Search Results for: marketing strategy

Top 5 Highly Effective Content Distribution Strategies To Drive More Traffic

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

You’re convinced the content you’ve created is worthy, so why are you not seeing the traffic and conversions? Often, the problem is down to distribution. Sure, you execute all activities like religiously posting on social media handles, sending out an email campaign or a Whatsapp blast. But where’s the traffic? Where are the conversions? Where’s a hike in ROI? Your business can combat this problem with a proactive content distribution strategy.  We are compiling a list of 5 can’t-be-ignored pointers that can go a long way in achieving your business goals.  What Is Content Distribution? According to HubSpot, Content distribution is the process of sharing, publishing, and promoting your content. It’s how you provide your content to your audience members for their consumption through various channels and media formats. Although the content distribution process is administered post content curation, it should be step one of your data driven content marketing strategy.  Your marketing team should know when, where, and most importantly how you’re going to publish and promote your content. Otherwise, your team’s effort and resources could go to waste.  Before we explore why content distribution is imperative to your content marketing plan and how you can leverage it to skyrocket your web traffic, let’s dive and understand various content types you can produce for distribution.  Content Types For Distribution: Blog posts and articles Social media posts & influential marketing Infographics and How-to guides White paper, case studies, eBooks, and reports Email newsletter Podcasts Videos Why Content Distribution Matters? (now more than ever!) The volume of content that is created and published daily is mind-boggling!  Look at these statistics published in an article by Foundation,   Instagram users publish 46,740 posts per minute.  Twitter users send 456,000 tweets per minute.  Google conducts 3,60,7080 searches per minute.  LinkedIn has more than 100 million users logging in every day.  89% of marketers say brand awareness is their #1 goal.  It’s important to acknowledge the underlying fact these statistics are pointing to, there’s humongous content being produced each second. At any given point of time, there’s also infinite content consumption by your users through multiple media formats.  Must Read: 8 Super-Effective Content Syndication Tools For MarTech Experts Needless to say, getting people to see and consume ONLY YOUR content has become a chore. To sail through the cut-throat competition and grab users’ attention, you not only have to generate quality content consistently but also do a stellar job distributing it. Curating content is one thing- distributing it another!  Without content distribution, your content fails to reach your target audience. There will be a deficiency of leads to sell your product or service and generate surplus revenue along the path. Business objectives like establishing brand loyalty and brand awareness fail miserably without an exceptional content distribution plan.  Content Distribution Strategies To Drive More Traffic Businesses often associate ‘promoting’ their content to dumping links on social media platforms. Well, that may be one way to go about it but it doesn’t make for an effective content distribution strategy.  Below are 5 highly effective content distribution strategies to drive web traffic.  1. Engage With Popular Communities When we speak of communities, we often assume multiple Facebook and Whatsapp groups we are a part of. It’s time to do more than these cliche tricks. Begin engaging in popular communities with millions of active followers like Quora & Reddit. Answer queries related to your industry, plant links wherever permissible, and contribute in discussions to gain brand visibility and influence on your niche. 2. Tap Influencers Cultivate relationships with influencers in your niche. Their massive popularity and following can be leveraged to educate netizens about your business (product or service) Brands today are tapping into influencer marketing to drive awareness about their products and services. Collaborating with influencers can give your business the eyeballs it deserves.  3. Republish Your Content Create versatile content for your channels. Content that fares well on Instagram will not on LinkedIn. One is a visual platform and another purely professional. But creating quality and consistent content won’t cut it. A pivotal element related to content is republishing it on sites with higher domain authority and not just your website.  Republishing your content on such sites can drive more traffic to your website. Do not ignore the power and influence of article submissions, guest posting, and participating in forums.  Below are some popular tools you can use to get it done. Must Read: 7 Tips on How to Market Your Business Content Distribution Tools Medium HubSpot LinkedIn Pulse AddThis Outbrain ClickToTweet GaggleAmp AddThis Mention PR Newswire 4. Audit Your Distribution Channels Regularly Auditing your content means assessing the quality and effectiveness of your content. It means analysing which content is helping or hurting your distribution efforts.  While there already maybe some published content on your website and social media handles (blog posts, videos, etc) content auditing can help your team curate effective content marketing strategy.  5. Encourage Your Readers to Share Your Content Do you know who your best advertisers are? For free? Your readers.  It’s fairly a common sight to see your friends or colleagues endorsing brands (product or service) they absolutely love via post or stories. Leverage it! Sharing user-generated content builds trust and credibility because it is coming from sources your users know and can rely on. These techniques work incredibly well for B2B and B2C landscape.  Get Your Content Noticed By A Wider Audience.  Need to content promotion and distribution strategy that can scale up your profits? Get in touch with us today! 

