This document outlines a 7-step process for developing a complete small business sales and marketing plan according to Lifecycle Marketing.
Step 1 involves attracting traffic through creating valuable content and promoting that content through search engine optimization, paid search advertising like Google AdWords, and social media.
Step 2 is about capturing leads by enticing website visitors to provide their contact information, such as through a newsletter sign-up form, while ensuring the content and form are compelling and don't request too much personal information.
Step 3 discusses nurturing prospects through a systematic approach of developing trust and converting leads, including setting clear expectations around communication frequency so leads are engaged but not overwhelmed.
Inbound Marketing: Overview for Higher EducationAndrea Simon
This document provides an overview of inbound marketing for higher education. It discusses how inbound focuses on creating educational content to attract potential students to a website where they can learn more. It outlines the inbound methodology of attracting visitors, converting them to leads, closing leads as customers, and delighting customers. Case studies describe how Florida Institute of Technology and Thunderbird School of Management improved lead generation and conversions using HubSpot tools like landing pages, analytics, and lead management. The document concludes by discussing how the company works with clients through education, audits, webinars, and serving as an agency or coach.
Brand matters: Anatomy of a successful B2B Brand Communications PlanDelia Associates
This document outlines the 10 essential components of a successful B2B brand communications plan: 1) having a strong brand foundation with a well-defined brand, 2) crafting an effective brand statement and key messaging, 3) establishing a visual vocabulary, 4) providing effective sales tools, 5) having an engaging website, 6) creating foundational presentations, 7) telling the leadership story in one page, 8) having maximum outreach and engagement, 9) creating an annual content plan, and 10) participating in trade advertising selectively. Implementing these 10 components can help a sales team achieve better success and greater results.
Creating a High Converting Inbound Marketing Strategysemrush_webinars
Is your digital strategy strong enough to tackle the market challenges and deliver growth in this fast-changing consumer landscape?
Andrew Levy and Tony Eades from the BrandManager (Sydney/Perth) will teach you the most important online marketing trends and how you can craft an effective Inbound marketing strategy aimed at increasing web traffic, high qualified leads and sales revenue . You will also discover what the future of marketing looks like.
501 Questions Every B2B CMO Needs To AskTodd Ebert
Taking the reins as a new CMO can be daunting. You need learn all about the company, strategies, markets, products, customers, personas, buying journeys, competitors, processes, technologies, etc. -- not to mention all the myriad details about the marketing team, brands, plans and budgets. What does the marketing team do well? What do they not do well? What do they not do at all?
You've got just a few months to gather all the information, analyze it, identify gaps, develop your plan and present it to the CEO and Board.
Having gone through this process several times, I created an Evernote list with questions to ask in order to be thorough in gathering all the information. Over the years that simple list grew unwieldy with hundreds of questions so I dumped it into a Word doc and then got the bright idea to turn it into an ebook for B2B CMOs -- the only one of it's kind.
Bob London's (London, Ink) Marketing Presentation for Unintentional Entrepren...Chief Listening Officers
On 8/5, Bob London, President of London, Ink (www.londonink.com gave this presentation to a group of 100+ entrepreneurs as part of the Unintentional Entrepreneur series, put on by Network Solutions, Outright.com and Score and hosted by Johns Hopkins University's Montgomery County (MD) Campus.
B2C and B2B advertisers view their audiences from two completely different perspectives even though they’re often both talking to the same people. The infographic below showcases how important it is for B2B marketers to ensure that they are using the right lens to identify, target and communicate with their potential customers online.
The purpose of this deck is two-fold:
1. provide key insights on how to build a highly effective and predictable demand gen engine
2. provide a template for a monthly demand gen dashboard that tracks the value/ROI of your actions
There are numerous other key metrics that are essential for marketing to track but are not represented in this template such as customer experience [NPS, CSAT, etc.], brand recognition & affinity, website analytics, email analytics, PR share of voice, ad campaign effectiveness, and so on and so on.
Additionally, this dashboard is not intended to replace a full sales pipeline dashboard but rather to provide insights on how marketing is contributing to sales effectiveness and revenue.
This presentation teaches entrepreneurs and small businesses how to strategically market their company or organization from how to use the basic tools of marketing, to how to identify, create messages for, and deliver messages to target markets. Presented by Ellen Didier of Red Sage Communications, to the FastTrac class at Women's Business Center of North Alabama.
This document discusses strategies for growing a business quickly through leveraging technology and specialized teams. It recommends thinking big but starting small and growing fast by focusing on low-hanging fruit, testing incremental wins, and layering services. Key aspects include increasing client retention, lifetime value, and referrals through solutions that reduce costs and friction. The document also outlines ballpark costs and timeframes for an indicative investment phase, commitment phase, and ramp-up phase.
