Tag: digital marketing

Is Your Business Implementing VR?

Posted on by David Dinh

The Virtual Reality market has been steadily growing and is expected to grow to an industry of $US 2.16 trillion by 2035 and plenty of organisations are taking advantage of the boom, for instance, Facebook bought Oculus for this very reason. There are also endless opportunities in this sector and the organisations that move quickly would have the advantage. Computer simulation has become an important part of the gaming industry and Telsyte estimated that by 2020 2.5 million households would own a VR unit. But its uses are far advanced to be just utilised in gaming.

Virtual Reality has and can be used for education and training as well. And it is slowly taking over the business world as well. With a plethora of benefits associated with implementing the technology in your business, make sure you don’t miss out on any one of them. How do you do that? By asking yourself if your business is implementing VR. Since Virtual Reality is one of the top trends in 2017, your business is going to benefit once you implement this technology. Whichever business enterprise you run, Virtual Reality can help you take it to the next level. And it’s not even that expensive!

To help make up your mind, here are some of the ways in which implementing VR will aid your business.

Employee Training for Design Related Businesses

vr accessories

Capturing and dispersing knowledge has become easier with Virtual Reality. The immersive way of distributing knowledge makes sure that all your employees remain up-to-date with the technicalities involved.

In the real estate industry, most businesses were early to catch up on the trend. They started with 360-degree virtual walkthroughs and made marketing properties easier. Even the construction industry has now caught up to the trend. Whenever a client demands some changes in the design, they can easily see the final look through VR. See KFC’s employee training below!

VR as a Marketing Tool

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This immersive media also makes for a great marketing tool. Since most families are still new to the Virtual Reality experience, it’ll be the perfect tool for attracting them to your business. Such activities provide businesses with an opportunity to raise brand awareness and customer engagement.

Businesses like McDonalds, Samsung and Lowe’s have realised the efficacy of using VR as a marketing tool and they are making the best of this opportunity. See Jack Daniel’s marketing VR.

Adding a Twist to Print Media

Traditional print media has seen some setbacks since the internet has taken the market by storm. Although there are many people who still prefer the old way of reading the newspaper, there can be no denying that the new dimension of news and entertainment has gained immense popularity. Virtual Reality has also penetrated this industry.

The New York Times caught on to it early and in November 2015, produced a VR film, The Displaced. The film was distributed to over a million Sunday home delivery subscribers, along with Google Cardboard glasses. They repeated this in May 2016. Through their efforts, they were able to make the genre feature a fresh perspective and to gain interest of the youngsters as well.

Help Customers Make Informed Decisions

Gone are the days when customers had to choose home improvement pieces without any idea of their compatibility with their home and space. Lowe’s store had been working on this problem and through Lowe’s Innovation Lab, they have developed some creative augmented, mixed and virtual reality tools.Now their customers can easily use the VR tools for designing, visualising DIY skills training and even navigation of Lowe’s store. By implementing these technologies, they have made sure that customers can easily visualise what their home improvement projects are going to look like, even before they get started. With this power in hand, customers are now more informed and can thus take better decisions.

Gaining popularity wasn’t difficult for this technology, as people are more open to new experiences as they were before. Over time, the price of technology has also dropped and it keeps on dropping, which will make it easier for Virtual Reality products to gain access to households and businesses.

So far, the production of Virtual Reality gear hasn’t achieved a sustainable level yet, which raises a question about the industry as well. Although China has already invested billions of dollars for VR hardware, in Australia, the production hasn’t seen any significant rise.

Over the years, prices for Virtual Reality solutions are expected to become even lower. This can amount to great opportunities for small businesses, which are not ready to invest yet. There are no doubts to the first mover advantage in Virtual Reality technology, but there are plenty of organisations who have put the idea on hold till the full arrival of VR. With a digital formation strategy though, businesses can demonstrate product attributes, help consumers make better choices, and can also raise brand awareness.

Are You Ticking Off These Essentials in Your Marketing Strategy?

Posted on by David Dinh

Is your company including the essential parts of a marketing strategy? Do you know what to include? Chances are you’re missing some important parts that could help boost your business. Your marketing strategy is your business’s plan to gain new customers and to keep in contact with existing customers. This is essential when growing your small business. Summarized below are the most important bits of information that your business should be adding and targeting. If you are looking for different marketing templates, check out 8 Marketing Plan Templates to Blow Your Competitors Out of the Water.

Marketing Plan Essentials That You Should be Including

1. Identify your Goals

goal steps-marketing strategy-cmo-digital marketing-customer service-customer success

Identifying your goals when embarking on your marketing strategy is the most important part of the marketing strategy. Your goals are what you want to accomplish by performing this plan. These goals should be things that you can realistically accomplish with the budget and time frame you are giving yourself. You can look at what your company needs and then tailor your strategy to better accomplish this. For example, if you are trying to target a younger demographic, try using a more digital advertising campaign over social media. Your goals will evolve throughout the process, and that is just fine! It is important however, to strive toward the same area of growth or target the same people. This way, when you analyze your marketing strategy afterward, you can find out if it was successful or not.