7 Tips on How to Market Your Business

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

Marketing your business is very important, no matter what the size of your business is. However, a lot of you don’t know how to market your business which is why when the budget is tight, organizations decide to cut down their marketing expenses. This is wrong! When you don’t market your business, people might think you are out of business or if you are a start-up, people will not know if you even exist. Cutting down the monetary supply during such a time can be fatal to your business.  There was a time when traditional marketing and advertisements required businesses to shell out a large amount of moolah in the name of marketing. But, ever since the evolution of marketing has turned digital, promoting your business has become comparatively easy and cost-effective. Without wasting any more time, let’s start discussing the best strategies that will help you realize how to market your business. Send Emails with CTAs Email is the most cost-effective way of marketing your business. Even when the click-through rate of this method is less and you may not get a huge number of customers, you get some very valuable patrons from email marketing which is worth the effort. Sending emails with CTAs is cheaper than other strategies where interested customers will click on the action button. You can achieve results by inserting an interesting CTA in your emails. Must Read: 7 Lead Management Strategy Best Practices Leverage your Community When it comes to putting marketing efforts you don’t always have to make or think big. Start thinking locally. Study and analyze what is going on in the community. To market your business you can sponsor little games or a charity marathon. You can print pamphlets and leave them in restaurants or libraries. Understand who your ideal customers are and where exactly do they spend their time. Then look for opportunities where you can get in front of customers with a relevant marketing message. Ask for Referrals Don’t shy away from asking for referrals from your customers. According to a survey, many people have revealed that they provide referrals if someone asks for it but they never do it on their own. Referrals are an easy way to acquire new customers. If you don’t ask for them, you’ll miss a good number of customers and opportunities.  Must Read: 7 Tips to Design Your Business Growth Plan Network Networking is the best thing that can help expand your business. There is no better way to build your market and business than to go out there, get to know people while shaking some hands. For networking, you require a commitment of time since it doesn’t give immediate results. However, strong networking is one of the biggest assets any person can have. Collaborate Collaborate with people, social influencers and other people with good customer reach and work with them to promote your business that can be mutually beneficial. Make sure that the other party is non-competitive in your area of interest and cross-promote each other’s business. Use social media platforms (LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook), reciprocal website links, fliers, etc. and spread the word about each other’s business. This can work as a business base to reach new customers. Must Read: 8 Super Effective Content Syndication Tools and Strategies For MarTech Experts Build Relationships Keeping old customers coming is a lot cheaper than acquiring new ones. This is only possible when you have built trust and a healthy relationship with your customers. Come up with ideas to communicate with the customers and know their opinions about your product. You can also get new ideas from the interaction which you can use to improve your products/services or marketing strategy. When you go out there and talk to your customers they believe that you care about them and money is not your only objective out of this business, customer satisfaction is equally important. Offer Coupons Coupons are a great way for businesses to attract new customers. People love discounts and if provided with a coupon, they usually go out of their way to use it. Research has shown that a customer uses the coupon at any given point of time which is a good start to building your customer base. Coupons are a way to generate return visits. If you provide a coupon to customers on their first purchase they’ll most likely visit the second time to purchase your product/service. Marketing your business is very important if you want to boost your sales which is why it doesn’t make sense to cut off marketing budget when you are short on money. Also, marketing isn’t always about money, it can be done at a low budget just like I explained in the points above. All it takes to market your business is proper planning and execution which guarantees a return, either in monetary form or just getting B2B leads for now. If you don’t market your brand, especially if you have a lot of competition, people will not know that you exist and therefore you will not get any customers for your business. Marketing your business is a continuous process where you should always be in search of new customers just like they will be in search of a new brand, product or business. If you know the exact process and can successfully answer the question as to how to market your business, you are on the right path. Your business marketing needs are well placed that will guarantee ROI in massive numbers. Must Read: The Importance of Business to Business Services

Predictive Modeling done better with the Purchase Intent Data

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

This article will help you see how the intent data can help you where predictive modeling fails to achieve the required results. Marketers today need to use purchase intent data to complement their CRM and marketing automation data. Lets study how purchase intent data helps marketers see the actions taken by prospects which are otherwise not perceivable.A quick review of predictive modeling Predictive modeling will see increasing growth (double digit growth) over the years and we are not new to its uses. Data mining, machine learning, etc techniques are used to gather the data from different sources. In predictive analytics uses big-data to predict the likelihood of the buyers actions. The problems with predictive modeling are   The current predictive analytics platforms are not completely reliable though they provide some direction to the sales team. This is because marketers today need fresh and insightful data to carry out their marketing strategies more precisely. This need can be fulfilled through the use of intent monitoring i.e. through the use of the intent data. How Can Your Sales Team Progress Faster with Intent Data in 2019 How does intent-monitoring cover the areas where predictive modeling fails? Read More: Tips To Design Your Growth Plan Technically, intent monitoring is predictive as it helps us to predict the likelihood of buying. Intent monitoring is used to track the online behavior of your prospecting audiences. You can track Tracking above activities over the internet reveals the domains and hence the location of your prospecting audiences. Once you have the demographic and firmographic data of the prospecting audiences, you can easily decide if they fit into your buyers persona. If they do, you can target them just at the right time, or even before they have openly expressed their interest. This method is simple and easy to implement because you use real-time data. Whereas in predictive analysis, data is integrated from different sources and it also uses complex algorithms to get actionable insights from past actions. Data integrations are especially very time consuming and as discussed earlier also, complex algorithms can become faulty at any time. However, Intent Data means no complex algorithms, no time-consuming data integrations but just real-time data that is completely reliable and up to date.   This is the time to empower your sales not just with tools but with more actionable data that drives 100% results. Although I exaggerated, what I meant is intent data is far better in comparison with other databases. Why do I say so?   Because of using purchase intent data your marketing strategy becomes more powerful. With intent data, you can understand the state of mind of your prospecting audiences and target them better. As we all know guesswork doesn’t win, so there is a need to change the one-to-all content marketing approach where we target every target account with the same message because of a lack of insights. Intent data gives you the details about what the prospecting audiences are interested in. Hence, it becomes possible to use these insights in your content marketing strategy. Even though you have intent data, you need to put a lot of efforts to be able to close the deals. Follow-ups are necessary to succeed in the Intent data-driven marketing. To engage prospecting audiences and move them down the funnel, marketers need to have an action plan ready. I am mentioning a few tips for that To add more food for thought  Rather than going for 1000 target accounts that aren’t ready to buy, it makes sense to go for those 500 who are!   What does it mean really? Using other databases, you get leads in numbers but they all don’t get qualified but that is not the case with the intent database. Using intent data, you can know who fit in your buyers persona and what they are interested in. Knowing who is actively demanding a similar product makes it easy for you to act precisely.   Using intent database along with wholesome follow-up strategy can surely bring success in closing as many deals as you want. Why wait to take actions then? If you want to know more still get in touch with us or read more about it in our blog. Read More: Advantages Of B2B Marketing Plan

