Knowing The Benefits Of Doing Houston Business Online
While you do not have to run your entire business online, there are many benefits to being online as well. If you have a small business, you can benefit from the use of email to communicate with your clients and suppliers. A website can also be utilized to boost revenue and some businesses run their entire operations online only.
The Benefits Of Online Business
There are many benefits to online business with global 24/7 access being one of them. You will also improve customer service when you are online as you offer greater engagement flexibility. There are many cost savings for smaller businesses and the delivery of products is generally faster.
When you do business online, there is an increase in professionalism. Your paper waste will decrease which decreases your overall costs. You will also be able to manage your business from anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection.
A lot of consumers will prefer viewing products and services on a website before they have to meet you in person. The modern consumer also expects businesses to have a website or an email address. Business cards should have this information on it along with any other promotional material you create.
Managing Online Business Opportunities
The way that you manage your online business opportunities will vary depending on the systems and technology you use and offer. If you sell products, you can use the internet to create an online store. You can also manage your suppliers by ordering and communicating with them online.
Customer engagement is also possible online and you can easily get feedback from clients regarding your business. If you run a service business, you can offer your services via the internet. If you need to see people in person, you can make it easy for them to book an appointment with you online.
There are a number of online software packages that help you manage your business finances. You can make use of online banking, online tax services, and general accounting software. The internet also provides you with the tools you need to research your competition.
Your Future Opportunities
Business and industries are constantly evolving and you need to keep up with this. The internet can help you keep up to date with the changes you need. While you may not plan to have a website when your business first starts, this is something you need to have for the future. Online business is constantly growing and you need to keep up with this.
When it comes to planning the online parts of your business, you need to research your competition and see what they are doing. You should then determine which aspects of your business will benefit the most from being online. Once you have determined this, you have to look at your budget and see what you can afford right now.
You also need to become familiar with the laws and regulations related to your online business. Your requirements should also be considered as you need to choose the right software to help you achieve your goals. Take the time to think about any risks of doing business online and how you can mitigate them such as training your staff.
7 Reasons For Investing In Houston Internet Marketing Today
More and more consumers opt to research and shop for products online. Therefore, companies realize the significance of investing in effective internet marketing strategies. Understanding the impact or influence that internet marketing has in today’s commerce will help you see the value it will add to the growth and success of your business.
Let’s look at the top seven reasons behind the significance of this type of online marketing and how its implementation can add value to your business.
With technology driving the way we do business; companies must come up and adopt useful and efficient internet marketing strategies and campaigns. Such marketing plans are vital in the continued growth of the company, as is shown in the following seven reasons:
1. Your Customers Are Online
More than 80% of consumers are online, and that number keeps growing. More than 4.3 billion people rely on the internet for research. As such, you should invest in ways of leveraging the internet to reach leads that are searching for your products or services. You, therefore, have billions of potential costumers waiting to find you or your company.
When marketing, the primary goal is to reach as many potential customers as you can by providing them with relevant information and what they need or want where they work, live, or shop. The current generation lives, shops, and works online – on the Internet. That is where you need to take your marketing campaign.
With effective internet marketing, you will not only reach out to your target consumers but also connect with them. Therefore, you can find leads that you can convert into loyal customers.
2. Establishing Two-Way Communication
The previous methods of advertising were more of one-way communication. Marketers would create ads for print media and the TV or radio and wait, hoping that the target audience would see, hear, or read the adverts and then visit the business. It was an ineffective method because it did not address a crucial issue – what if the audience has concerns or questions? How would these advertisements help if the customers wanted to learn more about the business or its products or services? That is why today’s advertising is centered on establishing a two-way conversation. That is what Internet marketing is all about.
With this marketing method, you will provide your audience with a means of contacting you or your business to make inquiries or voice their concerns. You can do this by creating social media posts or even content on your website. You can also use PPC (pay-per-click) ads. It is possible to reach clients via digital marketing channels. It, however, works if you leave your contact details to that interested customers can reach you if they have any questions or need advice. Leave communication options that include email, calling, or live chat.
With such communication, you will be able to strike a two-way conversation that is essential in establishing a lasting relationship with your audience. It, in turn, creates an opportunity for you to connect and know your customers better. As a result, they will feel welcomed, appreciated, and valued by your company.
3. Personalizing Your Audience’s Experience
Your customers want to feel like they matter to you and your business. They want more than spending money on a product or service. Therefore, internet marketing addresses this by striving to create a holist customer experience.
