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Strategies for generating B2B leads online: II

1. Content Marketing:

Content marketing refers to the marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content to online targeted audience.It is a crucial element for B2B lead generation. It is often used by businesses in order to attract attention, generate leads, expand their customer base, generate online sales, increase brand awareness or engage an online community of users. While pursuing content marketing, the main focus of the businesses should be the needs of the prospect or customer.

Once a business has identified the customer’s need, information can be presented in a variety of formats, including news, video,white papers, e-books, infographics, email newsletters, case studies, podcasts, how-to guides, question and answer articles, photos, blogs, etc. The appropriate type of content for any business will depend on the business’ goals and target customer.

Content marketing
Content marketing

2. Search engine marketing:

Search engine marketing includes both paid search results (using tools like Google Adwords or Bing Ads, formerly known as Microsoft ad-center) and organic search results (SEO) and plays a crucial rule in B2B lead generation. It includes the following steps:

  • Keyword research and analysis: It involves ensuring the site can be indexed in the search engines, finding the most relevant and popular keywords for the site and its products, and using those keywords on the site in a way that will generate and convert traffic.
  •  Website saturation and popularity: It means how much presence a website has on search engines, can be analyzed through the number of pages of the site that are indexed by search engines (saturation) and how many back links the site has (popularity).
  • Back end tools: These include Web analytic tools and HTML validators which provide data on a website and its visitors and allow the success of a website to be measured.
  • Whois tools: They reveal the owners of various websites and can provide valuable information relating to copyright and trademark issues.
  • Google Mobile-Friendly Website Checker: This test will analyze a URL and report if the page has a mobile-friendly design.
Search engine marketing
Search engine marketing

 

 

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Strategies for generating B2B leads online: I

In the previous post we talked about B2B lead generation and its components. Now let’s take a look at the strategies that can be employed to generate leads online:

1.Email marketing:

It refers to sending a commercial message to a group of people (typically potential or current customers), using email. It basically inculcates the use of email to send advertisements, request business, or solicit sales or donations, and is meant to build loyalty, trust, or brand awareness. Email marketing can be carried out using:

  •  Transactional emails: These emails are usually triggered based on a customer’s action with a company. To be qualified as transactional or relationship messages, these communications’ primary purpose must be to confirm a commercial transaction that the recipient has previously agreed to enter into with the sender, along with a few other narrow definitions of transactional messaging.
  • Direct email: It involves sending an email solely to communicate a promotional message (for example, an announcement of a special offer or a catalog of products).
  •  Mobile email marketing: It develops large amounts of traffic through smartphones and tablets.
Email-Marketing
Email-Marketing

2. Social marketing:

This type of marketing involves leveraging social media to generate leads online. Businesses can use it to generate and nurture millions of dollars worth of leads. As a matter of fact, one of the most obvious ways to generate B2B leads from social media is using LinkedIn. Since social media is an integral part of content marketing, and to some extent, search marketing, so, your blogging or info graphics can be extremely successful if you are active on social media platforms.

In order to integrate social networks into their marketing strategies, companies have to develop a marketing model. One such model includes the following steps:

  • Selection of the correct social networks to use
  • Setting out a financial plan for hiring social media brand managers or consultants
  • Designing organizational structures to manage the social network in the companies’ market
  • Selection of target markets
  • Selection of the products, services, brands or company messages that you plan to promote
  • Performance measures for the social media strategy such as evaluation, data analytics, etc.

 

Social marketing
Social marketing

 

 

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Tips for growing your personal brand: I

Building and growing your personal brand requires a lot of hard work and dedication. a strong personal brand is a valuable asset to every entrepreneur. Although brands and businesses might be built around ideas, they’re still ultimately represented by people.

1. Research:

This should be the first step of your personal brand building process. The basic idea is to figure out who you are as an individual, as well as a professional. It includes discovering things that inspire who you are as an individual and finding out what others think of you when they hear your name. Make a list of words that best describe your personality, values, and worth ethic. Now, narrow this list down into the words you want to be recognized by. Create a list of your likes and dislikes regarding your brand.  Pay close attention to what people say about your brand on social media platforms.

Research
Research

2. Identify and leverage your strengths:

Identify the characteristics that make you stand out of the crowd and then convince people why you are better than your counterparts. Know the areas of your expertise and leverage them to build your brand. You can even ask others for their views. They can help you discover that one thing which according to them you rock at.

 

Strengths
Strengths

3. Create a virtual platform:

Creating a virtual platform includes creating a website. You will also require social media accounts that represent your brand as these platforms will help you share your voice.

Building a platform
Building a platform

4. Do not fake your identity:

While building your personal brand you strictly need to avoid sugarcoating. Leverage your style and uniqueness to attract the jobs and clientele that you desire. Instead of faking your identity, discover your own style and create a new set of footprints for others to follow in.

