Lead Generation Strategies What’s Working Now to Generate Leads for Service Based Business Owners

by Managing Editor Yoon Cannon | Attract More Customers

In today’s competitive business landscape, generating leads is more crucial than ever for service-based businesses. But what if there were secrets to unlocking more generated leads and boosting your bottom line? In this blog post, we’ll dive deep into the world of lead generation and reveal strategies that are working now. You’ll discover how understanding your customer value journey, mastering buyer behavior, and leveraging various marketing tools can revolutionize your generated leads generation efforts.

Key Takeaways

Understand your customer value journey and buyer behavior to design successful lead generation campaigns.
Leverage a variety of discovery marketing techniques, generate leads through forms or applications, and optimize the sales funnel for conversion.
Measure & optimize efforts with KPIs, hire/train inhouse team or outsource to experts, it depends on individual business needs!

Understanding Your Customer Value Journey

Lead generation thrives on the customer value journey. It helps businesses understand the stages a customer goes through before making a purchase, allowing for targeted marketing efforts. Businesses can smoothly convert strangers into potential customers through understanding the customer journey using effective lead generation strategies, including a well-planned lead generation campaign. Some components of a successful campaign are:

Website
Organic and paid social media presence
Job applications
Blog posts
Coupons
Live events

Service-based businesses thrive on a well-planned lead generation strategy. Training and support can help businesses reach their goals quicker, making it easier to navigate the ever-evolving landscape of lead generation.

5 Stages of Buyer Behavior – Search Intent Marketing

Comprehending the four stages of buyer behavior is pivotal in lead generation. These stages are:

Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action

Knowing these stages helps businesses design successful lead generation campaigns targeting potential customers at different points in their journey.

Effective online lead generation relies on optimizing your website and content for search engines. This allows potential customers to locate your business effortlessly when seeking relevant products or services. Good SEO means your page will keep bringing in leads for a long time, ensuring a steady flow of new potential customers.

Getting Found by More Customers

Businesses can amplify their visibility and attract more leads through discovery marketing techniques such as:

Google search
YouTube
LinkedIn
Podcasts
Facebook
Pinterest
Directories

With a well-rounded approach to discovery marketing, businesses can tap into new audiences and cultivate a steady stream of potential customers.

What is a Lead?

A lead is someone who fits your ideal customer profile based on their demographic and psychographic information. There are several types of leads: cold, warm, and hot.

Sales leads can be generated when someone applies for an open role, shares contact information for a coupon, or fills out a form to download content, all of which involve collecting information. Gathering a lead’s survey responses helps companies tailor initial communication to their specific needs and issues, enhancing the effectiveness of their marketing efforts.

What is a MQL? Marketing Qualified Lead?

A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a contact who has interacted with a business’s marketing activities but isn’t ready to receive a sales call yet. MQLs typically engage with a business by downloading free lead magnets, checking out specific site pages, or interacting with social posts. By nurturing these marketing qualified leads, businesses can eventually convert them into sales-ready prospects.

Identification of MQLs constitutes a significant step in the lead generation process, as it helps businesses focus their efforts on leads that show potential interest in their products or services.

What is a SQL? Sales Qualified Lead?

A sales qualified lead (SQL) is a lead that has been vetted and approved by the sales team – it’s ready to move on to the next step in the sales process. SQLs are potential customers who have tried out a product or service, maybe even on a free trial, and are now showing signs that they’re ready to buy.

Recognizing SQLs enables businesses to focus their efforts on leads that are more probable to become paying customers, thus conserving time and resources.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is the path a customer takes from discovering a brand to finally making a purchase. It typically involves stages like:

Awareness
Interest
Consideration
Purchase

Sales funnels help businesses monitor customer behavior to spot potential leads and nurture those leads to convert them into customers.

Comprehending and fine-tuning the sales funnel is vital in converting potential leads into faithful customers.

Top 10 Methods for Generating Leads Today

Some of the most effective methods for generating leads today include:

LinkedIn marketing
Content marketing
Lead magnets
Warm email marketing
Cold email marketing
Video marketing
Webinar marketing
SEO
PR
Paid advertising

Each of these methods significantly contributes to attracting and engaging potential customers, eventually steering them through the sales funnel.