It can be designed and executed in a personalized way so that it addresses individual concerns of every consumer. That means you can create tailored experiences that fit the needs and interests of each customer. Such a move is essential because people are different and will come to your business for varied reasons. Some may do so because they are interested in one type of service or product, while others will be interested in another. Therefore, the various needs translated to different customer experiences, and each needs to be met.
You will achieve this by creating multiple, bespoke marketing strategies that you can fit into one campaign. Such a thing is why internet marketing is a powerful tool for today’s businesses that seek to make their name known in the digital sphere. It helps them deliver the best possible experiences to their targeted leads and turn them into potential customers.
4. You Can Drive Quality Traffic
Traditional advertising faced a significant hurdle, that of getting interested leads. Such methods made it hard to know the number of valuable leads to reach since the ads would reach both the interested and disinterested consumers. As such, it was difficult generating quality traffic that can signify valuable leads.
With internet marketing, companies can drive more quality traffic to their websites. They can reach more interested leads, that means targeting a specific demographic which translates to traffic that needs the products or services on offer.
The specificity of the demographic can be based on interests, socioeconomic status, spending habits, hobbies, and other information. With this, you can be very precise about the audience you want to target and be able to reach them, knowing that they will be interested in your business, products, or services.
5. You Can Increase The Company’s Visibility
If you want more people to visit or contact your business, then you need to increase its visibility. Marketing will be at the heart of this objective, but you need to do this both offline and online. With the offline approach, you are limited regarding who sees your adverts. You will not have much control over that.
But with the online strategy, you are exposed to billions of interest users. Moreover, you will have different elements assisting in the marketing of your business 24/7, which translated to increased visibility.
6. You Get To Multitask
When doing internet marketing, you can run several marketing campaigns at once. You can have one for your high-level consumers so that you can provide the quality of experience that suits them. Similarly, you can have another campaign running concurrently, that aims are drawing in new interests. Both experiences will be different, but the two are under the same internet marketing blanket.
Furthermore, you will be able to handle millions of consumers at once when they visit your site. You will only need to invest in a robust website that can take on multiple transactions so that you can get more conversions. All that translates into an opportunity for your company to grow and succeed.
7. Your Competitors Are Doing It
Lastly, your competitors are investing in the internet market, so why should you be left behind? They are continually looking for new leads and thus are keen on coming up with different internet marketing methods and will give them an edge over their competition.
Therefore, do what you can to beat them at their game. Taking your marketing online and obtain leads that you can convert before you lose them to your competitors.
Tips To Create An Optimized Content For SEO In Houston
Effective content marketing is at the heart of today’s Search Engine Optimization (SEO). It is the engine that power SEO. And just as wheels will not turn without an engine, similarly, no optimization campaign will work without quality content. It means that the SEO strategies will only be a toothless dog that is all bark but no bite.
The two cannot do without each other. Google holds quality content with high regard stating that it plays a significant role in organic searches. But what is the mean of all this?
Quality content may be necessary for effective optimization, but search engines do not have a checklist for what constitutes the kind of “high-quality content” that they advocate for, and most likely never will. As such, it is up to the online marketers to mine Google Analytics and scour search results to fish out the factors and elements that define what it takes to generate and churn out high-quality content for SEO purposes. Below is a quick guide on how to create such kind of content.
Step 1: Optimize Your Content Strategy
In most cases, many marketers will wait until the end of their content curation process before bringing in SEO for promotional purposes. They will review what they created so that they can determine the best keywords to use and links to add.
The correct approach for generating effective content that will drive your marketing campaign is first to figure out the best keywords to use based on online users’ interests. That means you need to understand the queries they use for searches and the kind of information they seek. It is only then that you can create the right type of material that will offer answers to the questions they have. In short, you will curate content that is a solution for them; thus, it can help move your audience through the funnel.
Step 2: Design Good Content
If you manage to keep your target users engaged, then it means that they are consuming your content. Therefore, that implies that they are interacting and sharing your material. Such an achievement these calls for designing good content right from the get-go.
In as much as there are many opinions as to what constitutes quality content, below are the primary elements that are worth observing:
• Relevant
• Clear, Coherent, Concise
• Practical
• Unexpected
• Educational
• Concrete
• Emotional
• Trustworthy, Credible, Valid
• Inspiring
• Entertaining
• Thorough
• Novel (Unique)
Step 3: Create Correct Content
Regarding the user experience in as far as content is concerned, a typo or grammar error can be an unsettling thing. It may not be an issue that may feature in the list of things that influence ranking, but it is something to take seriously when it comes to concerns of user experience.
In the same spirit, the linking and citing sources you choose should be from leading authorities so that they help demonstrate to search engines that your material is relevant and trendy.
