencers getting involved, asking critical questions about your work? If so, you’ve managed to make yourself an authority. Are several different people engaging in conversation over your work? If so, you’ve managed to get significant attention through your choice of topic. If you have few comments or if your comments don’t show that your visitors are engaged in your material, it could be a symptom of weak or uninteresting content.
Repeat visits are a great indication of the strength of your content. If your content can attract lots of new visitors to your brand, that’s a good sign that your work is immediately appealing, but if those visitors come back for more, it means you’ve truly delivered some great work. If that recurring traffic is retained, that means you’re continuously doing a great job of satisfying your users’ needs and expectations.
Generally, your direct visitors (the ones who click directly into your site rather than searching for it) are already familiar with your brand, needing no external prompts to stumble upon your content. You can also measure your recurring traffic more accurately by counting the number of people who have subscribed to your blog or signed up for your newsletter.
To determine your content’s effectiveness in its onsite context, take a look at the Behavior section of Google Analytics. Here, you’ll be able to analyze the actions of your inbound traffic and track to see how they act after reading your material.
For example, you may find that once a visitor finds his/her way to your blog, the bounce rate goes up. If that’s the case, it means your content is ineffective at keeping users venturing deeper into your site. However, if you find that your content leads people to other blog posts and other pages of your site, you can consider your content effective at getting people to stay.
From an SEO standpoint, you can track your progress relatively easily. In Google Analytics, take a look at the Acquisition tab and look at your Organic traffic. This number reflects the total number of people who found your site through search engines, and if you’re publishing content regularly, you should see this number steadily increasing, month over month.
If you notice little to no growth in your Organic visits, it could be an indication that your content is underperforming as an element of your SEO campaign. This could be due to low or inconsistent posting frequency, poor relevance to your niche, or low quality writing.
Also, analyzing engagement metrics such as bounce rate or time spent on a particular page can give you more insight into how well your content aligns with user search intent. If one blog post or piece of content is performing poorly, content marketers might consider adjusting their marketing tactics or even creating content for other websites as part of a guest post strategy to boost website traffic and meet their business goals.
Finally, you can take a look at how well your content is at getting people to convert. If you have a conversion field on your blog pages, you can easily extract this information and determine your conversion ratio for blog traffic.
Otherwise, you can map out your users’ behavior flows and determine whether your blog readers eventually find your conversion page and convert. If you find your conversion ratios are low or nonexistent, you’ll have to tailor your content to enable more conversions.
Just because your content is underperforming doesn’t mean it’s useless. In fact, the data you gathered to determine your content’s performance is the perfect ammunition to use in remolding it. Take this information, along with your user feedback, and use it to make up for your content’s core weaknesses. Reiterate this process several times, making improvements each time, and eventually you’ll perfect your content marketing approach.
There are numerous variables that go into running a successful social media marketing strategy. Factors like quality and frequency of posts, along with proper engagement quickly come to mind. These are obviously important, but choosing the network that caters to your target audience is equally important.
Since there can be a disparity in terms of user demographics on different social media platforms, you should understand which network best fits your business before launching a full-blown campaign. Here is a rundown of the demographic of some of the most popular networks to help you choose which one to use.
Many social networking sites, such as Facebook and Instagram, boast billions of monthly active users who primarily access these platforms through mobile devices. With social media apps becoming essential communication platforms, it’s important to choose the right social networking site that aligns with your business goals and target audience.
These two heavyweights are at the top of most marketers' to-do list, and rightfully so. Facebook is the elephant among social media channels. Twitter isn’t all that far behind. Consequently, both Facebook and Twitter tend to be great places to start your campaign and test the waters.
If your business has a broad demographic, you should be able to effectively reach your audience. The same thing can be said even if you have a relatively small demographic, and you’re trying to zone in on a smaller segment of the population. Regardless of your industry, you should be able to bring exposure to your business and establish a community around it.
While creating a presence on both of these networks is applicable to nearly any business, Facebook can be even more advantageous when you’re looking to reach females between the ages of 18 and 29. According to CMS Wire, the vast majority of Facebook users are women and young adults, which makes it ideal if this is your business’s main demographic.
When it comes to Twitter, it’s also popular with a young audience between the ages of 18 and 29. A large part of its user base is comprised of African Americans and individuals living in densely populated, urban areas.
Both platforms have millions of active users, making them a great platform to promote your business and interact with your audience. While other social media platforms are also part of the social media scene, Facebook and Twitter stand out as essential channels for paid advertising and enterprise social networks.
If you’re looking to grow your business and gain B2B networking opportunities, LinkedIn is an effective way to do so. Unlike other popular social media platforms that are more casual in nature, this one is designed for educated professionals who are looking to advance their careers. According to statistics by Quantcast, the majority of users have earned either a bachelor’s degree or completed grad school. Male users outweigh females, and a large percentage of them have no children.
LinkedIn users also tend to earn considerably more money than those on other networks.
For instance, individuals earning over $150,000 annually account for the largest number of users. Not far behind are individuals earning between $100,000 and $150,000.Another factor that differentiates this network from others is the average age of its users. Unlike many that cater to a younger demographic, LinkedIn users are typically older and range between 25 to 64 years of age. If you want to connect with an audience that is well-to-do and mainly consists of business professionals, this can be the perfect resource.
This popular social media platform has really gained a lot of momentum in the past couple of years. While it pales in comparison to the user base of Facebook and Twitter, it’s seen plenty of growth since its conception and could be a major contender in the near future. The concept of Pinterest is incredibly simple, which involves “pinning” images onto boards.
This simplicity combined with its eye-appealing aesthetic probably accounts for the success it has seen. Like Google+, Pinterest also has a significant disparity in terms of gender. The difference is that it swings the other way and has a massive female user base of around 72 percent.
Most users are relatively educated and have either attended college or have at least a bachelor’s degree. Users are primarily Caucasian and between the ages of 18 and 50. Going even deeper, the top geographic location of Pinterest is the south east United States including states like Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. Due to the large volume of females who use this network, some of the most widely shared content is based in the following niches.
If your business focuses on any of these areas, Pinterest can be a potential gold mine. Since this site is image-centric, it’s a great resource for displaying pictures of your products or services in action. It’s also possible to achieve a level of virality on this network because of the ease with which users can share content.
Determining whether or not TikTok is the right platform for your business first requires an understanding of the platform itself and its purpose. To begin, it is important to know that TikTok is one of those social media channels that are primarily used by teenagers and young adults for entertainment. It allows users to create short videos, share them with others, and watch content from other users. It has also become a great way for businesses to reach potential customers, increase brand awareness, and engage with their audience. As a business owner, it is important to create videos that are both entertaining and informative so that viewers will be engaged and want to watch your content.
Additionally, if you can make sure that your videos are creative and original, viewers will be more likely to remember them. TikTok, like other best social media platforms, offers collaboration tools to help you create posts that resonate with your audience and expand your personal brand. When it comes to promoting your video content on TikTok, you can use hashtags, comments, and other forms of promotion to get the word out about your business. It is also important to understand that organic reach on TikTok is limited by its algorithm; however, you can boost your reach by running ads or doing influencer marketing. At the end of the day, TikTok is one of the best modern social media sites for businesses to reach their target market and engage with their customers. With our help, you can create an effective strategy on this business platform that will get you the results you need.
Many business owners have heard of this social media site, but aren’t necessarily sure how it can fit in with their marketing campaign. In a nutshell, Tumblr is a microblogging site that allows users to share a variety of content including text, images, audio, and links. They can upload their own original content or re-blog content from other users. It has an incredibly easy-to-use interface which many people find appealing and has contributed to Tumblr’s success. While you could consider this network in its early stages, more and more legitimate brands like IBM and J Crew are taking the time to build their presence on it.
The most noticeable aspect of this site is its young audience. If you’re in a business that’s looking to reach people over the age of 35, then Tumblr isn’t for you. However, if you’re mainly looking to connect with consumers between 13 and 25, you should definitely consider this network. One of the most interesting statistics is that more young people in this age group now use Tumblr than Facebook. According to The Real Time Report, 61 percent of teens and 57 percent of young adults use Tumblr regularly, while only 55 percent of teens and 52 percent of young adults use Facebook regularly.
While it’s not completely clear why Tumblr is so popular among young people, it’s suspected that it relates to the fact that most parents aren’t using the site. Consequently, teens and young adults can use it without their parents constantly keeping tabs like they can on Facebook and other more notable networks. If your business offers a product or service that’s youth oriented, Tumblr can be an excellent choice. The best part is that competition is likely to be minimal for at least a few years.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be confusing. With dozens of acronyms, technical jargon, tools, programs, statistics, techniques, and all the talk about pandas and penguins, it’s pretty intimidating.
Let alone the fact that SEO is a field that is in constant flux! In spite of the confusion, there’s a simple way to think about SEO campaigns today and beyond: as a set of three core elements that support each other to support an SEO campaign. Leveraging a strong social media presence and social media link building, you can improve your online visibility and reach a broader audience. You can also utilize Google Analytics, if you want to track the performance of both your website and other social media pages. It ensures that your target audience is effectively engaged on every social media platform.
Let’s take a look at each of these elements, as well as how to implement each of them to increase traffic, conversions, and ROI.
Discussed in detail below, but provided here in survey form, the three core elements are as follows:
I call these the three core elements because they are necessary for any modern SEO campaign to succeed. Without each of these three core elements, your SEO campaign won’t be properly supported and will likely fail. Before launching into an explanation of the three core elements, there are a few things to understand about how they work together.
The first core element comes first logically because it involves your own website — the hub where everything happens. This element can also be called “onsite SEO” to distinguish from SEO practices that happen off your site, such as external content that garners inbound links (such as guest blog posts) and social media involvement. Here are the essentials:
Organic link building tactics include guest blogging, press release distribution, and other tactics.
How do search engines decide to bring your website up to the top of the search rankings? Top-notch onsite SEO is only the beginning. Search engines recognize that your site is important based on who is linking to it.
Take this example. Let’s say you’re a yoga instructor. You have a website, and you start publishing some sweet articles about yoga. Somehow, Whole Living picks up on your content and asks you to do a guest post on yoga. You write a piece for Whole Living, and link back to your website.
Whole Living has a domain authority of 80, which is way higher than your site. Bingo. As soon as they link to you, your website gains credibility and authority. Then, you interview a health instructor in a local private college and post the interview on your website. The yoga instructor, in turn, writes about the interview on her college blog and links to your site. Boom. You just got a link from an .edu website.
Because you’re now a recognized authority on yoga, you publish an article in Lifehacker about the positive impact of yoga on work productivity. This article, of course, links back to your website. Another power move.
All of these links to your site are driving up your website's authority. Your site has proven to the search engines its authority and recognition. Your rankings go up.
No site will succeed in SEO unless other sites are linking to it. It’s just that simple.
Here are the best ways to gain quality backlinks:
Links are crucial. Ensure you have a solid strategy in place for building links.
More than ever before, social media is an integral part of SEO. Search engines can quantify the amount of social presence that your site possesses. Merely getting a few dozen tweets can ramp up a page’s authority, and therefore its rankings, resulting in more website traffic to it. The increasing market share of Google+ is a major ranking factor in social ranking, including the power of Google authorship. Social signals matter for SEO.
Keep these two points in mind.
The power of social for SEO strategy can be subtle, but is nonetheless important. Provide sharing opportunities on every piece of content that you publish. The greater the social signals, the better your SEO.
This is the state of SEO in 2013. Online marketing success is possible, but not without each of these core elements present and properly being engaged. It’s no longer easy to game the system and jump up the search engine rankings in Google with a few slick tricks. You’ve got your work cut out for you.
But you do have a game plan — understand and design your digital marketing strategy around the three core elements of SEO. As long as you 1) ensure that your onsite SEO is rolling smoothly, 2) you possess a robust and effective link building strategy, and 3) you’re staying active and engaging within social media platforms, you’re going to succeed.
Social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn and Google+ have become the epicenter of marketing and social media campaigns for many businesses. According to Social Media Examiner, “83% of marketers indicate that social media is important for their business.” While the act of posting content and interacting with followers is important, it’s even more important to measure the performance of your overall campaign through social media analytics tools. Doing so should ultimately help fine-tune your efforts, minimize mistakes, and increase exposure. Here are some techniques and useful tools to accomplish this.
Perhaps the best way to get an overarching idea of how well or poorly each network is performing is by using some basic features of this platform. Google Analytics is free to use and is the choice of many marketers because of its extensive features. Clicking Traffic Sources > Social > Overview will provide a rundown of all social networks that are bringing traffic to your site. This includes the number of visits via social referral in comparison to total visits, the number of visits from each network, and the percentage of traffic from each network. Reviewing this data will give you a rough idea of how well each social media platform is performing in relation to other networks.
For instance, Facebook might be bringing in 40 percent of traffic, Twitter is bringing in 20 percent, Google+ is bringing in 10 percent and all others are combining for 30 percent. Clicking “Network Referrals” will provide a bit more information, like total pageviews, and the average visit duration of pages per visit. Clicking “Visitors Flow” is another feature that shows which pages on your website visitors are landing on and from which social media platforms. Understanding this data is important because it’s a clear indicator of which networks are working, which need some attention, and which ones may be worth scrapping altogether.
One of the main indicators of how big your presence is throughout the social media realm is how many mentions your business gets across social media channels. This buzz is also known as social signals, which are a rising factor in search engine algorithms.
Hootsuite is an effective way to track those mentions and streamline your social media strategy. It’s also one of the most popular platforms and currently has over 600 million users. There are several other statistics that can be monitored, such as how many people have added your business to their circles on Google+, how many followers you have across major social networks, recent user activity, and daily growth.
When it comes to Facebook, you can determine who your fan base is by analyzing their demographic according to region, language, and posting source. Hootsuite also makes it easy to absorb data by offering over 30 different modules with a variety of charts and graphs. Since it’s available on mobile devices, this can be a great platform for keeping up with data while you’re on the go.
This has become the go-to social media management tool for many businesses. SproutSocial offers a plethora of features that cover pretty much every aspect of the social media process along with high-powered analytics. From the dashboard, you can keep track of:
In terms of published content, you can easily determine how many clicks and responses each message received, as well as the number of people each message reached. This is helpful because it’s possible to identify which types of content are creating the most buzz, so you can rinse and repeat later. It’s also possible to determine how well your brand is faring against other competitors. This is done by creating social scores based on engagement and influence and measuring them against the competition. By producing presentation-ready reports, it’s easy to track the long-term progress of a campaign across various social networks.
If you’re looking for comprehensive data to spot trends, brand reputation, and where your company stands against competitors, this is a platform worth considering. According to Simplify 360, they “provide you with a much-needed tool to listen to what your customers are saying about your brand on social media and a means to act on it.
Be it Facebook, Twitter, blogs, YouTube, news sites, or online forums, you will never miss out on any conversations that are relevant to your brand. ”When it comes to features, this software provides the basics like information regarding your demographics, the volume of traffic from major social media networks, and competitor tracking. There are also numerous other sophisticated features such as:
Like Sprout Social, simplify 360 produces engagement and influence scores in order to tell how your brand stacks up against competitors. It also has a detailed analytics system with numerous reporting options.
This is another platform designed to measure performance that has caught the attention of notable media companies like Tech Crunch, BBC, and Mashable. Their slogan is “social media monitoring and analysis made easy,” and their concept revolves around searching for hashtags or search terms. The data can then be exported to a spreadsheet, charts, or graphs for convenient viewing.RowFeeder is a bit simpler than the previously mentioned platforms and can only be integrated with Facebook and Twitter. Nonetheless, it’s helpful for tracking your campaign in detail and seeing how your brand is performing against the competition. Businesses primarily use RowFeeder for:
Finally, a simple way to determine how much your content is getting shared on various social media sites is by installing social share buttons. For WordPress-based websites, there are many plugins available, which only take a few seconds to install. Once set up, you can see how many times a piece of content has been shared on different networks. More social shares translate to more exposure and can be a litmus test for determining what sort of content or topics are popular among your audience.
With access to numerous social media performance measurement platforms, businesses have the ability to unearth detailed information that simply wasn’t possible a few years ago. By utilizing the right social media metrics, you can avoid making the same mistakes and improve all areas of your social media efforts. Over time, this should put you in the position to better understand your target audience, improve engagement, and generate more leads via social networks.