Is Your Marketing Funnel Broken?: Uniting Lead Nurturing & Search StrategiesBFO
Creating a comprehensive plan to nurture leads and drive them down the funnel can be difficult. Check out what Steve Krull and Liz Ryan have to say about you can do to unite marketing strategies across the funnel and bring in new business.
On this live training, we'll be unpacking "Your 2022 Internet Marketing Plan" and what you need to do to MAXIMIZE your lead flow via the internet in your business going into the New Year.
This document summarizes a webinar about upgrading lead nurture programs. It discusses incorporating other marketing channels like display ads and social media into traditional email-based nurturing. It provides an example of how to create a multi-channel nurturing strategy using segmentation and sequenced messaging. It also discusses how Localytics applies nurturing concepts beyond email by targeting website visitors with relevant display and social ads based on their engagement level. The key takeaway is that nurturing is not limited to email and marketers can generate more leads by delivering personalized content across channels.
This document provides guidance on setting up and optimizing LinkedIn ad campaigns. It outlines the key steps including defining campaign goals, choosing a campaign name, selecting targeting criteria like job title, company and location, and tracking results. For example, it discusses how an accounting software company called ProStock may target their ads towards accountants in North America to drive leads through free trials and educational content. The document provides tips at each step and examples to help advertisers set up effective LinkedIn ad campaigns.
Constructing a Winning Inbound Marketing Blueprint for ManufacturersJanalee Silvey
This document provides an overview of inbound marketing strategies for manufacturers in 2017. It contains contributions from 23 marketing agencies with experience in the manufacturing industry. The document includes sections on inbound marketing, lead generation, reporting and ROI, and a conclusion. It provides tips on developing compelling content, buyer personas, and website optimization to attract and convert leads through inbound tactics.
How to sell high ticket products and services on Linkedin More details about joining Linked Marketing Academy VIP Level http://linkedmarketingacademy.com/webinar-special/
Presentation with my POV on the critical elements necessary for successful B2B marketing.
1. Know your customer journey
2. Always be helping
3. Create marketing so good people would pay for it
4. Promote the power trio
5. Simmer your leads
6. Get in bed with Sales
7. Cultivate continuous improvement culture
8. Build products that sell themselves
Startup Network Pitch. Reduce your transaction cost and boost new business de...Mario Scuderi
Startup Network (STN) provides a solution to analyze professional networks and measure key performance indicators. STN uses social network data and algorithms to quantify relationships and identify influential individuals. This helps reduce costs and find new opportunities by improving networking strategies. STN's metrics help investors, recruiters and entrepreneurs make better decisions and maximize the value of their networks.
BrandSpeakAsia's Digital Marketing Boot Camp was created to equip people in using Digital Marketing tools to their advantage. The topics consist of strategies for brand awareness campaign creations, social engagement, direct to business transactions, and more.
As três principais sopas descritas no documento são:
1) Caldo Verde, uma sopa portuguesa feita com batata, couve galega e azeite.
2) Creme de Tomate, uma sopa cremosa feita com tomate, cebola, alho e caldo de carne.
3) Canja de Galinha, uma sopa de galinha leve com frango, cebola, cravinho e salsa.
Imagens fortes de anuncios por grandes causasXana Abreu
Este documento lista vários slogans de anúncios de causas sociais, abordando temas como maus-tratos a animais, mudanças climáticas, suicídio, doenças, pobreza, violência contra mulheres e poluição. Os slogans usam linguagem forte para conscientizar as pessoas sobre esses problemas globais e incentivar a ação.
IHG revela perfil do turista para os próximos 10 anosXana Abreu
O relatório identifica as tendências futuras do turismo, incluindo o forte crescimento de turistas asiáticos, que representarão um terço das viagens globais em 2020, e o aumento da popularidade de cidades menores e mercados emergentes como destinos. O IHG planeja expandir-se nesses mercados emergentes e desenvolver novos serviços para atender às necessidades dos viajantes do futuro.
O documento discute as virtudes dos cães e sua importância na vida humana. Contém várias citações que destacam como os cães são leais, amorosos e capazes de elevar o nível cultural das pessoas. Uma citação diz que uma vida sem cachorro é um erro e outra afirma que os cães são os melhores amigos dos homens.
O documento fornece diretrizes sobre como usar o Twitter para fins de marketing digital. Ele explica o que é o Twitter, por que as empresas devem usá-lo, estratégias de engajamento, como medir o sucesso e ferramentas para gerenciar contas no Twitter.