Step 4: Check Your Keyword Usage
Once you have figured out the ideal keywords to use based on user intent research, your next step is the placement of the keywords. But your primary objective is how you will use them in the content you intend to create. While at it, avoid keyword stuffing. Google deemed such a move as an ineffective tactic, but does not render the keywords as ‘dead.’ It only implies that they should be implements with SEO in mind.
The 10 Best Ways To Utilize Houston Digital Marketing
In a modern society filled with electronics, it is not surprising that more and more people spend time in front of screens. And when you think about it, how many people do you know that don’t permanently carry a smartphone with them? The truth is that digital marketing has become the most effective and affordable way to reach potential clients. But digital marketing is just an umbrella term because you have several options available to you.
If you want to get the best results from digital marketing, it is recommended to mix things up. Do not just put all your effort into a single channel when there are so many. Besides, do you honestly think your competition will limit themselves? No, they won’t.
So, here are the 10 best ways to utilize digital marketing for your online business.
1. Search Engine Optimization
Also referred to as SEO, search engine optimization tends to be the starting point for all online business owners. And this is based on the dominance search engines have when it comes to the internet. Most users trust platforms like Google, Bing, and Yahoo to bring them the most relevant websites. This also means your website is subject to the requirements set by these platforms. More specifically, you have to optimize your website to increase visibility and increase your ranking. The good news is that search engines do not charge you anything to get to the top of search results (SERPs), and organic traffic has the best odds of converting.
2. Search Engine Marketing
When you read or talk about SEM, it refers to search engine marketing. This is when you focus more intently on the search engines and the advertising space they offer. And the great part about this option is the instant top spot you get with relevant search results. Instead of optimizing your site, you worry about optimizing your ads. However, SEM typically involves PPC (Pay-Per-Click).
3. Social Media Marketing
Whether you like it or not, social media has only grown more powerful over the years. And now, it is part of daily life for millions across the globe. Hence the reason why you should be working on a good social media marketing campaign. Keep in mind that social media also expanded to include things like news updates, so users have more than one reason to log in. If you want to see your online business grow, make social media part of your strategy.
4. Content Marketing
Content marketing is yet another powerful way to give your business the edge. It is based on writing specific content that speaks to a specific market. You don’t want to be too aggressive here. Instead, keep the call-to-actions gentle and make sure the quality of the content is good. It is very important that users find the content useful and informative. Otherwise, it will not be as effective.
5. Email Marketing
One of the best ways to retain customers and keep them coming back is through email marketing. This gives you direct access to each one, but you have to use this information wisely. For example, do not send emails every five minutes. And when you do send them, make sure people WANT to open them, instead of tagging your business as spam. At the same time, it can help to bring in new clients if they sign up for your newsletter or subscribe to your site. When you have an email address, you have a chance to make it work for you.
6. Online Advertising
If you don’t mind spending some money, online advertising through different publishers can be just what you need. These ads can come in the shape of banners, pop-ups, and even as text banners on platforms like Google AdSense. But if you want to make the most of the campaign, keep it targeted and focus. Don’t waste money on users that are not likely to support your business.
7. Landing Page Marketing
Landing pages should be a fundamental part of your campaign. Not only do they work well with other strategies, but they are critical for turning leads into conversions. Of course, the homepage of a website could be a perfect landing page. But it’s usually better to create a specific page users go to when you need to close the sale. Then you can bring more focus to the product or service too. Whereas a homepage might be too general.
8. Smartphone Marketing
As mentioned earlier, you’ll be hard-pressed to find someone that does not own a smartphone. Now consider that text messages had a global open average rate of 94% in 2018, as well as the growing popularity of useful apps. Add to this the fact that people always have their phones with them. All this information points to one thing – focusing on mobile users. You will lose out if you don’t.
9. Affiliate Marketing
As you are reading this, there are many affiliate marketers, looking for the next best opportunity. Will you be the one giving it to them? Because if you can get the right affiliate marketers on your side, there is no telling where the exposure might stop. For one, affiliate marketers only pay attention to promoting other products. In return, they get a share of the profit. And considering that these marketers can have extensive contacts and knowledge, they can serve a very powerful purpose. To make it even better, you do not have to make any upfront payments.
10. Viral Marketing
Just to avoid any confusion, a viral post is one that gains a lot of attention really fast. This is because the post is trendy, it grabs attention, and people can’t stop sharing it. More importantly, a viral post can bring significant exposure to your online business. Whether it is Facebook, Twitter, or a video on YouTube, you should never underestimate the power of a viral post. But if you want to create one, it requires some research. You have to know what users are looking for.