If you’re ready to launch your social media marketing campaign, see my article "How to Determine Which Social Media Network Fits Your Business” for a great starting point. Do you have any other tools you prefer to use for measuring social media performance? Let us know in the comments below!
We recently had an opportunity to work with a leading video production company, in pursuit of higher search rankings, more organic traffic, and more leads.
And at the risk of sounding arrogant, I think we knocked it out of the park.
In this brief case study, we're going to take a look at the strategic elements that helped us allow this video production company to see better results – and show off the fruits of our tactical approach.
Running a video production company isn’t easy.
This video production company, in particular, faced two massive challenges.
First, the video production industry is extremely competitive. There are literally thousands of agencies and individuals specializing in video production competing for a finite amount of online visibility – and a finite number of clients. Getting visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs) for such highly contested keywords and phrases isn't exactly a cakewalk.
Second, this video production company relied almost entirely on word of mouth for lead generation. There's nothing wrong with word-of-mouth advertising or leaning heavily on referrals from previous clients, especially when you do good work. But it's not especially consistent at generating leads, and it's definitely not very scalable.
This company knew they would need to change things if they wanted to succeed in this competitive digital marketing world.
That's where we came in.
The most important elements of our campaign included:
· Initial analysis. We started with an initial analysis, examining the structure of their website, their current target keywords and search results positions, and their current efforts with onsite content and offsite link building. We wanted to pinpoint promising areas for development and get a feel for the efforts they've already made.
· Highly targeted link building. From there, we began a highly targeted link building campaign. Rather than trying to build as many links as possible, we aimed for quality over quantity and tried to acquire only extremely high authority, very relevant links. We ended up building 47 links on referring domains with high domain authority and topical relevance to video production.
· Valuable keyword targeting. Similarly, we focused on only the most strategically valuable keywords and phrases, identifying keywords that were high in search volume, high in relevance to prospects, and relatively low in competition. This way, we could maximize the value of our efforts.
· SEO page tuning. We also practiced SEO page tuning heavily for this client. In case you aren't familiar, SEO page tuning is a strategy focused on making hundreds of little tweaks to target pages to make them more relevant and more authoritative in the eyes of Google and other search engines. Even tiny adjustments, like adjusting phrases and reorganizing page sections, can make a massive difference. Thanks to Google’s new content search ranking identifier, it’s easier than ever to analyze exactly what’s missing from your internal pages so you can tweak them to perfection.
· Internal linking. Additionally, we prioritized an overhaul of internal linking. Google loves to see websites with intricate, intuitive internal linking networks, as this facilitates a smoother user experience while simultaneously making it easier to understand the purpose and relationships of each page.
· 18 months of growth. We continued our efforts for a stretch of 18 months, gradually and iteratively adjusting our approach as we gathered more data about our client’s performance. By the end of this 18-month campaign, this video production company was in a much better digital marketing spot.
Here are the most important results we have to show as results of our efforts:
· Top rankings for “video production.” Our client now ranks in (or close to) the top position for keywords similar to “video production,” alongside major competitors who have 13 times their revenue. They can now contend with some of the biggest names in the industry.
· Dominance of valuable keywords. Our client also ranks in the top 5 positions for each of their most desired and targeted money terms. These keywords and phrases are highly relevant for leads and prospects, making top rankings even more valuable.
· A 7x increase in traffic. From the start of the campaign, our client saw a sevenfold increase in traffic to their website. That means seven times as much visibility, seven times as many potential leads, and seven times the total impact of the website.
· ~7 highly qualified corporate leads per week. This video production company had practically zero consistent leads before we got involved. Now, they get on average seven highly qualified corporate leads every week.
We helped this video production company completely revolutionize their approach to SEO, traffic generation, and lead generation.
And they’re not alone.
In fact, they’re just one of hundreds of companies and individuals we’ve guided over the years.
And you could be next.
If you’re ready to see massive increases in your search visibility, traffic, lead flow, and sales, the first step is a free consultation with us – so reach out today!
The bidet and SEO industries have a lot in common.
We’re both involved in cleaning up messes.
We’re both interested in providing better user experiences.
And we’re both interested in experimenting with the latest technological advancements (even if it’s not always comfortable at first).
Though admittedly, achieving “number 2” in SEO means something very different than it does to the hygienic folks in the bidet industry…
Still, when an emerging bidet brand came to us with lofty aspirations and a desire to reach number 1 in the SERPs, we jumped at the chance.
It was an opportunity for us to show just how much of an impact a solid SEO strategy can make.
And boy, did we deliver.
The bidet industry presents some interesting challenges.
It's a growing industry, as more people in the United States discover the many benefits of using a bidet, rather than wiping with toilet paper. That's good for business, but it also attracts a lot of competition. Breaking into the space would require us to bear down, analyze the obstructions, and push with enough force to overcome them.
On top of that, this particular client was a fairly new brand with minimal name recognition, practically no domain authority, and a single, fresh deposit in their SEO efforts.
These challenges were significant, but we could never leave a brand behind – especially a brand that supports behinds.
It would have been a dereliction of doodie to “spray and pray,” targeting general audiences with unfocused keywords and phrases.
Instead, we put our efforts into targeted precision.
That meant choosing only the most valuable potential keywords for our client to target, thus maximizing our effectiveness and minimizing costs. The keywords we selected were highly relevant to the industry, relatively minimal in competition, and yet affiliated with high search volume.
This golden ratio is ideal for any SEO strategy. You need keywords and phrases that are relevant, capable of facilitating organic traffic, and still approachable. This way, you can speak to the right audience, rank faster, and accumulate as much traffic as possible.
A few weeks later, we were on a roll.
· Strategic analysis and keyword research. Everything started with a strategic analysis, combined with keyword research. We wanted to know everything there was to know about bidets, including how they work, who uses them, who's selling them, and how we could attract the most attention to this particular brand. Once we had a good game plan in place, everything became much looser and easier to pass.
· Onsite content support. Developing good content, or as we called it, making vowel movements, is always a crucial part of an SEO strategy. That's why we spent some time analyzing and supporting onsite content efforts. This particular client already had a thriving (and punny) blog, but we helped advise and fine-tune the content for SEO purposes.
· Onsite technical optimization. We also assisted with technical onsite optimization, analyzing internal pages for technical performance, keyword support, and more. With hundreds of ranking factors considered by Google, technical onsite optimization is hard to practice without an experienced SEO provider assisting you.
· Offsite content and link building. The heart of this campaign was in offsite content and link building. Writing and publishing offsite articles with various relevant publishers helps to increase your domain authority and page authority, ultimately increasing the subjective authoritativeness of your brand and thereby increasing your rankings. After even a few months of consistent external publishing, this bidet brand began to see positive momentum in the SERPs.
· Ongoing critical analysis. We’re not party poopers, but sometimes, it’s important to acknowledge the limitations of our own efforts. SEO is as much of an art as it is a science, and it requires some analysis and tweaking to be successful. We kept a close eye on our progress, especially in the first few months, so that we could learn from our efforts and adapt. Ultimately, this allowed us to achieve much more for this bidet brand.
Like a constipated accountant who couldn’t budget, some of our clients lack the resources necessary to support a higher-level campaign. But with even a modest budget, we can offer a collection of strategies capable of helping your brand achieve sustainable SEO momentum.
It was a splash hit from the start — flushing away any lingering doubts about our SEO strategy.
· An increase in overall ranking keywords by 10x. We were able to multiply the total number of keyword rankings for this client by a factor of 10. In other words, they rank for a number of keywords in order of magnitude larger than what they started with.
· Top 10 rankings for the bidet industry’s 5 most competitive keywords. From bottom to top, we cleaned up the rankings. This brand is now on page 1, in the top 10 rankings for all 5 of the most competitive keywords in the bidet industry.
· 300x impressions. For each impression this brand had before we started, it now has more than 300. Thousands and thousands of people are seeing this brand for the first time.
· 10x leads. With the sales pipeline officially unclogged, this brand saw a tenfold increase in leads. And we expect this is only the beginning.
· 4x sales. As you might imagine, this had a very positive impact on sales. Now, this bidet brand has 4 times as many sales as it did – and it's selling more on its website than it is on Amazon.
· Massive email list growth. As an added bonus, this bidet brand has seen massive email list growth. As more people discover and visit this brand’s website, the list continues to naturally expand.
As this bidet brand’s top competitors continue to circle the drain, we’ve been redoubling our efforts.
With a broader spectrum of target keywords, more onsite refinement, and of course, more content, we can push these results even further.
Perhaps you found the humor in this article corny. Perhaps you only liked a phew of our jokes.
But when it comes to delivering some of the best SEO results in the industry, we're quite serious.
If you're interested in a free consultation, with far more details and far fewer puns, contact us today!
Personalized marketing has become invaluable for companies targeting consumers today. It means leveraging data and preferences to anticipate, generate, and segment content tailored specifically to individual needs.
Crafting personalized messaging can benefit consumer engagement in terms of targets who feel both connected with the company as well as valued themselves which increases loyalty and thus sales conversions in the long run.
Here we will identify key benefits of tailored customer marketing, best practices regarding effective implementation, use of the right technologies (including programmatic advertising), successful case studies that harness its power, and strategies to overcome any existing challenges across this area.
It then ends on an overall takeaway of why such Marketing is important today enabling lasting brands and tremendous growth opportunities.
Tell customers today to expect effortless, personalized experiences with direct relevance to their interests. By understanding customer wants and needs through data collection and analysis combined with specially tailored marketing processes, companies can effectively offer an improved and highly personalized customer experience.
Relevance beyond functionality is the new normal in attention-deficit digital times - tailoring offerings aids in developing a sense of trust leading to better satisfaction given customers enjoy feeling unique.Plus, by addressing any relevant issues quickly loyalty will build up immediately improving chances for further sales while efficiently managing cost factors related to retention rates over engagement returns.
Personalization brings multiple benefits to a business, particularly increased customer engagement and loyalty. By developing tailored content and offers, customers will recognize greater relevance and value.
Personalization also sparks positive emotions that reinforce relationships by equipping people to form an intimate connection with their favorite brands.
This leads to improved customer sentiment resulting in trust over repeated purchases; creating the basis for successful engagement strategies, stronger Consumer Brand Interdependence (CBI), and great opportunities for word-of-mouth advertising.
Delivering quality messages that evoke pleasant memories or elicit sympathetic responses specific to expected user details is critical in maintaining excellent rapport between businesses and their loyal consumers.
Personalization significantly improves conversion rates and sales in businesses. Due to custom messages tailored to customers’ individual interests, likes, and purchase histories, they feel more connected with the company and are more likely to invest in its products or services.
Relevant content designed especially for these customers supports brands such purchase items of greater value and even buy multiple times.
As an outcome, this generic measure such as conversion rate shoots right up paving a bright path forward for a strong business presence o larger targeting audience base leading towards higher revenue growth.
Personalized marketing allows businesses to convey the values of their brand while encouraging enhanced engagement with current and potential customers.
With personalized campaigns, companies are able to increase both brand trust and customer loyalty by giving individual recognition that builds emotional connections.
Brand perception is significantly heightened studies have shown by utilizing tailored engaging content that associates itself from data context to personalized shopping recommendations.
Personalization offerings can also allow new businesses to rely more strongly stand out in competitive market segments and differentiate themselves based on these sentiments to embrace widespread customer appeal.
Collecting and analyzing customer data is an essential component of successful personalization strategy. Data-driven insights — such as buying behaviors, interests, preferences, and online activities outline the criteria to inform targeted campaigns and tailor campaign messages for the right audience consistently.
Gathering high-quality data from various sources including your corporate website's metrics can help segment user groups accurately thus presenting further customization correlation analysis to drive engagement.
Existing customer data analyses further integration into emotion with real-time optimization capabilities offer better user experience opportunities throughout all regards along the personalized marketing journey efficiently.
Segmenting target audiences is key to successful personalized marketing. Companies should categorize their users in different cohorts based on their profiles, purchase intentions, behavior, and interests.
This deeper understanding of who you are speaking to leads to more relevant messages and advertising tailored specifically for each individual strategy segment. Doing research about your audience before creating a marketing message ensures that your specific content stays engaging no matter what grouping it touches upon.
Exploring the customer data collected and properly segmenting the target audience would lay the foundation for customizing highly relevant content and marketing messages accordingly.Such personalization in messaging can be tailored to different consumer segments(age, gender or geographic), aimed at nurturing relationships while anticipating purchase behavior—making customers feel that they are being truly heard with content delivered specifically for their needs and interests.
Highly customized online experiences allow marketers to provide products better aligned with a consumers' specific wants & needs, greatly increasing engagement and satisfaction as well as transforming closer business relationships with customers.
The utilization of advanced technologies and automation in personalization helps deliver marketing content at high speeds, scale, with precision and consistency.
AI algorithms facilitate predictive analysis of customer behavior, scanning hundreds of data points to target the right consumers at the exact right time with relevant messages.
Marketing automation tools automate complex processes so marketers can easily manage and nurture automated campaigns including email & social media marketing creating more personalized interactions than ever before.
Additionally, leveraging facial recognition adds another level to customer identification allowing brands unmatched information security components coupled with dynamic pricing solutions for improved sales outcomes.
SourcePersonalized email campaigns can be highly effective for improving customer engagement and conversions.Customizable messages and content can be tailored to individual customers or segments in order to build meaningful relationships with them, while utilizing dynamic data targeting allows businesses to deliver more relevant and contextual marketing material.
This approach has seen excellent results when optimization assessments are regularly done, especially through A/B testing techniques.Personalized emails also enable marketers to track customer behaviour such as open rates, click-throughs and sales which provide invaluable insights that enhance future campaigns.
Dynamic website content and recommendations provide customers with personalized suggestions quickly that are best aligned with what the customer is looking for in terms of products or services. This capability allows customers to access only recommended items, streamlining their browsing experience and saving time.
Customers feel more cherished as facets of them are understood better by marketers when used as central elements of digital experiences such as reviews and sharing products on social media networks with simplistic click-through processes.
It also helps to add humor to keep it entertaining for consumers, which is what we like to do with our case studies, including this marketing case study for a new bidet brand.
Tailored product recommendations and offers are becoming more and more prevalent in marketing methods. Understanding customers beyond just demographics, spending habits, on-site behavior, and past purchases drives valuable insights that inform better recommendations essential for success in offering personalized experiences and engaging customers in products or services catering to individual preferences.
Automation systems such as AI, facilitate data integration of insights from multiple sources and increased dramatically customer interest- converting designs of tailored websites and coupons directly to improved momentum around individual brand experiences.
Adaptive advertising and retargeting are some of the most powerful tools in personalized marketing. This type of strategy involves different ads being served to customers based on the past purchase behavior they show.
By re-engaging prospects that have already shown an interest in their product or service, companies can maximize relevancy; going beyond audience segmentation and turning passive viewers into those ready to buy right away.
With a high return on investment and solid conversion rates, adaptive advertising is a must for businesses wanting to stay competitive and succeed today.
Leading brands face the uphill battle of ensuring data privacy and security while utilizing customer information to gain insights for effective tailored marketing.
As such, businesses must strenuously adhere to cybersecurity best practices including encrypted sharing of data collect in reliable digital systems integrations, protecting connotation servers, and utilizing best cybersecurity breaches proactivity seals.
Businesses need to develop clear strategies towards creating various a trusted relationships with customers whilst building a committed following by monetizing collected data its adequacy.
Balancing personalization with ethical considerations is one of the key challenges businesses face while embracing personalized marketing strategies.
Companies must ensure customers are provided with content in alignment with privacy laws, regulatory guidance and industry codes.
Also, regarding sensitive subjects such as race or gender, marketers should make sure they do not cross boundaries or risk upsetting a segment of their consumer base.
When utilizing personalized marketing tactics, overcoming technological limitations can be a challenge.
Software and systems exist to automate customer segmentation for content creation, but organizations often rest on what’s known locally, and their knowledge is lagging behind with regards to automation versus manual processes.
But software isn't everything, particularly if you begin to scale your sales outside your internal organization. However, when augmented by identified experts in the relevant fields they are stepping up. This helps drive targeted outcomes that reflect new technologies that’ll boost organizational effectiveness.