Este documento descreve os jardins do Reid's Palace Hotel localizado na Madeira. Detalha as diversas plantas e árvores encontradas nos 10 hectares de jardins subtropicais, incluindo ervas, flores, árvores e trepadeiras. Também discute a importância dos jardins para a notoriedade do hotel e sugere estratégias para preservação deste patrimônio natural.
This document provides seven tips for energizing sales when revenue hits a rut. The tips include reestablishing listening posts to understand customers, announcing special promotions, polishing lead management practices, focusing on fresh ideas, renewing retention campaigns, enhancing giving efforts, and freshening website and marketing content.
Creating an effective digital marketing campaign requires limited resources. The key steps are to design an effective website, use each social media platform strategically for goals like branding or lead generation, implement email marketing to engage customers, and optimize search engine visibility through SEO or pay-per-click ads. It is also important to establish trust and thought leadership by becoming a knowledgeable source of industry information through forums, social media customer service, and content.
Major League Marketing on a Minor League BudgetIsaac La Buguen
Whether you're an entrepreneur, small business or freelance contractor, you understand the importance of allocating budgets and dialing up big results on limited resources. Discover how to build your brand, get found and spread influence in the marketplace without breaking the bank.
Inbound marketing strategies focus on attracting new leads through compelling content rather than paid advertising or cold calls. The presentation discusses creating content like blogs and landing pages, optimizing it for search and social media, and converting visitors through forms and downloads. It also emphasizes nurturing leads with email marketing, segmentation, and customer support to turn them into long-term customers. Analytics and user feedback are important to measure success and improve the inbound strategy over time through testing and reacting to new trends. The goal of inbound marketing is to generate high-quality leads in a cost-effective way through helpful, relevant content.
6 awesome steps to promote your businessKickoffLabs
Learn how to promote your online business using lead generation techniques to build qualified web traffic. Cover the use of landing pages for viral growth and high conversion rates. www.kickofflabs.com
Build Your Brand Through Content Marketing | SimplemachineSean Morrison
1. Content marketing and branding are important for businesses to succeed online as more people seek information on multiple devices. Having a strong branding strategy through content marketing provides many benefits.
2. Content marketing demonstrates your expertise, positions your brand as a trusted source of value, and prioritizes innovation/knowledge. It also opens communication channels with customers and broadens your customer base.
3. Content marketing offers a great return on investment through increased referrals, improved search engine rankings, and reduced advertising/lead costs. It also lends stability to a brand through consistent online presence.
This document provides tips for small businesses to generate internet marketing through their website, traffic, and paid advertising. It recommends evaluating your website's effectiveness, setting up analytics to track traffic, optimizing for search engine results through keywords, links and listings, and using paid platforms like Google Adwords and Facebook ads. The goal is to educate yourself on simple marketing strategies to attract customers and see continuous business growth.
“You are out of business if you don’t have a prospect.” — Zig Zigler
Lead generation is a commonly used term these days with every business, big and small. Deciding the right lead generation strategy for your business can be difficult and will often involve some trial and error. But there are some proven strategies out there, which we will discuss in this article.
This document provides guidance on internet marketing strategies for small businesses. It discusses the importance of website effectiveness, generating traffic through search engine optimization, analytics, and paid advertising on Google and Facebook. Specific tips are provided in areas like website evaluation, keyword research, building backlinks, local listings, setting up Google Analytics, Google AdWords campaigns, and Facebook ads to help drive traffic to a business's website.
Digital Marketing 101: Everything You Need To KnowFolsom Creative
Webinar slide deck from Folsom Creative and Inteum
Inteum develops industry-leading intellectual property management software with clients include technology transfer offices at over 400 installations in 22 countries around the globe, including universities, research institutions, federal labs, corporations, and startups.
Folsom Creative is a design and marketing agency that specializes helping clients create full stack marketing strategies. We provide a full suite of services to assist in our customers in these areas. Our clients rage from tech startups to large multi marketed enterprises.
6 B2B Lead Generation Strategies To Boost Marketing Success.docxSameerShaik43
In this digital age, the process of generating leads has changed dramatically. No longer are businesses limited to traditional marketing methods; now, a variety of lead generation strategies can be employed, particularly by B2B businesses, to reach new potential customers.
https://www.tycoonstory.com/marketing/6-b2b-lead-generation-strategies-to-boost-marketing-success/
7 ESSENTIAL TIPS FOR EFFECTIVE LEAD GENERATION.pptxA2digital
: In simple words, Lead Generation/Lead generation marketing is the process of getting people interested in your business and gradually converting them through your pipeline into paying customers. Some people see lead generation as a big email blaster and an intrusive salesperson. However, today these techniques are no longer successful.