In Summary
Of course, the article makes digital marketing sound very easy. The reality is that you need advanced tactics if you want to gain the edge for your online business. That means taking the digital marketing options mentioned, and possibly consulting with a professional in the area.
Using the internet to share information about a company’s brand, services, or products to potential customers is known as online marketing. This type of marketing is different than traditional marketing that typically uses billboards, print, and radio and television ads. The goal of online marketing is to reach out to those who may be interested in what is being offered through different channels where time is spent shopping, reading, socializing, and reading online. There is a myriad of ways to market online, including search engine optimization, display advertising, Google AdWords, social media, email, and more. Marketing online provides a variety of benefits and poses some challenges when it comes to attracting and engaging potential customers through these digital channels.
What Are Online Marketing Tools?
In order to create and maintain a strong online marketing program, there are many different tools available:
One of the main benefits of using online marketing is that the impact of marketing a company’s products or services can be measured. The way a visitor interacted within various channels and arrived at a landing page or website can be measured. Plus, more significant information can be gleaned through further analysis that can be done to determine which online channels were most effective at turning visitors into paying customers.
Analyzing online experiences, whether using the web or a mobile app can also determine many things about a marketing campaign. First, analyzing the data can determine the best channels for turning visitors into customers. Looking at the data can help determine the marketing channels that are best at converting visitors to customers, helping marketers to determine the most cost-effective channels. Also, the data will show how customers engage with the website or app and show which customers more strongly engage. The more strongly customers engage, the higher the potential for upsells.
Online Marketing Challenges
While online marketing allows businesses to improve their presence on the World Wide Web, this marketing method also poses some challenges for the companies that delve into online marketing. One issue is that online marketing removes the personal touch. Messages and content are delivered virtually without any face to face interaction. However, it is important for marketers to understand their customers, including what they prefer and need. Online marketing does not provide opportunities for companies to have face to face conversations or utilize user testing to better understand their customers’ experience, putting them a step behind traditional marketing techniques.
It is also quite competitive and crowded in the online marketing world. Online marketing provides companies the opportunity to share products and services locally and in far-reaching markets, but the competition online is considerable. For companies that choose to market themselves on the World Wide Web, it can be difficult to hold visitors’ attention because of the number of other businesses that are also marketing themselves online. Because of this, online marketers must be unique in their ability to brand the company as they try out marketing campaigns across various channels.
10 Reasons Why Digital Marketing Is More Effective Than Traditional Marketing In Houston
Digital marketing is an umbrella term that speaks to all electronic-based campaigns. For the most part, digital marketing is executed online. And the ultimate focus of these campaigns is to promote and sell products or services.
There is no question that the internet is leveling the playing field for startups and entrepreneurs. At the same time, it reduces the budget strain for bigger companies. And when digital marketing is compared with traditional marketing, it’s hard to think businesses still invest in the latter. Because living in a digital age means more people are spending time online.
Now, people prefer to shop from the comfort of their homes. And if they don’t shop from home, they window shop online before getting in the car. So it does not matter what type of business you are running, it needs to have an online presence if you want to compete with your peers. And this is where digital marketing comes in.
Here are 10 reasons why digital marketing is more effective than traditional marketing:
1. Digital Marketing Is More Affordable
One of the main challenges any business face will be the marketing budget. Buying exposure does not come cheap, especially if you are looking at traditional channels like television and radio. And this is also why startups used to have it so hard. Without big marketing budgets, how do you compete with the big players that dominate all media areas?
But things change when you take the marketing campaign online. All of a sudden, it becomes incredibly affordable to reach your target market, and you can do it much quicker than you think. When it comes to affordability between digital and traditional marketing, the former is the clear winner.
2. Greater Returns On Your Investment
Adding to the affordability factor that was just mentioned, the odds of seeing better returns are much better online. Not only do you spend less to reach your target market, but you are more likely to stimulate business through solid digital marketing tactics. The result is an ROI you can smile about all day long.
3. Campaigns Are Easy To Monitor
Another big advantage of a digital campaign would be tracking elements. With traditional marketing, it can take weeks and months to receive data on how the campaign is performing. But a digital campaign provides data the moment there is activity.
For example, email software allows you to monitor the number of emails delivered and read. While analytics provide interesting information regarding user habits and trends. The best part is that you can get this information quickly and not waste any precious time. And once you have this information, you can think about making some valuable changes.
4. Instant Changes
Assuming you get a bunch of billboards set up all around the city, only to learn the campaign is flawed or simply doesn’t draw enough attention. What do you have to do to fix this problem? Yes, it’s going to take time and money to retract, reprint, and replace all the billboards.