Be yourself
Be yourself

 

 

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Outbound marketing strategies to grow your business: I

Outbound marketing is a marketing methodology that tries to reach consumers through general media advertising as well as through in-person contact. Outbound marketing can be carried out in the form of TV advertising, face-to-face meetings, or cold- calling. Through each of these outbound methods, sales leads are generated and then followed up by internal sales representatives.

Outbound marketing
Outbound marketing

Some of the best outbound marketing strategies to grow your business are:

1. PPC ad campaigns:

PPC is a short form for pay per click that further refers to a model of internet marketing in which advertisers pay a fee each time one of their ads is clicked. Essentially, it’s a way of driving traffic and buying visits to your site, rather than attempting to earn those visits organically. Your ads will appear as sponsored results at side or top of organic search rankings with PPC on search engines. PPC is the most efficacious way of drawing attention to the latest content or service offerings. Moreover, PPC ads are highly targeted, so, they can generate very high-quality leads.

Pay per click
Pay per click

2. Direct mail:

Direct mail consists of a wide variety of marketing materials, including brochures, catalogs, postcards, newsletters and sales letters. Direct-mail advertising is one of the most effective and profitable ways to reach out to new and existing clients. Direct mail is very effective when it comes to growing a business because it aims at targeted communications. You can actually grab the attention of your desired prospects by leveraging your creativity and the power of your message and presentation. Thus, direct mail is a very direct and powerful way to share your content asset.

Direct mail
Direct mail

3. Tradeshows and webinars:

Events such as tradeshows and webinars provide an opportunity to introduce and define your brand, clarify the solutions you provide and make personal connections with participants. Whether it’s an international trade show or an executive-level webinar, the two-way channel of interaction between customers, prospects, and your company is knowledgeable to them and beneficial for the businesses.

Tradeshow
Tradeshow
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Inbound marketing strategies to grow your business: III

1. Content marketing:

Content marketing is one of the many beneficial inbound marketing strategies that will help you build your business and grow it further in the long run. It is described as the form of marketing focused on creating, publishing and distributing content for a targeted audience online. It is often used by businesses in order to expand and diversify their user base. It is also used to create an online community of users, increase brand awareness and online sales. For this purpose, first, you need to start a blog. Blogging helps you to attract new visitors, gain returning visitors, convince warmer leads and helps keep your users updated. You can even include case studies and customer testimonials into your content marketing plan as it will help convince leads that are further down the funnel. Moreover, creating a content calendar will ensure that you stay on top of publishing updated content consistently.

Content marketing
Content marketing

2. Remarketing:

Remarketing defines the action taken on by companies to reintroduce a product or service to the market in response to declining sales. The company remarkets the product as an advanced version of an existing product or something that has been improved in order to reignite interest and boost sales. Remarketing can be implemented in a variety of ways such as:

i) you can remarket to anyone who visited your site

ii) show specific ad to visitors who went to a certain page

iv) show an ad to someone who has placed items in a shopping cart, but hasn’t yet converted

Remarketing
Remarketing

3. Top- notch landing page:

A top- notch landing page consists of videos or images, testimonials, and trust signals that help improve the conversion rates. Landing page can further be described as a standalone web page distinct from your main website that has been designed for a single focused objective. So, you need to make sure that the landing page is relevant to the call-to-action, such that, whether it be a product page, a form fill-out to download a whitepaper, or a subscription service page, it provides the maximum possible conversion rate.

Landing page
Landing page
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Inbound marketing strategies to grow your business: II

1. Email opt-ins:

An email list is an important aspect of inbound marketing and one of the most crucial factors in building a business and growing it thereafter. Opt-in email is a term used when someone is given the option to receive email and is some sort of mailing list, newsletter, or advertising. Without obtaining permission before sending email, the email is spam. Email opt-ins are categorized as:

i) Unconfirmed / single opt-ins:

Someone first gives an email address to the list software, but no steps are taken to confirm that this address belongs to the person submitting it.

ii) Confirmed opt-ins:

A new subscriber asks to be subscribed to the mailing list, but in this type of opt- in steps are taken to confirm that the address provided belongs to the person submitting it.

Opt- ins
Opt- ins

2. Personal branding:

Personal branding refers to the practice of people marketing themselves and their careers as brands. Personal branding is essentially the process of establishing a prescribed image or impression in the mind of others about an individual, group, or organization and often involves the application of one’s name to various products. When someone starts a business, it’s virtually impossible to separate oneself from that business. So, a personal brand can actually be used to build that business. Brands such as Tim Ferriss’s and Ramit Sethi’s depend almost exclusively on the power of their personal brand.

Personal branding
Personal branding

3. Free guides and reports:

You can actually create advanced guides and give them away for free. You just need to make sure that the guide is relevant to your business. So, you are required to keep your guide as specific as possible, because you are using it to gain a certain type of visitors such as the ones who will convert to become your customers. These guides can actually be used to showcase your expertise in your work and to provide other marketers with valuable information that can help them in growing their business.

