Best Strategies to Generate Leads Using a Blog

Is your company already publishing a blog? Are you looking to generate more leads? Now that you already have a consistent number of blogs being published each month, take advantage of that publicity. You can use your blog to generate a large number of leads simply by providing high-quality, informational, and engaging content. You can utilize the following strategies to help increase the number of leads you are getting from your blog and cash in!

Here are some strategies that will help you capture more leads using your blog traffic:

Add an Opt-in Form in Your Blog Pages

Your blog pages are filled with areas that you can use to add advertisements, calls to action, as well as mailing list opt-in forms. Places like your sidebar, header, footer, or at the end of each blog posts are excellent places to put in opt-in forms or ads.

Companies like Rocket Responder have added mailing list opt-in forms at the foot of their posts as well as in their sidebar. Other companies have chosen to use their sidebar and end of their posts to promote subscription to their newsletter and blog, as well as free trial sign up forms. While it seems like you’re exaggerating by putting your forms in so many places around your blog, but it actually gives visitors more opportunities to actually notice the forms. For example, if a visitor comes into your blog and reads one of your blog posts he or she may not even glance over at the sidebar or header, but if they were impressed with your content they will certainly notice a call to action at the end of the post.

The key thing to increasing your inbound leads is to put your opt-in form throughout your blog so that you can capture your reader’s attention and their contact information.

Create Free Downloadable Marketing Content

In order to get the most benefit out of your blog you will have to create additional marketing content. By creating free downloadable marketing content such as whitepapers, ebooks, webinars, and templates you can increase the number of leads you capture. You can promote your free content through your blog as well as through your social media. This will allow prospects to download your content in exchange for some information about them, such as name and email address, and information about their business. Once you have their information you can slowly build a relationship with the prospect until they convert into a customers.

In order for this strategy to be effective you will have to produce content that is relevant to your target customer base. You don’t just want to attract subscribers, you want to attract individuals who are actually interested in your products and services.

Offer Incentives for Those Who Share Your Content

What is better than using free content to increase your inbound leads? Getting new leads thanks to word of mouth from those first prospects! Some companies, offers a free ebook or gift card for anyone who refers five people that fill out a form for a digital copy. This allows them to make an additional 5 leads for every single lead that comes in for the free coloring book.

Consider what would incentivize your visitors to refer more leads and test your idea.

Use a HelloBar

A HelloBar is a code that you plug into your website which will then put a bright colored bar at the top of your website. On that bar you can add a call to action that links to a product or a service, or leads to a mailing list opt-in form. You can also use it to promote free content or push your newest promo.

Select a call to action that is relevant to your target prospect.

Add a Popup to Your Website

It may sound counterproductive to most, but the truth is, popup forms and calls to action draw the most attention. While you may think that popups will increase your bounce rate, it is actually quite the opposite. A study on bounce rate responses to popups done by Dan Zarrella, showed that bounce rates on his website did not increase when he added popups. However, when he removed the popups his subscription rates decreased significantly. Even a respectable blog like Social Media Examiner uses popups. Popups can be added various ways, such as through code or a plugin. Popups that offer free content and clearly tell visitors what they should do often receive the best conversion rates.

Try these lead generating strategies in your marketing plan and monitor closely to determine if they help increase your inbound leads.

Best Strategies to Generate Leads Using a Blog

The Beginner’s Guide to Email Automation

Imagine the nicest, friendliest, and helpful person you ever met is now in charge of sending and answering emails for you. This is the kind of person that is bright and cheerful, always helpful, never crabby, does not get tired, and is available 24 hours, seven days per week, for immediate responses.

This is the goal of excellent email automation.

Here are the top five tips for those new to email automation:

1. Use Personality

Just because the emails are automated does not mean they have to be cold or robotic. Look at these two different approaches of how to respond automatically to an email request ….

Response #1

Your email was received. Do not reply to this email because this email address is not monitored.

This is boring, robotic, and not good at all.

Response that is Better

Hi,

This is Carol. So nice to hear from you! I usually respond to emails personally within 24 hours after I have enough coffee, so please give me a bit of time to answer. In the meantime, please click this link to confirm you get my responses insert link here . It also has a discount coupon for your next order just as my way of saying thank you for contacting us.

