Category: Sales & Marketing

Article Contributed by Marcus Jensen

The sales process is a long road dotted with pitfalls and junctions that can lead potential customers astray. Sales representatives cannot cover every step of the way, but they can pull together a map, and put visible signs to direct people. Namely, sales funnel prevents the sale pipelines from becoming clogged, which is why many online businesses take advantage of this model. In fact, internet marketing has embraced these techniques as they show great promise in terms of establishing sale relationships with buyers in the long term.

At the top of the game

The funnel metaphor is handy because it helps people get into the outline of this business method. So, imagine your unqualified leads sitting at the top. These include all potential customers than have not yet come in contact with the company. The way to the bottom is difficult, but the people who pay for your products and services dwell there. Customers may fall off at each stage of the process, which means you must develop a deep understanding of the sales stream.

The backbone of your efforts is identifying crucial sequential steps and status codes. Opt for a small number of codes in order to make things as simple as possible. They are utilized for classifying the prospects, and this is much easier if there is a contact management system or a sales workflow. Newcomers are often overwhelmed by the mountains of data, but this link should give you a clear idea about marketing tools necessary to create a sales funnel.  Next, it is time to get into the facts and figures and calculate the changes in numbers of prospects of each status.

Rites of passage

Attaining the expected conversion rates is a tough call, an ongoing endeavor of fine-tuning. So, compare them against targeted figures and get to the root of the problem. The goal is to identify the number of prospects who will eventually become customers. A deviation from the predicted patterns enables businessmen to make adjustments in the sales pipeline. Thus, an enterprise which uses sales funnel model is able to diversify the offerings and avoid putting too many eggs in one basket.

Ultimately, this boosts the efficiency of resource allocation, and takes the operations to the next level. The uninterrupted flow of eager customers through the funnel can do wonders for revenues and profits. Obviously, driving internet traffic and setting up an appealing website is the first thing to do. This is followed by offering valuable services to those who sign up. So, learn how to convey your brand messages, reach out to people without being intrusive and carry out innovative marketing campaigns.

Tools of the trade

Initial communication is essential because it builds trust from scratch. The best way to attract people is to offer them free or low-cost products and services. Everyone likes free and affordable stuff, and the only thing you need to get the ball rolling is someone’s contact information. Engaging blog posts, social media attention, increasing the visibility in search engines — these are all excellent ways to grab attention. But, after that, the client’s personal info should be exchanged for promotional products, white papers, newsletter, e-courses, free consultations, etc.

However, one should not be fooled by the success at this point, as the drop off in activity may occur later on. Therefore, be careful when introducing medium and high cost items on the way to the bottom of the funnel. For example, evaluate the ratio of visits versus the number of people who actually sign up. Even when there is a solid connection established, but it is still too early to call it a day. The funnel is deep and one can easily get lost in its shadows.

Waste no time presenting guiding light is the form of coaching, workshops, consulting, memberships, and other features that do not cost an arm and a leg. If the people react well, and the number of prospects does not shrink, you can muse on offering medium and high-cost items and services. Provided that the execution of the sales funnel has worked to your advantage, there should be enough customers willing to pay top dollar for your expertise, or the latest killer product. So, you have finally made it to the bottom, or considering that it all resembles one upside down pyramid, you arrived at the very top.

Lead the way

Making a purchasing decision is more of a tedious process than a moment of revelation. It is best not to leave its outcome to chance, so build a framework that pushes the customers in the direction of the funnel’s bottom. Building up the big picture of the process leads the prospects through the jungle of making purchasing decisions. When someone is treated with inexpensive or giveaway services and features, he is more likely to buy something more expensive from you later on. This enables business organizations to pave their way to success and hit big in shorter periods of time.

About the Author
Marcus Jensen is an IT professional. He is an Editor-in-Chief of technivorz.com, and writes about business, technology and marketing.

Article Contributed by Francesca Holmes

Startups focus all their energy and time trying to get their product into the market. But they also need to focus on spreading the word about them and building a buzz in the market.

Startup marketing differs from marketing for established businesses in that there is no product recognition in the market and the budget is very limited. So you need to build brand identity, stoke brand loyalty and enhance brand perception while keeping the marketing spend on a tight rein.

Digital marketing encompasses all market outreach activities you carry out on the Web. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram and Google Plus are social media channels where there is something for virtually every business. You can also make use of Google AdWords to help your company’s name crop up in searches.