This document provides 10 tips for generating more leads, sales, and profit from a website. The tips include focusing on compelling content over design, driving traffic to the site from all marketing materials, offering an e-newsletter to build an email list, optimizing for search engines, using social media to increase brand awareness, getting other sites to link to yours, including a risk-free offer on the homepage, writing articles for other publications, partnering with related businesses, and submitting the site to search engines. The goal is to educate visitors and turn them into customers.
The document provides tips for achieving business goals, including setting achievable goals, developing a long-term vision and plan, brainstorming with others, outsourcing non-essential tasks, marketing through social media and referrals, conducting SWOT analyses, setting realistic milestones, and learning from mistakes. Achieving business success requires determination, receiving feedback, delegating effectively, and continually refining goals and strategies based on lessons learned.
8 best inbound marketing tips for law firms | Best Attorney Law Firm in Anken...Searchable Design
There are more than eight ways to make your inbound marketing approach a success. Get in touch with Mark Gray Law, an attorney law firm in Ankeny, to understand how they used inbound marketing to become a prominent law firm. Mark Gray Law Firm works closely with Searchable Design LLC, the best digital marketing agency in the US.
1) The document discusses how to amplify the impact of an inbound marketing program by incorporating it into an overall marketing mix that includes outbound techniques.
2) It explains that inbound marketing alone cannot drive maximum revenue and must be combined with other approaches. The document provides guidance on how to achieve this balanced marketing mix without breaking the budget.
3) It explores some common misconceptions about inbound marketing and introduces the concept of an "Inbound Marketing Multiplier" to help dramatically improve results from inbound programs.
Small businesses will often rely on their website for consumers to find them, so this is your opportunity to make a good impression with potential leads or returning customers. Therefore, you want to make sure that the site keeps your visitors engaged and interested.
There are few brands that aren’t aware of the importance of being engaging on the web, but smaller companies often don’t believe they have the resources or time to be updating their websites on a more continuous basis with fresh and new content.
So what many small businesses do is create a Facebook page and forgo the website. There is no question that Facebook and other social media outlets are an excellent place to begin but if you want to gain the trust of your customer you need a website – it really is that important, because it shows that you have a company that is established.
This document provides an overview of content marketing strategies. It notes that traditional advertising is becoming less effective as consumers avoid ads. Content marketing is presented as an alternative, creating useful content to attract and retain customers while educating them about products and services. The document outlines several content marketing tactics including developing a strong brand identity, starting a blog, creating diverse content like videos and ebooks, and leveraging email marketing and social media to distribute content.
Lead Generation for Small Business: Experts Weigh In
Managing your sales using a simple CRM is critical. The question is how do you even generate leads in the first place? Lead generation is the lifeblood of small businesses. If done right, generating great quality leads can be a major catalyst for growth and revenue. But with so many lead generation tactics and approaches available out there, small businesses want to know which are the most effective to use.
To help answer this question, we’ve reached out to a panel of small business sales and marketing experts and asked them all a single question: “What is the most effective lead generation technique(s) for small businesses“?
O 1811 Bistro & Wine Bar é um local íntimo onde os clientes podem desfrutar de vinho a copo ou à garrafa, acompanhado por uma vasta selecção de petiscos ou pratos. Desfrute de um delicioso Menu recheado de propostas verdadeiramente singulares e usufrua do pátio para desfrutar da atmosfera no coração de uma adega emblemática.
Este documento compara as qualidades de um cão com as de um ser humano ideal, sugerindo que um cão demonstra virtudes como lealdade, aceitação e amor incondicional que muitos humanos não conseguem alcançar.
Melhor fotografia do National GeographicXana Abreu
Uma foto de um homem pobre dando comida a um cachorro faminto foi publicada em um jornal indiano com a legenda elogiando sua generosidade, lamentando que os humanos não sejam sempre tão compassivos.
Este documento contém uma série de frases curtas destinadas a criar consciência sobre várias causas sociais e ambientais importantes, como a proteção de animais, mudanças climáticas, violência contra mulheres e crianças, doenças como AIDS, poluição da água, distúrbios alimentares e mais. A mensagem final encoraja o compartilhamento da apresentação para aumentar o número de pessoas conscientizadas sobre esses temas.
Uma mulher começa uma dieta para perder 8kg, mas ao longo de 16 dias enfrenta dificuldades como fraca perda de peso, sonhos estranhos com comida, irritabilidade e alucinações com um frango dançarino, levando-a a abandonar a dieta e comer o próprio frango.
O Parque Natural das Queimadas em Santana, Madeira é descrito como um recanto feérico. O documento menciona uma área natural protegida com características únicas.
The document promotes visiting Madeira, describing its natural beauty but also its loss and desperation from a wildfire. It asks if readers have seen Madeira's courage, hope, and restart in rebuilding after the fire, and encourages visiting to help make a difference and support Madeira's recovery.