With a digital campaign, it takes a few clicks. When a campaign is doing great, you can quickly invest more with a few tweaks. And if the campaign isn’t doing so well, you can make some quick changes or retract the campaign altogether – instantly. Now, compare it to the billboard scenario and it becomes obvious why startups run for digital marketing campaigns first. They make more sense and you can get things done right away.
5. Establishing A Brand
Whether you want to agree or not, it has become mandatory for businesses to establish a brand. And thanks to digital marketing, it is much easier to establish a brand than it was before. Because when you see all the options you have, and how affordable it is, you’ll quickly understand why everyone uses digital marketing to expand their brand.
6. Sharing Made Easy
A solid digital marketing campaign is going to have share options for users. This is considered a digital word of mouth because users get the opportunity to share the campaign if they like it. And with social media being as popular as it is, just imagine the viral possibilities.
7. Targeted Marketing
There are many reasons why digital marketing is more affordable. One of them speaks to targeted marketing. And even though it is applied with traditional marketing, it is not nearly as effective. Targeted marketing allows you to focus specifically on consumers that are likely to be interested in what you are selling. While this is a tough nut to crack via traditional means, digital campaigns are built on them.
8. You Have A Global Reach
The internet is pretty much everywhere. This also means that if you run a digital campaign, you reach past the borders that typically limit your options. A good example would be an e-commerce site. It’s open 24/7, and people from all around the world can shop there. Now imagine what you can do with a marketing campaign without border limits? This is the type of exposure that can take your business to the next level. And you don’t get it through conventional means.
9. Consumer Segmentation
As mentioned earlier, digital marketing makes it very easy to track consumer habits and trends. But it also puts you in a position to break down even small groups. You are at liberty to send targeted emails to specific consumers. And the more you learn about them, the more accurately you can group them according to your marketing strategy.
The consequence of segmentation will lead to even more affordable campaigns with even higher returns. Basically, you keep on reducing costs by using a focused digital marketing campaign.
10. Increased Consumer Engagement
While the internet can make things incredibly easy for you as a business, it also comes with some requirements. For example, users like it when everything happens quickly. They don’t want to wait when they can be shopping or browsing. So, user-engagement has become very important in this regard.
Digital marketing gives you the opportunity to engage your target market, and to keep your target audience engaged. The one thing you don’t want is to lose consumer interest. And maintaining engagement is made so much easier with the digital alternative.
Important Information About The Lead Generation Process
Lead Generation Basics
There is so much to know and learn about the lead generation process. Basically, it is a kind of marketing process to energize and capture interest for a specific product or service and leverage those to develop a sales pipeline. Various digital channels are essential for generating leads, as well as the techniques that get applied to all of the changes that continue to evolve over time. These days, we have modern online and social techniques that are also available. The development of the “self-directed buyer” who is able to thrive on all of the information that can be found online these days is one of the most notable developments. We now have modern online and social techniques. Those new techniques help with creating and evaluating prospective leads before they convert into sales.
Why Lead Generation Is So Essential
The new face of the buying process requires marketers to come with up new and fresh ways to get their messages across to their prospective buyers. Email blasts and mass advertisements up to this point were the acceptable advertising methods. Marketers now need to do more to stay on the radar screen and work on increasing their chances on a daily basis for customers to find them. Once a business is discovered it must work on developing close relationships with its customers.
The Abundance of Information & Attention Economics
With the rise of the internet, information has become more abundant. Although it is a good thing having so much information available, there are challenges that come with it. Having an abundant amount of information results in having to secure attention. It is one of the basic principles that attention economics is associated with. Herbert Simon, a social scientist and leading pioneer of attention economics, says that information, in the economic sense, consumes the attention of its recipients. It has also changed the buying process. Buyers now have so much information available to them, and in trying to not be influenced by it, buyers continue to reject or ignore most of the messages. Instead, they rely on their own research to learn about a subject that they are interested in.
The New Purchasing Process
In the past, during the information scarcity age, marketing was involved in the lead generation process, which involved finding the name of potential buyers and converting this information into sales. At that time buyers relied on sales agents to help them make their decision. The sales agent, on the other hand, may lack the knowledge that is necessary for convincing uneducated, early-stage buyers.
By contrast, the new purchasing process involves buyer doing their own online research where they look for resources that can help them make a good decision. They rely on social media, search engines, as well as other online channels to get information on a specific product or service. They are more prepared than ever before to interact with salespeople.