I look forward to speaking with you,

Carol

Notice the difference? Both are auto-replies, but the second one has a personality. “Carol” may not even exist and may simply be an imaginary person. However, she is nice, friendly, and immediately encourages a business transaction. Then the email request may be routed to anyone who will read the request and make a response as Carol’s assistant.

2. Make Great Subject Lines

There are two reasons to use the subject line carefully. The first is that email-filtering systems will filter out stuff that is an obvious sales pitch and the email goes to the junk folder never to be read by anyone. The second reason is a great subject line makes it almost irresistible to open and read the email.

Here is an example:

Subject Line #1

Work at home. Make tons of MONEY!!!!!!

This subject line is easy for email filters to recognize as a spam.

Subject Line that is Better

I broke my ankle

Both emails are about working from home, but the second one has the reason in the subject line why someone would work from home and sounds much friendlier.

3. DO NOT USE ALL CAPS!!!!!!!!!

All caps is SHOUTING and excessive use of exclamation marks has the reverse of making it seem important, it reeks of high-pressure sales tactics and is a major turn off.

4. Opt-Out is the Law

Under the CAN-SPAM Act emails must have the following:

1. No false or misleading information in the email header


2. Subject line must be about the email


3. If the email is an ad, say so


4. Include a physical postal address


5. How to opt-out from receiving further messages


6. Honor opt-out choices quickly


7. Monitor third-parties who send emails for you

What this means is the header that says where the email comes from should say the correct company not something else. The subject line must relate to the email content as we gave in the example above about breaking an ankle, with the email saying that because of a broken ankle the person started working from home. A subject line of “Your daughter was raped” for an email about a car wash promotion would be illegal.

If the email is an ad, just put “this is an advertisement” somewhere. Make it easy for opt-out and take this one step further. We love to include these two opt-out options. 1) Click here to opt-out to immediately stop receiving further emails from us, and; 2) Click here to opt-out and tell us how stupid we are at the same time. Negative feedback is really helpful as well.

5. Work with a great company like RocketResponder for the best results in your email automation campaigns.

The Beginner’s Guide to Email Automation

Don’t Let Poor Customer Communication Kill Sales

Nothing is more critical to the success of your small business than customer satisfaction. Typically considered a key indicator of performance, customer satisfaction is simply the percentage of your total customers who report that your service meets or exceeds their expectations. If you’re in a competitive industry, customer satisfaction is what sets you apart.

In small businesses, effective communication serves as a vital component of your customer service program and ongoing customer satisfaction. Poor communication can lead to confused customers who don’t receive the service they expect. To make matters worse, that same poor communication can mean you never get the customer feedback to enable you to fix problems.

Poor communication can eventually kill your sales. To keep that from happening, focus on three key areas for your communication: print, broadcast and online; in-person and phone; and internal.

Print, broadcast and online

Your website, print advertisements, TV and radio ads, email marketing and social media presence should effectively communicate your brand promise. That is, they should make it clear the benefits your product or service offers to customers, how you’ll deliver those benefits, and what you’ll do if customers aren’t satisfied.

Poor communication in your advertising and marketing channels can lead to customer confusion about what to expect, notes the Houston Chronicle. For example, an unclear returns policy may lead to customers stuck with products they don’t want.

You can also commit poor communication by omission. After a sale, it’s critical to reach out to customers for feedback about your products or services. With this valuable information, you can make improvements and upgrades that help you increase sales.

For online customer service, superior communication skills are a must. Staff members who respond to customers in writing must be strong typists, and their grammar and spelling must be excellent. They also need the ability to effectively handle complaints and questions while remaining pleasant and professional.

In-person and on the phone

When customers and prospective customers call your business, make sure they aren’t trapped in select-a-number prison and can reach a live person. Once they’re talking with a human, they should receive courteous, prompt service.

Your company representatives should have strong customer service skills, including active listening and the ability to speak professionally and clearly. They should be empowered to solve problems up to a certain level; beyond that level, supervisors should be accessible to step in.