When using an approach tailored to one persona and overlooking the individuality of each customer, people may be weary or resistant to any change or diversification.
Companies should highly focus personalized marketing initiatives around enrolling customers into participation by engaging them through open conversation via various platforms in order to gain support from their clientele base.
It’s shown that building strong relationships yields improvement across factors of customer value, satisfaction, and customer service impressions.
Through education, businesses introduce ideas towards getting their team onboard with changing behaviors streamlining responses normally generated by manual processes allowing more time for individual approaches.
Personalized marketing has emerged as an essential tool in engaging customers and boosting Brand experiences. By collecting and analyzing customer data, segmenting audiences and customizing messaging to suit user behavior can lead to improved sales conversion ratios, and higher loyalty rates and create a seamless interface between companies’ products/ services and buyers.
Companies need to take necessary steps towards delivering personalized marketing solutions while balancing privacy concerns with staying true to deeply held values for ethical considerations.
As such marketers must continually process consumer data, sharpen strategies for better outcomes on their digital usage models, and embrace emerging technology support advancements far beyond mere automation processes all geared at enlivening the personalized approach of marketing outlets attempts.
Marketing heads and major decision makers within Fortune 500 companies are responsible for using consumer data to make better decisions.
You need to understand who your consumers are, how they think, and how they make purchases if you want to persuade them. This much is obvious.
But currently, we live in an age of hubris. That's because we live in the age of big data and AI. This combination of technologies entitles us to more data from more sources than ever before, and it enables us to crunch those numbers at record speed.
It's only natural that CEOs, CMOs, and other executive authorities feel like they're on top of the world. Now, every decision can be based on data.
But there's a problem.
There are massive consumer data blind spots holding Fortune 500 companies back.
And if you want to maintain your market dominance, you'll need to learn how to recognize and avoid them.
What do we mean by “consumer data blind spot?”
To put it succinctly, a consumer data blind spot is any error, inaccuracy, missing piece, or misinterpretation in your data sets or your interpretation of data that leads to a meaningful disconnect. Furthermore, because these are blind spots, you aren't aware they actually exist.
As an example, let's say you're buying T-shirts for a group of 10 people. You know the sizes of 9 of those people, so you know that there’s 1 data point missing.
But what you may not realize is that 3 of those people wrote down the wrong shirt size, or that 1 of them lives in a foreign country where shirt sizes work a bit differently.
These are blind spots.
Keep in mind that blind spots aren't just related to inaccurate or incomplete data. They also exist in the context of processing, analyzing, or interpreting data. Our example doesn't work here because T-shirt sizes are unambiguous and require very little high-level consideration. But more complex data sets for more abstract decisions are ripe with opportunities for misinterpretation and botched analysis.
If you want to make better decisions for your business, you need to be able to uncover and either eliminate or account for these blind spots.
So let's look at some of the common blind spots that plague modern business leaders.
Survey creators typically understand the importance of sampling – and getting responses from a representative audience. However, there are fundamental limitations to what surveys can tell you about customers.
Most notably, not everyone likes to participate in surveys. In fact, some people absolutely refuse to do it under any circumstance, even if you bribe them. You may receive enough survey responses to feel confident that you have a representative sample, but that representative sample will always disproportionately reflect the types of people who choose to participate in surveys. Even if it's only slight, this effect can become noticeable on larger scales.
This is especially noticeable in political arenas, where people with certain political beliefs are inherently less likely to participate in surveys. This is one reason why election polls are seemingly becoming less accurate with time, despite better tools and a better understanding of statistics to help us gather and analyze the appropriate data.
Also, we need to understand that customers participating in any kind of survey or feedback mechanism may be incentivized to give responses that don't necessarily align with their true thoughts and feelings. For example, an especially nice person might be unwilling to give a poor review of their experience because they don't want to get the customer service representative who helped them into trouble – or a person having a bad day may give a disproportionately bad review because of their emotional state at the time.
This effect becomes even more exaggerated when you attract more customer feedback through the use of incentives. For example, if you offer your customers a $5 gift card as a reward for completing a survey, you'll naturally attract many people who don't want to waste their time filling out a survey but do want the $5; they're not going to think about their responses very much, as they just want to get the survey done and over with.
This doesn't mean that you can't use surveys, focus groups, or structures for collecting customer feedback. On the contrary, these can be very good sources of consumer data. However, you need to account for this uncertainty. Just because most of your customers are leaving positive feedback doesn't mean you're making the best possible impact.
Most of you reading this will already be familiar with confirmation bias, but it’s an important concept that bears repeating for a very crucial reason: many people believe themselves to be exempt from this effect. In fact, many people believe themselves to be exempt from biases in general. It's only natural, as this is, in itself a bias: the illusory superiority effect.
As a refresher, confirmation bias is the tendency for people to exaggerate the importance of pieces of evidence that align with their preconceived ideas and downplay the importance of pieces of evidence that don't align with their preconceived ideas. It's a way of using the data to validate your preexisting conclusions, rather than to challenge them or naturally guide you to a new conclusion.
In our experience, confirmation bias is an insidious and notorious effect in the higher echelons of Fortune 500 companies. Instead of starting with a neutral view, leaders often form assumptions, then look to the data to try and prove themselves right.
In some ways, this is actually a byproduct of competence, knowledge, and experience. If you've spent the last 30 years in a certain niche, perfecting your professional skill set, you can and should feel confident about your abilities. You'll also develop a kind of sixth sense for the industry, giving you a legitimate way to “feel things out” even without data.
However, this can also lead to overconfidence and arrogance, causing leaders to assume that their assumptions are correct – and unintentionally ignore pieces of data that disagree with them.
Fortunately, there's a somewhat easy fix here. Even if it's only temporary, you have to assume the opposite of what you actually believe – and try to prove your initial assumptions wrong. In other words, you need to flip confirmation bias’s effects on its head, disproportionately weighing evidence that disagrees with you. If you can't possibly prove yourself wrong, you know you're onto something.
Organizations have also developed a tendency to ignore or underplay outliers. Outliers are data points that don't conform to trends or expectations. For example, let's say that 95 percent of your orders arrive at their destination between 3 and 5 business days after shipping. However, there are some orders that arrive in only one business day, and there are a couple of examples of orders that arrive after 25 business days.
In this example, it's easy to see that the outliers need to be examined. What caused such a massive delay in the shipments that took 25 business days? Why did that happen? How can you prevent it? Even if it only happened to one person out of thousands, it's still something that warrants looking into.
At scale, and in other matters, it's easy to write off outliers. And in some cases, it may be genuinely appropriate to do so. However, generally, it's important to at least acknowledge the presence of outliers and determine why they are outliers. Doing so can help you better understand the mainstream trends even better – and possibly help consumers who are otherwise neglected or ignored.
Black Swan theory, developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, seeks to examine and explain human behaviors related to major, surprising, transformative events that seemingly emerge out of nowhere. For example, nobody saw the 2008 financial crisis coming – and yet, with the benefit of hindsight, everyone becomes an economics expert who insists that the signs were all there.
The truth is, before a major, disruptive event, even the best experts in a given field are unsuspecting. After all, the status quo is the status quo for a reason, and the longer that status quo has existed, the longer we assume it will continue into the future.
But if you want to better understand your audience and make better decisions within your organization, you need to understand that Black Swan events can and do happen – and they tend to happen when you least expect them.
These events are, by nature, unpredictable, so don't bother trying to predict them. Instead, assume that major disruptive events can occur within your target demographics, such as a sudden shift to adopting a new technology or making significant spending cuts.
The proper way to approach this is to make your business agile and ready to respond to almost any conceivable crisis. Assume that you don't know and can't predict everything, and be ready to shift on a moment’s notice.
Blind spots can also emerge as a byproduct of overrelying on data. Yes, data is objective and it's the perfect foundation for decision making. However, if you treat data as a God and you assume that decisions can be made with raw data alone, you'll set yourself up for failure.
· The limitations of quantitative data. First, you need to understand that quantitative data does have limitations. Just because the solution looks good on paper doesn't mean that it works well in real life, and at the same time, not everything can be easily quantified. If you ask a person how happy they are on a scale of 1 to 10, and they say 6, what the hell does that actually mean? Different people can mean different things with the same number, so while it's not totally useless, it's also not perfectly accurate. We simply can't rely on quantitative data for everything.
· Historical data vs. future data. Second, you need to understand that historical data doesn't necessarily predict future data. Today, we have powerful data analytics engines fueled by machine learning and AI, but these tools can only help us project existing trends into the future; predictive analytics engines can't magically predict new technologies that emerge or consumer behavioral patterns that evolve. Just because something has trended a certain way in the past doesn't mean it will continue to trend that way in the future.
· Overconfidence. For the past couple of decades, writers and analysts everywhere have been extolling the virtues of “data-driven decision making,” and for good reason. But this has sort of poisoned leadership mentalities in Fortune 500 companies in various industries; leaders have come to assume that raw data is everything, and that it can be trusted inherently on every matter. This overconfidence makes blind spots worse, since you'll have no reason to actively search them out.
So far, we've looked at general and relatively timeless factors related to consumer data blind spots. But now, we need to turn your attention to an upcoming, specific event.
Despite several delays, Google and other major tech companies are preparing for the imminent death of third party cookies. If you've been relying on third party cookies to fuel your marketing and advertising campaigns, this is going to cause major ripples in your understanding of consumer data. If you haven't already been preparing for this shift, you're behind schedule.
Already, most organizations have begun to reoptimize their internal approach to gathering and analyzing consumer data. They're relying much more on first party data as well as internal financial data to better understand campaign performance and appeal to their customers more effectively.
We'll close out this article with a brief list of tips that can help you correct consumer data blind spots generally, as we only covered a small fraction of potential blind spots in this article.
· Rely on many independent sources of data. Blind spots shrink and eventually disappear when you gather data from more diverse sources. If a combination of surveys, focus groups, statistical analysis, behavioral analysis, and competitive research all tell you the same things, you can generally trust them.
· Blend quantitative and qualitative data. Quantitative data is great, but you also need qualitative data if you want to truly understand your consumers. Don't just ask them to rate their satisfaction on a scale of 1 to 10; prompt them for comments to explain their reasoning for the number they selected. It takes more time and it's more abstract, but it can lead you to better conclusions.
· Zoom in on outliers. Your natural inclination is to gloss over or completely ignore outliers. But instead, you should zoom in. Oftentimes, outliers hold the most critical pieces of information for better understanding a topic.
· Predict the unpredictable. You can't predict Black Swan events. But you can operate under the assumption that there's always a Black Swan event on the horizon. Consider the types of disruptions that could significantly influence your consumers and your organization, and develop strategies to respond to these disruptions with agility. Building more resilience into your organization is a useful auxiliary approach as well.
· Always estimate certainty fairly. Finally, approach your analyses and your decisions with a conscious, deliberate estimation of your certainty. How certain is your conclusion, based on what you know? This forces you to study areas of limited knowledge and more accurately assess your own understanding.
Are you interested in tackling your consumer data blind spots?
Do you need help better understanding your audience, your competitors, and the strategies you need to get an edge in the modern era?
Marketer.co is here for you. If you’re ready to take the next step, contact us for a free consultation today!
This past year, we had a massive opportunity to help a Fortune 100 company with their SEO efforts.
We’ll call it “Company A” for the sake of discretion.
As you can imagine, Company A was no stranger to SEO.
The marketing team at Company A had been managing a robust SEO strategy for many years – and they had a lot to show for it. They had strategically important target keywords, a relatively high domain authority, and an impressive spectrum of keyword rankings worth showing off.
But they wanted more. Naturally.
So they came to us. And we helped them spearhead a new campaign that pushed their search engine dominance even higher – and set them up for even more momentum to come.
Let’s take a look at how we helped a Fortune 100 company increase their keyword rankings by 45 percent.
Our initial engagement focused on consulting and strategic analysis. We wanted to understand Company A’s current goals, philosophy in marketing, and previous SEO efforts.
After a few meetings and a deep dive into their existing strategic targets and needs, we collaboratively developed a strategy we felt would make the biggest impact.
3 Months
So far, our campaign has lasted 3 months. That's not a lot of time in the SEO world; it's ample to see meaningful results, but the best campaigns last many years.
Still, we wanted to make the most of the time we had and prove that our efforts were worth continuing.
1 Vital Page
Company A had 1 particularly important internal page in mind for development. Naturally, we also wanted to build the company’s domain authority more broadly.
6 Vital Keywords
We decided to focus our efforts on 6 vital keywords with strategic value for the client. Each of these keywords had significant search volume, a high degree of relevance, and a host of powerful competitors vying for them.
If we wanted to increase rankings for these keywords, we would need to make our efforts count.
4 Waves of Link Building
Our role in this campaign was, primarily, link building.
Our link building efforts unfolded across 4 separate waves, each with a blend of diverse offsite targets. The goal was to build links across a variety of different websites with different DA scores – and maximize relevance to readers and publishers. We also mixed up our publication schedules and timing to make sure our links would be as natural and organic as possible.
Now for the juicy part – the results.
How much did Company A benefit from our new campaign?
First, let’s talk about their most valuable target keywords.
We’ll anonymize the keywords for the sake of discretion. For each keyword, we’ll show you the original ranking, the gain in ranking (in parentheses), and the final ranking (in bold).
· Keyword 1. 13 (+11) > 2
· Keyword 2. 18 (+16) > 2
· Keyword 3. 22 (+19) > 3
· Keyword 4. 11 (+1) > 10
· Keyword 5. 100 (+93) > 7
· Keyword 6. 16 (+7) > 9
Note that these keywords are highly competitive, head keywords. All 6 of their most valuable keywords are now on page 1, despite none of them being on page 1 before our efforts – including 1 keyword that barely made it to page 10.
On top of that, we led an increase in Company A’s total number of keyword rankings. Company A went from 1,812 ranking keywords to 2,627 today – a nominal increase of 815, or 45 percent.
The page we targeted started with an authority score of 52, and by the end of our campaign, it rose to 57, an increase of nearly 10 percent.
Our results for Company A speak for themselves.
But can we replicate these results?
We’ve had hundreds of engagements with hundreds of clients who can attest to that – and you don’t have to be a Fortune 100 company to benefit from our help.
At Marketer.co, we can help you with everything related to SEO and marketing, including:
· Strategic consulting. Arguably the most important part of your campaign is the strategy and research that happens before you develop a single piece of content. We can help you evaluate your current strategic position, including your domain authority, page authority, keyword rankings, and more. From there, we can help you develop a holistic strategy to achieve your SEO and marketing goals.
· Keyword research. It's important to recognize your most strategically valuable target keywords, based on their relevance to your business and your audience, their search volume, and the level of competition contesting them. Otherwise, you may not achieve your full potential in generating organic traffic or new revenue for your business.
· Content development. Content has been at the heart of SEO for more than a decade, and it continues to be the most important component of your strategy. We can help you not only figure out what types of content you need, but also develop those pieces of content on your behalf. We specialize in both onsite and offsite content.
· Link building. When it's time for link building, we can help you tap into our massive network of publishers to find only the most relevant, highly authoritative, trustworthy referring domains. Whether you're just starting out or are competing with some of the top names in the industry, we'll help you boost your authority numbers and rise to the top of the SERPs.
· Peripheral strategies. As our name suggests, we’re about much more than just SEO (though it is one of our greatest offerings). We can also help you with practically any peripheral marketing or advertising strategy, such as PPC advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing. Many of these strategies complement each other, so it pays to have a dedicated partner who can help you with all of them.
If you liked this case study, you'll really enjoy this bidet marketing example where we took a NEW bidet brand from zero to page one on Google in 18 months.
If you’re interested in learning more about how we achieve such impressive results for our clients, or if you’re ready to get started with a free consultation, contact us today!
There is a wide range of opinions on the practicality of social media marketing. There are the social media loyalists, who insist that social media marketing is the most innovative and important new marketing medium around, there are the naysayers who insist that social marketing is a fad and no real business would use it, and there are countless gray-area business owners in between.