This is why business must ensure they have a good digital presence. The new purchasing process places the vendor on the very end of the consumer’s buying journey since they have received the information that they would have received from the seller in the past. So they are more of their very own experts now.
Any business with a well-developed lead generation strategy can stand a lot better chance to earn the prospective buyer’s complete trust and spark their interest before they reach the last stage where they meet with the vendor. That also saves on wasting time and stress for a sales team that has a reduce to have to cold call. When your sales time has solid leads it is a much easier process, and ultimately you will get higher and faster conversions of leads into revenue.
Owned Attention & Rented Attention
The purchasing process is currently shifting away from “renter attention” to “owned attention” due to attention scarcity. The common practice before now was applying a marketing strategy based on rental attention, or attention built by other people. For example, buying an ad in a magazine or renting a booth at a tradeshow. They are less expensive these days, because of information overload. More has to be done in order to capture the attention of the buyer, perhaps a combination of owned attention and refined attention – to achieve results from your lead generation efforts.
To gain attention for yourself, these days you have to establish yourself with prospective buyers as a trusted advisor. That can be done from constantly creating valuable content and disseminating thought leadership. When done properly, it helps to increase the chance that your lead generation efforts will succeed rather than being part of a very complex purchasing environment that we are all in today.
Leading Prospects Down The Sales Funnel
It is essential that you understand that the process currently demands you to do more than just convert new leads into sales. Businesses need to go beyond just marketing from the Top of the Sales Funnel. If you realize that not every new lead will buy something at that exact moment, then you will understand there is a new to retain leads so they do not get snatched by the competition or get lost or ignored.
In order to succeed with lead generation, a business needs to be willing to invest in nurturing leads and make use of the Middle of Funnel (MOFU) methods. MOFU techniques are designed to help nurture relationships that are already established and to grow and develop trust by offering engaging, high-quality content. It is important for the techniques to guide the lead gently into buying.
Recently, in order to succeed in lead generation, you need to effectively combine MOFU and TOFU approaches and techniques into an overall holistic marketing philosophy. You can only then convert your leads efficiently into paying clients or customers.
Lead GenerationResearch
An important aspect of lead generation is lead generation techniques. Companies are increasingly spending good amounts of money on diversifying their creative efforts for capturing the attention of their audience despite all of the noise in today’s environment.
Recently we have seen an increase in net spending by marketers on lead generation. Typically, money is spent on social media, website optimization, and SEO.
Lead Generation Focus of CMO’s
CMO’s and senior-level marketing executives are increasingly prioritizing obtaining measure ROI from all of their marketing efforts. They are also prioritizing optimization of the sales funnel and marketing over their lead generation efforts. Therefore, CMOs are focusing on locating viable methods to improve the quality of the leads that they generate from their investments and marketing efforts.
Today’s Top Challenges For Lead Generation
As previously mentioned, the top priority across the board for marketing executives is lead quality. However, the quality of leads is a major challenge for marketers. And IDG study showed that 61% of marketers that were part of the study found that it was a huge challenge to generate high-quality leads.
That said, marketing executives must deal with having inadequate resources. That includes needing to operate with inadequate data (both quantity and quality-wise), staffing, and resources while still attempting to generate quality leads in the process.
Most Efficient & Effective Lead Generation Techniques
Another IDG survey on B2B Lead Generation showed that conferences, tradeshows, corporate websites, and email marketing are the most popular and effective lead generation techniques that are being used currently. On the other hand, print advertising and direct mail have been identified to be the least effective forms of lead generation methods.
Lead Generation Fundamentals
In order to get lead generation fundamentals right, you must appreciate the fact that defining leads is highly subjective. Everything depends on the specific company that is involved. Definition of a lead will typically depend on the sales cycle of the company. However, the general definition of a lead is a qualified prospective buyer who shows a certain level of interest in purchasing your services or goods. It is very important to note that each lead that supplies their details to you should get something in exchange; that could be a convincing offer or additional information on your products.
In generally there are two major kinds of lead generation – outbound and inbound. However, the basic principles of customer retention, nurturing, and recognizing are always a part and integral to the comprehensive strategy of a business.
Inbound Marketing
This involves helping prospective clients or customers learn about or find your company, usually before they consider buying from you. Doing this will help you convert your early audience into developing a preference for your brand, and that will turn them eventually into a lead and a sale.
In a market with customers being greatly empowered by having plenty of choices available to them, marketers cannot rely on cold calling, advertisements, tradeshows and other types of outbound marketing methods only. Consumers today are knowledgeable and educated, and therefore need a lot of information. Marketers must find creative and innovative ways to stand out in a crowd and catch the attention of their audience. To do that you need to have a very good handle on inbound marketing.
