It seems like from the time we wake up we are either on our mobiles checking the weather, our contacts social media posts, stocks trading or what’s in the news. But what does this mean for businesses? Do we make ourselves more visible and are the platforms used really meaningful? This leads to the next question; how do we measure what is meaningful?
Sales
Quite simply as marketing practitioners we use many metrics, but effective measurement is sales outcomes. At Exchangeleads.com our custom report allows the client to have full visibility of the exchange and data is verified by each field in the client’s database. The easy to use interface allows you to combine all of your marketing efforts in one place.
Therefore, I think we can agree that it is important to stay abreast of lead activity and channel notifications to your sales team so that they can spend more time on engaged leads rather than wasting resources on dead or comatose prospects.
A crucial part of sales success is identifying the right prospect – let’s face it if there are no prospects, there would be no leads and without leads there is an empty sales funnel. Prospects are a key ingredient to business success. Prospects can be sourced in a variety of ways: –
Social Media
Trade events
Website optimisation & design
Emails and Follow ups
So how can a business make it work?
Well let’s start with social media – it appears everyone is on social media but for a B2B it’s not just about posting Twitter updates, or even updating Facebook, it’s about building a brand and communicating product information in an informative yet cool way. The problem is too many B2B are unaware of the deeper complexity of social media and are simply looking for someone to update their status. The company, however, should be concentrating on building a following or movement on social media and shaping the brand’s voice to reach a wider audience. To do this, the company needs to focus on becoming known by engaging the audience which will ultimately create leads.
A business can get there by simply building a plan. I know it’s exciting and might even be tempting to get those creative juices flowing but a business should think about its goals, objectives, strategies and tactics before launching into the social media forum. Take your time and develop your strategy then it will be easy to decide which platform(s) to use based on goals for example to increase sales or objectives such as increase total connections on LinkedIn. Above all things remember not every platform is right for every business or industry.
Tradeshows
Today it’s all about the digital world, however nothing beats face to face interaction and exhibitions, tradeshows or conferences can be a unique marketing advantage to connect and build rapport with prospects and customers in the same room. Right after face to face are phone discussions, then high impact mailers, then LinkedIn connections followed by LinkedIn messages, then direct social media messages (like Twitter and Facebook) and finally email. For B2B, trade shows are important. It can help the company become more visible, especially if it’s used in conjunction with its social media strategy.
To get the most out of trade shows, choose an event that will match your marketing objectives and reach your target audience. Ensure that the conference agenda has a strong speaker panel or activities to draw visitors to the event. Ask the event organiser how they market the event and maximise visitor numbers. Remember trade events are about making the right connections which will convert into revenue.
Website Optimization & Design
Website optimization is much more than a click; it is linked to the core design of the website. This core design must be relevant to the business. Relevancy is determined by the performance, content, authority and user experience. Content is crucial for all written text but is particularly important for landing pages that include information about content pieces. Speed of website is critical, no one has the time to sit and wait for a page to be loaded, quite frankly most of us don’t even go beyond the third search when we google something! Therefore, it is important that there are no broken links, or too much media on the page that will reduce how quickly the page is loaded. The goal is to attract users and hence design is highly important in this aspect. Keyword strategy is also crucial for implementation on your website and/or site platforms. Again the goal is to be prominently known and facilitate consumer conversion. If a website appears to be shady users may be reluctant to explore for fear of virus infections. Additionally, web design must be centred around the target audience. For B2B it should be professional but that does not mean boring!! It can still be fun and engaging use appropriate colours, videos and imaging to appeal to the target audience. Of course make sure that the information is balanced so that it does not become overwhelming.
Emails & Follow ups
This can be tricky but if managed correctly can create valuable leads. No one wants to be bombarded by emails regularly and annoyingly. Creating email lists need to be targeted. At Exchangeleads we have mastered the management of email listing through our very own software and ensure that all data provided is clean, accurate and relevant to the right consumer.
You should always keep communication a priority and always follow best practice. Neglecting the basics can leave your site’s foundation in a disarray and prevent you from maximising revenue opportunities
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