29 Content Syndication Articles to Help You Become a Content Syndication Guru

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

Getting good content syndication articles and resources is damn difficult!  We have searched the web and not a single blog had more than 1-2 content syndication articles that give actionable and informative content on this marketing strategy.   So, we decided to make it easy for you and list out the best content syndication articles that are available online.   For starters, who are still unaware of this brilliant (our favorite!) marketing strategy,    Content syndication is a marketing strategy that deals with re-publishing content on third-party websites.   And, NO. It is not the duplication of content. Lets look at the 29 content syndication articles that talk about various aspects of this inbound marketing strategy. For the ease of finding exactly what you are looking for, we have divided the content syndication articles according to the subject matter. 1. Understanding Content Syndication 1. Unleashing the Power of Syndicated Content in Your Content Marketing Efforts by Neil Patel, on Search Engine Journal, a blog founded by Loren Baker who is an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and runs Foundation Digital, a digital marketing strategy & development agency. There are many content syndication tools available to help you streamline the process of finding relevant websites and publications for your content. These tools can save you time and effort, allowing you to focus on creating high-quality content. 2. How I Increased Pageviews by 34% with Content Syndication by Anna Crowe on Search Engine Journal 3. Content Syndication: More Than a Traffic Boost by Michael Schreiber on Content Marketing Institute (CMI), founded by Joe Pulizzi, the leading evangelist for content marketing. He believes passionately that there is a better way for brands to market than how theyve done it in the past. While there are paid content syndication options available, there are also many free content syndication opportunities to explore. These can be a great way to get your content in front of a wider audience without a significant investment. 4. The Pros and Cons of Content Syndication by Julia Tiedt on Business2Community,  one of the most popular business blogs on the web according to Technorati and Alexa. This article explores the benefits of content syndication, including increased brand awareness, website traffic growth, and lead generation. It also dives into the potential drawbacks, such as diluted brand control and the need for high-quality content. 5. Weighting content syndication and plagiarism on OnlyB2B blog. It is a lead generation company founded by Vikas Bhatt and AmeetBhinganiya. They have years of experience in this field of lead generation and content syndication. 6. 5 content syndication myths on OnlyB2B blog..  2. Guide to syndicating content 1. A step by step guide to content syndication by Neil Patel, a New York Times best-selling author who has helped companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP, and Viacom grow their revenue. This guide dives into the nitty-gritty of content syndication, explaining how does content syndication work, including identifying relevant platforms, tailoring content for different audiences, and measuring the success of your efforts. 2. Quicksprout, a leading blog on content marketing shares a detailed infographic on B2B content syndication strategies. This infographic is a great resource for learning how to target the right audience, identify relevant B2B publications, and maximize the reach of your content. 3. How to syndicate your blog by Albert Costil on Search Engine Journal, 4. The Ultimate Guide To Content Syndication: More Content In Less Time by Brian Honigman on Business2Community 5. Beginners Guide to FREE content syndication on OnlyB2B blog.  3. Content Syndication Articles on Strategies 1. Boost Your Traffic With Content Syndication Strategies by Jason Bowden on Business2Community 2. Channel Partner Success Through Content Syndication by Brian Tervo on Business2Community 3. 4 Super-Effective Content Syndication Strategies for Bloggers by Larry Kim on Business2Community 4. How to Use Content Syndication to Boost Your Subscribers by OnlyB2B blog. This article explores various content syndication strategies, but don’t forget the power of video content syndication. Platforms like YouTube and social media can be highly effective for reaching a wider audience and engaging them in a more interactive way, ultimately leading to more subscribers. 5. 5 Step Process To Make Content Syndication Work For Demand Generation on OnlyB2B blog 6. 4 Super-Effective Content Syndication Strategies for Bloggers on Wordstream. 4. Content Syndication Articles on Networks and Tools 1. Quicksprout, a leading blog on content marketing shares a detailed infographic on content syndication networks and tool along with the steps for creating campaigns. 2. 9 Content Distribution Tools to Help You Expand Your Reach by Carly Stec on Hubspot. 3. 20 Content Syndication Tools To Exponentially Increase Domain Authority on OnlyB2B. 4. 1+1 Traffic Driving Content Syndication Tools For A Brilliant Content Marketing Strategy [Updated] by Ruchika Sharma on Izzoto. Must Read: Weighting Content Syndication and Plagiarism 5. Do’s and Don’t of Content Syndication Duplicate vs. Syndicate Content: Decoding How Google Looks at It & What Your Approach Should Be by Julia McCoy on Search Engine Journal. This article explores the critical differences between duplicate content and syndicated content, helping you avoid penalties from search engines while maximizing the SEO benefits of content syndication. Ultimately, effective content syndication is a powerful tool for content syndication lead generation. By strategically republishing your content on high-authority websites, you can reach a wider audience, establish yourself as an industry thought leader, and generate qualified leads for your business. Should You Let Google Index Syndicated Content & Press Releases? By Jenny Halasz on Search Engine Journal How to Keep Google From Penalizing Your Syndicated Content by Randy Apuzzo on Content Marketing Institute How to Syndicate Content Without Getting Dinged in Search by Kathleen Celmins on Hubspot, a leading source of information on inbound marketing Content Syndication and How to Look Good Doing It on Moz, a blog that started as an online community where some of the world’s first SEO experts shared their research and ideas Retaining SEO Value in Syndicated Content and Partnerships on Moz. The Truth About Content Syndication and Duplicate Content by Rachel Sullivan on Business2Community How To Get The Best Results From B2B Content Syndication by Will Humphries There you go.  If you are looking for content syndication articles, these will give you all the information you will need. Sharing