This is achieved by providing a mix of entertaining, relevant, and informative content. The goal here is to develop a relationship with your audience who are your potential clients as well. However, it is not enough to simply create content. You must make your content available to your audience on the specific channels that are used by your prospective customers.
We will take a look at some of the most effective forms of inbound lead generation strategies:
Content & SEO
All of the inbound marketing efforts you make will run into a brick wall quickly if you don’t create and use the right type of content. Therefore, content marketing is the cornerstone of inbound leads generation. At its core content marketing is all about creating and distributing useful and in-depth content in order to capture the attention of a specific target audience and then engage with this audience. The end goal is to help the audience take customer actions that are profitable.
Social media marketing, email marketing, and other kinds of marketing all thrive on content. When you have the right content it can get you in front of the right buyers and help you win their trust.
Instead, we decided to switch over to blog refreshes. We came up with a list of older blog posts that we thought were ripe for updates and started updating the content. We did not need to do extensive reviews, and we knew we could implement the necessary changes. Consequently, blog traffic picked up, which allowed us to show some improvements without having to create new content.
At the end of it all, search engine optimizations are often dependent on other departments to bear results. It is vital that you be aware of available resources and that you adjust when need be.
Align Recommendations with Your Business Goals
While aligning with your business goals seems like an obvious thing, it is vital that to ensure that you’re driving results that will impact the entire organization. Is that something that you are going to do? Or are the recommendations you suggest simply geared towards improving organic revenue and traffic?
I will be honest. I’ve been 100% guilty of providing recommendations that will help the search engine optimization program but which do not necessarily align with the organization’s goals. This is one very easy mistake to make.
Consider Client B above. At the commencement of the program, we identified a core set of keywords to work with and the type of content we’d need to get more visibility. We all agreed until we created the content.
While they understood that they needed content, they felt that it really did not fit with existing campaigns and their current strategy.
So three blog posts sat there unpublished – until months later.
We asked questions and got integrated into their demand gen calendar, and as it turns out, the three unpublished blog posts would fit perfectly in an upcoming campaign.
It was a simple thing to overlook. The content we’d made was perfectly okay for the program; however, it was not necessarily a fit for their campaign at that moment.
Ensure that you understand not only the objectives of the SEO team but also the objectives of supporting teams and those of the business in entirety.
Do Not Jump at the Trends
Last month, I made a presentation on some of the most common SEO mistakes we make. One of those mistakes is overreacting to Google’s many changes and updates.
Okay, I get it. I do. When Google says that we need to make our sites more secure or it will start warning users, it is vital that we listen and make the necessary changes. However, when Google suggests that we make our sites secure and then cannot figure out how to differentiate between non-secured and secured versions, it can be a bit frustrating.
Remember Google Plus? Authorship? And what about 300-character meta-descriptions? Well, wasn’t that a fun minute.
We need to make sure that what we recommend actually makes sense for our businesses. We cannot provide recommendations just because Google suggested it.
Okay, I am not saying that your site should not be secured or that it should not be mobile-friendly and fast. What I’m trying to say is that your mobile traffic probably is a bit insignificant, so you do not have to spend 90% of your time focusing on your mobile strategy.
Here is another good example.
When AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) was introduced, it seemed like a straightforward thing to do. While it was designed for publishers, Yoast made it simpler, and because of that, it became part of our typical technical recs. But then again, what about those not using WordPress? What about people using CMS (Custom Content Management Systems) who’d need to hire developers to build out accelerated mobile pages’ functionality? Was it even worth it?
Sadly, it was not. In such a case, the webmaster did not publish tons of new content, and their mobile traffic figures were significantly small. Even more revealing, mobile search results for most of their core terms did not contain accelerated mobile pages results.
Google told us to ‘Jump,’ but in that case, there wasn’t a reason to jump.
Final Thoughts
In the end, it is important to remember that success is a moving target. We live in a time of where people consider what you have done for them lately and not what you have been doing for them. A program may change within a few months or in a year. As search engine optimization specialists, it is vital that we continue, adjusting, measuring and ensuring that our strategies align with the ever-changing landscape.
Remember, while you could try and fix everything, that is not always the only option. Help your team become successful by prioritizing tasks. Help them understand what’s going to have a greater impact and provide recommendations that are business objectives oriented.
How do you tell if the content changes and search engine optimization changes you are making will benefit your website? Contributor Casie Gillette expounds on ways you can prioritize your resources so that they positively impact your bottom line and promote your business objectives.
“What is it that we need to do to optimize our site properly?”