O documento apresenta várias citações de diferentes autores sobre a relação entre humanos e animais. Em três frases:
1) Aborda a capacidade dos animais de fazer música assim como os humanos e destaca a brutalidade humana em comparação aos demais animais.
2) Reflete sobre a exploração de animais para vestuário e a nobreza do amor humano por todas as criaturas vivas.
3) Defende a necessidade de compaixão humana abranger todos os seres vivos para que os homens encontrem a paz.
Este documento fornece receitas de massas, carnes, legumes e risottos italianos. A receita de massa fresca com ovos ensina como fazer massa caseira. A receita de fettucine porcini mostra como fazer um molho com cogumelos porcini secos. A receita de ravioli de requijão e espinafres ensina como rechear e cozinhar raviolis caseiros.
Este documento fornece receitas de carnes, incluindo almôndegas, bifes de perú recheados, borrego frito, caldeirada de cabrito, e coelho à caçador. As receitas variam de 1 a 3 ingredientes e 1 a 5 passos de preparação.
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1. 7 Steps to a Complete Small
Business Sales & Marketing Plan
2. C hloe Emerson owns a small but popular coffee shop called Mug Shots in Portland,
Oregon. Like many small business owners, her hopes and dreams are a mix of
business goals and personal aspirations: open a second location, organize her contacts,
start a newsletter, eat pastries in Paris, sing at her open mic night.
You likely have a lot in common with Chloe. You may not want to sing at open mic night, but
you do have goals and aspirations for yourself and your business. But if you’re not seeing
the business growth you’d hoped for, your dreams may start to feel out of reach. You
have a great product or service, but like Chloe, you may struggle with how to effectively
manage your marketing and find the most efficient, cost-effective way to attract, keep
and grow your customer base. Maybe you’ve even started to doubt your ability to run a
successful business.
It’s a common challenge for many small business owners; they invest time and money
on advertising to attract interest, but don’t have an overall marketing strategy in place for
converting leads and retaining customers. Leads coming in to the website aren’t effectively
captured. Warm and cool leads that may buy later are forgotten. And opportunities for
repeat sales are missed.
With seemingly unlimited ideas and strategies out there, it can be difficult to distill them
all down into one seamless marketing plan that will work for your business. In truth, the
solution to your marketing woes is as simple as developing a clear approach based on
lead and customer behaviors. Just as a business plan is essential for outlining the nature
and scope of your business, a well-thought-out marketing plan will set the foundation for
how you attract, capture and keep happy customers.
You may be tempted to just hope for the best with your current setup. But taking the easy
road will lead to missed opportunities, wasted time and lost revenue. A good marketing
plan takes time and effort to develop and implement—yet the rewards can be exponential.
2
3. Meet Lifecycle Marketing
Lifecycle Marketing provides guidance to small businesses searching for a simpler way to
develop a marketing plan. No expensive books and workshops. No complicated forms and
exercises. No gimmicky sales jargon. Just seven simple steps that act as a framework for
developing your sales and marketing process, based on Infusionsoft experts’ experience
helping thousands of small businesses grow.
Using Lifecycle Marketing, you can create a marketing plan designed to measurably grow
your business through targeted communication and smarter lead management, leading to
better lead conversion rates, increased sales and greater profits.
Now that you understand the importance of developing a clear, structured marketing plan,
let’s dig a little deeper into each of the steps.
3
4. STEP 1: Attract Traffic
Consumers today have become highly adept at ignoring advertising in all its forms—they
skip TV commercials, stream free online radio, block emails from unknown senders and
are virtually blind to banner ads. Paid advertising alone is no longer a viable option for
driving traffic to your website; you have to earn traffic by creating valuable content that
attracts visitors.
Content can mean many things to many people, but really it’s any valuable piece of
information or entertainment that attracts leads to your site.
Some content is naturally prone to lead generation purposes, such as reports and webinars.
For example, if you sell interior design software, you could write a report called “10 Tricks
for Better Space Planning.” Other content could focus more on brand awareness, such as
a blog post titled “2012 Forecast on Colors in Interior Design.”
In both cases, you’ll attract traffic to your website with the lure of valuable information.
More importantly, you’ll start to develop a trusted relationship with your visitors. When
creating a content library, it’s best to create one piece at a time. Before you know it, you’ll
have built a body of work that raises your brand equity and serves to generate leads and
raving fans.
Once you have content in place, you want people to find it. Here are a few ideas to get
you started.
Get Discovered with SEO
SEO (search engine optimization) is the process of getting your content and website found
when people perform searches on sites such as Google or Yahoo. Better search engine
rankings mean you get seen by more people—and that increases traffic to your website.