Blogs are a great way to build and maintain the online audience. They also help establish thought leadership and brand identity.

If you are a startup owner and are wondering about how to best execute your digital marketing strategy here are a few tips for you.

1. Make Use of AdWords

Google AdWords is the great platform for lead generation, provided you zero in on the most accurate and appropriate keywords for your business.

You must actively manage your keywords and track progress. Using Google Analytical tools, you can measure performance, click-throughs and conversions from each set of keywords.

You should continuously fine-tune your keyword strategy and strive to drive more traffic to your site. This will also enable you to understand how ripe the market is for your product or service, and how customers come looking for you.

But as obvious as the benefits may seem, startups need not always fare well when employing AdWords. The cost is prohibitive for smaller companies competing against global giants. As opposed to a few years back, the pay-per-click cost has gone up several dollars, ranging from $5 up to $70, or even more. This is mainly because all important keywords are locked down by the big players in the niche. Also, AdWords need close and continued monitoring. Forgetting to turn off an ad or directing a click to a non-existing page can prove to be very costly.

So evaluate your needs and check whether you are financially capable of supporting an AdWords campaign. If you can afford the price of acquiring traffic who may or may not convert, then AdWords is great for you. This will also help you gain exposure in the market. Also, consider comparatively cheaper options like Bing Ads to save money on clicks.

Since your aim is to drive traffic to your website ensure that the landing pages are fresh, updated, informative, well-designed and fast loading. A website that takes more than three seconds to load can drive away visitors. A good WordPress hosting service can speed up your WordPress site considerably. Choose your hosting company carefully no matter on what CMS platform your site is.

2. Social Media Metrics Matter

Many companies have garnered customer recognition and brand identity due to a one-off blockbuster social media campaign, like the YouTube ad for Dollar Shave Club featuring its CEO Michael Dubin. But for most of us, we need to sweat it out on a daily basis to find our place under the sun in the social media universe.

Social media needs skill and expertise, so if you do not have them hire employees who are social media natives. They will be able to reflect the values, character and personality you want your startup to exude on all relevant platforms.

All social media platforms are not equally effective for all businesses. If you feel visual presentation is important then Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest are essential to grab eyeballs.

Influencer strategy works best for startups where you earn the loyalty of someone who has popularity, thought leadership and/or huge follower base in your niche. The influencer can be a blogger, celebrity, expert, reviewer or even a customer who has taken a genuine liking to your product and wants to share the story of your company with their social media friends and contacts. As the entrepreneur, it’s your responsibility to reach out and identify influencers, or if you are truly lucky they can be earned organically. As they share your story, your brand presence grows among your target audience.

Tweets, shares, likes, and comments are important but ensure you are not a narcissistic marketer obsessed with these numbers. They may buy you popularity but for your product to sell you need to achieve much more.

With the marketing potential so evident most social media channels now provide tools that allow you to drill and delve deeper into user profiles and identify suitable targets.

3. Email Marketing Is Evergreen

Though email marketing has been around for far too long, bear in mind that it is still the most profitable method for marketers. Email marketing has the lowest cost of acquisition per customer.

Successful email marketing campaigns have highly targeted mailing lists where you send useful and informative content to users at regular intervals. If your content is relevant and useful, users will begin to look forward to your mails. The CTA buttons will allow them to sign up for alerts and newsletters.

Email marketing helps build brand recognition and loyalty, and the chances of users or subscribers becoming your customers increase significantly.

Email marketing is a highly efficient lead-generation tool. You can trigger emails when a user visits your site and carries out any specific task. An effective signup form will help your mailing list grow.

Do not send a standard email or newsletter to all your subscribers. Segment your list and identify customer groups who have similar buying interests, are located in same/nearby/similar location, are existing customers or are potential customers. By customizing your newsletters to cater to the needs of different segments you have better chance of conversions. Addressing specific and relevant pain points or needs is the best way to get your subscriber to respond to your CTA.

Conclusion

A successful digital marketing campaign will help startups gain all-important brand recognition and brand identity. It will also drive in early explorers who will help spread the word about your business in nascent stages. Ensure you remain aware of all digital marketing channels and choose ones that suit your business most to carry out campaigns.

Article Contributed by Mansi Dhorda

(Image credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/epublicist/8585151633)

Email marketing is one of the most powerful sales-driving tools available to businesses, particularly e-commerce stores and related companies, reaching consumers directly on their computers and personal devices. But, not every e-mail message is equally effective.