Free guides and reports
Free guides and reports

 

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Lead magnets for an efficient conversion: II

1. Coupons and offers:

Discounts on the existing prices can prove to be the most effective lead magnets because consumers can easily price-shop for products. You can offer coupons and enticing discounts on your products and services so as to generate leads.

Coupons
Coupons

2. Loyalty programs:

Loyalty programs are structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to become long term customers and to continue using the services of businesses associated with each program. These programs cover most types of business, each one having varying features and rewards schemes. In marketing a loyalty card, rewards card, points card, advantage card, or club card is a plastic or paper card, visually similar to a credit card, debit card, or digital card that identifies the card holder as a member in a loyalty program.

Loyalty card
Loyalty card

3. Free reports:

Free reports include whitepapers, e-books, articles, and guides in the form of lead magnets. Your aim should be to provide compelling information to make a valid value exchange between your prospect and your business.

Whitepapers
Whitepapers

4. Webinars:

Webinars are educational, informative or instructional presentations that are made available online, usually as either videos or audios with slides. Since webinar attendees connect online, they can use Internet-based technologies to like communicating through instant messaging, file sharing, using a whiteboard collaboratively and interacting through social media sites in order to enhance the experience.

Webinars
Webinars

5. Podcast:

Podcast refers to an episodic series of digital media files which a user can set up so that new episodes are automatically downloaded via web partnership to the user’s local computer or portable media player. The distributor of a podcast maintains a central list of the files on a server in the form of a web feed that can be accessed through the Internet. Files are stored locally on the user’s device such that it can be used even if he/she is offline.

Podcast
Podcast 2

 

 

 

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Lead nurturing tactics: II

1. Build a retargeting audience:

Retargeting is a paid medium.  A retargeting audience may be built in any of the 4 following ways

i) Select marketing content – this is what will be displayed to your audience.

ii) Pixel based interactions – this audience is built by placing a pixel on your website that uses cookies to track online visitors, helping you remarket to them.

iii) Contact list segments – this audience is defined by a segmented contact list you already have in your database

iv) “look alike” contacts –  these are outside contacts who are similar to those who have engaged with you, offering a way to exponentially increase the numbers of impressions made.

 

Building retargeting audience
Building retargeting audience

2. Make timely, well-researched calls:

The best way to convert inbound leads into qualified sales opportunities is a timely followup email or a phone call. When you make a timely, well-researched call to an inbound lead, you know exactly what the prospect is researching based on his/her recent browsing behaviour and you also have enough information about the prospect to initialize a research about the organization they work for and their specific role within the company.

Timely follow ups
Timely follow ups

3. Personalized email marketing:

You can further improve your lead nurturing strategy by personalizing your emails. You can send triggered emails when someone downloads your gated content, clicks on links in your emails, visits certain pages on your website, or when they demonstrate a high level of engagement in order to be in touch.

Personalized emails
Personalized emails

4. Offline marketing:

Offline marketing refers to strategies that utilize offline media channels to create awareness of a company’s products and services. These campaigns may include radio and print advertising – including billboards, signs and pamphlets,telemarketing, and television ads.

Offline marketing
Offline marketing

5. Lead scoring:

Lead scoring is a methodology used to rank prospects against a scale that represents the perceived value each lead represents to the organization. The resulting score is utilized to determine which leads a receiving function (e.g. sales, partners, tele-prospecting) will engage, as per the set priority. Lead Scoring allows a business to customize a prospect’s experience based on his or her buying stage and interest level

Image result for lead scoring

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Types of sales promotions – I

1. Reward your customers:

Customers love discounts and stuff like that. Thus, rewarding your customers will help you build a solid base of loyal, long-term customers and it will entice people to shop more at your online store. Providing great customer service is crucial to the success of your business. These days offering a loyalty point system is a popular form of sales promotions.

In this case, the customer can gain points every time they buy and then use their points to get money off future purchases, or if they buy more, they save more.

Loyalty points
Loyalty points

2. Give away freebies:

Giving away freebies not only gives potential customers the chance to test out your product but also entices people to buy your stuff!

Now, the question arises, what to give away as freebies? Well! Branded keychains, bumper stickers, magnets, pens etc. are some options. Customers will appreciate the gesture, feel valued and will think of you whenever they see their branded gift.

3. Add discount to your products:

Offering your products at a price lesser than the regular one is the most popular sales promotion strategy. Adding a discount to your products is possibly the best type of promotion. Customers love to grab a bargain, so it makes sense to offer discounts every now and then to boost your sales. Always consider your bottom line and be sure to not constantly have a sale, as people will just come to expect this as a norm of your business.