Top 7 Blogs For Content Syndication You Must Follow

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

Getting good content on content syndication is difficult.    We have searched the web and found not a single blog which had more than 2-3 posts on content syndication that are actionable and informative.  https://media.giphy.com/media/xT0GqJLopUHbSrTuNO/giphy.mp4  So, we decided to make it easy for you and list out the best blogs/resources available online if you want to learn more about this marketing strategy.   For starters, who are still unaware of this brilliant (our favorite!) marketing strategy,    Content syndication is a marketing strategy that deals with re-publishing content on third party websites.   And, NO. It is not duplication of content.   Lets look at the top 7 blogs which talk about content syndication and give you the links to their best work. 1. Quicksprout and Neil Patel Quicksprout blog is written by Neil Patel, a New York Times best selling author. He is also the co-founder of Crazy Egg, Hello Bar and NeilPatel.com. He has helped companies like Amazon, NBC, GM, HP and Viacom grow their revenue.   He has written interesting and informative content on content syndication and is a definite must read. Here are a few links   2. Search Engine Journal Search Engine Journal is founded by Loren Baker who is an Advisor at Alpha Brand Media and runs Foundation Digital, a digital marketing strategy & development agency.   There are various authors who write on the Search Engine Journal blog. Some of the best works we found are     3. Content Marketing Institute [CMI]   Content Marketing Institute is the leading global content marketing education and training organization. It was founded by Joe Pulizzi, the leading evangelist for content marketing. He believes passionately that there is a better way for brands to market than how they have done it in the past.   And hence, all the post written on Content Marketing Institute are informative and interesting. Here are links to a few awesome content syndication blog posts   4. Hubspot   Hubspot was founded by Dharmesh Shah and Brian Halligan in 2006. It has now become a leading source of information on inbound marketing.   Here are links to two good reads –   5. Moz   Moz was founded by Rand Fishkin and Gillian Muessig in 2004. It was called SEOmoz, and started as a blog and an online community where some of the world’s first SEO experts shared their research and ideas.   Content syndication blog posts on their website are always worth a read. Here are a few –   6. Business 2 Community   In 2010, Brian Rice sought to use social media to build his personal brand through blogging and with the technical expertise of Dan Criel, B2C Marketing Insider was launched in May of that year. The blog quickly gained audience and industry recognition/awards.   In 2012, Business 2 Community established itself as one of the most popular business blogs on the web according to Technorati and Alexa.com.   Here are a few links to their best content syndication blog posts   7. Only B2B Last but not the least, our own blog. We have detailed and information content syndication blog posts in the upcoming months, you will get more. Stay updated!    Only B2B is a lead generation company founded by Vikas Bhatt and Ameet Bhinganiya. They have years of experience in this field of lead generation and content syndication. This information reflects in their content syndication blog posts. You will be able to gather new ideas and direction to apply them to your case.  Some of our detailed posts include   8. Wordstream   It is a blog founded in 2007 and focuses on online marketing. Here are links to its best content syndication blog posts –   9. Others   There are several other big blogs who have written on content syndication but you won’t find regular updates on this topic. However, the content syndication blog posts they have written are classics and must read if you want to know more about this tactic   Here are the links   There you go.   If you are looking for content syndication blogs, these 12 will give you all the information you will need. Did we miss out any other content syndication blog? Do you know of a great resource on content syndication? Comment below and lets talk about it.