Related: 8 Marketing Plan Templates That Will Blow Your Competitors Out of the Water.

2. Produce Content

In a world obsessed with technology and the Internet, content marketing and just producing content in general are becoming necessities. Your content should be over a wide range of topics to get as many people reading as possible. Your content should also be split up into the Viral, Discover, Consider, and Customer categories I have talked about in previous blogs.

Content is what drives people to your site and is often overlooked when it comes to building your business and getting traffic to your website. Remember, content is essential when embarking on your marketing strategy!

3. Distribute Content

content distribuiton - marketing strategy-cmo-digital marketing-customer service-customer success

After producing this content, you will have to distribute it. It is a good idea to distribute your content on multiple customer channels. At this point in your marketing strategy, you will have already figured out who you are mostly targeting. You can now look to different channels such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, and your company website. If you are targeting a younger crowd, maybe look towards Facebook. With such advancements in digital advertising, you can directly reach your target market when they search for topics related to your product or company.

4. Analytics

Throughout your marketing strategy you should be analyzing your progress. Google Analytics is a great tool you can use to understand all the incoming data. Google Analytics will provide you details such as average session duration, where the traffic is coming from the most, the demographics of the traffic, and even repeat customers vs. new customers. You can then take this data and see if you are on track to achieve your goal. It will also tell you if your target market is interacting with the content you have produced.

5. Ensure Brand Strength

thumbs up, brands strength, online marketing, cmo, customer service

Think of Nike, Apple, Google, BMW, or Lufthansa. These companies all have one thing in common: fantastic brand strength. They are the forerunners in the industries they compete in and have incredible customer loyalty. When a smaller company is trying to increase its brand strength, it is important to show consistency. This will prove to your customers what you stand for and over time will increase brand loyalty. It is also best to put your brand out as much as possible. Place your logo on all products, in your social media, and anywhere possible. This increases brand awareness and will, in turn, help promote your products.

6. Marketing Strategy Analysis

After exercising your marketing strategy, it is important to analyze your whole process. Start with your goals. Did they stay the same? Did you accomplish them? What data points are you measuring to define success? This should have been stated beforehand. Get your marketing team together and do a quick rundown to see what went well and what could be improved for next time. Your marketing strategy can be remade and remastered to better fit your future goals, but you always need the same basics to get started.

CTA marketing strategy template

8 Signs You Might Want to Switch Up Your Online B2B Campaigns

Posted on by David Dinh

One of the worst things from a marketing perspective with B2B campaigns is when you look at big companies that have great products or services, but are unable to capitalize due to poor marketing campaigns. The name of your brand and your reputation, will only get your business so far. If you want to strike while the iron is still hot, then you need to focus on switching up your online B2B campaign.

Businesses no longer have the luxury of being oblivious to the latest strategies and tactics for B2B campaigns, because there is no shortage of accessible information online. However, there are many businesses that have marketing professionals who refuse to conform to the latest trends, and prefer to do things the old-fashioned way.

Learn more efficient ways to help your B2B campaigns, request a FREE conversational software demo today!

This is a foolish position to take because the strategies that initially brought them success are outdated, and the target audience has also changed and matured. By failing to adopt cutting edge digital strategies they are refusing to adapt and improve their online B2B campaigns. When put under the spotlight for lack of results, the common excuse used is poor execution by the teams.

However, if any business wants to remain competitive, they need to adopt new marketing strategies. All businesses need to adapt to their environment, and that can only be done when you decide to switch up your online B2B campaigns.

8 Signs that show your B2B Marketing Strategy is Outdated

1. You can’t seem to engage clients

If you’re failing to engage your clients, you’re failing to reach your potential as a business, which is why it is important that you offer them with a comprehensive contact page. This is important for capturing leads and customer satisfaction.

51% of people will not do business with a company that doesn’t provide them with thorough contact information.

You will lose more business if you’re not providing your clients with contact information, which is why it might be time to redesign your website and switch up your online B2B campaign.

2. You’re not capturing leads

You may not have any problems in attracting traffic on to your website, but you also need to convert that traffic into sales. Lead capturing is important for a business, otherwise they won’t make any money, and to do that you need to include landing pages, forms, and call-to-action buttons on your website. You won’t be able to convert leads without them.

3. Your website is cluttered

Having lots of content on your B2B website is a good strategy, but you can easily overdo it as well. A cluttered website is going to be an eyesore, and visitors to your website will run away, which is why it is important to balance things out. You should know about the value of whitespace, since it helps visitors focus on the important things on your website. It helps to improve readability, and also helps lead capturing as well.

4. Your website design doesn’t match your brand

Businesses must focus on their brand positioning as well, which means clearly outlining what the brand and the B2B website represent. The design scheme of your website needs to be in sync with your industry, and should include strong brand messaging. You should be clear about your goals as a business with your clients and customers, which will only help serve your B2B campaign.