For instance, some effective methods for lead generation include:

LinkedIn marketing, which allows businesses to connect with professionals and build relationships
Content marketing, which provides valuable information to potential customers, establishing trust and credibility
Lead magnets, which entice potential customers with valuable offers in exchange for their contact information

Leveraging these methods can help businesses generate high-quality leads and boost their overall lead generation efforts.

Leveraging LinkedIn for Lead Generation

LinkedIn is a powerful platform for lead generation, as it allows businesses to connect with potential customers and build relationships. LinkedIn, with its professional orientation, provides a unique platform for direct engagement with business owners and executives, hence it’s a crucial tool in any lead generation strategy.

The Power of Content to Generate More Leads

Content marketing is a crucial aspect of lead generation, as it helps businesses provide valuable, relevant information to potential customers. Businesses can cultivate relationships with potential customers and steer them through the sales funnel, thereby increasing conversion chances, by developing engaging content that caters to the needs and interests of their target audience.

Moreover, content marketing allows businesses to capture buyer information and keep their audience engaged, building trust and loyalty in the process.

What is a Lead Magnet?

A lead magnet is an offer created to entice potential customers and obtain their contact information. These offers can come in various forms, such as:

free ebooks
whitepapers
webinars
discounts

Lead magnets play a vital role in lead generation, as they provide an incentive for potential customers to share their contact information, aiding businesses in guiding them through the sales process.

Why You Need the Right Lead Magnets

Selecting appropriate lead magnets is vital for lead generation, as they attract your target audience by providing value and solving their problems.

Creating lead magnets that are relevant to your target audience and offer something unique that they can’t find elsewhere ensures that you capture their attention and, more importantly, their contact information. This allows you to nurture and guide them through the sales funnel, increasing the chances of conversion.

Warm Email Marketing – Why You Need to Grow Your Email Subscriber List

Expansion of your email subscriber list is crucial for flourishing lead generation. By providing valuable content and offers to your subscribers, you can build relationships with potential customers and guide them through the sales funnel.

Moreover, having a larger email list allows you to reach more potential customers, increasing the chances of conversions and driving sales.

Cold Email Marketing to Book More Appointments

Cold email marketing involves sending unsolicited emails to potential customers in an attempt to generate leads and book appointments. By crafting captivating subject lines, personalized messages, and compelling calls-to-action, businesses can reach a large audience quickly and book more appointments, ultimately increasing their lead generation efforts.

It’s paramount to adhere to all anti-spam regulations in cold email marketing while focusing on providing value to the recipients.

Video Marketing to Boost Lead Generation

Video marketing is an effective way to generate leads, as it allows businesses to showcase their services in an engaging and visual manner. By creating informative and entertaining videos, businesses can build trust and credibility with potential customers, demonstrating the value of their services.

Given the rising popularity of video content, integrating video marketing into your lead generation strategy is necessary to maintain a competitive edge.

The Power of Webinar Marketing to Generate Sales Qualified Leads

Webinar marketing is a powerful lead generation tool, as it allows businesses to provide valuable information to potential customers in an interactive format. By hosting webinars on relevant topics and addressing common pain points, businesses can engage potential customers and guide them through the sales funnel.

Research has shown that around 30%–40% of webinar attendees become leads, making it an essential strategy for generating sales qualified leads.

SEO Strategies to Getting Found on Google Searches

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a crucial element of online lead generation. By optimizing your website and content for search engines, you can ensure that potential customers can easily find your business when searching for relevant products or services.

Implementing effective SEO strategies, such as using keywords in your content and optimizing for mobile devices, can help your business rank higher in search engine results and attract more leads.

Building Instant Trust with the Power of PR

Public relations (PR) is an important aspect of lead generation, as it helps create a positive image of the organization and its offerings. By using PR to share interesting and engaging content, businesses can build trust and credibility with potential customers, ultimately increasing the chances of conversion.

PR efforts, such as press releases, social media engagement, and prompt responses to customer inquiries and complaints, can help businesses build strong relationships with their target audience and generate more leads.

Paid Advertising for Instant Results

Paid advertising, such as Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns, can provide instant results by driving new customers and sales. By utilizing paid platforms like Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and other social media platforms, businesses can target their marketing efforts and quickly reach a large audience.

Furthermore, paid advertising provides actionable feedback on marketing efforts, allowing businesses to refine their strategies and boost their lead generation results.