It’s inappropriate to view social media as an all-or-nothing platform. Simply claiming an account and doing nothing won’t help you a bit. Posting regularly and engaging with your target audience can help you build a following—but what then? What is the value of having 10,000 Twitter followers or 10,000 Facebook likes if none of those followers end up making purchases with you?
In order to capture true value from your followers, you’ll have to take further action. You’ll have to make the types of social media content ideas that encourage engagement from your followers and call them to action on your website:
The product highlight is one of the simplest types of converting posts you can take advantage of, and it’s one of the first most businesses consider. The format of your highlight is up to you, but the function of the post is to introduce a new product or service to your follower base and highlight the most important elements of it. For example, if there’s a new dress available on your e-commerce platform, you can post a flattering picture of it and briefly describe the unique benefits of the dress. It’s a way of making a direct appeal to your users and attracting those who otherwise might not see the individual products you sell.
If you have any followers who like your brand but haven’t made a purchase, a consumer review can push them over the edge. In the socially connected digital world, the highest level of trust a brand can achieve is the approval of a peer.
For example, if a follower sees one of his/her friends post a review of a given product on social media platform, he/she will be far more likely to make a purchase.
On your own social media profiles, you can use this to your advantage—cultivate real user reviews, user generated content, and post clips of them to your audience directly!
Exclusivity is a powerful tool for two reasons. First, it makes the deal seem better, simply because fewer people have access to it. Second, it makes each of your followers feel more connected to the brand, like a clique.
Your exclusive discount doesn’t have to be anything extraordinary—something like 10 percent off can be just as effective as anything else. The key is to let your users know it’s an exclusive deal, and not provide that offer through any other social media network.
This post will call your users to immediate action, and increase their loyalty to the brand simultaneously.
The special offer is similar to the exclusive discount, but there are many more options you can play with. For example, you can offer a free sample product to new fans in exchange for filling out a brief questionnaire. This is a common Facebook tactic that gets people to submit their information, ultimately resulting in a conversion (if the acquisition of information qualifies as a conversion for your company) in exchange for something small. If your conversion goals are more tied to actual purchases, you can use something like a “buy one, get one free” offer to attract more purchases.
The giveaway is another tactic that has a dual effect on your conversion rates. The setup for the giveaway is up to you, but the bottom line is that you’re going to give away something valuable for free to one or more of your social media followers.
You’ll select these winners from a pool of participants. It will cost a bit of money to front the giveaway item, but there are two critical effects for this type of post: first, you’ll get people more engaged with the brand.
By taking action in a giveaway-style scenario, they’ll feel more connected to the brand and they’ll be more likely to take action in the future. Second, seeing the giveaway item will prompt people to purchase one for themselves once they learn they haven’t won.
The social incentive can work in the context of other social media ideas—for example, it could work in conjunction with the giveaway or with the exclusive discount. But the goal here is to get your users to share one of your central posts. Hashtags are a useful tool for this, but the mechanism for social sharing is up to you.
Getting your customers to engage your brand through social sharing will make them more likely to take action in the future, and will also serve as peer validation that makes your brand more trustworthy to other followers.
Rather than doting on a specific product or leading people to a specific page, sometimes it’s more advantageous to speak to a specific customer need. Look at why your customers would want a product rather than what they would want—and you can use user surveys to uncover this information.
However you go about it, address the need specifically in your blog post. For example, if you’re selling windshield wiper blades, rather than showcasing the highlights of your new wiper blades, you can introduce them with something like “Are your wipers leaving streaks in the rain?”
Another way to prompt users to action is to call them out on an individual basis. If a follower responds to something you’ve posted, show your appreciation for it. If a follower comments on your page and shows interest in a specific product, give them more information.
Giving that level of personal attention looks great for your brand, and will go far to help drive users to finally make a purchasing decision.
The time-sensitive deal is exactly what it sounds like. When your followers feel like they’re under the pressure of the clock, they’re going to be more driven to action. Sales that last 24 hours or products that are only available for a week can immediately drive more traffic and more conversions—the trick is to post about the deal progressively, so your users can see the time actively running out.
Of course, the power of conversion doesn’t rest solely on social media networks. For many business owners, it’s easier to write engaging content that leads to a conversion onsite. If that’s the case for you, you can use your relevant content as the anchor site for your conversions, and then post a link to it through social media platforms.
With these 10 types of social media post ideas, you can convert your army of followers to an army of real, purchasing customers. In social media marketing you may find that some work better than others, but through trial and error, you should be able to find the right posts to translate your follower numbers to numbers that truly matter—bottom-line revenue.
Just remember that your followers are people, and if you want them to stick around, you’ll have to keep nurturing the community involvement organically.
Have you ever had to manage a fleet of vehicles for business?
It's hard work.
We've never done it, personally, but we're becoming increasingly familiar with the demands of such an operation.
Maintaining a fleet of vehicles effectively requires constant attention to inspections, conditions, warranties, and more – all while trying to keep costs minimal.
A good fleet maintenance software platform can help in all these respects, but it can't help you unless you know it exists.
That was part of the problem for the fleet maintenance software company that came to us with hopes of accelerating to the top rankings in relevant search engine results pages (SERPs).
It was our pleasure to get behind the wheel and take the fast track to greater organic traffic.
Today, they're one of the best and most visible fleet maintenance software companies on the market.
So how did we get there?
Digital marketing is more accessible, yet harder than ever. With so many key competitors fighting for the top spots in SERPs and so many ranking factors to keep track of, it's not straightforward for a business owner to devise or implement an effective SEO strategy.
Admittedly, it's not hard to reach rank 1 for a keyword, assuming you don't have preferences for what that keyword is. There are plenty of long-tail phrases that are unpopular and undesirable enough that even a modicum of SEO investment can put you in the top spot.
But this isn't good enough for a fleet maintenance software company that wants real leads and real sales.
If we were going to truly help this team of fleet maintenance professionals, we would need to adopt a much more strategic, targeted approach.
We had a need for speed – a genuine desire to see results as quickly as possible.
Of course, we were somewhat limited by the nature of SEO, which requires months, and sometimes years of effort to see meaningful results.
That's why we started an 18 month campaign, so we would have plenty of time to flesh out our strategy – and still prioritize relatively quick results.
· Strategy and keyword analysis. In the SEO world, everything starts with a strategic analysis. We took a look at the fleet maintenance industry, including competitors, and did a close examination of strategically viable keyword targets. For this campaign, we wanted to focus heavily on keywords that were directly relevant to the brand and its customers. There was no reason to try and achieve rankings or traffic for audiences that weren't going to be interested in buying the product.
· Technical onsite optimization. Good campaigns also rely on technical onsite optimization. We need to make sure that our clients’ websites load consistently, quickly, and across all devices and browsers. We also need to make sure to fulfill as many technical ranking factors as possible.
· Onsite content development. Strong onsite content is still an ideal foundation for any SEO campaign, as it lends itself to higher website authority, more relevant keyword optimization, and better opportunities for inbound linking.
· Offsite content and link building. Much of our work focused on establishing a more powerful superhighway leading to this client's website. We developed content featured in a wide range of different offsite publishers for this client, building links throughout the process. This offsite work supported visibility, referral traffic, and of course, higher authority that could lead to higher search engine rankings.
No SEO campaign is without its minor hiccups and deviations. In fact, this is a critical part of the process. As we closely analyzed our own methods and our client’s performance, we were able to learn more about this unique SEO niche – and eventually deploy the tactics necessary to help this fleet maintenance software company dominate their top competitors.
Some of the most impressive results of our efforts include:
· Exclusively relevant keywords. Some brands can afford to target general audiences. But most people aren't business owners, and most business owners don't have a fleet of vehicles to maintain and manage. Accordingly, we knew we needed to be as specific and highly relevant as possible in our optimization campaign. We targeted relevant keywords almost exclusively, prioritizing and highlighting only the keywords most likely to result in sales.
· 2.5x increase in organic traffic. As a result of our combined SEO tuning efforts, we were able to provide this client with a 2.5-fold increase in organic traffic. In other words, this client is now seeing two and a half times as much traffic from search engines as they were before this campaign started. And because we exclusively targeted relevant keywords, we can be reasonably assured that this traffic is chock full of qualified leads and potential buyers.
· 3x increase in total ranking keywords. We were able to multiply the number of total ranking keywords for this client by a factor of three. They're now appearing in searches for three times as many keywords and phrases. Almost any relevant search for this type of product will feature this brand.
· 4x increase in ranking keywords in positions 1-4. Visibility can be a tricky thing in SEO, as high rankings are disproportionately valuable. For this fleet maintenance software company, we were able to achieve a four-fold increase in ranking keywords in positions 1-4. Positions 1-4 represent roughly the top half of the first page – and websites in these positions receive the lion’s share of the traffic for a given query. These high rankings are largely responsible for the massive increase in organic traffic we were able to provide this client.
Are you ready to hit the road and leave your competitors in the dust?
Are you looking for only the best results for only the most relevant target keywords in your industry?
We’re ready to copilot.
If you’re ready to start the conversation or searching for a digital marketing agency, reach out for a free consultation today!
Social media marketing has been popular for years, and according to our recent “What Works in Online Marketing” survey, it’s still on an upward trajectory. Marketing professionals everywhere are looking to increase their social media marketing budgets, while marketers and entrepreneurs who haven’t yet tapped the enormous potential of the strategy are scrambling to make up for lost time.
Still, there are marketers out there apprehensive about getting involved with social media marketing, mostly concerned about its effectiveness and its long-term viability. These are legitimate concerns; on a superficial level, it’s easy to understand why one might view social media marketing as a fad, and the relative unpredictability of bottom-line results can be troublesome to the uninitiated.
If you’re concerned about the potential return of social media marketing, I encourage you to first look at the costs. Social media is extremely affordable, especially considering the level of returns you can potentially earn, and being aware of its estimated costs can help you budget your strategy efficiently.(NOTE: this article explores the organic side of social media marketing. Paid social advertising is not taken into consideration here).
First, let’s take a look at the potential cost bases for social media marketing. Claiming accounts and posting on social media is completely free for almost any platform, so what you’ll actually be paying for is the human effort it takes to manage a strategy.
There are four main options to work with here, each with its own advantages and disadvantages.
(Image Source: UpWork)
It’s important to note that how much you invest and what you invest in has a direct bearing on the results you’re going to achieve. For example, if you’re only interested in setting up a basic network for social visibility, you can invest a pittance, but if you’re interested in building an audience of thousands, you’ll need to invest significantly more.
This makes it difficult to project any one “standard” cost basis for social media advertising, but I shall do my best to present the general considerations you’ll need to bear in mind when creating your overall marketing budget (including, PPC & SEO prices).
Now, let’s take a look at the individual elements of a social media marketing campaign, and approximately how much they could cost. For the most part, we’ll be looking at raw man-hours of work here, rather than a monetary value, because your mode of work will modify the final cost as a critical variable.
Don’t overlook the strategy and planning portion of social media marketing. If you go in without a formalized plan, you’ll have no goals to reach for, no direction on what to do, and your team members will end up wasting time. You should spend many hours doing competitive research, researching your demographics, learning best practices for social media, and eventually coming up with a step-by-step game plan for success, formally documented to ensure accountability. This can take days or weeks of work, depending on the depth of your strategic aims, but the good news is it only needs to be done once (future modifications aside).
Next up, you have setup costs, which include the time cost of finding and claiming your individual social media profiles. If your business already has these, you can skip this step, but if not, you’ll have to go through the motions of establishing your social presence. For the most part, this is simple; take a look at how easy Twitter’s initial signup process is:
(Image Source: Twitter)Admittedly, there are a few steps beyond this, but they still aren’t complicated. The hard part is filling in all the details, like your hours of operation, business description, and some basic images for people to find you with. Still, even if you’re claiming an account on every major social media platform, it should only take you a day or so to wrap everything up.
The bulk of your strategy is going to revolve around creating posts. These can take a number of different forms, but the bottom line goal for each one is to provide some meaningful content to your audience:
(Image Source: SkilledUp)Ultimately, your posting strategy will probably take 1-3 hours per day, possibly more if you’re pursuing an aggressive strategy.
Engagement is the other side of social media marketing, and I would argue, the more important of the two. Engagement is the truly “social” element of social media—here, you’ll be responding to inbound posts, answering questions, and otherwise interacting with your audience. Without these community engagements, your social media platforms will function more as a megaphone than a means of conversation, and your users will become disinterested.
It’s hard to estimate exactly how much your engagement will take, since at least half of it is based on how many people you have reaching out to you. Some days, you may be flooded with inquiries, and others you may get none. In either case, you’ll have to check in to look for new notifications and initiate some engagements of your own. Count on at least an hour a day here.
Also consider the fact that your social media strategy will be tied to other marketing strategies your brand utilizes. I’ve already mentioned how social media plays into your existing content marketing strategy, but your SEO strategy will also be indirectly affected; engaging with influencers can help you in both these areas. Email marketing, specific sales, and other promotional strategies may all require additional or special efforts from your social campaign, so count on some extra time expenditures for those.
(Image Source: IAG.me)
Once you get past the hurdle of building an initial social media following, you’ll start having to post more often, engage more frequently, and keep track of more complicated statistics. It’s almost impossible to do that all alone, so you’ll probably need some assistance with tracking software, post schedulers, and organizational tools to improve your efficiency. There are dozens of tools like this on the market, most of which require a paid subscription, and you’ll need at least a few of them to keep things moving. Overall, you’ll end up paying a few hundred dollars a month in these tools; it’s possible to scrape by without them, but they do add a lot of value to your campaign, especially at higher levels.
(Image Source: Sprout Social)
Finally, you’ll need to spend time measuring and analyzing your performance. You can use some of the tools you subscribe to, but you’ll still end up pouring in a few hours a month to compile and draw conclusions from the data. The hardest part here is forming actionable takeaways, which you can feasibly use to update your original social media strategy and refine your approach for your future campaign execution.
It’s hard to ballpark a “general” amount of time needed for social media marketing, but as you can see, you’ll need to count on at least several hours per week—at larger scales, you can probably justify a full-time dedicated position.
Now, let’s take a look at the two key variables that will influence how much you need to spend to be successful in your campaign:
Take a look at these key considerations for niche and scale, and how they’ll influence your overall budget.
Look at how much your competitors seem to be investing in social media marketing, and how they seem to be investing it. This is going to tell you three things:
This is mostly going to be dependent on your demographics, but your type of business may also come into play here. Think carefully about how active your users are going to be on social media; if they’re highly active, you’ll need to invest far more time into posting and engaging with them. If they’re more passive, you can let off the gas. For example, younger generations tend to be more active on social media than older generations, but you’ll also need to consider where your business fits in; will people be coming to you with complaints and questions regularly? Or are you the type of brand people only need once every few years?
Some businesses are naturally going to have more posting opportunities on social media than others; this is inherent to your industry and the types of actions your company takes on a regular basis. This is best illustrated by example.
Consider National Geographic, a brand that prides itself on photography. Instagram and National Geographic were a match made in heaven because National Geographic can use the photos it’s already taking as the fodder for its campaign.
(Image Source: National Geographic/Hubspot)This is a form of corporate multitasking; if the bulk of your posted content can come from actions your company is already doing, you’ll require substantially less investment of man-hours than a company trying to develop all its content from scratch, 100 percent of the time. The reverse of this is that to be successful in social media, you may have to go out of your way to find more opportunities to post.
This is a complicated variable, because there are no right or wrong answers, and there’s an infinite combination of approaches you can take. Eventually, you’ll have to settle on one group of different social media channels to support your brand. The types of platforms you choose will have a massive impact on how much time you’ll need to invest to keep your following growing.
For example, Twitter is a platform that’s fast-paced and generally built on in-the-moment content consumption. You’ll have to check in to Twitter more frequently than something like LinkedIn, and you’ll probably have more engagements to worry about as well. Instagram, on the other hand, is a bit slower paced, but also demands the more complex task of finding images to post. Obviously, working on more social media platforms is going to mean more costs, and sometimes those extra costs aren’t met by an equal rise in rewards. Consider your platforms carefully to maximize your efficiency.
Depending on the nature of your business, you may also consider using social media for multiple different purposes. The SaaS industry, in particular, has high enough demand and enough of a digitally active user base to qualify it for hosting multiple accounts. As an example, SalesForce uses many different social profiles to host its many different options, services, and functions, from support to careers and options for developers:
(Image Source: Twitter)All of these will take extra time and effort to manage, so bear that in mind when outlining your strategy.