This is one question every SEO specialist will ask at some point but is one that does not have a straightforward answer. Think about it, have you ever heard of or seen a site that only needs one thing?
That is the problem with search engine optimization. It is comprised of so many different aspects that when faced with the ‘what should we do’ question, we often find ourselves offering too many recommendations. Sadly, most teams are not armed with the knowledge or resources needed to handle them. So, instead of getting things done, we end up completing little to almost nothing at all.
“How can we be sure that our team is making the changes needed to help drive success?”
Over the years working as a digital marketing expert, this has been one challenge that I have faced so many times, and thankfully, I have learned several ways to handle it. Let us have a look.
Prioritize by Impact
A day only has so much time, and that means not everything can be done within a single day. So, if you can only get two things on your to-do list, then make sure that you choose the things that will have the biggest impact on your site as a whole.
Let us look at a technical search engine optimization audit, for instance. In technical audits, we might recommend redirect updates, image compressions, heading tags, canonicalization and mirage of things. A development team, already weighed down by regular, day-to-day tasks won’t be able to get everything done all at once.
To ensure that we get at least one thing done, you have to look at the things that are really holding back your site. Title tags might not look like high-priority, but if your website does have them, this change alone could lead to some considerable improvements.
When recommending things to do, prioritize and help your teams understand where they need to start and what things can wait. Not everything is a priority.
Prioritize by Resources
The same will apply to resources.
Last year, we made a recommendation to Client A that they needed to transition their website from HTTP to HTTPs. And while they accepted the idea, and we were obviously excited about it, we realized that they did not have anyone to help manage the process of them.
Moving a website to HTTPs is not a small feat. It can be complicated and could result in tons of errors, and, as I have seen severally now, it could result in a significant loss of organic loss – thanks to Google. We could not take any risks. We held our recommendation for almost one whole year until they had sourced and placed the right people to ensure a smooth, error-free transition. As a result, everything got switched over properly, and the website is seeing a significant increase in traffic.
Let us look at another great example. Client B wanted help writing content but did not have anyone to edit, manage or approve the process, which resulted in a backlog of tons of unpublished blog posts. Who will an unpublished blog post help? Absolutely nobody.
Call or contact the professionals at Found Me Online to address starting your online marketing campaign! Click here for article two.
Should You Keep Your Best Content, or Give it Away? Part 2
Cons:
You are using your content to a site that is someone else’s
Your reputation will be affected by the reputation of the site hosting the content
The content can be easily removed at any time
The site hosting the content could shut down.
Below are some of the pros and cons of having your content on your own site.
Pros:
There is no middleman involved, you are directly driving traffic to your site
You have total control over the content
If you happen to build links, the links are going to help your site and not that of someone else.
You are building the authority of your site
Cons:
If you happen to get penalized, the chances of you getting traffic decreases.
You might not get much return on investment (ROI) if you don’t get decent traffic.
The audience you are reaching might not be diverse because of the demographics of your site.
If your site is not popular, then there is a risk you might be losing a chance to attract links
Content types and where they go
Let’s have a look at the different types of content and see how and where they should be housed and why.
Evergreen content that is going to be updated. This is the type of content you need to keep on your site unless there is no traffic coming to your site. This is because you will have an easier time controlling the updates. Evergreen content can also be the perfect option for attracting quality links, so the links should be leading to your site. If for example, you have a site selling ceiling fans then you create a guide on choosing and installing ceiling fans using videos or step by step instructions, then you don’t want that content to be on any other site that is not yours.
One-off pieces. If you happen to have content that is considered a one-off piece, then it is a good idea to place it on other people’s website. If I want to write content on the best WordPress plug-ins, then the best option is putting it on a site that is about web design or WordPress, instead of my website which is about link building.
Lists of resources. I prefer keeping the main list on my own website and then I will try contributing pieces to the list, or even create a slightly different list that can be used for other sites. You will have an easier time updating it when it is on your own site. If I was interested in creating a list covering content creation tools, I can have lists such as “Top 10 free content creation tools of 2019” on other people’s site.
Always remember social platforms!
Social network platforms such as Medium and LinkedIn have been shown to be effective when it comes to generating of good traffic. You can use your Twitter account to give out tricks and tips, and also take part in Facebook groups. The platforms will provide you with quality traffic and you will also have an easier way of getting feedback because people will post comments on your content.
Content is more than just articles. It also includes videos, podcasts, infographics, survey results, case studies, slide decks, and more. Try the different types of content, and you will be able to attract quality content to your site.
Call or contact the professionals at Found Me Online to address starting your online marketing campaign! Click here for article one.
