Coaching For Success
Posts tagged Lead Generation
Content Marketing For Lead Generation
Aug 6th
Internet marketing is a popular word in the marketing arena these days. Every business wants to promote itself through online media. Businesses are investing a large proportion of their budget on developing their websites and internet business marketing.
They know that a good website attracts more customers. The core of any website is its content. Content marketing is a technique that uses the creation and distributing of highly relevant and good valuable content (information) to attract, acquire, and engage a clearly defined target audience. The idea being that the content will help to ultimately drive sales. This post looks at the fundamentals of content marketing and content management.
A survey conducted by King Fisher Media in 2009 and published by emarketer.com showed that 70% of participants felt that content marketing was an effective way to communicate with prospective clients only beaten by Social Media at 73% of votes and Business websites at 75%. This shows why good content should be important to your business efforts. If this is combined with a good website it almost doubles your chances of getting new prospects.
Marketing Survey Results Showing 70% of Participants Think Content Marketing iI important
Factors influencing the content of a website
One of the important factors in content marketing is ‘information gathering’. This is a research based process. You start by identifying your target audience. The content should be developed as per the expectations of the target audiences. An ideal piece of content is one which is tailor made for that particular segment of the market audience. If visitors of your website find the content relevant to their interests then they are more likely to return to you next time for information, saving themselves wasted time searching elsewhere.
Keyword enrichment of the content is important your internet marketing efforts and is also a pre-requisite for content marketing. Optimised content attracts search engines that in turn send more visitors to your website.
Nature of the content
Social media sites are conversational in nature where users interact while exchanging views about a topic. In such cases, proper etiquettes must be adhered to. Also, it is never advisable to use these sites for pitching purposes. Instead, you must focus on using content for spreading information and awareness among the audience.
Try to link that information to your products but make sure the tone of the content does not sound like you are pushing your products, this type of promotion is what is called a ‘Value Proposition’ for your customers. As far as gaining competitive edge it is considered that your content should highlight your strengths vis-a-vis your competitors’.
Your content should highlight the differentiating factors that set you apart from your competitors. It is not always advisable to poach customers who are complaining about your competitors as they may also make similiar complaints about you later on, try to engage them in friendly manner without knocking your competitors, gaining a poor customer but equally by not shooting yourself in the foot by turning them away.
Tools for content development
Content development is not a one step process, you need to constantly monitor the kind of visitors that visit your website and the kind of content they have looked for. Your content needs to be modified according to the responses, attraction and requests of customers. There are online tools available for profiling of customers which are known as ‘Context-aware tools’ that perform ‘experience sampling methods’ to analyse the behaviour and profile of visitors.
There are some other ways to enhance the content of your website; one of them is ‘cross-linking’ of content with other relevant sites. This way you can also get some new back-links and hence lead to more traffic via Search Engines. The monitoring operations of your website can also be outsourced to third parties like Internet Marketing Services.
How to measure the effectiveness of content
As mentioned earlier, a website must be constantly monitored to gauge the success of the content. Tools like ‘Google Analytics’ help you to check your website traffic and its marketing effectiveness. They give you a about the demographics of the visitors. They also give you detailed reports about the revenue generated by the site visits (if using PPC,CPC systems) to help you to gauge your return on investment (ROI) in addition it can show you where traffic is coming from and what landing pages are hot.
Apart from this, there are advanced tools customised to your needs which are available at reasonable prices. Some examples are- Hubspot, Alexa, Quantcast etc. One important piece of advice here is, not to rely too much on keyword analysis as customers read content and not keywords. Keywords are only meant for search engine algorithms.
Online content marketing has great potential for generation of new leads for your internet business as well as to build long term relationships with the existing customers. With the correct knowledge you can start revamping your content process for your website and reap the benefits.
Using E-mail Marketing To Aid Webinar Success
Aug 5th
A webinar is a presentation of your product in the form of visuals with audios, online with an audience watching. Research has shown that a person retains information more effectively when they watch as well as listens to it. That is why webinars are a very useful sales tool.
Email Use For Webinar Promotion
In fact, their ability to reach a larger number of peoples makes them an amazing online medium to promote your product and E-mail marketing is one of the best ways to get the message out about such a webinar event. This article discusses the application of emails for promotional activities of webinars. This type of promotion through emails is commonly known as ‘E-Mail marketing’.
Basics of writing an E-mail for a webinar promotion
An email is a formal tool for which you can use for spreading the word about your webinar. The content of e-mail must be clear and exhaustive enough to present the objectives of the webinar. You must clearly mention how your webinar can be a value addition for your e-mail recipients.