Now that you know the different types of costs you’ll need to account for, let’s explore the pros and cons of each type of social media management pricing model you can use, as well as approximate costs for each option.
Full-time workers, as a model, are the hardest to gauge from the outset. Do you need one full-time staff member? If so, and you end up requiring fewer than 40 hours of work per week, you may end up wasting time and money. Can you dump your social media responsibilities onto the plate of someone who’s already a full-time staff member? Feasibly, but at what point do you need to scale?
In any case, the costs here can be prohibitive. If you’re hiring a professional (as you should), you’ll end up paying at least $40,000 a year in salary and benefits, which translates to between $3-4,000 a month. Feasibly, you can split the responsibilities here, but even if you’re only using 10 man-hours per week, that still translates to $1,000 a month. You’ll also have a hard time with the scaling process; eventually, one worker will be overwhelmed, and you’ll have to hire a second. The learning curve here is steep, and the costs only get steeper as you add more team members.
(Image Source: PayScale)
Consultants and freelancers tend to be less expensive than full-time hires for a variety of reasons:
However, freelancers are also less reliable and somewhat harder to find, and you may experience growing pains as you try to manage all your workers at once. On an hourly basis, fresh freelancers may charge as little as $20 an hour, on up to hundreds of dollars an hour for experienced consultants.
For the most part, agencies and marketing firms are an ideal investment. They carry a number of advantages over both full-time workers and freelancers:
The only downside is that agencies can be costly, depending on the scale of your campaign. Average costs range from $500 a month for starter packages to $10,000 a month or more for national brands. Chances are, you’ll only need a smaller package, but even a few hundred dollars a month can be intimidating if you’re just starting out.
Of course, the best all-around model is probably the hybrid model, because it allows you to pick and choose a plan that’s going to net you the best results within your budget. For example, you may hire a person full-time whose partial responsibility is picking and choosing freelancers to support the majority of your platforms. Or you might invest in a social media agency as part of a monthly retainer, while still using your staff members to help fill in the gaps.
If you’ve read this far, you’ve undoubtedly developed a better idea of why it’s so hard to project accurate social media marketing costs in the first place. There are too many variables to possibly narrow down the costs to any one specific figure.
Still, I’d like to try and break down the costs for a number of different campaigns and phases of development:
Now that I’ve estimated the overall costs of a social media marketing campaign for small, average, and large businesses, I’d like to leave you with a handful of final takeaways:
Ultimately, your social media marketing campaign’s costs are going to depend on your niche, your competition, and most importantly, your goals. With the right social media strategy and enough commitment, an increase in expenditures is going to correlate with an increase in eventual return, so if you want to see the best possible results, don’t skimp. Do your research, get the best deal you can, and pick the options that are going to work best for your business.
Social media marketing remains one of the most popular online marketing strategies because of its approachability, versatility, cost effectiveness, and best of all—its potential for long-term growth.
As your audience grows, all of your efforts become more effective—you'll be reaching a bigger audience, sporting more engagements, and accordingly, you'll get a higher return on investment for everything you post.
The key, therefore, is building a big enough audience to yield those returns, and that means attracting more followers.
So, how do you get more followers?
Here are 101 ways to attract and retain new social media followers.
First, I want to clear up a few misconceptions about what having lots of followers really means. The "follower" metric may change in name—"followers" on Twitter and Instagram may translate to "likes" on Facebook, "connections" on LinkedIn, and "subscribers" on YouTube—but in function, it remains relatively consistent. These are people who have noted your brand as one to stay in touch with online, and they'll receive updates from you as you post them. In theory, the bigger this number is, the better; having more people to distribute content too means your content will get more viewers, and it's an indirect measure of your brand's popularity.
However, don't get too carried away by this idea. The quality of your followers matters a great deal as well; for example, you'll see much higher engagement and effectiveness with a strong, loyal, dedicated audience of 100 than you will with a disinterested, apathetic audience of 1,000. This is why it's vital that you avoid buying cheap likes or followers directly, and instead attract them naturally with your own content and ongoing efforts.
It's okay to use each social network's paid platform to buy followers (such as buying likes through Facebook's own platform), but avoid buying likes or followers from third-party vendors, as these followers will actually do more harm than good – they're usually fake accounts or disinterested people who get paid some small amount of money to "like" or follow online brands all day.They'll almost certainly stop following you after a short amount of time, and even if they continue to follow you, they'll have no interest, and thus no engagement, in your posts. This lack of engagement will cause social network algorithms to consider your content as being lower quality than it actually is, which can cause your organic reach to fall. This, in turn, causes you to have to pay more to achieve the organic visibility you otherwise could have had.
Imagine a brand – brand A – that has 100 real followers, and averages 30 engagements per post. That's a 30% engagement rate. Now, imagine a competitor –brand B – that has 100 real followers, and 100 bought fake followers (for a total of 200 followers). Each post still gets 30 engagements, for a 15% engagement rate. Facebook and other social networks take note of your engagement rate and give priority to brands that tend to have higher engagement rates. So, by purchasing 100 fake followers, brand B reduced its engagement rate, which causes its organic reach to drop, compared to brand A.
Now, brand A has less followers than brand B, but it actually reaches more people with each post. This is why more followers can lead to more value for your brand, but only if you truly earn them.
With that being said, let's dig into how you can earn more followers for your brand. I'll start by exploring some general tactics and approaches you can use to attract more followers, then dig into a handful of strategies for each of five major social media platforms that matter most: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, and YouTube.
These are ways to get new followers on virtually any platform:
Your first tactic for attracting new followers happens before you draft your first post, and before you even claim your social media profiles. You have to come up with a strategy for what type of followers you're going to attract and how you're going to attract them. Who are you trying to target? What types of platforms do these users rely on for communication? How do they use those platforms? What content do they need to read? The more specifically you can target a niche, the better. Plus, you'll need to consider your competition, differentiating yourself as much as possible so you stand out in the crowd.
When you move to claim your brand's profiles on various social media sites, make sure you're filling out your profiles completely. If you just have a company name with no description, people won't have any idea what to expect from you, and they probably won't end up following you. On the other hand, if you have a profile that's completely filled out, not only will users have a greater volume of more accurate information with which to make a decision, they'll also see that you take your presence seriously. This isn't a difficult or time-consuming process, so there's no excuse not to do it.
(Image Source: Facebook)
As you're filling out your profile, you'll want to spend some time optimizing it for keywords and phrases that your target audience might search for. For example, if you run a pet store, you might use phrases like "pet store in Seattle," or "best pet supply store in Seattle." Most users rely on Google and other general-form search engines to conduct their searches, and you'll get some potential ranking benefits here, but this is more targeted to users looking for brand profiles on social media sites specifically, using their respective search functions.
If you want people to follow you, you need to make it easy for them. Most people won't go out of their way to find a company on social media, but if they see a convenient link to a company's profile page, they might take that bit of extra effort. For starters, make sure you include links to your social profiles on your website, both on the homepage and on your contact page. You'll also want to include these links on as many outbound communications as you can (such as email footers), and display your social presence on any physical, tangible marketing assets you may have, such as business cards. The more exposure you give yourself, the better.
Along similar lines, it's far less likely that someone will copy and paste the link to your article on their personal social profiles than it is they'll click a button to share your article directly. Encourage more people to share your material by featuring social share icons on all your blog posts—and don't worry, it's easy to do. This won't allow a person to follow your brand directly, but it will generate much more exposure for your brand on social media channels, which should lead to the pickup of at least a few extra interested followers. Just look at any of the posts on the Marketer.co blog and you'll see our social share buttons, which include counters that show how many times each post has been shared.
If someone has willfully subscribed to your email newsletter, they're interested in your brand. If they weren't, they would have unsubscribed by now. Therefore, everyone on your email subscription should have a vested interest in following you on any social media platforms where your presence exists. Take advantage of this by promoting your strong social media presence via email; start by including links to your main profile pages, but also create calls-to-action such as "be sure to follow us on Twitter for more special offers and the latest updates," and consider embedding social content, such as your brand's latest Instagram photos.
This isn't a glorious tactic, but it is an effective one, especially when you're just starting out. There's something of a "popularity of popularity" effect in social media; people will be more likely to follow you if you already have lots of followers. Accordingly, in the early stages, when you have almost no following to speak of, it will be hard to generate initial momentum. Instead of trying to recruit strangers, simply ask your employees, friends, family members, and other people you know personally to help you out. Most people will be willing to spare the time it takes to click your "follow" button that you set up on your website.
In this same vein, you can make a callout to people with a vested interest in your business, such as clients, partners, and vendors. Depending on the nature of your business, this may be essential to your collaborative operations; for example, clients can get updates about when your app is undergoing maintenance, or your partners can stay in the loop with your latest marketing promotions. Hopefully, you'll be able to pick up at least a few dozen extra followers here, especially if you pledge to follow them all back.
Your brand voice may not seem like it's an important feature of your presentation on social media, but it can have a massive impact on how people interpret your messages. For starters, you'll need to develop a brand voice that's both appealing and distinct from your competition; what makes you unique? What makes you valuable? This could be anything from a wicked sense of humor to an air of almost-overconfident grandeur. Once you settle on a brand voice, keep it consistent across all your platforms and everything you post—any deviations here could make people unfollow you.
Consistency is what's going to make people stick with you for the long haul, so in addition to applying consistency to your brand voice, you'll also need to apply it to the way you post. For example, if you want to become known for producing stellar infographics, you can't post them erratically or unpredictably; try posting a new one once a week, or every other week. Instead of posting updates randomly as you think of them, try to post at the same frequency every day and every week, so people can get used to the rhythm at which you post.
Your on-site content contains some of the most valuable marketing assets your brand has. Promoting them via links on your social media platforms has a two-pronged effect; first, you'll fill your social feeds with more valuable material that your followers will appreciate, and second, you'll promote your content so it becomes more visible and more effective. When you do this, make sure you pair your article with a catchy, compelling headline or lead-in; your original headline may be suitable, but be sure to adjust it if it needs some extra flair.
As a general rule, you'll want to post at least once every day (with possible exceptions for the weekends). First, this gives your users a degree of consistency; people will be more likely to continue following you if you're providing them with a consistent flow of content. Second, this shows your commitment to being active. New prospective followers who browse through your older posts will see how consistent you are in posting every day, and will be more likely to follow you. Just keep in mind that some platforms—like Twitter and other fast-paced feeds—typically favor multiple posts per day.
Live streaming video is one of the more recent fads taking over social media. Because Internet speeds are faster and more available, users are equipped with mobile devices, and they're demanding more in-the-moment content, live video has become a majorly popular form of engagement. Consider doing a live feed on your Facebook profile (or through Periscope on Twitter). As for the topic or situation, that's up to you. You could live-stream your attendance of a speaking event, give a monologue, or even host a Q&A session that keeps your users engaged. Just make sure it's in-the-moment and valuable for your followers.
Don't underestimate the power of a good joke in attracting new followers—even if your brand voice is traditionally more serious. People love jokes because we enjoy the feeling of pleasure we get from laughing; this feeling draws us closer to the brands and people that made us laugh in the first place, and also compels us to share that feeling with others. This is why especially clever or humorous jokes have a tendency to get shared and liked thousands of times. It may take you some time to think up something good and original, but when you do, don't hold back.
(Image Source: Twitter)
Hashtags are the social media world's way of categorizing and organizing information; they were originally developed as a way to make it easier for users to search for certain subjects (not to mention introducing their own contributions to search). If you learn to harness them properly, you can optimize your own posts for social searches. For example, if I were to distribute this article on social media I might use categorical tags like #socialmedia or #morefollowers. Just be careful here; if you stuff your posts full of too many hashtags, or if you use hashtags inappropriately, you could end up appearing foolish or amateurish. I have a quick reference guide to proper hashtag use that I published on Forbes.
Don't forget that social media is a two-way street. As much as you want to post and have users comment on your material, other users are making posts and hoping for comments and interaction as well. If you give them those comments, they'll take notice, and they'll be more likely to follow you as a result. Find individual profiles or posts with hashtag searches or with social listening software, and comment on ones you think are interesting. Even something simple like "awesome post! I loved the section about wildebeests" can get you noticed and hopefully, earn you a new follower. Just make sure you're being sincere.
You can also use social listening software and other modes of content discovery on social apps to find discussions that are already in progress. Try to find topics that are in the process of being hotly debated, questions that are in the process of being answered, or other threads of discussion with high levels of user interest. Present yourself as an authority, offering your own perspective and advice (preferably with data or anecdotes to back you up). This will demonstrate your expertise and introduce you to new followers simultaneously, giving you the chance to earn many new followers.
When you first start out, you probably won't see much engagement, but as you start to grow, you'll notice more and more users actively commenting on your posts and engaging with material you publish. When you notice one of these comments, respond to it—you can thank a user for reading your piece, agree or disagree with a point they've made, or ask them for more details about what they think. Anything you do will make you seem more appealing to the user in question, and will make you seem more invested and engaging to other prospective followers.
(Image Source: Twitter)
You should also take some time to follow accounts that are relevant to your brand. You can start with "who to follow" and similar suggestions on each platform, and use search features to find more. This will have a number of different effects. First, your newsfeed will start filling with more diverse forms of content (and therefore more opportunities to share and engage). Second, your activity will be noticed by those accounts, and many of them will reciprocate by following you back. Finally, you'll be introduced to more users who might be interested in your brand. A good place to start is by identifying your competitors' social media profiles, then finding a list of their followers (which is typically easy to do). Simply follow your competitors' followers and you'll target people who have already expressed an interest in your competitors' products or services.
Sharing is a powerful tool in the social media world, and it's not one you should neglect. Take the time to peruse content that's being posted by other people in your industry, influencers, as well as some of your individual followers. When you find something your audience would find interesting, share it. You'll help fill your daily "valuable content" quota, and you'll simultaneously make someone's day. If you share a user's content, they'll be far more likely to share some of yours in the future.
Influencers are social media users who already have access to lots of followers and command a ton of admiration in their respective fields. Even getting mentioned by an influencer could potentially expose you to hundreds of thousands of new users, so it's in your best interest to find out who these people are and keep track of them. Keep an eye on how and when they post and jump on any opportunities you see to engage with them directly. For example, if they involve themselves in a discussion, you can debate them or back up their points with your own data. Or you could go the direct route and ask them a question of your own. The key is to get yourself noticed, and hopefully mentioned. You can use BuzzSumo to find influencers quickly and easily in any niche.
If you want to go a step beyond just engaging with influencers, you can go out of your way to promote their material. This might involve sharing one of their posts with your audience, or something more involved like writing a follow-up or response to their original pieces. Either way, this is a fast way to get noticed, and if you continue scratching their backs, they'll be more likely to scratch yours. They may share some of your content once they notice how active you are, or you might open the opportunity to ask for a favor directly.
Speaking of asking for favors, as you build up your relationship with a given influencer, you may eventually ask for an opportunity to collaborate on a piece of joint content. There are many ways to collaborate in content marketing, and any of them can be valuable; for example, you could engage in an interview, each write a different section of a cumulative piece, or each contribute a bit of research to a bigger whole. The advantage here is that you'll be able to cross-promote your piece, giving you access to a huge new breadth of new followers.
Contests are somewhat gimmicky ways to attract new followers, but you can't argue with results. The idea here is that you'll offer the general public an incentive for engaging with your brand. You might ask them to "like" your Facebook page, follow you on a given platform, share a piece of your content, or use a specific hashtag strategy. If they do so, you'll give them a chance to win a prize (either randomly or determined by some round of evaluation, as decided by you). Contests give users a reason to engage with your brand, and are highly shareable, making them prime opportunities to attract new followers. The only downside is that these users might be more interested in your prize than your actual brand. You can use a tool like Rafflecopter to hold your contests & giveaways.
(Image Source: Social Media Week/STAR Fine Foods)
There's never a bad reason to post visual content on social media. People are far more likely to engage with visual content than they are with written content, and photos are one of the easiest ways to produce it. You don't need to be a professional photographer; in fact, you probably have a pretty decent camera on your phone already. All you have to do is take a picture of something marginally interesting or couple an appropriate image with an interesting caption. There are no rules here; more photos will help you stand out in searches and newsfeeds, giving you more opportunities to attract more followers.