5. Your website hasn’t been updated

When the digital revolution came about, and computers became mainstream, basic website designs were the norm. However, technology has grown rapidly over time, and that has also influenced website designs. If you want your B2B campaign to be successful, you need to update the website design as well. If you’re not sold on that, these statistics might change your perception:

66% of web users want websites with visually appealing designs

38% of web visitors won’t engage with a website with poor content or layout

79% of web users prefer going to websites that are mobile friendly

If you want your B2B campaign to be a success you will need to work on upgrading your website design.

6. You don’t upload fresh content

You need to frequently upload fresh content on your B2B blog, which is important for SEO, more visitors, driving organic traffic, and converting leads. If you don’t have any new content on your website, your website traffic will fall off a cliff. If you don’t have a blog on your website, you can add a ‘news section’, which will help provide visitors with helpful, informative, and relevant information.

7. The website is unresponsive and slow

One of the main reasons to switch up your online B2B campaign is if you have a website that is slow and unresponsive.

71% of mobile users stop going to websites that take too long to load or crash frequently.

The average web user only waits about 5 seconds for a website to load. If your website is slower than that, you are going to lose traffic and customers. So, make sure that your website is as fast and responsive as possible on desktop and mobile to keep visitors happy and conversion rates soaring.

8. You can’t update anything

Websites that are inaccessible or haven’t been updated in a long time will not attract visitors, which is why it is important to freshen things up. You can either upgrade your web design or design a brand new one from scratch to ensure that your website manages to attract more traffic.

Expert Tips to Generate Viable Leads

Posted on by David Dinh

Lead generation is such an important factor in marketing that you just can’t go without a good lead generation strategy. A lot of people think that they have got everything covered when it comes to getting traffic to their website. Gone are the days of traditional marketing because the internet has changed the way we do things. From running a business to communicating with someone, almost everything has its online version. One of the reasons why people fail to generate leads is because they are still using traditional marketing strategies to promote their business online. The dynamics of the online world differ vastly. There are new tools and avenues that can make your business go to newer heights.

7 Strategies that will make you Attract Leads like bees to Honey

1. Content Creation

content strategy infographic

Content creation is one of the most powerful ways to attract leads to a website. But even that is not enough. You need to know what your target audience is in order to do so. If you have the wrong kind of content, you will end up having thousands of visitors on your website but hardly any leads. A lot of people have this confusion that the number of visitors per site can easily determine the number of leads; at least not when you have the wrong type of content on the website. The content could be anything, social media, blogs, videos, podcasts etc. as long as you know that it is reaching to the target audience, you are good to go.

2. Contact Information

accessible contact customer

It is imperative that you mention your contact information on your website; more specifically a contact number. This isn’t mostly because you want to increase user credibility to potential customers. They might not necessarily call but at least they know that you are trustable and can be reached directly. If a contact number is not possible, an email and an enquiry form is always a must.

3. Feedback and Testimonials

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After your first couple of orders, be in contact with your existing customers and ask them for their feedback and if they would be willing to let you share their testimonials on your website. This is another way of showing your credibility to potential consumers because they will see firsthand unpaid reviews of verified customers. Amazon uses this effective strategy and even mentions if it is a verified customer. After every purchase Amazon sends an email to its customers asking to write a review for their sellers. You too can send emails and a rating system for your product or service that other visitors can read when they are visiting your website.

4. A Dynamic Website

Your website should have the ultimate sweet spot for the user. In other words, the sweet spot is where uniqueness, simplicity and user friendliness collide. Your website should not look like a unicorn and have everything on it. Have a minimalistic design that speaks more about your brand rather than the website design itself. Avoid using cookie-cutter and run of the mill type website layouts because they won’t make you stand out.

5. Use Powerful Words

Use words that directly speak to the subconscious of the consumer. This might sound sneaky but in reality it’s just a marketing tool which is being used by decades by various brands and companies to get more customers. Use words like “get”, “have”, “make” “instantly” etc to trigger the subconscious of the consumer and you will notice that it makes more leads than by using words like “can” or “may” these words imply that they may or may not aren’t trustworthy.

6. Social Media

If content is King then social media is the contents advisors. Social media brings in your content to the maximum number of people and to the target audience for your product or service. There are so many mediums available for you to share your content on therefore you need t pick the one that best suits your customer base. For e.g. if your product or service caters to a young crowd using social media like SnapChat can be beneficial for your brand. If it is more visual based then Instagram or Pinterest would be the right choice. Similarly if you have a B2B setup, then posting blogs on LinkedIn would be the right way to go about it. Facebook is the social media staple so having a Facebook button along with one or two more social media buttons on your website shows that you have an extension beyond the confines of your website.

Foolproof Marketing Strategy Tips to Increase Revenue

Posted on by David Dinh

A vast number of e-commerce and online companies have the same goal: increase revenue and products. But what can a company do to make this goal a reality? Online marketing is a quick and easy way to increase company profits.