The profile of speakers must be highlighted and bullet points of the discussion must be mentioned so as to gather the attention of the audience. Apart from the promotional content, it is important not to miss the details of the event like date, time or program name.
In addition time zones must be checked if the recipients are in multiple geographies. RSVP to the event should contain the link for specifying whether the person will be attending the webinar or not. Finally, make sure there is a link that recipients can click on to preregister for the program.
Follow-ups through email
One mail is not sufficient to bring an audience to your event. You need to follow them up without any hesitation. Frequent reminders must be sent to them one week before the event. The reminder mails may be framed in such a way that each mail highlights one or the other topics related to the webinar. This way, the audience will not loose interest in the event.
Follow up is also required post webinar as it helps to build a long term relationship with the potential clients who have attended your webinar. You should attempt to mail them a recorded copy of the wibinar (if you recorded it) along with a website link where they can post their feedback comments. A recorded copy may also be sent to all those who could not attend your webinar. All these copies can be sent in one go using bulk mail. If possible you can send special offers to motivate clients to make a purchase.
Send other relevant materials through Emails
As mentioned above, it is important to follow up with your clients after a webinar. They may not be converted into final customers right away, but take some time. In order to follow them up in the proper way, you must send pieces of useful information from time to time. One example is sending the ‘testimonials’ from your loyal clients, which may reinforce the buying decisions of new clients.
The other information pieces could include ‘case studies’ which showcase your potential as an expert in your domain and hence making people trust your business. ‘Newsletters’ can be circulated regularly where in you can send new information and discuss the problems faced or feedback given by your customers. Emails are indeed very useful for such purposes.
E-mail can prove to be very useful when it comes to promotion of a webinar. The combined strengths of a webinar and email marketing provide you a very cost effective methods of lead generation for your business. The results are also very encouraging.
Tips On Lead Generation
Jul 27th
Lead Generation
How can you generate high quality leads using the internet? What does it take besides a determined, proactive and aggresive approach to build your business? What qualities are necessary for an efficient lead, that will bring you warmed-up clients and more successful closings?
Consider the ideal lead generation system. You would want your system to include the following features:
1.Automatic lead generation, meaning a minimum effort from your side in looking for prospects. Clients come automatically without you trying to cold call them, because your system focuses on telling your story and generating an authoritative image on the market concerning your services and products.
2.The system collects names and addresses of people wanting to contact you, establishing a positive relationship of trust between them and you beforehand. All that remains for you to do is to give them your powerful sales presentation on the products.
3.You are given predictable results. This means that the system will increase your business when turned on and maintain your business when turned off.
So let’s find out what you can do to improve your business and how you can employ the amazing features of internet communication. First thing you want to focus on is select a certain group of people whom you could identify as potential best buyers. You will use emails as a fast and inexpensive means to grow your business. This method can help you actually double the revenue of your business in about an year. So what you are going to do is send an email, introducing yourself and presenting an offer they can’t refuse.
Then, send something to them of your products and services at least once per month. It could be an invitation to a free counsultation or some free service of some kind. What this actually accomplishes is that over the next year, the people you send these letters to, will change their perception from a total unacquaintence with your company or product, to actually knowing about you and buying from you.
As this is a fast and inexpensive way to double your revenue, you have to consistently do it every single month, and start doing it now!
Another good way to get high-quality leads and warmed-up clients is to buy leads from lead companies. Lead companies focus on generating such leads and selling them to others. This way you can purchase leads for about $25 each. Purchasing leads can increase your business by as much as 50-75%.
Yet another great option is to buy leads from internet search engines. This online strategy attracts targeted traffic to your site with the aid of pay per click search engines. These are very productive ways of getting pre-qualified visitors, as you are guaranteed to get hot prospects because you can now pay only for performance. Thus, the search engine can provide you with information about what is the most sought after search on the market. Your business can grow to as much as 500% return on inverstment.
The best Pay Per Click search engine is Google AdWords. Advertising can motivate greatly a buyers purchase, as it can get you publicity, viral (word of mouth) advertising and can build name recognition to get you publicity. If you want to run an advertising campaign, just place ads in publications that your customers read or place these ads in e-mail newsletters which are directed to these people.
You should consider making an offer that they can’t refuse in order for them to respond and come to you as long-term clients. Also, insert compelling headlines that show the benefits that your product offers to the client.