Best Social Media to generate B2B Leads Facebook vs Twitter vs LinkedIn

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

Tips from 12+ Experts After my successful hunt for curating tips for generating B2B leads via Marketing Automation, I decided to talk with more such like-minded experts circumscribing around social media and lead generation.   The past few days had been interesting as I got a chance to have a word with social media experts and B2B Lead Generation experts. Keeping it unbiased, all these experts decided to give away their best tip for this question: What is the best medium to generate B2B leads when it comes between LinkedIn, Twitter, and/or Facebook. The tips given by these experts are solely based on their views and experience in their market, however, all their tips hold true for any niche who want to generate B2B leads via social media.   Must Read: How the lead generation strategies in USA market differ from the rest of the world Having worked with brands ranging from Global Fortune 500 to VC-backed startups in a variety of industries, Allen has over 15 years of brand, marketing and advisory experience. He currently handles the marketing, digital transformation, and growth at When comparing social media channels, LinkedIn, followed by Twitter has resulted in the most qualified leads (Marketing qualified or Sales qualified). With 500 million users on LinkedIn alone, the ability to pinpoint our buyers with granularity has given us the best opportunity to engage with our target audience. Twitter is primarily used for brand building and thought leadership awareness, which in my opinion, aids in our efforts to identify leads on LinkedIn. Read this insightful article about B2B content marketing on Linkedin. Anne Janzer is the author of the book Subscription Marketing: Strategies for Nurturing Customers in a World of Churn. Shes on a mission to help people (and businesses) communicate more effectively through writing. Find out more at annejanzer.com Focus on the quality of the leads and the possibility of an ongoing relationship rather than raw lead generation numbers. Choose the social media platform that connects with the people who are most likely to become loyal customers of your business (the best leHaving worked with brands ranging from Globalads), and helps you sustain those relationships after the initial purchase. For that reason, Id vote for LinkedIn or Facebook groups, depending on your buyers. Yes, building community on these platforms takes more work and time than simply blasting out tweets, but in the long run, its better for your business.  Must Read: Why You Should Be Using Social Media Customer Service Under Rick’s direction, the Whittington Consulting team created a digital marketing methodology combining websites, marketing software and CRM to help companies generate new business. Rick helps companies grow by improving their online presence, helping them generate more website visitors and sales leads, then empowering sales reps with digital customer intelligence. Your website should give people multiple tripwires for conversion. That might be a checklist, a webinar, a video training series, a template or a reference sheet. Don’t just rely on your contact us page, because people know if they fill out a form on that page, they will be hounded by salespeople. Warm them up to your company by finding other ways to convert them.  Glenn is Director of Product Design @ Treasure Data and he is responsible for building the design team future products including their Customer Data Platform (CDP). The amount of data available is skyrocketing, which provides an opportunity-rich environment to build a scalable design system with marketer-friendly user interfaces as well as building a creative, product team of designers to work with PMs and Engineers to succeed in the next wave of IoT UX. I have never done a test or a study on that subject. I dont use Facebook because its a cesspool of fake news and people I dont really care about. I dont use Twitter because it is filled with Bots and conversations there devolve into nonsense pretty quickly. I use LinkedIn to network with my professional groups because LinkedIn is a monopoly for this sort of thing. I dont read the feed very much at all tho. I find it annoying when people get in touch with me for sales.   Im a much bigger fan of double-opt-in permission content marketing, inbound marketing, and event marketing to generate leads than by annoying people on social networks. Not because its more effective, but because I personally dont want people bothering me. Some friends of mine maintain a €œHall of Shame€ from emails and messages from lame salespeople who dont do any research and are just flooding the market with nonsense messages.   If you really want to general more leads, then make a better product. It a huge marketing advantage when your system is objectively better than the competitions.  Must Read: Social Media Nightmares: How Social Media Marketer Can Avoid Mistakes Rachel Kavanagh has coached hundreds of clients, including top firms, on marketing strategy, demand generation and automation. She was part of the successful start-up at Marketo, is a speaker, and contributes content to various publications. She has an MBA from ESADE business school and worked at large multinationals such as General Electric. The wonderful thing about lead generation in todays environment is that you have all of the data to learn whats working. I always start by looking at two distinct groups. Who are my highest lifetime value customers? And what are the highest converting segments? Then depending on what my strategy is, I can invest in what I need the most. It may make the most sense to chase those I know are the right customers and put most of my budget into the longer term. Or I may need some leads to grow the brand and continue to discover my market.   When you establish who you want to attract, you can make the decision where to find them. Facebook and Twitter will even tell you how many users they have in your market. Both will allow you to mimic your competitors and target to a granular level. Key factors include the industry, the function, and the age-group of