Visual content isn't limited to photography or real-time video, either. You can spend time creating your own visuals and potentially earn even higher follower attraction and engagement rates. If you have access to a professional graphic designer, you can design your own infographics, charts, and graphs to make a huge impression with your followers. But even if you don't, you can create your own illustrations and doodles for a similar effect. Sometimes, the amateurishness of your work can endear you to your users more than sleek professionalism ever could. Don't be afraid to bust out the stick figures.
I already covered the potential of live-streaming video, as well as video as a form of photography, but you can also create graphics-based videos, like the video versions of infographics. These can be used to graphically illustrate abstract concepts, accompany another piece of content like a written article, or simply entertain your audience. These generally take some time to develop, and require the hand of an experienced designer, but their engagement rates tend to be high.
Social media is also a valuable place to sneak preview any new features, new products, or other company developments before they officially go live. This is a way to reward your existing followers for following you, which will increase your retention rates, but it's also a way to seem more appealing to fans of your brand who aren't following you yet. If your concepts are interesting, they'll be shared often, introducing you to extended sections of your target audience. Plus, you'll be able to gather some initial feedback before you finalize your concepts.
Trending topics are ones that are seeing exceptionally high posting volume. They tend to last only a few days or weeks, but at their peak, millions of users will be posting about and looking for content about the trend. Generally, these are categorized with hashtags, enabling you to research the latest trends manually by monitoring posting rates. However, you can also use social listening software, or specific content research software like BuzzSumo or Google Trends to find out what new topics are trending. Just make sure you have something valuable to say about the topic and aren't just brandishing it as a tool to boost your own popularity.
(Image Source: Hashtagify)
times are more valuable than others when it comes to social media posts. For example, most platforms see a spike in activity around the noon hour, but each platform has its quirks. For example, Pinterest sees far higher rates on weekends, while Twitter declines sharply after about 3 pm on weekdays. You can aim to post at the most popular usage times to get in front of more people, but keep in mind that others are pursuing this strategy as well—it may be worth testing your posts during off times, when your content is less likely to be lost amidst the noise.
Social shares are a powerful way to get new followers; when a user shares a piece of your content, it's instantly exposed to a new audience you previously had no access to. Moreover, this kind of share functions as a kind of personal recommendation—if your friend shared a piece of content, you'll be more likely to read it than if a stranger offered it. Try to make your content more shareable to achieve this. You can do this by making it more entertaining, more surprising, more practical, or by appealing to some specific emotion. For further help on making content shareable, see What Makes Content Shareable & Why It Matters for SEO.
As your brand grows in prominence, you'll start getting questions from social media users looking for advice on topics in your niche. When you encounter this, answer those questions—give a good answer, and you'll almost certainly win a new follower, while also getting more visibility for other prospective followers. If users aren't asking you questions directly, you can use social media search functions to seek those questions out and answer them the best you can.
Consider hosting live events at your office or in the general vicinity, and live update those events as they unfold. For example, you could host a lineup of local speakers to talk about their journeys in entrepreneurship to a local business audience. Use social media to announce and promote the event, getting as many signups as possible, then use those platforms to soft broadcast the event to your followers from all around the country. Take photos and video, and keep your users updated as the event rolls on with quotes and key takeaways.
If you're looking for an alternative way to gain more followers and please your existing customers are the same time, consider adopting social media as a branch of your customer service department. This is especially useful if you offer a tech product, like Software-as-a-Service (SaaS). You can use your social profiles to keep users abreast of new updates, downtime, how-to guides, and tips, and answer any user queries that come in. Some brands even create specific "help" channels on social media for this purpose—but that designation is up to you.
One of the most important elements of a modern content marketing strategy is getting featured on external publications. The idea is to write guest posts for other blogs and include links back to your own site; doing this helps you increase your brand visibility, reputation, and earns you referral traffic (not to mention higher organic search rankings). But don't underestimate the social media potential here; as long as your author profile features links to your social profiles (as it should), this representation will give you yet another outlet to earn new followers. You'll get even more exposure if those external publications then share your content on their own social media channels while tagging you in the posts (which they usually do).
Take a look at when and how your competitors are posting and find a way to complement it. This will help you stand out in users' social media feeds, and may help you target a differentiated segment of your shared audience. For example, if you notice that your competitors frequently post around midday on weekdays, consider targeting the early-morning or evening crowd instead. Just make sure you measure your effectiveness here and make adjustments as necessary.
Notice how prominent the differentiation theme is here—it's critical if you want to attract and retain a following of your own. Take note of the types of things your competitors are posting and try to offer something different. Do they tend to focus on written content updates, in short bursts? Opt for longer-form material or visual assets to complement them. Do they tend to focus on how-to and tutorial content? Try more advanced troubleshooting, buyer's guide, or alternative forms of helpful content.
This is where your analytics platform of choice is going to come in handy. I highly recommend using Google Analytics to analyze your incoming traffic. When you get all set up, take the time to analyze how your posts are performing. Posts that attract the most likes, shares, comments, and click-throughs should be regarded as "successful." What is it that these posts share in common? Try to pin it down to a handful of key features and replicate those features in your campaign's future.
Conversely, you should also look at some of your worst-performing posts. Are there any posts that received significantly less interaction? Are there some that users tended to respond to negatively? What was it about these posts that made them fail? This happens to everyone; you just have to learn from the experience and move on.
Sometimes, the best way to get shares is to simply ask for them directly. If you have a breakout piece of content you think is worthy of being shared, ask your followers to help you by spreading it outward. For example, you can frame your post by saying, "we spent a lot of time researching the topic and want this information in public hands, so help us out by sharing with your friends and followers." Don't do this for every post, or even most of your posts; instead, reserve your requests for only the content that you feel most confident in.
Most brands try to play it as safe as possible, sticking to familiar subjects and familiar themes they know their audiences will like. And it's true that sticking to objectively valuable, appreciated topics is a sure bet to see a positive return. However, occasionally it's worth the risk to stir up some controversy. Posting a strong opinion, going against the norm, or doing something that's shocking or unexpected can have a dramatic effect on how you attract new followers. You'll generate discussion, gain more visibility, and polarize your audience, leading to more (and more loyal) followers in the process.
Let your social media followers know when you have something big in the works. For example, you can announce that your company is launching a new product, reveal that you've reached a major milestone, or unveil your plans to move the company. Doing this shows that you value your readers, and just as importantly, you'll stir up lots of likes and comments. In turn, this will increase your visibility to prospective followers and increase the size of your audience.
(Image Source: Facebook)
People want to be rewarded for following you. Providing content and entertaining, informative posts is a good start, but you can go a step further by offering your audience exclusive deals, specials, and promotions. For example, you might post a coupon code for your social media audience only. Of course, "exclusive" here is relative—your followers could easily share this information with others. The point is, there's an appeal to following a brand with a history of rewarding its social media following.
Why are social media followers important? It's because the more engaged your users are with your brand, the more visible your brand will be. For starters, any posts that receive attention—in the form of likes, shares, or comments—will instantly be ranked higher in other users' newsfeeds, as Facebook determines them to be more valuable. Also, the thread may appear in the newsfeeds of friends and followers of the engagers as well, furthering your prospective reach. Get your followers to engage more by calling them specifically to take action—ask them to "like" or comment on a post in a creative way, such as stating a strong opinion and asking them to "like" it if they agree with you.
Most social media platforms will automatically generate a list of relevant accounts it recommends for you to follow, cultivated from accounts you already follow, your type of industry, and your posting history. Though you don't want to go crazy and follow every social media account that's suggested to you, this section is worth your perusal. Look for valuable accounts to add to your newsfeed, or potential sources of new followers you can poach. It's a great discovery engine, and it does all the work for you in advance.
Another way to get your followers engaged is to simply ask them a question. This is especially effective when paired with a link to a blog, or another source of information. For example, if you post about the "top strategies for improving sales," you could ask your audience what strategies they've found to be successful in the past. Brittney Brombacher, a Youtuber in the video game industry, has a mini-series on her channel called "Whatcha Playin'?" in which she discusses games she's currently playing, and asks viewers to share what games they're currently playing too.
Facebook and some other social media platform allows you to create polls for your users to take, which you can harness for almost any application you can think of, from gathering opinions on a piece of news to brainstorming new content ideas. This is very similar to asking questions of your audience, with one key difference; in a poll, users can see what other users have said quantitatively analyzed, which fuels another level of discussion.
Unless you're running a minimalistic campaign, chances are good you'll be managing multiple social media platforms simultaneously. If this is the case, you'll likely encounter new followers at different rates and from different areas with each of your platforms. If you cross-pollinate your accounts, by referring your followers to your other profiles, you could build all of them up more quickly.
Though most of your social media interaction will start and end online, don't forget that you find new customers and meet new people in real life as well. Make an effort to promote the existence of your social media profiles in real life, and you'll definitely see an uptick in your following. This can be something as simple as a "follow us on Facebook" sticker on your door or something more personal, like personally asking each of your clients to follow you on social media before they leave your office.
There are dozens of apps available to help you schedule and manage your social media posts. Though there is some danger in automating your strategy too much—making your brand seem impersonal or uncaring—there's also a value in scheduling some of your posts in advance. Not only will it save some time for you and your team, it will help you ensure a more consistent, frequent mode of posting. Just make sure you keep it in careful balance with your in-the-moment updates and responses.
Don't underestimate the power of storytelling, even in a social media format. People love to hear anecdotes, and they have an easier job of interpreting and retaining information if it's told in a format with a beginning, a middle, and an end. Take to social media to share an anecdote about your professional experience, or tell the story of a client you've helped, or to illustrate a complex topic in the course of a narrative. Even if it takes you a few posts to get through, your engaged audience just might love it.
Personal brands function like mini versions of your corporate brand, except they're tied to individuals within your company, rather than your company brand itself. These personal brands, carried by team members like your CEO or team leaders, will work almost like brand ambassadors, promoting your core content, getting guest posting opportunities on external publishers, and of course building up their own social media followings. You can cross-pollinate these followings, earning more visibility and followers for your corporate brand while reaping the benefits of the personal touch your personal brands will offer.
Try to include more verbal commands in your posts that instruct your users what to do. For example, if you post a link to your article, you can ask them to "read about the latest _____" (though you should avoid the word "click" specifically), or you can ask them to "comment with your thoughts on the matter." The simple presence of these words will spark more interaction, which will lead to more visibility and of course, more followers. Just be careful not to go too heavy-handed with this strategy, or you'll turn people away.
For the most part, hashtags are best used in their natural environment. You can use them to succinctly describe whatever's happening in your post, or leverage a hashtag that's already become popular to get some extra visibility for your brand. But if you want to encourage more people to post about your business, you can consider creating your own, branded hashtag. Generally, these are best reserved for contests and special events, as people will need a strong motivation to use a new hashtag. Just be aware that it takes a lot of effort and damn good timing (or a massive existing audience) to get a branded hashtag trending.
Other brands on social media aren't your enemies—not even your competitors. If you learn to see them as friends, or in a more exploitative context, as opportunities, you can earn tons of new followers. Collaborate with the other brands you see on social media, working together on a mutual piece of content or just conversing with each other. When you cross-promote this way, you'll exchange some followers, both gaining visibility and reputation in the process. Everybody wins when people use social media to be social.
No matter how much you wrack your brain or how long you spend brainstorming, there are only so many new content topics you can come up with on your own. When you're fresh out, or when you want a more precise, numbers-driven way to find new content, rely on an external tool like BuzzSumo or Feedly to help you generate ideas. Here, you'll be able to find new ideas for posts, zeroing in on top-performing content in your industry to help you figure out what your audience might like to see and what has been working for your competitors.
(Image Source: BuzzSumo)
Try to expand your horizons by experimenting with different mediums in your social media campaign. For example, if you're used to posting short written updates, try longer posts with an accompanying image. If you're used to taking still photos of your environment, try switching it up with a video. Consistency in tone, frequency, and subject matter is important, but you'll also need to change things up if you want to increase your visibility and explore new ways to reach your audience even more effectively.
Whenever you get the chance, add some personal touches to your social media feeds. Relying on personal brands as extensions of your corporate brand can help here, but don't be afraid to post images of your employees and clients and show off your personality in your posts. Taking a selfie with a cat may be a break from your usual, professional posting regimen, but it will remind your followers you're human, helping you attract an even wider, more interested audience.
(Image Source: Telegraph/Taylor Swift)
This goes along with the last tip about writing more personal posts. People love to see other people, whether they want to admit it or not. We're social creatures, and our gaze is naturally drawn to other human faces. Make sure you're taking pictures and video of other people whenever you get the chance, whether it's one random person using your product, or a group of people congregated at your office party.
It's incredibly tempting, especially for new social media marketers, to use social media tools as advertising platform, posting about your products on a regular basis and essentially making a pitch to your following. Though it might seem like this is a good way to drum up more sales, the reality is it will turn your followers away. Prospective followers who see your profile and timeline filled with advertise-y language will turn tail, and you'll likely lose some existing followers in the process.
This is a tactic you'll want to use if you're working with influencers or other collaborators, or if you have a special relationship with any individual followers in your lineup. Tagging a user in a post will instantly bring it to their attention, and they'll sometimes respond to it in some way—whether that's a like, a comment, a retweet, or a share. Make sure your content is relevant to them and have at it; it's a great way to guarantee a minimum level of engagement and earn some more visibility for your brand.
Social listening software is a way to "tune in" to the conversations of your followers and target audience on social media. On the surface, you can use it to figure out what people are talking about and what topics are popular, so you can create more focused, relevant content for your audience. However, you can also use it to see what users are saying about your brand by plugging in your company or product names and monitoring social mentions. It's a great way to find new people interested in your company (and gather some stealthy feedback while you're at it). Personally, I use Google Alerts and Buzzsumo Alerts for this purpose.
Every once in a while, you'll have an unfortunate misstep in your social media marketing campaign; you might offend your audience, post something untrue, or otherwise unintentionally make your brand look foolish, the way DiGiorno Pizza did simply by misunderstanding a hashtag. However, if you're careful, these missteps can be opportunities; acknowledge your mistake, offer an apology, and make it up to anybody who you offended, and you could spin it into an opportunity for greater visibility and a better overall reputation.
(Image Source: Adweek)
People love free things, and rogue followers are always looking for valuable brands to latch onto. Give away free things—even if it's just premium content—and you'll naturally attract more people to your brand. This effect will obviously amplify with the quality of the free "thing" you offer. Just be aware that the audience you attract with free giveaways may not be the audience most invested in your brand.
News is unfolding all around us, all the time, both in the context of your specific industry and on a national level. Stay tuned into these major news sources throughout the day, and when a news story hits that's especially relevant to your business, your industry, or your customers, comment on it. Even recapping the story briefly with a summary of your thoughts can help you ride the trending topic and get in front of new potential followers.
Social media is a great place to post your opinions—that is, beliefs that are open to debate. This can be mild, such as stating your opinion about the best way to drive downtown, or more intense, such as your judgment on a new technology that's taken your industry by storm. Strong opinions elicit strong reactions, which means you'll generate more discussion, and attract more followers as a result.
Even though you'll be posting on behalf of your corporate brand or organization, it's still a good idea to frame all of your status updates in a first-person perspective. Social media rose into existence as a way for individual people to connect with one another, and that's still the primary way people want to use it. Making your brand seem more personal with this simple first-person perspective should make it more appealing to anyone even marginally interested in following you.
Even though I've spent half these items preaching about the importance of consistency, it's also important to change things up from time to time. Try some content topics you've never considered before. Ask someone else in the office to draft some posts. Tinker with your posting frequency and scheduling. If nothing else, these changes will help you understand what is and what's not effective in your campaign. Plus, the changeup will likely appear favorable to anyone following you for the long term.
If you generate content and post ideas for long enough, eventually, you're going to run out—and if you don't run out, you might end up on a deviated path that starts diverging from what your users actually want. Get back in touch with your users by starting a social media discussion about what they most want to see, or even what kind of content you post that they would like to see more of. Collect their recommendations, analyze the results, and most importantly—give them what they're looking for.