Some of the most impactful e-mails are ones that are initiated when a customer or prospect takes an action or exhibits some behavior, and are part of a series of e-mails that seek to engage shoppers over time.

Here are a few e-mail marketing strategies to help you make a success of your e-mail marketing efforts.

1. Get Them with Your Subject Line
   

Undermine the importance of creating the perfect subject line for your e-mail at your own peril. After all, that’s the first thing customers are going to read and you want to give them a solid reason to click through it. Doing so, however, is no cakewalk.

Still not convinced about the criticality of a compelling subject line? Here are a few statistics that may leave you enlightened:

• 33% of e-mail recipients open e-mail based on subject line alone.
• 69% of e-mail recipients report e-mail as based solely on the subject line.
• 64% of people say they open an e-mail because of the subject line.
• 44% of e-mail recipients made at least one purchase last year based on a promotional email.
• For B2B companies, subject lines that contained “money,” “revenue,” and “profit” performed the best.

Several e-mail marketing solution providers test the effectiveness of e-mails by sending out two version of the same e-mail with different subject lines. This is done to figure out which one gets more open rates from customers, and the more effective subject line is ultimately used in e-mail campaigns.

2. Make It Personal

When customers open their inbox and see your e-mail, they’re well aware that it is part of a campaign and has been received by others as well. How do you make your customer feel special and valued in such cases? Personalization is the answer to this.

When you collect customers’ e-mail IDs, try and get as much of their information as you can (without being creepy), such as their name, age, city of residence, interests and hobbies, and social media information. However, do leave these fields optional as not all customers may be comfortable with sharing these details and navigate away from your page if it gets time-consuming.

Use this information to personalize each email message. For example, when composing an email, customize the ‘To’ field so that the customer can see his/her name instead of seeing “Dear Customer.” This will reassure him/her that he/she isn’t just another ID in your emailing list.

3. Categorize Your Emailing List
   

This point takes a cue from the previous one and goes a step further. Personalize your messages further by segmenting them into niche customer groups on the basis of their location, gender, past purchases, and so on.

Doing so will make it extremely easy for you to provide a specific customer group with offers and updates that are more likely to resonate with them, rather than sending e-mails to all the customers in your list, who will probably delete them or worse, mark them as spam.

4. Keep It Short and Sweet
   

More often than not, customers aren’t going to have the time to read through long e-mails. When they open your e-mail, they’re more likely to quickly glance through it and decide in a matter of seconds if they want to delete or read through it. Herein lies the importance of keeping your e-mail content short, sweet and on-point.

Stay away from verbosity and focus on incorporating a solid call to action instead. In fact, focus your entire mail on it. Customers like it when you tell them what to do next. Remember, the call to action should be palpable, visually-appealing and should leave no doubts in the customers’ mind about the step they should take next.

5. Consider Using a Newsletter Service
   

Consider the following findings:

• When asked to opt-in to receive updates from a company, only 10% elected to do so through Facebook, while 90% chose to receive e-mail newsletters.
• Newsletters are still considered to be a great way to grow or maintain relationships, even during times when people aren’t actively making purchasing decisions.

You will do well to sign up with an e-mail marketing service provider or create attractive, mobile-optimized e-mails and newsletters yourself. By doing so, you should be able to manage e-mail lists, integrate forms and sign-ups on your website, keep customers engaged, inform them about your latest offerings, proffer them with discounts and deals, and monitor e-mail analytics.

6. Razzle and Dazzle Them
   

You already know that your e-mail campaign has only a few seconds to elicit a response from customers, which is why it needs to be visually-interesting and impactful enough to make them want to hang around.

This can be achieved by including fully-optimized images and graphics (for mobile and tablet users), and custom fonts and styles. Of course, the images and graphics you use should be in keeping the e-mail’s message.

As far as possible, avoid using generic stock images and pick those that do a great job of narrating your e-mail’s story.

7. Grow Your Campaign with Social Shares
   

Did you know that the click-through rate of e-mails with social sharing buttons increase by 158 percent compared to those without them?

If you want to provide a boost to your e-mail campaign, get your customers to share your newsletter on their social networks, and give your brand more exposure, then you should make it convenient for them to do share your content. This can be done by simply placing attractive social sharing buttons strategically within your e-mail and including the necessary links; and voila, you’re famous!