Best Social Media to generate B2B Leads FB vs Tw vs LN Tips from 8 Experts

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

1. Allen Yesilevich When comparing social media channels, LinkedIn, followed by Twitter has resulted in the most qualified leads (Sales qualified or Marketing qualified). With 500 million users on LinkedIn alone, the ability to pinpoint our buyers with granularity has given us the best opportunity to engage with our target audience. Twitter is primarily used for brand building and thought leadership awareness, which in my opinion, aids in our efforts to identify leads on LinkedIn.  Must Read: How the lead generation strategies in USA market differ from the rest of the world 2. Anne Janzer Focus on the quality of the leads and the possibility of an ongoing relationship rather than raw lead generation numbers. Choose the social media platform that connects with the people who are most likely to become loyal customers of your business (the best quality leads), and helps you sustain those relationships after the initial purchase.   For that reason, Id vote for LinkedIn or Facebook groups, depending on your buyers. Yes, building community on these platforms takes more work and time than simply blasting out tweets, but in the long run, its better for your business.  3. Rick Whittington Sure, my tip is this: Your website should give people multiple “”tripwires”” for conversion. That might be a checklist, a webinar, a video training series, a template or a reference sheet. Don’t just rely on your “”contact us”” page, because people know if they fill out a form on that page, they will be hounded by salespeople. Warm them up to your company by finding other ways to convert them. 4. Glen Lipka I’ve never done a test or a study on that subject. I don’t use Facebook because it’s a cesspool of fake news and people I don’t really care about. I don’t use Twitter because it is filled with Bots and conversations there devolve into nonsense pretty quickly. I use LinkedIn to network with my professional groups because LinkedIn is a monopoly for this sort of thing. I don’t read the feed very much at all tho. I find it annoying when people get in touch with me for sales.   I’m a much bigger fan of double-opt-in permission content marketing, inbound marketing, and event marketing to generate leads than by annoying people on social networks. Not because it’s more effective, but because I personally don’t want people bothering me. Some friends of mine maintain a “”Hall of Shame”” from emails and messages from lame salespeople who don’t do any research and are just flooding the market with nonsense messages. If you really want to general more leads, then make a better product. It a huge marketing advantage when your system is objectively better than the competitions. Must Read: Best Social Media to generate B2B Leads Facebook vs Twitter vs LinkedIn 5. Rachel Kavanagh Rachel Kavanagh has coached hundreds of clients, including top firms, on marketing strategy, demand generation and automation. She was part of the successful start-up at Marketo, is a speaker, and contributes content to various publications. She has an MBA from ESADE business school and worked at large multinationals such as General Electric. “”The wonderful thing about lead generation in today’s environment is that you have all of the data to learn whats working. I always start by looking at two distinct groups. Who are my highest lifetime value customers? And what are the highest converting segments? Then depending on what my strategy is, I can invest in what I need the most. It may make the most sense to chase those I know are the right customers and put most of my budget into the longer term. Or I may need some leads to grow the brand and continue to discover my market. When you establish who you want to attract, you can make the decision where to find them. Facebook and Twitter will even tell you how many users they have in your market. Both will allow you to mimic your competitors and target to a granular level. Key factors include the industry, the function, and the age-group of your audience. I recently attended Gary Vees event in London, arguably the best social marketer in the world. He said that “”Facebook and Instagram are STILL #underpricedattention until #B2B and Corporates wake up€. Brands need to become publishers. Instead of posting in the Wall street journal, they need to become it. This is across all channels and Twitter is included. The untapped opportunity, however, is Facebook. 6. Steven Macdonald In my experience, the best social media platform to generate B2B leads is LinkedIn. For SuperOffice, LinkedIn has driven 4x more B2B leads than Facebook and 10x more B2B leads than Twitter, even though we have fewer followers on LinkedIn. You wont be successful on LinkedIn if you only share posts inviting people to take a free demo of your product or run a text ad promoting your free trial offering. With LinkedIn, you need to provide value. We provide value by sharing blog posts, articles, white papers and guides with our network and then optimize those landing pages to convert as many social media visitors as we can. Again, this works well on LinkedIn, rather than on Twitter and Facebook as conversion rates on LinkedIn are 2-3 times higher than any other social media network. 7. Stephen Houraghan Linked is the B2B king without question. But think of the approach on the platform the way brands are required to approach their consumers today. It’s no longer one-way broadcast communication. An audience will see a brand 6-8 times before they are prepared to engage. Do your research, find their groups, comment on their posts and have an opinion on what they’re interested in, or better, what issues they have. Study their language, do they use jargon? are they overly formal or conversational in their engagement? We all know you don’t send a copy past email to the masses. That’s the basics. But be authentic, tell them why you’re approaching them

Improve Sales by Focusing on the Customer Experience

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

The Content Marketing Institute is one of the most well-regarded educational entities in the U.S. when it comes to content marketing. The chief strategist of Content Advisory the education and consulting division of the Content Marketing Institute is Robert Rose. Robert has developed content and customer experience strategies for a number of large corporations. He’s also the co-author of what’s been called the owners manual of the content marketing process: Managing Content Marketing. I was recently privileged to have a conversation with Robert about the importance of the customer experience to a company’s bottom line.   Must Read: Steps for a Successful Business to Business Sales Want More Sales? Focus on the Customer Experience When creating content, you want to find something that your customers will align with and find value in. Whether you are teaching your audience or inspiring them, you need to make sure you do it in such a way that they will recognize the value.   This isn’t always easy. We may think we have an awesome contest idea, but then it tanks. Or, we find out that ten million other businesses had the same awesome idea. How will you know if what you are creating is really a great idea? Rose recommends asking the five whys. During our interview, he gave the following example.   He asks a client to come up with a blog idea. The client says, I want to do a blog for my customers on how easy it is to make paper mach.  He then asks the client: Why does the audience care about that?   The client replies, They care because they have kids and it would be a great thing to do on a Saturday morning.  He again asks the client: Why does the audience care about that?   He keeps asking why until they get to a truly interesting blog topic or an interesting perspective on a topic that’s already been done. Or, many times, the client finds out that their great idea really wasn’t that great after all.   The customer experience is all about what appeals to them “ what they are interested in and what will make life easier for them. By continually asking yourself why, you’ll end up finding a topic that creates the ultimate customer experience. Must Read: 35 Closed-Ended Questions To Ignite Your Sales Strategy – And When to Use Them Revamp Your Marketing Strategy to See Sales Soar If your sales haven’t been progressing as you’d hope, it may be possible that you need to revamp your marketing strategy. Many people start off with what they think is a good content marketing concept, but then they find out they’re not going about things in the best possible way.   Remember to focus on your purpose, what your customers need, how to improve the customer experience, and what makes you unique.   Every time you’re about to write a blog or film a video, remember to go back to these focus points. Doing so will help you create content that speaks volumes and turns your readers and viewers into buyers.   Have your sales been stagnant lately? You might need to revamp your marketing strategy. Check out Roberts books or his podcast for more information about how to do this successfully.   This article is contributed by Dave Reimherr who is the founder @ Magnificent Marketing LLC. Magnificent is a full-service digital marketing agency with a specialization in content marketing and social media marketing and advertising. David has 20 years of experience in sales, marketing, strategy & branding.       Must Read: Proven Marketing Strategies to Increase Sales