Just because your content is a few weeks old doesn't mean it's not valuable anymore—especially if it's a piece of evergreen content. Keep a running list of all your old articles and on-site posts, and regularly work them back into your social media posting schedule. As long as you don't post the same articles or topics too frequently, you can generate renewed interest in your older material and fill up your posting queues with new content. Just change up the headlines from time to time to keep your newsfeeds fresh.
I can't think of any subject, industry, or topic that couldn't be facilitated with helpful tips and tricks for users. If you're used to posting how-to articles and similar forms of instructional content, you can pull tidbits and key takeaways from these pieces to form standalone posts. Otherwise, you can develop these on their own to give users throwaway tips and techniques throughout the days and weeks. For example, you might offer advice on how to make a purchasing decision in your industry, or a "life hack" on how to complete a certain task more efficiently. Show off your authority and aim for lots of likes and shares.
AB tests are usually reserved for the paid advertising space, but they can be just as valuable in the social media world. The general idea behind an AB test is to host two variations of a given strategy, an "A" version and a "B" version, then compare them to see which one is more effective. In the social media world, this might mean making the same post at different times of day, or linking to the same article with a different headline to see which post tends to attract more followers. With these tests, you can easily learn what does and doesn't attract new followers and adjust your overall campaign accordingly.
Social media platforms know they need to keep changing if they're going to survive. Not only do they have to keep up with the changing landscape of hardware, they have to keep user trends in mind and fend off competition from other platforms. That's why it's common for social media platforms to constantly roll out new features and functionality for their users. When you see these features emerge, try using them as soon as possible; doing so will attract lots of attention from new and old users alike (and will put you ahead of the competition). For example, when How-to pins recently emerged on Pinterest, the first line of users taking advantage of them saw crazy high engagement rates.
(Image Source: Social Media Examiner/Pinterest)
Your business doesn't exist in a vacuum, and it won't remain the same indefinitely. You'll offer new products and new services to new audiences, you'll grow, you'll hire, you'll move, and you might even change your strategic direction. When you do, you'll need to adjust your social media profiles to accurately reflect your new positions. Not only will this help your brand remain "fresh," it will also expose you to newer, more relevant audiences who might be interested in following you in the future.
This is a hard one to define, since viral content is so hard to achieve on its own. Only a small percentage of content posts attract any attention at all (in the form of shares and links), and an even smaller percentage than that "goes viral," attracting hundreds to thousands of shares and links. This content is the best of the best in terms of quality and value, but also must surprise the audience or appeal to their emotions in some powerful way. Getting a piece to go viral is a shortcut to earning thousands of new followers, but even your pursuits should do a good job of attracting more people to your brand.
If you're desperate to start building momentum, or if you've tried some of the strategies above but aren't growing as fast as you'd like, you can consider going the paid advertising route. Choose the right social media platforms that allow you to promote your main profile or a specific post from your profile for a relatively small amount of money. Generally, you can count on earning some new followers easily this way—but they may not be as relevant or as interested in your brand as followers you attract naturally.
Facebook offers a handy feature for some brands that allows you to selectively target the people who see your post. This may seem like a strange feature for organic social media strategy, as on the surface, it seems like it should be a paid advertising option, but there's a clear incentive for Facebook to do this; with more brands selectively targeting their audiences, more users will see content that is specifically relevant to them. Using the target icon on the lower-left of your status update box, you can filter out certain members of your audience you don't want to see your post; this will allow you to post better-focused content and attract more followers who are genuinely interested in your brand.
(Image Source: Social Media Examiner)
Facebook has made a number of recent algorithm changes designed to decrease the prevalence of content from brands and organizations in user newsfeeds, in favor of posts from other individuals. For many publishers and brands, this was a serious blow; however, it's possible to overcome this obstacle. If you want to maximize your visibility for new audiences, adjust your focus to quality over quantity. When it comes to organic visibility in newsfeeds, like potential, and share potential, it's far better to have one truly remarkable piece of content than dozens of filler posts. Find a way to stand out.
People tend to favor organizations and brands in their own area, so using the location-tagging feature for your status updates can be a major advantage. It's also going to make you easier to search for if people are looking for a local solution. This is especially useful when you're posting images or updates from a certain event, such as a tradeshow or industry gathering in a specific city.
There are many features that differentiate Facebook from its contemporaries, but one of the newest is the addition of emoji reactions, which allow users to respond to posts in more emotionally expressive ways than simply "liking" it. Attracting a specific type of emoji reaction, or a variety of them, is a good way to make your post more visible—and it can also help you gather information about your current following. Try to elicit a "wow" reaction with surprising content, or post something outrageous that encourages "angry." Even better, spark a discussion with a controversial post and let your users post all kinds of emoji reactions.
Events have long been a staple feature of the Facebook platform, and they continue to be a main reason why people use it. Creating public events for things happening in or around your office can help you attract the attention of people who have never heard of your brand before (especially if the event is interesting). Invite all the fans and followers you can think of, and ask them to invite other people they know. Even if they don't show up for the event, they'll be more likely to follow you after seeing your event listed.
Take a look at some of your competitors on Twitter. Chances are, some of them already have hundreds or thousands of followers. You can close this gap eventually by going your own route, but why not take advantage of the audience that's already there? Obviously, their followers have expressed an interest in your industry, so it stands to reason they'd also be interested in following your brand. Follow the people who follow your competitors, and many of them will likely follow you back. ManageFlitter is a fantastic tool that can help with this process.
Twitter got popular because it offers a slightly different approach than its biggest contemporary, Facebook. Users are forced to restrict their updates into bite-sized snippets of only 140 characters. Because of this, users tend to post updates in greater frequency, which tends to clog up newsfeeds. Cumulatively, these signature features have turned Twitter into a fast-paced, in-the-moment platform where people turn to get up-to-the-minute updates. If you want to attract more Twitter followers, you need to indulge them in these fast-paced conditions by posting live updates of what's going on around you when you're at an industry-related event.
You already have links to your Twitter profile on your website, but that will only get you so far in enticing your website visitors to become Twitter followers. If you want to engage them further, use Twitter's API calls to embed tweets on your website directly. Depending on how you set it up, this could feature a rotation of some of your brand's most recently posted tweets, giving users a sneak preview of what they'll get by following you. Giving users a preview of your tweets without them having to do anything is a good way to win new followers, but only if your tweets are engaging and/or interesting.
Twitter features a "pinning" option, which allows you to select one tweet that stays at the top of your profile page. When a prospective follower judges whether or not to follow you, they usually scope out your profile and your most recent tweets. Showcasing one of your best tweets at the top will help persuade them that following you is a good choice. If you have a tweet that's generated lots of likes and shares, that's the one to pin.
People love to use Twitter at events like conferences or tradeshows. Most events, even small, locally organized ones, have signature hashtags that promoters encourage participants to use in their social posts, which has a few critical advantages for you if you attend the events. First, you can post about your attendance and have an easy way to get found by other participants. Second, you can set up a search filter for these hashtags to find other people who are attending the event—and you can then network with them in-person. An in-person relationship is the single easiest way to get a new follower, and someone you meet at a tradeshow or other event is just about the highest-quality type of follower you can have.
Instagram is all about images, and your images need to make an impact on users if they're going to follow you. One of Instagram's biggest claims to fame is its provision of specialty filters, which help you edit your images and make them more appealing. If you want to show that you know what you're doing, stand out in users' newsfeeds, and generally attract a bigger audience, you need to know how to use these filters effectively. Generally, the filters Clarendon, Gingham, Juno, and Lark tend to attract the most likes.
Instagram newsfeeds quickly get filled with photos from other users, so if you want any hope of standing out in a newsfeed or search results page, you need images that stand out. One of the best ways to do this is to dominate the space of your image with a single, bold color. For starters, choose an image—or create one—that features many shades of a single "general" color like blue or red. Then, make sure your subject occupies the full space of the photo (you can edit this after taking the picture). This will make your image "pop" out and probably get you some extra likes, too.
(Image Source: Fast Company)
Instagram users tend to be especially active on Sundays. Since Instagram is often a place to show off your adventures, it's rarely used on weekdays, when most people are at work. On Fridays and Saturdays, people are busy out doing things, so on Sunday, they get to catch up on everything they might have missed and post the images they may have delayed when experiencing something in the moment. Long story short, it's the best day to post if you're interested in attracting more attention and followers.
Instagram, like Twitter, is an in-the-moment platform. People appreciate seeing photos and video of events as they're currently unfolding. They'll also be more likely to follow a brand that visits their location or is active in the area, as its content will likely be more relevant to them. To take advantage of these realities, use Instagram's geotagging feature as often as you can. All you have to do is click the "location" button when uploading a photo, and Instagram will show where you are. If you want to use the geotagging feature even after you've left a given area, make sure your mobile device is tracking your location so your photos are tagged with where they were taken.
People want to follow Instagram accounts that feature the best images, so if you want people to follow you, you need to give them an idea of what they can expect. For this, I recommend including some embedded Instagram posts on your website, perhaps on your home page or in a dedicated gallery of its own. Since all the images you post will be relevant to your business, this should also improve the engagement rates of your website, possibly even influencing conversions.
On LinkedIn, it's easy to create a page for your company, and you should do so. You should flesh it out entirely, filling in all the details of your profile and posting semi-regularly. However, when it comes to growing an audience of followers, it's better if you focus on your individual social media accounts (the personal brands that will support your Company page). Individual accounts have access to more features, such as Groups, and are more likely to earn new connections on what is, essentially, a professional networking platform. You can then use your LinkedIn connections as a conduit to promote your corporate brand or other social accounts.
Though many people use LinkedIn as a way to find and engage with people digitally from all around the country, it's good if you also use LinkedIn as a way to cement your connections with people in real life. When you attend professional networking events or meet new people in the workplace, ask to connect with them on LinkedIn—most people will be open to it if they have an account, and it's an easy way to quickly build your number of connections. Plus, any new connections you make this way will already be somewhat familiar with who you are.
LinkedIn Groups are one of the most powerful sections of LinkedIn, which is part of the reason you should rely on your individual accounts more than your company account in the first place. Join a number of Groups that are relevant to your industry and brand, including locally-based Groups, and peruse them regularly for conversations you can participate in. For example, you could offer your insights on a recently posted blog, or voice your opinion on a piece of news that just came out. Making your presence known—and participating intelligently in conversation—will make people reach out to you as a new contact. For a deeper dive into how to use LinkedIn Groups for marketing, see The Definitive Guide to LinkedIn Groups for Marketing.
Groups are also a common place for people to ask questions, which is the perfect chance to show off your knowledge and authority in your industry. If someone's asking for advice, give it to them. If they're dealing with a problem, give them a potential solution. If you need to do a bit of extra research to back up your opinions, go ahead and do it, and cite your sources. It will show that you're committed to actually helping people. The person whose question you answer will almost invariably want to connect with you, and you'll also set the stage to connect with anyone impressed with your answer.
Whenever you "encounter" someone significant on LinkedIn, go ahead and connect with them. By "encountering," I'm referring to practically any kind of meaningful engagement you make, such as conversing in a Group or commenting on the same piece of content. In your request, mention the circumstances and your reasoning behind connecting—most people don't like cold connections, but as long as you have some justifiable point of entry, you'll be fine.
On YouTube, the key way to get "followers" is to earn subscribers for your channel. If you haven't yet created a channel for your brand, that's the first step—it's like creating a profile for your brand. However, it's not enough to simply fill in the details and let your channel exist on its own. If you want to attract more subscribers to your YouTube channel, you'll need to set up your brand channel to be as unique and appealing as possible. Customize your layout, choose your headlines and background images carefully, and pick a color scheme that fits your brand. You want people to have a differentiated and memorable experience when they first encounter your channel.
YouTube now gives you the option to make a "trailer" for your channel, which is exactly what it sounds like—a short video that pitches the types of videos and content your channel will be producing. For many users, this will be all they need to see to decide whether or not to subscribe to your channel, so you need to make it compelling. Generally, the more straightforward you are here, the better. In fact, you can use a brand representative to engage with your audience directly, speaking into the camera and bluntly explaining what types of videos you produce. Just be sure to include your unique value proposition.
Just like with the other social media platforms, people won't subscribe to you without some kind of incentive. It's not something most people seek out, so if you want people to subscribe to you, you need to ask them to. Feature calls to action throughout your YouTube videos, channel page, and even on your website and other marketing materials. For example, you can create annotations for your YouTube videos that encourage users to subscribe to your main channel or check out your other videos.
Search optimization isn't just about Google. You can optimize your videos for both Google and YouTube search by paying careful attention to how you name, tag, and describe them. First, title your video with a catchy, compelling headline that not only attracts attention, but features a handful of keyword phrases that users might search for when looking for content like yours. Then, write a concise, detailed description void of filler words that accurately describes your content. Finally, choose key tags that best represent your video—these are what help YouTube categorize and display your video for users to find, and the more users there are finding your videos, the more subscribers you'll earn.
If you want to attract more subscribers and keep them around, you'll need to produce videos regularly—probably not every day, like some social media platforms demand, but aim for at least once a week if you're serious about your presence here. Because most people who subscribe to YouTube channels do so immediately after viewing one of the channel's videos, you'll want to make sure all of your videos end on a high note—a punchline, a key takeaway, or an inspiring thought that ties everything together. This will leave your users wanting more and serves as a perfect opportunity to ask them to subscribe.
There you have it. At this point, you should have all the knowledge and ideas you need to grow a larger audience of social media followers. You don't have to use every strategy on this list for every profile you've claimed, but even a handful of successful, consistent executions here should put you in a universally better position. If you're just starting out, this might seem intimidating, especially since your early growth rates will be marginal at best, but stick with it, and eventually your social media presence will flourish.
You know that social media marketing is important, but do you know what it takes to make a campaign measurably successful?
The Definitive Guide to Social Media Marketing will show you, in great detail, exactly what it takes to build a social media campaign that attracts new customers, builds loyalty, and increases conversions. Exploring tactics related to specific individual platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn, this eBook contains all the information you need to establish or improve your social media campaign.
Written by Jayson DeMers, contributor at Entrepreneur, Forbes, Inc., Search Engine Journal, and other online publications, this eBook is a one-volume piece that will guide you through the trials of social media marketing, from beginning to end.
The eBook kicks off with an all-around summary of what social media marketing strategy is (and isn’t), and why it’s important for modern businesses. You’ll learn the tangible benefits of social media marketing, and the characteristics of brands that can achieve them. The chapter also debunks a popular myth: that social media strategy can only work for some companies.
Facebook is the most popular social network in the world, but it shouldn’t be your only presence—nor is Facebook right for everybody. In this chapter, you’ll learn about what social media profiles are effective for what businesses, and how to select the most valuable platforms for your increase brand awareness.
Most social media strategies fail because their benefits are not measured or interpreted. This chapter covers the objective side of social media advertising, including how to measure data related to your campaign and how to calculate your return on investment (ROI).
Blogging is a core content strategy that complements and supports your social media marketing efforts. In this chapter, you’ll learn why blogging is so crucial to the success of your social media campaign, and how to make the most of your efforts, including:
After reading this chapter, you’ll never be tapped for content ideas again.
Posting on social media isn’t just a matter of typing up whatever’s on your mind and hitting “submit.” In this chapter, you’ll learn which types of posts generate leads and the best results, and how to incorporate your branding into your messaging. You’ll learn why it’s important to humanize your brand, as well as the visual power of images, and at the end of the chapter you’ll gain killer insight into the world of social content with 100 great ideas.
Establishing a presence is only the first step. Chapter 6 introduces you to the world of growing a social following and building loyalty in your audience. You’ll learn:
There are a lot of options out there, and it seems like multiple social media platforms pop up every day. Each is unique in terms of utility, demographics, and ease of use, so it pays to know how to use each one effectively. This chapter covers popular social media marketing platforms including:
Once you’ve built a successful following, it’s time to turn that audience into revenue. The trick to making social media presence a profitable effort is converting your followers into clients. This chapter covers the most successful strategies in turning your target audience into a customer base with:
Your campaign might drag when you first start it, or you could start off strong only to hit a roadblock a few months in. Understanding the factors holding your campaign back is the only way to make a full recovery. This chapter will teach you the most common reasons your campaign could be suffering including:
Finally, this eBook will walk you through the best long-term practices to ensure your continued success in social media. Social media marketing plan is a long-term strategy that only starts rewarding you after months of consistent dedicated effort. In addition to best practices, you’ll learn about:
Are you ready to sink your teeth in? Download the full eBook now for free – a $300 value! All you need to do is enter your email address and first name in the form below:
Social media marketing strategy is the process of building your brand equity and awareness via social media channels, including:
Social media marketing efforts has several significant benefits:
Let’s explore each benefit in detail.