4
5. Get Results with PPC
Paid advertising, or Pay-Per-Click (PPC), enables you to boost online traffic by paying a
fixed amount to promote link clicks to your content and website. The best ways to get
started in paid advertising are through Google AdWords and Facebook Ads.
Google AdWords—Google is the simplest and most well-known platform for PPC
advertising. Basically, you bid on keywords that are most relevant to your business, and
then pay Google a certain amount for each time someone clicks on your ad. The more
popular the keyword, the higher the per-click price.
Facebook Ads—Facebook is second only to Google in terms of site visitors per day.
Where Google allows you to target based on what people are searching for, Facebook
allows you to select what type of people your ad will be served to—say, yoga enthusiasts
or moms in a certain ZIP code.
Get Social
Social media doesn’t have to be daunting. And since 75% of consumers use social media
in some format to learn about products and services, you can’t afford to not be in the
social sphere. Start a blog to talk about new products, industry news or company updates.
Reward Twitter followers or customers who “Like” you on Facebook with exclusive offers
and specials. And maintain your B2B connections on LinkedIn. All of these services are
free and easy to manage with only a little effort. The keys to successful social engagement
are being consistent and being real.
t traffic?
What content can I use to attrac
t?
Where should I promote my conten
5
6. STEP 2: Capture Leads
Now that you’re attracting people to your website
with the lure of valuable content, you need to Newsletter
entice them to give you their contact information
so you can nurture them over time. Web forms are
Coupons, events
and more!
an excellent way to capture leads, but the reality
for most small businesses is that the majority of
their website visitors never submit a form. If this
is the case for your site, there could be several
factors dissuading people from opting in.
First Name*
Your Content Isn’t Compelling Email*
For visitors to fill out a Web form, they must
Subscribe Now
be motivated enough to share their personal
information and take the time to consume the
content. If your opt-in rates are low, it could be Clearly state the benefits
because your content doesn’t seem to offer of submitting the form.
enough value.
The best content is informative and original. Content that is fluffy or simply rehashed from
somewhere else will not perform well. Many businesses have a newsletter sign-up form,
but this is becoming less effective as people look for ways to reduce the number of emails
they receive in an already overloaded inbox. If you do offer a newsletter, be clear about
the benefits of subscribing.
Make sure the way you describe your content motivates visitors to act. To do this, use a
strong headline that entices them to action, clearly state the benefits of the content and
help them feel rewarded for taking action.
You Ask for Too Much Information
Consumers are becoming more protective of their time and personal information. To
maximize opt-ins, minimize the number of required fields on your forms. Typically, name
and email are sufficient. If you sell to other businesses, you may also want to capture
company name. A good rule of thumb is that the more information you ask for, the more
value you need to provide. You can always ask for more data as your relationship grows.
You Don’t Inspire Trust
If a visitor is reluctant to submit a form on your website, it could be because your site
doesn’t look credible enough. When a prospect visits your website, they should sense
that you offer a comfortable level of expertise. Anything less means that they will continue
to shop around until they find someone who inspires confidence. Demonstrating expertise
can be as simple as including customer testimonials or case studies, mentioning industry
awards, listing credentials and certifications and linking to your privacy policy.
6
7. STEP 3: Nurture Prospects
The truth is, most buyers don’t see an ad and immediately purchase your product. They
buy when they are ready to buy. To reach these buyers, you need a systematic approach for
developing trust and converting leads. The not-so-secret weakness of small businesses
is that they don’t follow up with leads as well as they should. But consistent, valuable
follow-up messages can prove to be a huge competitive edge, as long as you approach
the nurturing process with a clear communications plan in mind.
Set Frequency Expectations
Customers who opt in to your communications want to hear from you, but they don’t
want to be overwhelmed by hyper-frequent communications. Create a consistent timeline
for your campaign that fulfills the needs and wishes of your customers as well as your
business. It’s best to set your customers’ expectations upfront—for example, “Sign up for
our monthly newsletter” or “Get our weekly specials.” If you have an online storefront, for
example, you may want to send weekly emails with new products or a limited-time sale.
If you’re a motivational speaker, a monthly newsletter might be a better approach. Daily
emails are almost never a good idea unless your subscriber is expecting it.
Personalize Your Communications
Studies show that customers respond better to communications that are personalized
to them. Evaluate your follow-up communications—whether email, direct mail or other
methods—and determine how you can customize them to each person in your database.
It could be as simple as using their first name or as targeted as suggesting products
based on past purchases.
Personalized email campaigns generate two
to three times higher click-through rates
than mass email campaigns and two times
higher conversion rates.