In-person customer service certainly can present challenges. Customers can be irate, unfair and even verbally abusive. Your customer service staff members must have thick skins and strong problem-solving skills. Understand that poor word-of-mouth can cost you, and be prepared to issue refunds sometimes even when the customer is at fault.

Internal communications

Often, customer service personnel feel that they’re between a rock and a hard place. They may have strong communication skills and work hard to make customers happy — but poor communication from management leaves them without the information they need to achieve customer satisfaction.

Make sure your staff are up to date on all policies and procedures, particularly those that affect customers. A company intranet should include all current information, and any changes should be highlighted through emails and memos posted in visible locations. Managers also should verbally reinforce important information with staff.

Your company can have the most customer-friendly policies possible, but if the information isn’t shared with your front-line people, it won’t matter. Make sure staff members are equipped with the information they need to provide the best possible customer service.

Don’t let poor customer communication damage your sales

As customer service increasingly moves online and goes mobile, communication is more important than ever. Take steps to ensure that online, in print, via broadcast and in person, you clearly spell out your brand promise — and follow through.

Don’t Let Poor Customer Communication Kill Sales

How to Start Engaging Your Customers Using Email

For many small businesses, nothing beats email marketing for effectiveness, convenience and affordability. According to Salesforce.com, more than 90 percent of consumers use email on a daily basis. Although email is on the downswing as a personal communications method, it’s still the number-one digital way to stay in touch with friends and family, topping texting and social media.

And for receiving marketing messages, email puts other methods to shame. In fact, more than three-quarters of consumers prefer email for permission-based marketing communication, and that number has risen by 5 percent since 2008.

To make the most of your email marketing communications, it’s critical to take steps to truly engage your customers. Here’s how.

Set clear expectations

Most consumers these days are quite protective of their email addresses, and the last thing they want is more spam clogging their inboxes. Before you ever get to the point of sending email marketing messages, you must provide prospective subscribers with good reasons for opting in — such as the promise of timely, valuable content — and create clear expectations about what you’ll be sending and with what frequency.

Welcome new subscribers

This is a great way to get off on the right foot and set a positive tone for future communications. Express appreciation that new subscribers or customers have selected your company, and include helpful information like key contacts and links to informative resources.

Let subscribers know you’ll be contacting them periodically, and provide an easy way to opt out if they’ve signed up in error or change their minds. This is easily accomplished with a good email marketing automation software package.

Segment your audience

One size doesn’t fit all when it comes to email marketing. As Mashable notes, indiscriminately bombarding your subscribers with irrelevant content is a big no-no — and a good way to end up with a pile of “unsubscribes.”

Your clients may span various industries, interests and other unique identifiers. Break subscribers into groups that make sense, and target email content accordingly. It’s fine to send a monthly newsletter to all subscribers, but you’ll need to personalize at least some of your communications for your various segments.

Make it about them, not you

Many small business owners are excited about their companies, and rightfully so. But filling email marketing communications with tales of your greatness won’t work. Customers care about your company or its products only to the extent that it benefits them. To engage your customers with email, you need two common threads: how your product or service benefits customers, and why they choose you instead of the competition.

Be current

Email messages that reference pop culture and current events often strike the right note in customer engagement, Mashable notes. Staying on top of what’s trending can be a lot of work, but it can pay off with engaging email messages that customers share with others. If you know key events are coming up — for example, the Super Bowl — create different versions of your email for the different possible outcomes.

Make subscribers feel like insiders

Everyone likes to feel like VIPs. Create this feeling by sharing “secret” information that your subscribers get to see first. Sharing exciting news or asking subscribers for their input makes them feel included in your company. It also sends the message that you care about their opinions and that you’re providing them with premium access that not everyone receives.

Don’t just email — engage

Whether you’re a pro at email marketing or you’re just getting your feet wet, engaging customers is key. Creating emails that include consistent, well-crafted, valuable information will strengthen your relationships with customers, retain their business and even persuade some to sing your praises publicly.

How to Start Engaging Your Customers Using Email

Top Tricks To Keep Your Customers Happy

According to Horst Schulze, President of Ritz Carlton, “unless you have 100% customer satisfaction…you must improve.” By that measuring stick, virtually every business in America can stand to improve, especially when it comes to keeping customers happy. Although 100% customer satisfaction is not realistic, aiming for that is imperative. But, how do you keep your customers happy?