Do you know how to better make sense of your disjointed data? Download the quick quide here or request for a conversational technology demo.

Follow along to learn some…

Here are 5 Quick and Easy Ways to Increase Revenue

1. Focus on Existing Customers

customers-marketing strategy-customer service-customer success-cmo-online marketing

Existing customers are 60-70% more likely to buy your products than new customers at a mere 5-20%. Existing customers also spend on average 31% more and are 50% more likely to buy new products than new customers, Nichole Kelly, the CEO of SME Digital, writes.

For many companies, connecting with their existing customers is a natural fit for social media. These companies are seeing conversations about their brands, their competitors and their industry that provide them with an opportunity to engage others in dialogue.

There are two types of strategies that revolve around existing customers on the social media channel. The first is to offer customer service help through the social channel. We’ve seen excellent examples of this with Comcast and Boingo, which have successfully addressed customer concerns through social media.

This builds customer relationships, which strengthens customer loyalty. Why not focus on the ones who generate the most revenue for your company?

2. Increase Revenue Through Targeted Advertising

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Targeted advertising is becoming easier as more information about individuals is available online. In Mike Juba’s article, Online Marketing Strategies to Increase Online Revenue, he says, “The more targeted traffic you can get without having to pay for advertising or PPC, the more revenue you will see along with better margins. Therein lies the question: How do I get more targeted traffic to my website?”

“You need to be going over the keywords, and all of their relevant long-tails, that convert best for your website. This means naturally placing, but not stuffing, keywords in your content on relevant pages in optimal places, correctly doing internal linking, improving user experience (UX), split testing, and optimizing your tags.”

He then goes on to describe the importance of SEO and that specific keywords don’t just come from the larger content you write. You should not only be producing large sums of content on a variety of different topics to get the most people interested as possible, but you should also go and comment on similar articles. If you are able to build relationships with other content writers, you can feature each other to get more and more traffic to your website.

3. Marketing via Social Media

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Marketing over social media is a great way to increase company revenues. Social media is a cheap and easy way to reach your customers. Many companies limit themselves to just Facebook or Twitter, but they would be so much better off expanding to Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube, and other social media.

However, in order to keep track of all these different channels, you will need some help. If you market over social media, you will need a customer service team that is capable of handling all the different channels you customers will talk to you. Woveon is an intelligent customer service software that allows companies with fewer resources to have customer service like any big enterprise.

4. Promotions, Giveaways, Discounts

promotions -marketing strategy-customer service-customer success-cmo-online marketing

Who doesn’t get excited about a great discount, or even giveaways?! TMR Direct’s article on increasing revenue by internet marketing suggests that promotions energize your customers more than anything. With social media, it is once again easy to hold contests and get your loyal customers excited about new deals or potential giveaways. These giveaways, promotions, or discounts on your social media page increase popularity and will get more shares than previous posts. This drives more traffic and increases customer awareness. You already offer discounts, why not energize your customers and gain more money along the way?

5. Boosting Revenue Through Marketing

Online marketing is a great way to boost revenue. There are many tips and tricks out there, but focusing on existing customers is a great place to start. They are 6 times cheaper to maintain and easier to contact. This contact is often through social media and emails. Companies can host promotions or even giveaways that excite the existing customers, who then share it with new people. Lastly, targeting the right group has never been easier over social media. Search patterns, Facebook interests, and types of YouTube channels you watch all allow companies to better target you as a customer, saving them lots of money.

So before kicking off your next marketing campaign, look back at these easy steps to increase revenue!

CTA marketing strategy template

Art of Killing Digital Advertising

Posted on by David Dinh

Like much of the business world, advertising has had major changes in the last 10 years. We have gone from word of mouth to paper to television, and now we are in the digital age. Digital advertising is a fairly new way for companies to reach new and returning customers. It is much more efficient because you can target your clients easier. Digital marketing isn’t just a walk in the park, however. Stick around to learn how to exceed in your next digital advertising campaign.

The Importance of Digital Advertising

Now that digital advertising is a $83 billion a year industry, it has never been more important. This year alone, the industry is expected to grow almost 16%. Within this huge industry two main companies control the business. Google and Facebook together own 57% of the whole industry. Yahoo is the next biggest in the industry but with a mere 2.3% market share.

Digital vs. Traditional Advertising

In this new technological age advertising has gone through some major changes. With digital advertising giants like Facebook and Google, companies can target customers that are already interested in their products. For example, if I were to Google search for new computers, Google would know that I am interested in tech-related ads, and then tech companies ads would suddenly appear. This is not random, but individuals are targeted based on their past searches. This is what makes digital advertising so much cheaper than traditional advertising where companies would send out information to the masses and hope that the right people would see it. For more on strategies of online marketing, take a look at 7 Strategies to Maximize Website Visits.