4 Old School Demand Generation Tactics That Still Work

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

Demand generation has been an integral part of marketing for a long time now.   But, over the years, the strategies have undergone a change. There are many new tactics and tools that have evolved.   In this post, we will talk about 4 old school demand generation tactics that you can still use and drive crazy results.   Must Read: 9 demand generation books every marker should read 1. Email Blast to Cold emailing On an average, I get 50 emails in a day. A few are relevant, but others are newsletters, promotional, social or direct emails. While I tend to ignore most of them (unless, of course, the subject line stood out), direct emails do catch my eye.   What I want to say is – direct emailing still works! However, the strategy has changed.  Earlier cold emailing meant email blast, which meant, sending the same one-size-fits-all email to every lead. This worked in because inboxes weren’t as flooded as today.   There is absolutely no doubt it is difficult to get attention to your email today and for this purpose, marketers have tweaked this strategy to be more targeted.   The traditional marketing funnel is now completely inverted and cold emailing starts with identifying target companies. New cold emailing funnel   For cold emailing to work for demand generation, you need to     And, using all this information, write an email that resonates with your quality leads. The email is never about you, but them.   Why? Because –   Personalized emails improve CTR by an average of 14%. They increase conversions on average by 10%. Lets analyze one of the introductory emails that you can send for demand generation –    Hey [name],   I hope that this email finds you well. I know you are busy, so I wont take up a lot of your time. The purpose of this email is to introduce myself, as I enjoy connecting with people who work in the same industry.   My company, XYZ Corporation, specializes in the production of widgets. I am a big supporter of your company and keep close tabs on all your latest news.    If you have the opportunity, don’t hesitate to reach out via email. Of course, you can also connect with me via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.    Thank you for taking the time to read my email. I hope we cross paths in the future!    Cheers, Jane Doe XYZ Corporation    This is a purely relationship-building email and you can continue to nurture the relationship and push it forward as planned. Must Read: 9 demand generation books every marker should read 2. Telemarketing Maureen Beattie on Integrate confesses   Telemarketing was not always included in my arsenal, but proven success over recent years has turned me into a telemarketing supporter.  The power of conversation and human touch with the right call center can yield rewarding results.   She is not the only one.  According to research, one percent of cold calls ultimately convert into appointments. That said, a few other research shows that 78% percent of decision-makers have actually taken an appointment or attended an event because of a cold calling.  All this clearly shows that telemarketing might be an old demand generation strategy or technique, but it is not DEAD. That said, the discrepancy points out to the reason of why telemarketing does not fetch an impressive ROI for many – not many know how to work a telemarketing strategy effectively   Most of them dont understand the very basics – If you follow these three pointers, telemarketing will yield a positive ROI.   3. Content Syndication Content syndication is both an old as well as new demand generation technique.   One of the best ways to generate demand and keep prospects flowing is to work with third-party media partners that can syndicate (re-publish) your high performing content.   It did work in the earlier times, and it works now. What changed is the smartness of search engines. So, you may have issues relating to duplicate content or SERP ranking if you dont follow the best practices.   Whether you opt for free content syndication or paid services, always request your partner to use the rel=canonical tag. It basically informs Google where exactly original content is and help them rank the content accordingly.   NoIndex Tag – As the name suggests, this tag tells Google engine bots to NOT index the page. In short, this will remove the syndicated copy from search results and hence, your organic traffic will not be affected.   But, these could be difficult to agree on. In that case, you should almost always ask for a backlink. Must Read: Demand Generation Books Every Marketing Expert Should Read 4. Blogging for the audience Blogging wasn’t as popular as today, but it worked well in attracting leads from prospects. After all, search engines, back then, did not fetch millions of results for a single word.   And, even though, search engines throw millions of results at you today, blogging is still the most effective way to generate demand.   All you need to do is understand your audience and create content for them.    AUDIENCE. AUDIENCE. AUDIENCE   You should continuously strive to know more and more about your target audience. Because of the difference between blog content that converts and one that doesn’t lie in relevancy to your audience.   The best way is to map your content on the buyer’s journey. You can make use of tools like Quora and Yahoo Answers to know exactly what your audience is talking about or want to know. Its also important to keep a record of client questions on forums and social platforms for your industry, communications to your sales department, as well as questions on customer feedback channels such as surveys and reviews.   There are 4 old school demand generation tactics that work REALLY well today.   Are you using them? What have been your results? We would love to hear from you.         Must Read: Demand Generation Strategies Which Work!