When you enter social media platforms, your brand will appear in search results across the Web; not just in search engines. Many social media channels, such as Facebook and LinkedIn, feature “group” functionality which allows users to search for topics in which they are interested and opt-in to updates for those topics. Furthermore, social media channels facilitate the process of instantly sharing information with a large number of contacts. So if a reader finds your content useful or interesting, they can share it with their contacts quickly and easily, creating organic exposure for your brand.
Participating in social media channels brings your brand closer to your customers and potential customers. Your social media “voice” defines your brand image and separates it from a distant entity to a hip, trendy, “in-the-know” brand. Think about what Apple did with its famous “I’m a Mac, I’m a PC” commercials.
You may not know it, but your customers are saying lots of things about your brand. But do you know what they’re saying? Social media marketing platforms like Twitter and Facebook make that sort of “brand buzz” readily available. If you’re not tuned in, you could be missing out on crucial information about your target audience.
There’s no stronger marketing message than an endorsement from a friend. Effective social media strategy facilitates word-of-mouth digital marketing by making it quick and easy to tell your friends about your positive experience with a brand. But social media marketing plan doesn’t just make it easy to tell a single friend; it’s just as easy to tell all your friends what’s on your mind.
Twitter and Facebook have become the default customer-service media for many companies, and more companies are hopping on the bandwagon each day. By using these channels to communicate with your customers, you project a transparent, trustworthy image which also shows that not only do you listen, but you care.
One independent study, which appeared in the March 2010 issue of Harvard Business Review found that Facebook pages can increase customer loyalty by 36%. The study also found that customers connected with the brand’s Facebook page had higher emotional attachment and greater psychological loyalty toward the brand.
The transparency inherent in social media advertising builds trust with potential consumers.
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The broad strokes of search engine optimization (SEO) are relatively easy to understand, even for lay people.
Google and other search engines want to reward good content, and they want to provide users with relevant content for their needs.
Accordingly, good, relevant content makes it to the top of search engines.
If you want to achieve the highest rankings possible within your domain, you'll need to write lots of relevant, useful content for your target audience. You'll also need to support that content with a host of different SEO strategies, including technical optimization and link building.
But in today's hypercompetitive online marketing environment, the fundamentals alone aren't enough to guarantee you success. Instead, if you want any page of your website to dominate the competition and rise to the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs), you'll need to incorporate SEO tuning.
But what exactly is SEO tuning, how is it so reliable, and how do you practice it for your internal pages?
We hope to answer all your questions and more in this guide.
SEO tuning is a specific set of strategies in the umbrella of search engine optimization.
These strategies are designed to help you fine-tune and polish an existing page, ultimately supporting it in terms of its ranking potential and relevance to your audience.
Chances are, if you've been operating a website for some time, you have lots of strong pieces of content that need just a little bit of extra help to reach the upper echelons of the SERPs.
The strategies in SEO tuning include things like cutting ineffective content, including more relevant keywords, minimizing keyword cannibalization, and fixing small technical issues.
Additionally, SEO tuning calls your attention to specific ranking factors and qualities of your page, so that you can maximize its likelihood of ranking highly for relevant queries. These include things like:
Note that SEO tuning isn't about creating new pages, nor is it about completely overhauling existing pages. Instead, it's about taking solid, reliable pages on your website and fixing the little issues that might be holding them back.
You can think about it as taking a page that ranks as a B or B+ and moving it to an A or A+.
Why does SEO tuning work?
For starters, SEO tuning can help you with the following:
It's also important to recognize the current landscape of SEO.
These days, the SEO field is incredibly competitive, even for relatively obscure fields and niches. Even if you have a piece of great content on your website, there are probably a dozen other websites that offer content of similar relevance and quality. If you want to reach page one, or even rank one for a given keyword phrase or query, it's imperative that your page is as polished as possible.
At the highest competitive levels, even the smallest changes can make a big difference.
On top of that, companies that heavily invest in SEO often suffer from redundancy and pages that overlap in their pursuit of goals. SEO tuning provides you with an opportunity to separate your strategic targets and remain focused on your most important objectives.
How do you tune a page for SEO?
The easy answer is to work with the team of SEO experts, like those of us here at Marketer.co. We can help you identify the most valuable pages of your website, brainstorm about strategically valuable keyword targets, and ultimately conduct analyses that lead us to the best SEO tuning strategies for each page.
But if you choose to do the work on your own, you need to keep the following concepts in mind:
Everything starts with an SEO tuning audit. Essentially, this phase is about identifying potential page targets of your website and evaluating them in terms of SEO performance. There are SEO tuning software tools available to help you do this; these will often provide you with specific recommendations, based on the content of your website.
However, it's also possible to conduct this audit on your own.
When evaluating pages of your website, look at:
Once you have a list of valuable page targets, take a look at the following:
Once you have a full analysis in place for a given page, you'll be able to devise a plan for how to make changes to it. If you're working with SEO consultants, or if you've used an SEO tuning tool, you'll likely have specific recommendations to work with. Otherwise, you'll need to brainstorm solutions on your own. Depending on the current status and position of your page, there are probably many things you can do.
The process of applying these changes can be somewhat tedious and repetitive, but remember that every tweak inches you closer to SEO ranking perfection.
Many people think SEO tuning is all about adding new, better content. But in many cases, the stronger move is to surgically remove things that aren't working.
For example:
Once you remove everything compromising your SEO ranking potential, you can focus on tweaking what already exists and adding more.
Pay especially close attention to the following:
The final step is to measure and analyze your results. Keep in mind that Google’s index updates only periodically, and it may take several weeks or months before your changes take full effect. Schedule an analysis in the future to see if your changes have increased your pages’ rankings, traffic, conversions, and other dimensions of performance; if they haven't, analyze why and consider starting from scratch.
So the solution is to tune your pages for SEO as much as humanly possible, right?
Not necessarily. There's such a thing as “too much of a good thing” in most areas of life, and SEO tuning is no different.
Google doesn't want pages that are tuned to technical perfection, necessarily; it also wants authentic, user-centric content. If it becomes clear that you're artificially manipulating your rankings, or if your content becomes so tuned that it reads as robotic or mechanical, it could end up hurting you more than helping you.
These are just some examples of how:
These tips and strategies can prevent you from overtuning your articles for SEO:
We’ve helped a wide range of clients achieve next-level SEO results, and one of the best tools in our arsenal is SEO tuning.
Here are a few of the best success stories we have to offer:
SEO tuning is hard. If you have hundreds of pages to optimize for, it’s even harder. That’s why we make every effort to help our clients navigate this space – and tune their pages for ranking perfection. If you’re interested in a free SEO tuning audit, or if you need help executing the finer directives of your SEO strategy as a white label SEO reseller, contact us for a free consultation today!
You want prospective clients to find your law firm.
There are many ways to facilitate this, but the best is to optimize your presence in search engines.
After all, most of your clients and prospects are primarily using search engines for researching lawyers and law firms for their needs.
But here's the thing.
Chances are, most of your competitors are already outranking you in search engine results pages (SERPs) for queries relevant to your niche.
And as you might imagine, higher rankings get not only more visibility, but more traffic and more prestige as well.
If you want to earn that visibility and traffic for your own law firm, you'll need to find a way to outrank your competitors. Search engine optimization (SEO) can help you do this. But an SEO strategy without keyword research is like a boat without a rudder; it may be powerful, but it lacks direction.
Accordingly, keyword research is typically the first step of any SEO strategy, and it's certainly the best place to start as a law firm.
So what exactly is SEO keyword research? And how do you practice it?
In SEO, keywords (and by extension, keyword phrases) are words and phrases that people enter into search engines like Google as a search query.
For example, “lawyers” is technically a keyword, though most people don't search this broadly. “Personal injury lawyers near me” is a much more common keyword phrase, as is “How to choose the best personal injury lawyer.”
If you can optimize your web presence for phrases like these, you'll increase your chances of ranking in the SERPs produced for these queries.
SEO keyword research is the process of analyzing various keywords and phrases for the sake of finding the best possible targets. Some SEO keywords are more valuable for your law firm than others, and for a few different reasons; some keywords are more relevant to your organization, some are more popular search terms, and some are easier to optimize for.
The process usually begins with some simple brainstorming, which you can do even if you don't have much SEO experience. Think about what your law firm represents, what types of customers you serve, and what those customers might search for if they're looking for a business like yours.
Most people start producing a list based on their brainstorming efforts, then they turn to the power of specific keyword research tools that allow them to gather more data and come up with new ideas.
You can figure out the best keywords for your law firm to target by studying the following metrics:
· Relevance. Relevance is largely a subjective matter. You need to choose SEO keywords that are relevant to your organization as well as the clients and prospects searching for it. Otherwise, there isn't much of a point in receiving the traffic.
· Search volume. Within the realm of relevant keywords, you should also choose keywords and phrases with relatively high search volume. Search volume tells you how many people search for this keyword or phrase within a given time period, usually one month. The higher the search volume, the more people are searching for it, and the more traffic you'll receive if you can rank at the top for that keyword or phrase.
· Competition. That said, choosing only the keywords with the highest search volume is a surefire recipe for failure. That's because you also need to consider the competition; keywords with high search volume often have high competition, making them difficult or even impossible to rank for. Keywords with lower search volume may not get as much visibility or traffic, but you can reach rank one for those terms quite easily.
Ideally, you'll select a host of keywords and phrases that are highly relevant to your organization, with high search volume, and minimal competition. These perfect keywords are unicorns, however, so you may have to make some compromises.
Your strategic keyword targets are going to inform every element of your SEO strategy, including your onsite optimization, your content creation, and even your link building. You'll use them to create new pages of your website, inform the topics for your blog posts, serve as anchor text for your links, and more.
You can start the keyword research process by simply getting into the mind of your ideal target client or prospect. What is this person looking for? What has this person recently experienced? What types of things would they enter into a search engine if they were either A) interested in services like yours or B) could benefit from services like yours?
Already, you can likely come up with various ideas directly related to your area of expertise. For example, people might search for things like “family lawyer,” “divorce attorney,” or “custody agreement lawyers near me.”
But if you want to go a step further, you should also consider the types of questions that people ask search engines related to legal matters. Think of things like “what should I do if someone is suing me?” or “how do I create a last will and testament?” Consider all the things that your prospects and clients ask you when first meeting you.
If you're struggling to come up with ideas, or if you just want to flesh out your list even further, look to online resources that specifically support questions and answers related to legal matters. Avvo, Justia, and Lawyers.com are fantastic resources for this.
Keep a list of all the keywords and phrases you've generated. Most experienced SEO professionals do this in a spreadsheet, making it easier to manage SEO keywords both now and in the future.
As your list expands, you can consult other tools designed for keyword brainstorming. SEMRush, Ahrefs, Google Trends, and Google Keyword Planner are good places to start. All you have to do is enter a handful of keywords and phrases, and these tools will help you generate even more ideas.
In the course of your brainstorming and development, be sure to highlight keyword variations and related searches. For example, if you came up with the keyword idea “divorce lawyer,” you should understand that “divorce attorney,” “divorce law firm,” and “divorce legal help” are all functional variations of that query.
Each variation and related search can function somewhat on its own in your SEO strategy, though it is worth noting that due to semantic search, Google often blends semantically similar keywords and phrases together.
Don't worry about anything else at this point; just focus on cultivating a large list of potential keywords and phrases that are relevant to both your organization and the clients and prospects it serves.
At this point, you should have a long, borderline comprehensive list of keywords and phrases that are highly relevant to your law firm.
Now, your job becomes whittling that bulky tome down to a more manageable list. Many law firms and lawyers start with a list of about 20 keywords and phrases, but feel free to increase or decrease this according to your budget and your goals.
The two primary factors you'll need to consider beyond relevance are search volume and competition. The best targets are ones with high search volume and low competition, but these are understandably rare, due to the attractiveness of high search volume keyword terms in such a competitive industry. You'll need to decide for yourself how to balance these; most lawyers and law firms choose a diverse mix of “low hanging fruit targets” with low search volume and low competition along with “long-term goal” targets with high search volume and high competition.
Head keywords, or relatively short keywords and phrases, like “DUI lawyer,” typically offer very high search volume, but also high competition. Long-tail keywords, or longer search queries, like “How do I get out of a DUI?” typically offer very low search volume, but also low competition. The best SEO campaigns include a mix of both in their keyword targets.
Local keywords, as you might expect, are keywords and phrases that also include some geographic element. For example, these are search queries like “real estate lawyer Ohio,” “real estate lawyer Cleveland,” or even “real estate lawyer near me.”
These keywords and phrases are especially valuable for local SEO – the practice of optimizing your law firm for local searches. Local SEO is very similar to national SEO, but with some extra considerations for local search results.
Optimizing for your geographic location can be an easy way to avoid big competition and maximize visibility for the people geographically closest to you. Just keep in mind that in addition to optimizing for local keywords, you also need to optimize your local presence, such as by cleaning up your local citations and maximizing the quality and number of local reviews for your law firm.
Local SEO is a complex topic that requires its own article, but suffice it to say that most law firms do benefit from having at least a handful of local keywords among their strategic targets.
If you're hoping to get more out of SEO keyword research for your law firm, these tips should give you a good start:
· Work with the pros. We've tried to make this guide thorough, yet accessible. It should help you understand the basics of keyword research, but as you probably understand, SEO keyword research is better performed in the hands of an experienced professional who knows what types of keyword targets work best. If you have the budget for it, we advise you to work with SEO professionals for your keyword research needs.
· Consider budget and scope before beginning. There is no such thing as universally applicable keyword research. That's because each business has a unique budget and a unique scope. What works for a small, local, boutique law firm simply isn't going to work for a large, more generalized law firm. Make a plan for your budget and the scope of your SEO campaign from the beginning so you can choose better strategic targets.
· Triangulate the truth with multiple tools. Unfortunately, keyword data isn't perfect. It's constantly in flux, and different tools use different methodologies for providing you with data. Accordingly, it's good to triangulate the truth by using multiple tools to cross-reference each other.
· Understand search intent (and cater to it). Google is all about serving user intent. When someone asks a question, Google tries to find them an answer. When someone is obviously searching for a certain type of business, Google tries to find businesses that match those defined criteria. Accordingly, the better you understand search intent, and the better you cater to that intent, the better results you'll see.
· When in doubt, go narrow. A small number of very focused keywords is possibly the best way to start any SEO strategy. This way, you can use your budget on keywords that are extremely relevant with low competition; even if these searches don't generate much volume, you can at least get some early results to fuel the rest of your campaign. This is also a great way to stress test your SEO strategy; if you can't increase your rankings with very niche keywords with limited competition, you'll need to make some changes before you increase your budget and scope.
· Study your competition carefully. It's also a good idea to understand your competition. Go beyond simply looking at the competitive rating of various curative phrases and try to understand the tactics your competitors are using to optimize for them. What types of articles are they writing? Where are they building links?
· Optimize with caution. Keyword stuffing is the practice of deliberately including keywords in your content for the explicit purpose of manipulating your rankings. If done excessively, it leads to a much poorer user experience and can actually work against you, earning you a penalty that precludes you from advancing your SERP rankings. When optimizing for your strategically valuable keywords, do so with caution.
· Measure your results. Finally, be prepared to measure your results. You won't know how effective your keyword targets are until you put them to use and objectively observe their impact.
Keyword research is never easy.
It’s even harder in a competitive market like legal services.
That’s why it’s valuable to trust your keyword research – the foundation of your SEO strategy – to competent professionals with expertise in your niche.
We’re waiting for you. So don’t hesitate to reach out today – and find out how we can help your law firm dominate the SERPs!
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