Well, we are glad you asked.

Under Promise and Over Deliver:

To best illustrate this point, consider the act of setting deadlines. If you overestimate how long it will take you to complete a project and then get it done earlier, you look like a hero. Conversely, if you over promise and don’t fulfill your lofty goal, you look bad. Thus, it is wise to always overestimate the time it will take you do something. Then, surprise your customers with faster service.

Another way to look at this is to provide an extra service and/or product in addition to whatever the customer has bought. This could include throwing in a coupon for a discount on their next purchase, or could include giving a set of knives to customers who buy a kitchen appliance. The point being, give your customers something extra. Something they didn’t expect (even if it’s small), and you will keep them happy.

Offer Something Different:

Walt Disney was a pioneer and visionary in his day. In fact, it’s hard to image the world today without Disney’s influence. A world without Mickey Mouse, Goofy or Donald Duck would be a sad existence indeed. To say nothing of the beautiful, magical princesses he helped bring to life, and we can’t forget his world renowned amusement parks. In 1955, after years of planning, Walt Disney opened Disneyland Park. Walt Disney World Resort opened its doors in 1971.

The amusement parks of Walt Disney are more than simple amusement parks. They are instead a land of magic and family fun. This was Walt’s vision. He wanted a place that would delight children and adults alike. As a result, he hit on an untapped market. He created something that was unheard of at that point in history. Today, even though there are thousands of amusement parks across America, Disney World and Disneyland still stand above them all. Why? Because, they still something no other amusement parks do, a magical, inclusive, fantasy-like experience.

Walt’s success was a result of his tapping into an unmet need. You can do this too. All you have to do is think outside the box and look for ways to alter your business so you are offering something that no one else is, and you will garner loyal, happy customers.

Follow Up:

After you have performed a service or provided a product to someone, follow up. Ask them how they like the product or if their service was satisfactory. This will give you the opportunity to fix any problems that might have occurred. It also shows your customers you care about their satisfaction. They are more than a paycheck. People love feeling valued, especially in today’s society where customer service is rare.

The list of tricks for increasing customer satisfaction is vast. Other ways to keep customers happy include offering new products/services regularly, giving loyal customers rewards for being such, asking customers their opinions and putting their suggestions into practice and making sure to always go the extra mile for your customers. When you perfect all these elements and those listed above, you will be rewarded with happy customers, who will tell their friends and family about your business. Walt Disney summed up the art of customer service best when he said, “Do what you do so well that they (customers) will want to see it (or buy from you) again and bring (tell) their friends.”

Top Tricks To Keep Your Customers Happy

Turn Website Visitors into Leads and Sales

Every day, your site gets hits and attracts visitors. But how many of those turn into leads and sales? If you’re not sure — of if you know that your conversion rate could stand improvement — take advantage of these best practices to start building relationships and maximizing revenue through your site.

Attract the right customers

You’re likely using the latest search-engine marketing techniques, pay-per-click advertising and other promotional strategies to attract visitors to your site. (If you’re not, you should be.) But what happens once your promotions pay off and the traffic starts pouring in? Even with a huge influx of visitors, you need conversions to leads and then sales to be successful.

Did you know that 98 percent of visitors to B2B sites won’t ever convert — or even join your mailing list? You need visitors who really are looking for your specific product or service; make sure your off-site messaging in ads and SEO campaigns is targeted correctly.

Connect immediately with clear messaging

Don’t make visitors wonder what your site is all about. As Inc. magazine notes, fully 85 percent of prospective customers abandon sites within the first five seconds. That means they’re either at the wrong place, or they’re not finding what they’re looking for immediately. You only have a few seconds to keep your prospects’ attention, so make your words and images count.

Make sure your site is functioning properly

You don’t want your visitors encountering broken links or pages that just don’t work as intended. Make sure your web team is testing on a variety of platforms, browsers and monitors to ensure that everything looks good and works well. Make sure to build in methods for capturing leads — and make sure it’s easy for visitors to contact you without hunting around.