What To Look For When Hiring A Demand Generation Marketer

Posted on By Vikas Bhatt

Demand generation marketers are a lot like stand up comedians. They have to assess the audience, track their responses and deliver content (sometimes, change) accordingly.   Successful stand-up comedians are definitely the ones who understand their audience, recognize what they like, what offends them and predict their responses. They experiment with content and are skilled at knowing what works and what doesn’t.   Can demand generation marketer learn from stand up comedians? Do they have to adapt to the changing audience and the environment? Do they interpret audience responses and change their content accordingly? Do they have to experiment with new strategies?   Yes. Yes. Yes and Yes.   Demand generation is all about knowing the audience, tracking the quality leads, measuring results and changing strategies accordingly. It is the job of demand generation marketers to read the signals and take accurate steps   So, lets look at 4 skills your demand generation should have   Must Read: 9 demand generation books every marker should read 1. Deep understanding of marketing technology Marketers have access to never-ending technology. From CRMs to automation software and analytics, you have a wide variety of powerful tools to choose from.   No doubt, there has been an explosive growth in the marketing technology domain. With only 150 options available in 2011, it has grown to more than 5000 in 2017.   Clearly, it is important that your demand generation marketer is able to assess and utilize these new technologies to your advantage When you are interviewing your demand generation marketer candidate, ensure that while researching new tools, they also think beyond just the features. For example, they need to think how the technology aligns and integrates with your present systems. How will it impact your customers or employees? etc.   A demand generation marketer should also be ready to utilize the training resources to ensure that the team is using the new technology and tool to its full potential.   So, ask them relevant questions about the marketing technology. A few questions would be   What tools are you comfortable with? Are you comfortable using x, y or z? What campaigns or results have you achieved on it? What is the latest marketing technology you appreciate? When would you decide to invest in it? How would you change the present martech stack if you were to decide to buy a new tool? etc Must Read: Ultimate guide to demand generation strategy 2. Familiarity with the buyer’s journey Your demand generation marketer cannot be ONLY technologically sound. He/she needs to understand the buyers journey and be ready to make informed decisions along with the other members of the team.   In short, your demand generation marketer should be able to understand the difference between what works and what doesn’t. But, that is not it –   He also needs to understand why is something working better than others. This information can guide your demand generation marketer towards designing new strategies and running campaigns that lead prospect growth down the right path.   Did you know that –   67% of marketing leaders say creating a connected customer journey across all touchpoints and channels is critical to the success of their entire marketing strategy, but only 23% of marketers are extremely satisfied with their ability to leverage customer data to create more relevant experiences.   So, a few questions you need to ask are   How important is it to be familiar with the buyers journey How would you change the strategies if analytics shows you that x works and why doesn’t [give a short story here, so you can assess how they assess] etc. Must Read: Hack: Unlimited Demand Generation With Content Marketing 3. Ready to experiment If demand generation marketers never experimented with new strategies, we would still be stuck with outbound marketing – trying to catch as many fish aimlessly.   But, to create a successful marketing strategy, marketers need to test, analyze, experiment and optimize all of their marketing efforts – whether it is a placement of buttons on a homepage, call to action texts or content of a blog post.   Optimizing your existing plans and strategies (for example, optimizing old content) can dramatically boost the effectiveness of your demand generation efforts. But, if your demand generation marketer hasn’t tried or does not want to try, you wont be able to optimize in a true sense.   Your demand generation marketer is not fearful i.e he is ready to experiment systematically.   So, for this purpose, ask them   How would they conduct a marketing experiment? If there is a new way to do x in the market, what will be their approach? Would they try the new strategy or stick to an already tested strategy that is working for your business? How to ensure minimum wastage of marketing budget while carrying out a marketing experiment? 4. Should be master of at least 2 tactics Riches in the niches. Have you heard that saying?   Well, if you haven’t, you would still know that expertise in tactics is GOLD. There are so many demand generation tactics out there, that not one person can know it all.   But, when you are hiring demand generation marketers and establishing a team, you should aim for hiring candidates that master at least 2 tactics. This way, if you hire 2-3 demand generation marketers, you will have people with expertise in different tactics. Meaning, you can expect results of demand generation strategies much more quickly. Must Read: B2B content ideas to boost demand generation 5. Understanding data that actually matters and take action on it Marketing data is easy to read but difficult to analyze and implement changes based on it.   Your demand generation marketer needs to know how to put together all the metrics and draw actionable information from it. For example, with relevant information, you can understand buyer persona and identify the best type of content and placement.   Unfortunately, companies are still struggling to analyze their database efficiently and use it to find sales opportunities.   50% of the average marketing database is useless, largely because of duplicate records.   According to the Demand Generation Benchmark Report, improving the ability to measure and analyze marketing impact was a top demand generation priority for 61% of organizations in 2017.   This means you need to look for

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