Digital Advertising Timing

Digital Advertising Timing

If you are looking to get the most out of your digital advertising campaigns, timing is everything. When your company pushes out content, you should be aware of the amount of user activity that tends to happen. If a company has clients around the world, be aware of time zone differences so that you can push the same ad at different times to maintain high ad viewership.  

Analytics

Along with digital advertising, customer analytics is now of huge importance when it comes to advertising. Customer analytics are pieces of data that companies can track based off online interactions between customers, ads, and your website. These bits of data can be average session duration, click conversion rates, basic customer demographics, and even as simple as page views. These can all be tracked so you can better target your digital ads to customers that are more loyal or interested. A detailed analysis of the analytics every company should be looking at can be found here: 5 Customer Analytics You Should Be Measuring

Types of Digital Advertising

Digital Ads types-digital advertising-internet marketing-cmo-customer success

When it comes to digital advertising, there are multiple routes a company can take. Right now videos are an extremely popular way of online advertising. In fact, users are 39% more likely to interact with an ad if it includes a video rather than text. This is because your brain processes video 60,000 times faster than reading text. Yes, 60,000 times. Another form of digital advertising is directly sharing articles. Once again the human brain is much more interested in seeing visuals, and that is why articles shared with pictures tend to have twice the number of page views. Lastly, when posting material such as blogs or advertisements, SEO or search engine optimization is extremely important. This is simply using keywords to move your material farther up on the search engine list. To read more on SEO and how to get more website views, check out 7 Online Marketing Strategies to Maximize Website Visits.

Use Different Channels

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When it comes to digital advertising, it is important to get your information out on as many channels as possible. Channels are simply different ways you can communicate with your customers. These include articles, email, webinars, social media, TV ads and more. When it comes to digital advertising, once again Facebook and Google are the way to go.

Digital Advertising

Digital advertising, although a relatively new field, is changing the way in which businesses communicate with customers. It generates over $83 billion a year and two tech giants, Facebook and Google, own an impressive 57% of the market. Because customers are using the search engines and social media, it is easy to track their likes and dislikes online. This makes it cheap and easy to target your customers or likely customers more directly. So if you’re going to be embarking on a new marketing campaign think about taking to the web and trying out digital advertising!

21 Successful Ideas for Lead Generation

Posted on by David Dinh

Have you been searching for good ideas for lead generation? Then you came to the right place, because we are going to be discussing different strategies that you can adopt for improving lead generation and growing the email list. We are covering 21 successful ideas for lead generation that seemed impossible in the beginning but have now become mainstream. So, let’s stop beating about the bush, and dive straight into the foundational principles that will result in better lead generation for you.

Learn how to manage customer services successfully and increase leads! Request for a FREE Conversation Software demo today!

21 Ideas for Lead Generation You Should Already Be Doing

1. Consistent blogging

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It shouldn’t be a secret to you to learn that inbound marketing and lead generation is all about regular blogging. By creating enough content on your website, and developing your own blog series, you will reach out to a wider audience. Creating educational how-to’s and educating your customers is always going to work in your favor, since you’re adding value to their lives, and they will return that with their trust.

2. Add social buttons

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If you want to tap into your network of subscribers, the best way to do that is by sharing newsletters. How do you do that? By adding social buttons to your email newsletters, which encourages your email subscribers to follow your posts, and share messages on social platforms.

3. Create promo videos

If you want successful lead generation you need to tap into the power of visuals and audios. This is where promo videos are great, because they educate your customers about your service or product in no time, and engage them as well.

4. Regular content upgrades

One of the most successful ideas for lead generation is through content upgrades. It offers real value to the customers, who in turn reward the business.

5. Networking at conferences

You can also influence a lot of people by promoting your products at conferences and networking. This ensures that your clients become regulars, and you win in lead generation.

6. Giveaway licenses

Another one of the many great ideas for lead generation is by giving away licenses to the experts in your industry. This provides you with free promotion and lead generation.

7. Guest blogging on websites

One of the best ideas for lead generation is by guest blogging on websites where your audience is most active at. This helps you reach them, and allows your business exposure on other platforms.

8. Invite guest bloggers to your website

You won’t find any better ideas for lead generation, than inviting guest bloggers to post on your website. This allows you to form back links and get exceptional content posted on your website, while generating more exposure for your business.

9. Adding Exit-intent popups

You should know that around 70% of the visitors on your website will not return, so what can you do to convert them into leads? One of the best ideas for lead generation is by adding exit-intent popups that will help you attract them.

10. Mobile CTAs and campaigns

Most website traffic today comes from mobile devices, and if you’re looking for ideas for lead generation you should focus on developing mobile CTAs and campaigns.

11. Adding visible floating bars

Another great idea for lead generation is to add floating bars to the top or the bottom of your visitor’s screen, which makes your content highly visible and effective.

12. Content driven by query

Good ideas for lead generation don’t come around that often, and if you’re trying to gain leads, then you can use content driven queries. You can use targeted keywords and search about extended phrases that your customers are searching for, to capitalize on them.