Source: Aberdeen Group, December 2009
7
8. Upgrade from Autoresponders to True Automation
How many times have you purchased something online and received a generic follow-up
email that was supposed to seem personalized but was clearly automated? Did that email
deepen your relationship with the company or simply annoy you?
Many busy small businesses send immediate follow-up messages through autoresponders
because they think it makes customers feel appreciated. But due to the limitations of
typical autoresponders, which only allow for basic personalization and can’t adapt to
customer behaviors, today’s savvy consumers perceive these “personalized” messages
to be a waste of time.
To really build relationships with customers, your automated follow-up has to be truly
personalized and targeted based on customer behaviors, such as past purchases or
interests. Amazon does this all the time, and so can you. Imagine the difference between
the generic message in the previous paragraph and a follow-up message like this:
“Hi, Sara. Thanks for buying a blue smart phone. Here are a few cool things you should
know to get the most from your phone. By the way, we also have blue accessories to go
with your phone. As a new customer, you can save 15% on accessories, this week only.”
My nurture sequence:
Day 1 Day 15 Day 30
Newsletter Coupon Newsletter
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9. STEP 4: Convert Sales
You can attract, capture and nurture all the leads you’d like, but if they don’t convert into
paying customers, you’re not going to make any money. Depending on your business
type and setup, you likely use one of two methods for converting leads into customers:
an online shopping cart or a sales team. No matter which method you use, there are a few
strategies to realize the full potential of both.
E-Commerce Shopping Carts
Your online shopping cart represents your digital storefront and should be as effective
and easy to use as someone visiting a brick-and-mortar store. However, there are some
advantages of selling online that can’t be realized in a typical retail environment.
First, an online shopping cart gives you the ability to intelligently upsell customers to
increase transaction amounts. Upsell offers are most effective when they are closely
related to the current order. A good cart will present an upsell offer in a clean, sensible
fashion that allows customers to easily add additional products to their purchase. Some
shopping cart systems will even allow you to offer multiple upsell offers.
The second advantage of selling online is that you can use targeted campaigns to invite
people back to your store if they leave before making a purchase. The most effective
campaigns generally offer a discount on the products the customer was viewing.
Use upsell and cross -sell offers
to increase transaction amounts.
Personal Selling
For some companies, customers must connect with a salesperson before making a
purchase. Unfortunately, many of these sales-intensive businesses lose revenue because
of a buy-or-die mentality on the sales floor. If a lead comes in that isn’t ready to engage
right away, it can fall into a black hole of lost leads that could have become customers
given enough time and nurturing. These wasted opportunities add up to a lot of lost
revenue in the long run.
To prevent this, you must be able to nurture leads and identify when they are ready to
distribute to your salesperson. Your sales team is a valuable resource, the driving force
behind growing your business. They can be much more effective if your CRM automatically
evaluates certain behaviors and factors, identifies hot leads and intelligently distributes
them based on specific factors such as industry and geography.
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10. In addition, every day your sales team engages in dozens of communications with leads.
Automating some of these communications could free up your team to focus on only
high-impact conversations instead of routine follow-up messages. This type of workflow
automation can be used to automatically add notes to records, send thank you notes after
sales calls, kick off educational emails and more. The best part is, by leveraging workflow
automation to save time, your sales team starts to view your CRM system as a valuable
resource—and not just a waste of time.
It takes an average of five sales calls to close a deal, but most
salespeople give up after just one or two calls.
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11. STEP 5: Deliver and Satisfy
If you have ever received disappointing customer service (and who hasn’t?), v won’t be
surprised to learn that most companies spend more on acquiring new customers than
keeping existing ones happy.
Winning lifelong customers requires the ability to not only get a prospect to buy again
and again, but to do so happily. The benefits go far beyond inspiring loyalty and repeat
business; happy customers become advocates for your brand, driving referrals by sharing
their experiences with friends, colleagues and social networks.
Service as a Marketing Strategy 100%
Great customer service is a HUGE
competitive advantage. Say you need
something fixed at your office. Company A
55%
of customers
was an hour late, talked on their cell phone 50% purchased from a
the whole time and left without telling you company because
they were done. Company B, on the other of their reputation
hand, arrived on time, explained what they for great customer
were going to do to fix your problem and service.
gave you a coupon for your next service. 0%
Source: Harris Interactive/RightNow Technologies,
Which company will you use next time? October 2010
The same warm, friendly, accommodating approach you take to nurture a customer
should be continued for the duration of the relationship. Positive experiences lead to
repeat business and referrals. Service as a strategy has to come from the top and be truly
ingrained in your company’s core values. Every process, every decision, every employee
must act in alignment with this strategy in order to be successful.