Lead Generation Tools and Technologies

In addition to the strategies mentioned above, businesses can also utilize various lead generation tools and technologies to streamline their efforts and improve efficiency. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems, landing page builders, and marketing automation platforms can help businesses manage and nurture leads more effectively, ultimately increasing the chances of conversion.

CRM Systems for Small to Mid Size Business Owners

CRM systems are essential for small to mid-size businesses, as they help organize customer data and interactions, allowing for better understanding and targeting of customers. Popular CRM systems include:

Salesforce
HubSpot
Zoho
Microsoft Dynamics

These systems provide businesses with features like automated customer segmentation, lead scoring, and automated marketing campaigns, helping target marketing efforts more effectively and save time and money.

Landing Page Builders

Landing pages play a vital role in lead generation, as they provide potential customers with a clear and straightforward way to access information. Tools like Leadpages, a popular landing page builder, help businesses create high-converting web pages that effectively capture leads.

By focusing on clean design and clear calls-to-action, landing page builders enable businesses to maximize their lead generation efforts.

Marketing Automation Platforms

Marketing automation platforms can significantly improve businesses’ lead generation efforts by streamlining various marketing processes and providing valuable insights. Popular platforms like:

HubSpot
Marketo
Pardot
Salesforce

offer features such as automated email marketing, social media marketing, and lead generation, allowing businesses to manage and nurture leads more effectively.

By utilizing these tools, businesses can optimize their marketing strategies and drive more leads and sales.

Qualifying and Nurturing Generated Leads

Qualifying and nurturing the generated leads is vital to enhance the likelihood of conversion. By implementing lead scoring and nurturing techniques, businesses can identify high-quality leads and guide them through the sales funnel, ultimately transforming potential leads into loyal customers.

Lead scoring helps to prioritize leads based on their likelihood to convert. It also helps to identify

Lead Scoring

Lead scoring is a method that businesses use to determine which leads are most likely to convert. By assigning a score to each lead based on their behavior, demographics, and engagement with the business, companies can easily recognize which leads are more likely to convert into customers.

This allows businesses to allocate their resources efficiently, tailor their marketing strategies, and enhance their overall conversion rates.

Lead Nurturing Techniques

Lead nurturing is an essential part of having a successful online business. By developing connections with potential customers and providing them with helpful content, businesses can cultivate good leads.

A nurture sequence, for example, is a great way to provide potential customers with valuable content after they sign up, guiding them towards making a purchase.

Measuring and Optimizing Lead Generation Efforts

Businesses must incessantly gauge and enhance their efforts to guarantee the success of their lead generation strategies. Here are some ways to do that:

Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to track the effectiveness of your lead generation efforts.
Hire and train an in-house marketing team to focus on lead generation and conversion.
Consider outsourcing certain marketing efforts to experts who specialize in lead generation. By implementing these strategies, businesses can fine-tune their lead generation efforts and achieve better results.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

Key performance indicators (KPIs) are essential for measuring and optimizing lead generation efforts. By tracking metrics like customer satisfaction, website traffic, sales conversions, and more, businesses can gain valuable data-driven insights into their performance.

This information can help pinpoint areas that need improvement, set goals, and make informed decisions based on the available data.

Hiring and Training Your In-House Marketing Team

For businesses aiming to elevate their lead generation efforts, constructing and educating a proficient in-house marketing team is indispensable. This team should include:

A marketing manager
A content creator
A social media manager
A web designer
A copywriter

Each member of the team should have specialized skills and expertise.

By investing in the development of their sales and marketing teams, businesses can ensure that their marketing efforts are tailored to their specific needs and goals, ultimately driving more leads and sales.

Outsourcing Your Marketing and Lead Gen

For businesses deficient in resources or expertise to handle these tasks in-house, outsourcing marketing and lead generation efforts can be a feasible alternative. By partnering with external companies or individuals, businesses can access specialized skills and expertise while saving time and money.

However, it’s essential to carefully research potential partners and maintain clear communication to ensure a successful outsourcing experience.

http://paramountbusinesscoach.com/blog/outsourcing-vs-marketing-team/

To sum up, both outsourcing and maintaining an in-house marketing team present advantages and disadvantages in the context of lead generation. While outsourcing can save money and provide access to specialized expertise, an in-house team offers more control and the ability to quickly adapt to market changes.