13. Developing SlideShare presentations

If you want to make your mark on your customers, you should focus on developing SlideShare presentations. This is because they are a great way to share content with customers, and make them go viral, which will ensure greater exposure for your website.

14. Make surveys or quizzes

If your goal is to gain higher engagement, then one of the best ideas for lead generation is making surveys or quizzes for your customers. This will help you create a better chance for collecting emails and will lead to more conversions.

15. Build affiliate programs

Affiliate programs are a great way to generate leads, because you are offering your partners the same incentives to succeed. This helps you in promoting and advertising your products and services.

16. Build Twitter lead cards

Twitter is one of the biggest social media platforms, and you can use it to your advantage by capturing leads on it through lead cards. They collect user information by giving them an offer, and will help in boosting conversions.

17. Slide-in scroll boxes

There are very few ideas for lead generation that come across as less pushy, but slide-in scroll boxes are the perfect way to generate leads.

18. Test your CTAs

If you’re struggling to come up with good ideas for lead generation, you should focus on developing good CTAs for your website. You should test the existing CTA on your website to determine if it is prompting users to share information.

19. Interest based targeting

Want to capture leads by giving your clients something they want? Interest based targeting is one of the best ideas for lead generation.

20. Showcase reviews and testimonials

You can’t go wrong with showcasing your reviews and testimonials on your website, as it helps build trust among your customers, and is regarded as one of the best ideas for lead generation.

21. Simplify landing pages

Effective landing pages with call to actions hold the secret to lead generation, and that is what you need to focus on. Simplify your landing pages to ensure that you can convert your customers.

7 Sales Strategy Templates You Wish You Had Earlier!

Posted on by David Dinh

Sales. The single stat that so many companies strive to maximize. The one thing that gets nearly 6.5 million people up in the morning and keeps them up at night. Probably the main reason that you yourself are reading this sales strategy template blog right now.

Identify who you can upsell to, faster and easier. Request a FREE demo today!

Yet without an effective sales strategy, how can you expect to maximize your sales? The one and only Benjamin Franklin said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Here are 7 Sales Strategy Templates you Need to Start Using NOW!

If those harsh words, “failing to prepare and preparing to fail,” scare you, not to worry! We definitely haven’t failed to prepare this for you:

1. HubSpot CRM

hubspot sales strategy

Price: free version, upgrades available

  • HubSpot has 21K+ customers across 90+ countries and 3.4K+ agency partners. It has been recognized as a Leader in G2 Crowd’s Spring 2017 Grid for Marketing Automation and the Best CRM in CMS Critic Awards.

WHAT WE THINK

Pros

  • Includes an extensive guide, tips, examples, and case studies.
  • The Sales Strategy Template section provides some explanations and headings that describe what areas to consider.

Cons

  • Doesn’t actually include any templates but tries to get you to sign up for the HubSpot CRM (which has a free version!)
  • The explanations under each heading are quite good, but they would be even better if paired with samples of what you could write.

2. A Sales Guy

Price: free

a sales guy consulting

3. Four Quadrant Sales Strategy Template

Price: $199

four quadrant sales strategy

  • Not only does it give a sales strategy template, but also includes a blog with tips and instructions.
  • Fortune 1000 startups and companies have tested and validated this template.
  • Peter J. Buscemi, the author of the blog, is the Founder, Technology Marketing Executive, VP of Marketing, VP of Field Marketing, and VP of Market Development at Four Quadrant. He is also an advisor for startups, consultant for c-level executives, and Adjunct Professor in the Executive MBA Program at the University of San Francisco. He possesses 25 years of entrepreneurial experience and classical training at Fortune 500 companies (Apple, Oracle, HP) and startups and has helped technological innovations generate millions in revenue. He has worked in influencer and analyst relations, go-to-market strategy and execution, sales and marketing leadership, customer acquisition and retention, product development, and brand positioning and identity.
  • Four Quadrant offers marketing resources and advice for go to market plans.

4. Close.io

Price: free

close.io sales CRM

  • Includes a blog on “25 proven sales strategies from top entrepreneurs and startups.”
  • Ryan Robinson is a Content Marketing Consultant to leading startups and experts across the globe. He has worked at Forbes, LinkedIn, and Entrepreneur.
  • Close.io provides an inside sales CRM catered to small and medium-sized businesses and startups.

5. Smartsheet

Price: free

smartsheet

  • Offers a customizable sales forecast template, funnel template, sales tracker and report templates, sales email templates, etc.
  • Smartsheet provides a software as a service (SaaS) platform for automating and organizing collaborative work. It is used by 65,000 brands and millions of information workers and has received awards from Forbes, Microsoft Office, G Suite, Geekwire, and DocuSign.