Track, track, track

You should have Google Analytics or another reliable tracking program installed, and your team should review the data frequently. Review information on your visitors like geographic location, browsers and operating systems used, whether they’re visiting on a mobile device, what pages they visit, how long they stay on the site, referring pages and exit pages from your site. Use the information to continually improve the browsing experience on your site.

Optimize conversions

Getting visitors to your site, engaging them and keeping them there all move you toward the ultimate goal: conversions. The number of visitors who perform a desired action on your site versus your total visitors is your conversion rate. Desired actions can include completing and submitting a contact form, requesting a proposal, signing up for a free trial, making a purchase and others.

About Money offers advice on calculating your rate. For an online store, the formula might look like:

Number of orders / Number of visitors x 100 = Conversion Rate Percentage

Improving the conversion rate is critical for boosting sales without the need to also increase site traffic.

Follow up effectively

Even more important than what happens before a conversion is what happens afterward. To turn one-time customers into loyalists for your brand, implement favorable return policies, make it easy to contact customer service, make your security and data-use policies transparent, and ask for feedback. Use email marketing automation software to keep customers engaged with compelling content and special offers.

Turning visits into leads and sales

Getting visitors to your site is just the first step. To convert them to leads and sales, you’ll need pinpoint targeting, an attractive and highly functional site, clear messaging, effective tracking and favorable conversion rates.

Turn Website Visitors into Leads and Sales

5 Reasons to Giveaway Relevant Content to Generate Leads

Your audience expects it. They want valuable relevant copy that informs and inspires. The best thing about giveaways is that it can make them reconsider their perspective and look to you as an authority within the field. If you are doing business today online, giveaways are an essential marketing tool to generate interest and keep prospects clicking.

Reasons to Giveaway Content

1. Build Interest

Content can establish a need to know motivation that drives engagement. If we are talking about better time management, a short ebook can give them some useful tools and perspective about the topic. However, clients come to realize that there is much to know about time management and how much easier it would be to turn to an expert for additional support and resources. This content is useful to the needs of your client.

2. Demonstrate Leadership

Quality content establishes authority. Those in new and emerging businesses can use content to demonstrate their expertise within an area and showcase the benefits of establishing a relationship with the company and brand. Being considered a leader within a field is one way to differentiate your business. Show them what you know.

3. Get more views

Giveaways can be shared. The audience that is interested in your material knows others within their sphere of influence that could find the material useful. Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media platforms allow people to share material with a click of a button. Old-school individuals can forward the email and attachments to others and print it out for reference. The initial audience reached is only the tip of the iceberg of the potential out there.

4. Generate a Reputation

Content establishes trust. Those without a well-known brand need to work smarter to have others see them as a reputable and reliable business. Good content giveaways show that the business cares about the interests of customers and does research to specifically address the needs of customers.

5. Prep for Purchase

Giveaways get prospects ready to buy-in. When selling services or products, it is generally known that it takes 3-7 touches for people to engage with your company prior to making a purchase. A giveaway helps to educate consumers and offers information during the decision-making process. When they finally call, they are ready to buy.

What to Giveaway

1. Video

Videos are the number one marketing tool to provide for free. Psychologically, people tune into movement and the emotions expressed on video. This is part of man’s psychological makeup. Invest in creating some quality video to post on websites, link to within emails and upload onto YouTube. Use visual channels to draw more interest.

2. Freebies

Free stuff is always appreciated. People love something that is useful and free. They may have to share an image with a special embedded code or make a purchase beginning at a minimum amount to qualify. Individuals love receiving something extra in the mail.

3. Written Content

Ebooks and pdf downloadables are useful for qualifying leads. Checklists and written content help customers get a feel for your voice and the type of materials that you can offer to help them meet their needs. Remember that your business is only there to help customers find a solution to their problems. This material helps to “touch” prospects and establish a relationship with them prior to their purchase.

Giveaways generate more awareness of your company and its associated products or services. They provide exposure to more leads and help to qualify them en route to making a purchase. Begin strategizing your giveaways today.

5 Reasons to Giveaway Relevant Content to Generate Leads