Ultimately, the decision will depend on the specific needs, goals, and resources of each business.

Summary

In conclusion, effective lead generation is crucial for the success of service-based businesses. By understanding the customer value journey, mastering buyer behavior, leveraging various marketing tools, and continuously measuring and optimizing efforts, businesses can unlock the secret to generating more leads and boosting their bottom line. The key is to stay adaptable, innovative, and focused on providing value to potential customers, ensuring a steady flow of high-quality leads that convert into loyal customers.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is generate leads?

Lead generation is the process of attracting potential customers through marketing efforts and collecting their contact information in order to create sales opportunities. It’s typically done online via a web form.

What is an example of generating leads?

Lead generation is the process of attracting prospects to your business and increasing their interest through nurturing, all with the end goal of converting them into a customer. An example of generating leads would be offering free ebooks in exchange for contact information like email addresses and names.

Where can I generate leads?

Social media, email marketing, discounts and coupons, conversations, and free content are all effective ways to generate leads. Take advantage of these tactics to get the results you need.

What are the key components of a successful lead generation strategy?

To create a successful lead generation strategy, understand the customer journey, target marketing efforts based on buyer behavior, and use various marketing tools.

How can I generate more leads for my service-based business?

To generate more leads for your service-based business, combine strategies such as LinkedIn marketing, content marketing, lead magnets, email marketing, video marketing, webinar marketing, SEO, PR and paid advertising to attract and engage potential customers.

Lead Generating Videos For Each Phase Of The Buyer’s Journey

by Yoon Cannon | Attract More Customers, Business Growth Tips Blog

The Buyer’s Journey is a key concept that allows brands to create more compelling marketing by understanding their customers’ needs and mindset. If you want to create world-class video content, it should be central to your marketing strategy.

Generally, the buyer’s journey is split into three stages:

Awareness – the prospect is researching a problem and looking for a solution. For instance, they may be searching how to get more website traffic.

Consideration – the prospect begins researching the solution. This is where you introduce your product as the solution and explain how it helps. For instance, you could create a piece of content entitled SEO Strategies for Your Business.

Decision – the prospect chooses which product to purchase. Typically, this involves comparing multiple products and brands and selecting the one they think will best solve their problem. In our example case, this could mean comparing Ahrefs and SEMrush.

These stages roughly translate to customers being cold, lukewarm, or hot leads. When they are hot, they are close to making a purchase, while cold leads may not even know they have a problem yet!

In this article, we focus on how to use video content to move prospects down the sales funnel and onto the next stage of the buyer’s journey.

Video is consumers’ favorite form of media – a staggering 88% want to see more video content from brands (Wyzowl) – and this guide is packed with actionable tips that will help you make the most of this brilliant marketing medium.

Awareness Phase Video Content

In the awareness stage, prospects are cold leads. They are positively freezing. As cold as cold can get. They may not know your brand and product exist. They may not know they have a problem at all!

Video content in the awareness stage should be centered on a soft-sell strategy. The goal is to introduce your brand and valuable industry information in a way that encourages the viewer to trust your expertise.

The buyer journey usually starts with prospects searching for information on a particular pain point. They are looking for content that features solutions to their problem. But they are not researching solutions in any depth. They just want to know what their options are.

Informational Content & ‘How To’ Videos

Right now, your potential customers don’t know they have a problem. Your video content needs to change that and make people more aware of potential bottlenecks in their everyday lives or businesses.

That is where informational content and how-to videos come in.

Informational content has no barriers to entry, meaning that anyone can watch them regardless of their knowledge level. This is crucial to bring people into your sales funnel.

Think of it this way: if your customer doesn’t know they have a problem yet, would they watch a testimonial video for your products? It’s unlikely.

Whereas informational content which puts the focus on educating the watcher (as opposed to making the sale) hooks their attention and introduces your business niche much more organically.

To know which content to create, you need to find out what your sales prospects are searching for and then create content that:

Answer their question(s).
Enables you to integrate your brand and industry organically.

How-to guides and informational content are popular. They typically generate high search volumes on both Google and YouTube. They are also applicable to all industries. Every sector has ‘how-to’ related keywords they can target and create content for.