Deliver as Promised—Automatically
Despite their best intentions, many small businesses over-promise and under-deliver
simply because they don’t have enough time and energy to meet the expectations set
during the sales and marketing process. Luckily, many elements of great customer service
can be automated, which eases the burden on the business and helps customers feel
valued and appreciated.
For example, a big customer service challenge for many businesses is training customers
on how to successfully use their product. Instead of training customers in person or over
the phone, which requires a big commitment from both parties, automation allows you to
create engagement campaigns that slowly drip information over time.
Another advantage of automation is that it allows you to easily identify and segment happy
and unhappy customers through a simple survey. Customers who are satisfied can be
automatically rerouted to a testimonial and referral campaign while unsatisfied customers
can be routed to customer service for personal follow-up.
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12. STEP 6: Upsell Customers
One of the very first statistics business owners learn is this: 80% of your profits come
from the top 20% of your customers. Yet so many small business owners spend all
their time focusing on attracting and converting new leads and customers that upsell and
cross-sell efforts directed at existing customers completely fall off the radar.
As we’ve shared in the previous steps of Lifecycle Marketing, consistent communication
with customers is essential—and this shouldn’t end once a first sale is made. Customers
who had a positive experience with your company are more likely to think of you the next
time they need a similar product or service. Continue to develop relationships through
lead nurturing, like letting customers know about complementary products and services
they might enjoy.
The best way to accomplish this is to create automated follow-up campaigns based on a
scheduled sequence that continues to communicate with customers in the form of emails
or direct mail and other offline methods. You could even target these communications to
feature new products, services or promotions based on your customers’ previous buying
history, ensuring you’re always delivering something of value.
$ In general, acquiring a new customer
$
costs 5 to 7 times more than
retaining an existing customer.
¢
New Customer Existing Customer
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13. STEP 7: Get Referrals
Once you’ve established a clear process for funneling leads from their first contact to
after-purchase communications, you’re in a great position for the final step in Lifecycle
Marketing: growing even more through customer referrals and affiliates.
Get Customer Referrals
People are more likely to do business with someone when they’re introduced by a mutual
acquaintance. Based on that idea, customer referral programs are a fantastic way to
generate highly qualified leads. The key to getting referrals from happy customers is
simple—just ask. And don’t forget to reward customers for their referrals with a thank you
gift, account credit or heartfelt thank you card.
Leverage Affiliates
Affiliates are third parties who market your product on their website and through email
and social media. They are an excellent way to drive traffic to your website and generate
leads. The best thing about affiliate programs is the ROI—you pay only for performance.
You simply make a small investment in marketing resources and then pay affiliates for any
leads or sales they generate. Because your investment is minimal, these programs can
yield amazing returns.
You
Partners
Affiliates
Referrals
Motivate Partners to Act
When developing referral and affiliate programs, it’s important to clearly outline what you
hope to achieve and provide the right incentives to encourage participation. A partner’s
reason for participating is not always all about money. Take time to understand those
motivations and develop incentives that best suit those needs—and your own. Think back
to Step 5: Deliver and Satisfy. The same principles we outlined for making customers
happy should be applied to your partners—always deliver as promised.
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14. Achieve Your Goals
Small business owners dream of striking the perfect balance between running a successful
business and spending time doing the things they love. The steps in Lifecycle Marketing
are designed specifically to help small business owners realize this dream. Implementing
a marketing plan based on this platform will help you rediscover the joy of running your
own business AND give you more time to tackle other important items on your life’s to-
do list. Launch a new product. Start an online store. Coach a full season of Little League.
Whatever you hope to accomplish, it will be well within your reach.
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15. Marketing Automation Solutions from Infusionsoft
To successfully implement the Perfect Customer Lifecycle, you need
to have the right tools and resources in place to fully realize
the potential of this powerful foundation. And that’s where
Infusionsoft comes in.
Infusionsoft is the industry leader in all-in-one marketing
automation software that helps small businesses grow
through better customer engagement.
With Infusionsoft, small businesses have access to
powerful, scalable solutions that bring all of their
marketing and CRM services into one integrated system,
enabling them to reach customers more effectively and
increase profitability.
Email Marketing
Automatically send smart, professional-looking messages that are
personalized based on what you know about your leads and customers.
Powerful CRM
Identify hot leads, manage opportunities and track important customer details that drive automated follow-
up communications and workflow.
Smart Automation
Leverage automation technology to create highly personalized emails and offline communications that are
triggered when customers take action by clicking a link or buying a product.
E-Commerce
Centralize your customer data and manage online purchases, billing, subscriptions and partner networks
all in one place.
To learn more about how Infusionsoft can revolutionize your business with integrated email
marketing and CRM solutions, visit our website at infusionsoft.com.
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