Referrals are considered the most effective marketing technique for producing constant streams of clients. The customers thus generated buy quicker, larger quantities, negotiate less and refer more clients to you. Proactive referral systems are based on giving incentives or services in return to your clients referrals. Also, giving your clients free samples of the product as a gift are great tools.
When you give e-mailed invoices to clients, attach surveys that ask them to provide you with feedback on improving the product, as well as requesting for referrals.
In conclusion, Lead Generation Systems are automated systems which you can incorporate in your business plan, that can give you great results in no time.
Tap into the potential lead sources that can provide your business with high-quality sales leads and see how leads can produce a flood of new pre-qualified customers with no effort from your side at all.
The 4 Stages of Social Media Development For Business
Jul 22nd
Making Social Media Work for Your Business
By now most people are tired of being told how wonderful Social Media is for their business. There are many people who try social media but cannot quite make it work for their business, they may get followers or linked into a network etc but it never seems to quite generate the business or the interest and demand for their product or service they had hoped for. Unfortunately for these people they have either not quite got the hang of it to do it properly or have underestimated so under utilized these social platforms in order to create demand.
The fact is, prospective customers are engaging with your business long before they interact with you directly. When used correctly social media can deliver two important success beacons the first is it can create an impact on your generated revunue and secondly is it can also help to greatly shorten the time it takes to generate a sale.
This process has four stages, base development, lead development, opportunity development and customer development. . This article will look at how best to use these processes in your everyday marketing mix in order to create demand for your product and service.
1. Base Development.
This is the creation and development of first contact relationships, using social interactions, like all interaction you must build trust, which means building good relationships with your prospect without asking for any contact details. This can be done through your social network or through your website using great content without requiring registration.
Now I know that this defies the standard logic of getting customers to fill in a form, but if the content is compelling they will come back and be more willing to sign up to something from you. It does not follow just because you cannot identify these people that they are not qualified leads.
Many people will fill in a form just to have a look or from curiousity that does not make them qualified and they filled in your form. Instead provide good content to help develop a relationship with them that is open-ended in the way you would if you possibly networked with them face to face, if you do not your competetors may well beat you to ttheir cutom.
2. Lead Development.
If you build a good base relationship with your prospect then this stage will be easy to implement as you will be building on that base by maintaining your relationship with that contact. Many internet business owners do this through newsletters that continue to educate a prospect to their products or services and content. This is not just newsletters it is email or telesales calls. In terms of Social media however you should attempt to use your interactions and conversations in the same way you would use your website to help increase and target your marketingand sales.
Do this in a very focused way that prequalifies a person, to do this listen to the conversations going on find one that is relevent to your field of expertise and join in do not offer your services just show your knowledge, then use what you have learnt or discussed to hone in to people who maybe interested in your services by making discussions with them more relevant.
Then you need to segment and start your marketing campaigns based on the knowledge you have gained through social interaction. Then as with all marketing track marketing, your social interactions and engagement activites such as downloads and click through rates and web site visits from your social media platforms.
3. Opportunity Development.
This is where you utilise social media to support your business’ sales cycle once someone goes from being a prospect to a buyer. For this to work properly you must establish the difference between a lead and a sales-ready lead and after the sales process has ended what time frame and how this customer now goes back into the marketing process again for further opportunity development.
Social media can help to provide a good insight into the sales readiness of a prospect and any buyer intent, this means that social media can be critical to keeping your leads moving along the lead life cycle path. Some key ways to make this work for you is to use conversations going on to your advantage by paying attention to what people are saying to each other, what needs may come up, what surges in interest and comments are being given.
All of these things can improve the way you market and generation demand and leads, remember to continually monitor these behaviours is the main key as if there is an upsurge in your area of expertise you want to market to it and generate demand and leads from it by re-establishing contact with that person, persons or group.
4. Customer Development.
This stage is used to improve on your relationships with your existing customers. This is the stage many people let lapse, Existing customers are a great source of new and continuing revenue, and must be continuously contacted and developed, I would probably say more than a new lead as you have history together.
Think about using social media to stay in touch or tell others how valued they are, be ultra nice, send addition information in the form of tips, trick or tutorials whether paper, email or video based or to reaffirm purchase after they are made.
Try to establish a methodology to keep your drip marketing campaigns highly targeted, timely and relevant to your audiences needs, listen for new needs and requirements constantly, be adaptible so that you can leverage these new needs or requirement so you do not lose out to your competitors.
By using these four development stages within the social media arena you will be able to generate a base for your lead generation process using simply your interactions and conversation with others to help you develop qualified prospects to contact as and when they show a need for your product or service.