6. Office Timeline

Price: free

office timeline sales plan template

7. Tidy Form

Price: free

tide form sales plan template

  • TidyForm.com comprises of software engineers, web developers, and editors who select and organize templates, samples, and forms in the fields of business, personal finance, law, tax, and more.
  • Tidy Form’s business templates are recommended by Small Business Trends, an online publication that has won awards for providing resources, suggestions, and news for entrepreneurs, small business proprietors, and other stakeholders. It consists of hundreds of experts who contribute to its services.

Got the templates but still stuck on how to start? Check out this blog on 9 Tips For Developing Your 2017 Sales And Marketing Strategy.

Now that you have a robust sales strategy, start selling! And sign up for Woveon to maximize your sales!

CTA marketing strategy template

Achievable but Useless Marketing Metrics you Should Avoid

Posted on by David Dinh

From several hundred marketing experiments and campaigns we’ve come to appreciate that having a focus on the easy metrics do not have much of an impact on the business, if any at all. They tend to be merely numbers that don’t really amount to much more than giving us a false sense of our business’s success; their only purpose is to make us feel better about ourselves.

The importance of a key metric is determined by the insight we gain about the customer which would in turn allow us to drive towards a desired behavior. How is the customer’s relationship with your business? How can customer service be improved? Why does a customer click on a certain page but bounce off another? What tangible benefits can your business derive from a particular metric?

Learn efficient customer management today using conversational technology. Request a demo now.

If these questions and more are not answered by the customer metric, then it is probably useless to your business and a waste of both time and money. They are also known as vanity metrics – they make us feel good about ourselves. The importance of a customer metric depends upon the type of industry. Some metrics are only useful if they are combined with supplementary metrics, which will then provide more thorough information; number two on our list of useless metrics is a glaring example of this. Firms fail to see the bigger picture and tend to lose themselves in the grandeur of success shown off by a single piece of metric.

See also:Top Successful Lead Generation Strategies

Disclaimer: Below are the customer key metrics commonly used by marketing teams when they launch out a campaign however if used alone are useless. I’ve provided some examples how to combine them to a marketing outcome.

Useless Marketing Metrics You Shouldn’t Measure Your Business with

1. The Traffic Generated

Imagine one of your videos got a million views while the rest of them still linger around the humble 1000 views range, does it justify you to boast about those million views? Of those millions of viewers how many are actually using an adblock service to blot out ads from appearing on your video? Consider a service which functions only within a specific geographical area; the service seems to be generating a hundred thousand views from locations scattered around the world. This high traffic count really doesn’t amount to anything profound at all since most of these visitors are not serviceable by the business. There is no online or offline business to be gained. Examples of such geocentric entities could be the police or fire department’s website. When used correctly however, consider the traffic generated as part of a lead generation campaign, and then understanding how much of the traffic you can convert into customers.

2. Gaining New Customers – not really a Useful Metric

Most sales teams feel pretty good about themselves when they gain a thousand new customers. They boast about it on social media networks, to peers and to their boss. What they don’t allow to sink in is the other end of the spectrum – you’re also losing previous customers. When you understand that gaining new customers should not be the goal but part of the means to achieve something, think about gaining new customers and understanding how many you can capture in any of your campaigns such as email newsletter capture or downloads of your eBook.

3. Your AdWords Budget

Don’t rely on just AdWords to get the customers to your business. Your algorithmic search rankings will not gain any boosts just because you spent a higher amount on AdWords. Instead creating original and interesting content which attracts links and readers to your website will help you more. Your organic rankings will only boost if people actually like your content.

4. Ad Impressions

This metric determines the number of times an ad is placed on a webpage. It doesn’t matter whether the user actually saw the ad or no. It doesn’t matter if your ad got placed on a million different websites. If you don’t know whether the audience saw it, you really can’t derive much insight out of it, can you? Its parable is that of a newspaper which is being circulated around a hundred thousand people. You know your ad is contained within every single one of these copies, but you can’t really tell if the ads are being viewed at all, or whether the page containing the ad is being browsed through. This metric died a long time ago.

5. Social Media following doesn’t amount to much

One of the most commonly cited reasons why Facebook likes are a preferred metric of choice is the gargantuan levels of reach the social media giant has acquired over the years. Today Facebook has 2 billion monthly users, but this really doesn’t help your business take off at all. Most of the ‘likes’ that social media sites like Facebook receive are just superfluous in nature – it’s like adding a fifth wheel to a car – there is no difference. The likes don’t really translate to the viewer actually clicking on any ads. Most users don’t even bother with the content of the page they ‘like’. Use the likes to gain and understand your audience – what are they interested in, break it down into demographics and start segmenting your audience. And then use this information to implement strategies from examples such as Social Media Examiner.

6. Page Ranking

Another metric for businesses that aim at gauging the quality of their content, page ranking is primarily used by link brokers and buyers. Google assigns page ranks to websites based on the number and quality of links that they contain. Fact though is that your business’s page rankings can be zero yet they will still rake in hundreds of unique visitors on a daily basis. Page ranking is so useless that Google removed it from their webmaster tools in order to make a point to SEO ‘experts’ that just didn’t get the message. Instead focus on linking your website and content with quality websites.