Take the social media scheduling tool, Hootsuite. It might choose to create content targeting the following keywords:

How to get more social media followers
How to create better social media content
When is the best time to post on social media?

Interviews & Content Partnerships

Another way of raising brand awareness is partnering with other businesses to create video content. This gives you access to an established audience that already knows and trusts your partner’s opinion.

There are plenty of examples of this happening in the marketing world.

For instance, the SEO tool, Ahrefs, teamed up with the social media tool, Buffer, to provide a digital marketing masterclass that was a major success. And local restaurants often team up with cocktail makers to put on a joint event. Bars and pop-up kitchens also regularly collaborate, resulting in greater exposure for both parties.

When choosing a partner, make sure they are a non-competitor with a similar target audience. If you are looking for the great content you can make with that partner, consider:

Expert interviews and knowledge exchanges
Joint training webinars
Social media channel takeovers.

Consideration Phase Video Content

The consideration phase is where prospects go from cold to warm. They know there is a solution to their problem and they think your brand could have the answer.

Now is the time to start featuring your product more heavily in content. You want to prove that your product does the things they need it to. There is an art to this, though. If you are overly promotional, you might frustrate prospects.

Instead, you need to draw them in with more informational content. But this time, it will be less general and 100% industry specific. You are going to tell them how your brand benefits them.

Let’s return to the prospect from our intro who wants to generate more website traffic. They read Ahrefs’ awareness-stage content covering the importance of keywords in SEO. But now, they are wondering how you go about conducting keyword research. Ahrefs knows that and hits them with… Keyword Research: A Beginner’s Guide.

Perfect consideration-stage content.

Expert Guides

Once you have introduced your brands and products with awareness content, you need to move them onto another useful resource. Expert guides are an excellent choice.

Expert guides allow you to talk about how great your brand and product are. In the process, you explain how well it resolves the pain points highlighted in the awareness stage. You achieve this by properly introducing your products and explaining what they do and how they benefit the viewer.

This works because the content also provides immense value to the viewer, strengthening their trust in your business, ensuring they appreciate your expertise, and moving them one step closer to buying.

Product Explainer Videos & Demonstrations

Having introduced your products in the expert guide, you can also start going into greater detail about what they do and how they work. It is time for product explainer videos!

Cartoon explainer videos are a great way to simplify complicated information and explain how your product resolves your audience’s problems. They are engaging, informative, and easy to understand. The ideal combination for lightly educational content.

Product demos take this process one step further by showing your product in action and focusing on key features in greater detail. Prospects watching your product demos are warming up.

Decision Phase Video Content

Finally, decision phase content turns warm leads into sizzling hot prospects. At this stage, customers have decided to buy a solution but are comparing competitors’ products. This is where you start the hard sell by creating content that puts all the focus on your business, your product, and its USPs.

Customer Testimonials

Customer testimonials are the modern equivalent of word-of-mouth advertising. They are extremely powerful. This is demonstrated by the fact that 9 out of 10 people say they trust what a customer says about a business more than what that business says about itself (Wyzowl).

When every day people come out and support your product, it puts you in a strong position. Their opinions can help sway undecided buyers by alleviating any concerns they have.

Industry Case Studies

Case studies are an excellent way of showing that your product delivers on your promises. They are evidence that it really does resolve key customer problems.

With this in mind, businesses should create case studies for every industry in which their products are relevant. This ensures you are targeting particular pain points and problems, while also speaking and appealing directly to specific customers.

When creating industry case studies, make sure your videos cover:

What the customer’s problem was
How the product resolved the problem
The end result or dream outcome for the customer. Focus on how your product made the customer’s life easier.

Competitor Comparisons

Finally, let’s look at competitor comparisons. Many businesses shy away from mentioning their competitors in their marketing materials. However, those companies are missing a trick.

Prospects can quickly and easily find your competitors. All it takes is a brief Google search. Rather than pretending these competitors do not exist, create an honest video that weighs up the pros and cons of these competing products and compels the viewer to buy yours.

It is a wonderful chance to snatch control of the narrative and give prospects a long list of reasons why your product is the right choice. Highlight the unique features your product has (and your competitors’ product hasn’t), but do not ever attack or criticize your competitors in the video. It will only backfire and reflect poorly on your brand.

