We all want to generate more leads, prospects and sales, right? Whether you are a manufacturer, rural tourism promoter, service provider or non-profit, you are all looking for more leads, prospects and sales. Your sale may be a donation or an actual exchange of money for goods/services. The bottom line is, you want to generate more leads and prospects that convert to sales.
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These days just having a website is not usually enough. If that's how you see your online presence, my guess is you probably aren't generating and leads or sales from your website...it probably just sits there. A complete online marketing strategy will allow you to reach more individuals, when they are looking, where they are looking, on any device, convert them to a sale or lead, and track them every step of the way. Sounds good, right? Of course it does. But you still may not be convinced. Need more convincing? Check out our infographic below with some stats that just might start changing your mind. Please feel free to share using the embed code below the image. Just in case you aren't a visual person, here are a few key stats!
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If you're looking for an inexpensive way to market your business that really connects with your ideal buyers, content marketing is your answer. Need a refresher on content marketing? We have a whole category on this blog about it here, including a 'What Is Content Marketing?' post.
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Most people know how essential blogging has become to running a business and increasing revenue; however, many small businesses have trouble implementing this marketing tactic. Blogging requires quite a bit of time and effort, and let’s face it, most small business owners work around the clock, leaving little time to worry about starting a blog. But for those people how are ready to give blogging a short, here are some helpful tips to make your life a little easier. Introduce Yourself! This step is easy to overlook but you need to introduce yourself. If you want people to read your blog, they should know who is writing the blog so include a brief autobiography and the history of your business. Try to answer the following questions: What does your business offer? When was your business established? Where are you located? What sets you apart from your competitors? Readers need to feel a strong connection to any author if they are going to continue reading whatever content is being ...
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With all this talk of content marketing and landing pages, an obvious question might be, "What do I do when someone opts-in or downloads a piece of content from my site?". Great questions! It's a question that will likely be a bit different from one company to another, but here's a basic list of tasks: 1 - DO NOT CALL THEM UP AND TRY TO SELL THEM Did you hear me scream that? I hope. I don't want the engaged website visitor getting a restraining order against you. You're welcome. Aggressive sales people may think that simply visiting your website makes a person a qualified lead that the sales team should pursue. They aren't. If someone downloads a resource from your website, it simply shows that the web visitor has now engaged with your content. They may open it, and decide that it wasn't what they thought it was. They may love it. Hopefully the latter is true and they tell everyone they know that would benefit from the content to go get it (via email, social media, etc...). The main ...
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If I had more time I'd do this or I'd do that...I'm sure you've said something like this whether it was related to your marketing, business, or even personal life. It's no secret that time is hard to come by, especially if you are a small business. There are few people to do many things, right? Here's the thing, if you are serious about your inbound marketing, online marketing, web marketing, SEO...whatever you want to call it, content marketing is a vital component. If you aren't sure what it is, here's an easy to understand definition of content marketing.
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I can admit that we sometimes use terms and phrases on our blog that you may not totally get. Guilty! For that reason, I want to be sure that you are super clear on what Content Marketing really is. Defined by the Content Marketing Institute:
Read moreNot everyone can be a web marketing rock star, right? Sure they can, when the right things are in place. Chances are good that you probably have a website and may even be doing some sort of marketing such as SEO, PPC, maybe social media...but what are you missing? Are your marketing efforts just not hitting the mark? There are probably a few things you are probably missing.
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Question. When you think about establishing a content marketing strategy, do you equate that to a large investment of time and energy? I think any time you include the word strategy with a task, most people automatically envision a huge project involving hours of documentation, research and policies. While that can certainly be the case for some strategies, your content strategy doesn't need to be that complex. Anyone who tells you otherwise is probably wrong. Your content marketing strategy can be as simple as a basic list of items that anyone creating content for your organization has access to and understands. By knowing and committing to this list, you'll be light years ahead of many of your competitors. Here's a Simple Content Marketing Kickoff List: Make the decision that content marketing is a must, not a should. Identify your internal content marketing team and kick off the efforts on the right foot. Understand fully why your clients buy from you and how you help solve their ...
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If I had a nickel for every free swag item I got at trade shows, I would be writing this from a beach with an umbrella-straw drink in hand. Can you relate? You know you can!!! How did I get pulled into those trade show booths and listen to the marketing folks for those companies for 10 minutes, "earning" my free swag? Some sort of CALL TO ACTION!!!! That's right, like a small child chasing a butterfly, I saw or heard a big CTA and there I was, chasing down the perceived value. Next thing I knew, I was learning all about the butterfly's value and what it could do for me or my clients. Your website needs to steal that tactic right off the trade show floor. You need to have a strong value offer (CTA) in multiple places, so your website visitors chase that butterfly until they are sitting in your email marketing list or CRM and become leads. The key difference is that your website can provide these visitors with valuable content that will help solve their problems and challenges instead ...
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If you are executing digital marketing, congratulations! You are most likely already one step ahead of your competition, and making strides to meaningfully connect with prospects online. But, how do you know if you’re seeing continual success year over year, and improving your metrics?
Without the tools in place to analyze and benchmark your efforts, it is impossible to scale your online marketing and ensure continuous success.