7 Online Marketing Strategies to Maximize Website Visits

Posted on by David Dinh

Having trouble getting people to your website? Want to know some ideas on how to expand your online reach? Many small businesses are trying to maximize their website visits but don’t know where to get started. 

Here are the Online Marketing Strategies to Maximize Website Traffic

We will be taking you through 7 online marketing strategies that can increase your website visits every month!

1. Advertising

The first of the online marketing strategies is advertising. Your business should be advertising to increase traffic, but you should ask yourself whether you’re doing so in the right way. There is no need to pay large sums of money for TV ads or giant billboards anymore. Companies can simply go online to start their advertising. Companies that are just starting to advertise should look into social media, Google ads, and Bing ads. These are all inexpensive online marketing strategies and have the ability to reach huge audiences. It is also more targeted, meaning your advertisements can be directed at people who have searched up particular search terms or phrases. This way, you can promote your product to people who are more interested in your product.

2. Social Media

Another way to increase website traffic is through social media. Your company can easily set up a Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page to reach more clients. When it comes to social media, there are definitely some strategies that can be looked at. One big part of online advertising is timing. I work for a startup called Woveon. This company is based in the United States but also has a branch in Australia. When pushing out blogs to social media we try to target times that generate the most activity. Sometimes we push the same blog out multiple times so that we can get both prime times in the US and Australia. Social media advertising is also so easy because companies such as Hubspot can help control your marketing campaign by timing your posts and picking high traffic times. Overall, social media is a great way to advertise because it is cheap and efficient.

If you are already bringing in lots of traffic every month, check out our Top 5 Secrets to Excellent Customer Service, 5 Customer Analytics You Should be Measuring or Request for a FREE Conversational Technology demo today!

3. Content Marketing

Now that you have social media mastered, you are going to need something to post! Content marketing is the process of creating content to send out in the form of blogs, PDFs, infographics to get more traffic to your website. In order to get the most traffic possible, use SEO (Search Engine Optimization) to rise up in Google’s standings. Another thing about content marketing is that it doesn’t always have to be about your company. People are interested in much more than just your company, so produce a broad array of information to capture the most attention possible. Lastly, a small but important part about content marketing is reaching out to similar bloggers and linking them. This helps both of you increase traffic, especially if the articles are on similar topics. Content marketing is often overlooked when small businesses are trying to reach new customers, but it is extremely cost efficient and easy to do.

4. Site Load Time Improvement for SEO

cmo-digital marketing-internet marketing-Loading Symbol

If you are still waiting to see what picture is going to pop up above, you now understand the problem with slow site time load. 57% of web users wait for 3 seconds or less to pick a website when searching for information. When searching on Google, the websites that load the fastest often come up as one of the first links. One way to increase speed is to have a base SSD near your largest traffic areas. You can also increase website speed by simply decreasing the number of graphics. These small adjustments can move you up the order on Google, which, in turn, gets more traffic to your website.

5. SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

cmo-digital marketing-internet marketing-Google SEO

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is the process of making sure your website or blog shows up first on the list when using search engines. A big part of SEO is keyword searches. These are the words that are most commonly searched and will most likely move your article to the top of the list. For example, if you are writing a blog on how to increase traffic to your website, use “online marketing” as a keyword. On the other hand, don’t overuse keywords. Google punishes websites that don’t seem natural and doesn’t allow them to rise up in ranks. Lastly, when doing SEO, make sure your URLs are simple and short. URLs that have lots of random numbers, letters, and symbols are often thought to be spam. So next time you are creating a blog or page, remember how SEO can help you.

6. Meta Tag Optimization

cmo-digital marketing-internet marketing-meta tag

Meta descriptions are 160-character descriptions that summarize the page’s content. The meta description is important for on-page SEO because if the searched phrase contains the meta description, it will boost your SEO. It is also important to have a call-to-action, such as “learn more,” or “read on.” SEO and meta descriptions go hand in hand when driving more traffic to your website.

7. Internal Linking

cmo-digital marketing-online marketing strategies-internal linking -

The last of the online marketing strategies is simply to internal link within your online content pieces. The key to internal linking is to have lots of content. If you are able to create lots of content, linking your articles that are on the same topic can boost your website’s standing. However, linking everything back to the home page, or even the contact page can decrease the page’s standing as a whole. Mix between similar content for the best overall strategy. Google suggests to find a balance so that your links aren’t excessive.

Online Marketing Strategies

Although this is nowhere near an exhaustive list of options to boost website traffic, it is a solid start. Online marketing strategies ranges from social media to simply improving SEO. Most of these will only require tiny adjustments that will make a big difference overtime. If you would like to learn more about gaining customers, take a look at 5 Ways Companies Have Used VR In Marketing or 7 Sales Strategy Templetes You Wish You Had Earlier!

CTA marketing strategy template