Conclusion

While using social networking and image-sharing sites may be the hot new way to generate customer interaction and sales, good ol’ e-mails continue to prove their prowess in creating the same effect. When done systematically, sending e-mails to your customers ensures that you actively reach people who have chosen to receive content from you and are looking forward to your offerings. Only a well-thought-out e-mail campaign can help you optimize your mailings so that you do not lose out on potential sales. The above pointers should enable you to craft one that helps you expand your customer base as well as your bottom line.

Author Bio:

Mansi Dhorda works at E2M – A Digital Marketing Agency. A social media enthusiast, she is well-versed in content marketing and other internet marketing niches.

Article Contributed by Daniel S. Williams

So you are preparing to go after those sought-after customers…or, maybe trying to figure out exactly who those people are? In the world of startups, sales are king. Without sales to showcase the value of your product or create a revenue stream it would be a great difficulty to ever grow a company, that’s for sure.

Where variation arrives is how startups can best go about selecting how to reach potential buyers. With so many channels (online, offline, omni) today, advertising is more prevalent than ever, yet can also be the perpetual black hole forever being fed dollars to little avail. As a startup, the number of e-mails one receives from individuals offering their “marketing and SEO” services is truly impressive. But unless one understands where advertising/marketing spend should be directed, it is not difficult to spend thousands only to end up serving as a costly lesson.

What are some strategies one can implement when considering bootstrapping methods to grow awareness and leads for your venture? Firstly, one should start with performing tasks which are either free to do, or are a very minimal expenditure. And secondly, paid marketing is only as effective as the understanding behind who to market to. This means creating directed campaigns to qualified leads (who have the need for your service and are able to help influence the buying decision).

#1 – Start with the basics.

As a startup, the simplest marketing and optimization techniques to carry out rest with social presence and organic search results. Today’s buyers and audience is largely connected online, so it is only natural to extend your reach and meet the audience lurking on the web. By creating relevant social media profiles for your business, not only is it easier to share content to viewers across several platforms, but these items can help play a role in your startup’s appearance organically when one searches for keywords and your business. Social media platforms for your startup should not be a personal sounding board; they should contain succinct, engaging messages designed to increase user interaction and promote the mission your startup is trying to carry out.

A great example of this is through crafting relevant content for posting to your startup’s social media pages focusing on the “pain points” and current state of the problem you are attempting to conquer. Creating awareness about the problem your venture is aiming to solve can better position your startup to attract those interested in your content and relevant postings. Moreover, these forums for posting relevant content can also assist in establishing an interactive community around your product or service—giving potential users a stake in asking questions and learning more.

Another free way to create relevant content and assist in organic ranking is by creating a company blog that promotes content regarding the market you are trying to help and white papers about the state of the pain points. Using this tool strategically can be a good outlet to build awareness as well. A rule of 90/10 is useful, suggesting 90% of content should be problem/market relevant, and 10% mentioning your specific startup.

#2 – Paid advertising options.

There are many firms and even individuals who sell marketing and SEO services to startups especially. More often than not, the principles they deploy can be learned and practiced by yourself with some education and personal learning around common tactics and strategies.

HubSpot

I recommend taking advantage ofHubSpot’s online Academy program, where one can enroll in earning an inbound marketing certificate upon learning the lessons offered through materials and videos posted on the HubSpot website. Not only will you become “Inbound Certified” upon completing the online exam, but the content taught in the course is valuable material regarding attracting leads, enabling proper focus to qualification, and ensuring customer retention and delighting. The basic tenets of the inbound marketing methodology are very relevant for many startups today, especially considering the shift away from merely traditional marketing techniques of pushing content towards the inbound focus on drawing them in with engaging content and a more personal approach.

Google AdWords

Additionally, Google offers its own certification programs online across several categories consisting of AdWords and Analytics examinations. By taking the AdWords course, the lessons offer a focused look into the significance of AdWords and how campaigns can be structured to maximize the particular outcomes desired. As a complement to this, the Analytics course provides an in-depth look at some methods of assessing performance through site traffic and methods necessary to optimize the collection and use of gathered user data from your startup’s website as it obtains more traction and potential customers.

By holding oneself accountable for learning the principles at work behind the world of SEO and ad campaigns across many of the online channels, dollars can be better directed to areas with the highest likelihood of contributing the best return on investment (ROI) per dollar spent. Some of these firms may charge several hundred to thousand dollars each month for services quite possibly able to be mastered with some effort and focus.