Discounts
Discounts

4. Offer virtual coupons:

Offering digital or virtual coupons is an effective sales promotion technique that will make the promotion seem more exclusive and will give the customers more of a push to visit your online store. You should send coupons to loyal customers who have spent a certain amount. You could also consider sending coupons to visitors who have experienced bad customer service. This may help convert them back to happy customers!

 

Digital coupons
Digital coupons

5. Lowest price guarantees:

Price match promise has become one of the most popular ways to promote your brand these days, particularly if you have a lot of competitors trying to leverage the lucrative market. It allows your customers to shop with you and will be safe in the knowledge that if they can get it cheaper somewhere else, you’ll refund the difference and keep your words. There’s nothing to lose for them and it means that you still get to keep a solid, long-term customer base.

Price match promise
Price match promise
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Best customer retention strategies: Part V

1.Measure lifetime value:

There is a huge difference between the one-off profit you might make on an average sale and the total combined profit your average customer represents over the lifetime of their business relationship with you. Once you recognize how much-combined profit a customer represents to your business when they purchase from you again and again,  you’ll realize that customer contentment is the most important aspect of the customer retention process.

The moment you understand how much time, effort and expense you can afford to invest in retaining that customer, you will be in control of your marketing expenditure.

Related image

2. Gifts and premiums:

Premiums are promotional items like toys, collectibles and household products linked to a product, and often require box tops, tokens or proofs of purchase to acquire. Premiums fall into three categories:

i) Free premiums – sales promotions that involve the consumer purchasing a product in order to receive a free gift or reward

ii) Self-liquidating premiums – the consumer is expected to pay a designated monetary value for a gift or item

iii) In-or on-package premiums – small gifts are included with the package.

You can include these goodies into your customer retention plan to make it successful.

Premiums
Premiums

3. Tell your stories through case studies and testimonials:

Testimonials and case studies will facilitate your customer retention strategy further. It will make it easy for you to convince your existing and potential customers. They’ll help you tell your story in an easier way.

Case studies can also act as great content pieces for your blog. Once you have your reviews you can leverage them to do a number of things from increasing traffic and sales to turning them into fully fledged case studies.

Customer reviews

4. Meetups, webinars, and offline events:

You can organize meetups at local boutiques where fans of the service will meet up and have conversations about the different creative projects they are working on. You can also invite experts in your niche to participate and give knowledgeable presentations to the participants.

Make the event an iterating experience so that people can know when the next one will happen and so it will turn into a routine for your fans. Assure that all the sound and other logistics are organized appropriately and beforehand.

Offline events
Offline events

5. Sell over and over again:

Precisely, your selling has just begun when someone makes that initial purchase decision because virtually everyone is susceptible to buyer’s remorse. To lock in that sale, and all of the referrals and repeat business that will flow from it, you need to employ techniques that allay your customers’ fears and demonstrate by your actions that you genuinely care.

You should thank them and remind them again why they’ve made the right decision to deal with you. In other words,  you need to prove constantly that they have made the right decision.

Sell and then sell again
Sell and then sell again

 

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Best customer retention strategies : Part III

1. Employ a proactive approach towards customer service:

Instead of waiting for problems to occur, a company that implements anticipatory service can curb problems before their occurrence. And the best way to do that is to employ a proactive approach. Knowing the problems beforehand and being ready with the best solutions helps a lot in customer retention.

Anticipatory service
Anticipatory service

2. Inculcate courtesy system:

A courtesy system refers to a powerful system that enhances the interpersonal skills of your team and changes the spirit of your organization. It involves speaking to colleagues politely and pleasantly and treating them just like you would want them to treat your customers. This will help your team to feel worthwhile and important, which will further result in pleasant social contacts at work. It also motivates them to provide extraordinary service consistently. This results in long termed loyal customers.

3. Be an expert in your particular field:

As a matter of fact, if you know every bit of your business you will likely retain more customers. Your customers will trust you, rely on you for the best pieces of advice, and recognize you as an inevitable part of their business success. All you need to do is inform them of upcoming changes. Also, you need to provide some insightful recommendations regarding their business. This proactive, approach will render customer retention strategies more effective.

4. Do whatever it takes to woo your customers:

Going that extra mile for your customers to provide customer satisfaction is an easy way to build strong relationships. By doing this, you can build some serious long-term loyalty. Moreover, if your clients know you are more than ready to go above and beyond, they will stick with you when competitors enter the lucrative market.

 

Wooing customers
Wooing customers

5. Loyalty Programs:

Loyalty programs are defined as structured marketing strategies designed by merchants to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of businesses associated with each program. In marketing generally and in retailing more specifically, a loyalty card or rewards card identifies the card holder as a member enrolled in a loyalty program. With these cards, customers typically earn the right:
i) either to a discount on the current purchase

ii) or to an allotment of points that they can use for future purchases.

Loyalty programs