Trial-and-error is sometimes needed, but marketing is vital to growing a business and quite interdisciplinary. Even if your startup is on a college campus simply running ads on Facebook to local students, knowing what the analytics and performance is telling you adds a world of value beyond the numbers. Knowing your cost-per-click (CPC) through AdWords is a good thing, but understanding how to optimize the campaign’s effectiveness and target the right people can be the difference between money well spent and money that falls victim to that aforementioned black hole that so easily consumes a startup’s limited budget.

About the Author:

Daniel S. Williams is an Advanced-Standing Senior in the Carroll School of Management at Boston College. He is the CFO of startup Xperii (a SaaS platform) and has worked with several other startups in the past.

To find out exactly what your target market wants, you gotta ask them!

Sounds easy enough, right?

But you’d be surprised at how many business owners don’t do this. They just assume they know what their audience wants.

Or they see someone else having success with a product or program, so offer something similar to their own clients and subscribers (I remember once a mentor telling me that I’ll always have success if I offer list building. Well … guess what?  I offered list building, and it wasn’t a success. It wasn’t right for my audience!)

There is a saying I was taught many years ago …

You have to provide them with what they want so you can give them what they need later.

In other words, if you’re a weight loss coach and you’re trying to teach your audience the importance of changing their eating habits for life in order to lose weight, but all your audience are interested in are low-calorie recipes to lose weight quickly, then this is where you need to start.

Even though you know they need to learn how to change their eating habits for life, you have to start with what your audience wants right now, today, and then give them what they need (i.e. teaching them how to maintain a healthy eating lifestyle) later.

So, if your products, programs, and/or services are not selling as well as you thought they would it could be there’s a mismatch between what your market wants and what you’re providing them with.

Ask yourself… are you providing the solutions based on what YOU think the problems are rather than what your target market wants?  And how do you find out?

The answer is simple… ASK!

Or in marketing terms, it’s called market research!

What do you think when you think of ‘market research’?

I bet it conjures up all sorts of images of telephone surveys, sending out questionnaires, and standing in the street accosting people to ask them questions (yes – I used to do this type of market research many years ago when I worked for a management consultancy practice).

And as a solo business owner it is crucial that you do your own ‘market research’ to find out what makes your target market tick, what keeps them awake at night, and what they’re really struggling with.

The good news is, it doesn’t have to involve picking up the telephone or standing on street corners.

But this process does need to be done on a continual basis – never stop asking your target market what they want – so that you can constantly provide the solutions to their problems.

Today, I’d like to share with you three simple strategies for conducting your own market research (that doesn’t involve standing around on street corners!), and how you can put these strategies onto autopilot so that you’re constantly gathering information from your market.  All of these have worked very well for me over the past few years!

1.       Ask via your sign-up page.  When someone signs up to your list, don’t just get their name and email address, ask them what their biggest challenge is too.  This is something I’ve done for many years, and in fact you would have seen this yourself when you signed up for this newsletter.  I have a specific question that asks:  What is YOUR biggest office headache?  Feel free to adapt this question for your own needs, i.e. what is your biggest [fill in the blank] when it comes to [fill in the blank].

2.       Follow-up with an autoresponder.  Once someone has signed up to your list, create an autoresponder that goes out a few days later and asks the same question again.  Very often people may not have answered the question when they signed up to your list, and sending them an email a few days later will elicit a reply from them.

3.       Create an annual or semi annual survey.  At least once a year it’s a good idea to survey your readers and ask them several more in-depth questions.  You’ll want to find out what their biggest problems are, what it is they want to learn more about, plus how they want to learn, or how they want their problem solved.  For example, you might find your readers prefer home study courses to teleclasses, or would like more interactive programs from you.  Putting together a survey is really simple, especially if you use a service such as Survey Monkey.  They do the analysis for you, so you get really valuable data.

However, for the data you get through steps 1 and 2 above, analysis isn’t as automatic.  Simply gather together all of your data and go through it periodically (at least twice a year) to see what your reader’s problems are.  You don’t even need to be a statistician to figure it all out.  Just print off all the responses and read through them, noting any common themes as you go along.

By combining all of this data, and implementing your market research strategy so that it runs on autopilot, you can then use this information to put your products and services together so that you’re providing solutions to your target market’s problems in the way that they want and need.

Remember, you are providing your market with what they want and need, not what you think they want and need.