Author: John Butterworth

John Butterworth is an experienced digital marketer who believes the fastest way to grow any business is by automating their lead acquisition. He’s helped many companies to scale rapidly through a tried-and-tested combination of SEO, CRO, and email automation. John’s career has taken him across specialist roles in China, Vietnam, and The UK. Currently, he works in-house for global video creation platform Viddyoze.

Secrets to Successful Marketing Strategy Execution for Small Business Owners

by Managing Editor Yoon Cannon | Attract More Customers, Business Growth Tips Blog, General, Leads, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts, Success Mindset

Small business owners often struggle to find the best marketing strategy that fits their budget. Here is a look at some of the greatest tips for getting the most bang from your marketing budgeting.

Whether you’re a B2B, B2C or expert firm, you’ll walk away with enough secrets to successful marketing to add new leads and find loyal customers.

How Do You Successfully Market a Small Business?

Small and medium enterprises in the United States spend marketing dollars directly based on a business owner’s decisions. Smaller businesses might find it wiser to focus on local clients first. According to Statista, companies spend around $173.3 million per year on local advertising. They split the rest between TV, radio, digital, and events.

Successful marketing strategy execution often starts with an overarching goal. Small business owners find a top-of-mind awareness (TOMA) strategy works well to build brand awareness and develop a loyal customer base. Over time, you’ll gain referrals from your current clients.

What are some of the top secrets to successful marketing campaigns? Here are our top suggestions for small business owners.

1. Learn From Your Customers

Get to know your audience and what their needs are. The better you understand your buyers, the easier it will be to meet their needs. You can survey them, pay attention to buying trends and ask what you can do to improve their experience.

With your TOMA marketing strategy, you’ll want to take actions such as:

Call those who buy from you repeatedly and ask why they chose your brand in the first place.
Inquire about how you can help them refer more friends and family. For example, can you offer any materials that would be of help? Reward them when they do refer new customers.
Survey your customers after a successful campaign. Find out why they chose to buy and if they have other needs. When you understand their pain points, developing the relationship you need to keep your brand at the top of their thoughts becomes much easier.

Pay close attention to any negative comments or complaints. How can you fix the issue for that customer and prevent it on future orders?

2. Use New Technology to Manage Clients

You don’t have to track every little detail of your client’s needs. Instead, invest in technology that handles customer relationship management. Regular emails from you can keep you at the forefront of their thoughts.

Try to automate functions such as sending out emails when new products arrive they might be interested in.
Send a birthday greeting to let them know you enjoy their business.
Offer discounts when sales slow down to clear out old merchandise and make way for new.

The happier your clients are, the more you can use their reviews and testimonials in your marketing campaigns.

3. Promote Yourself

Put yourself in the shoes of the average person visiting your site for the first time. If you’re a newer business, they’ve likely not heard of you and don’t know if they should buy. However, they’ll feel more comfortable trying out your product if you stand behind your work.

People often have to hear of you several times before remembering the brand name and messaging. How can you promote yourself consistently and frequently for your TOMA approach?

Create a social media persona matching your brand personality.
Post frequently and predictably at the same time of day and on the same weekdays.
Enlist the help of others to get your name out there. Ask customers to share your social media posts or forward your newsletter.
Pay for ads to get in front of the same people repeatedly.

Feature glowing feedback from customers and highlight how much you believe in what you offer. Do you feel your product or service is the best in the industry? Thinking about your unique value proposition and using it in your marketing can help gain new clients’ trust.

4. Send Welcome Emails

You likely already know email marketing can be highly effective at attracting and keeping customers. However, did you know that welcome emails have a 91.43% open rate and offer an opportunity to highlight your brand personality?

How can you enhance your brand awareness via emails?

Stick with brand guidelines, using your logo and brand color palette for instant recognition.
Make calls to action (CTAs) look the same as the ones on your website so people know to look for a particular pop of color.
Create great subject lines that tell users exactly what they’ll get when they open the email.

You can also track how well an email performs by seeing how many opens you get and who clicks through to your offer.

5. Use SMS

Short message service (SMS) is an excellent way to add personal touches to messages you send. You might use it for customer service issues and to problem solve. There are also many ways to connect with your clients through small positive messages.

Circulate an offer, discount code, or just share news.
Add links to orders or short surveys.
Send a happy thought just to let customers know you are thinking of them and care about more than just making a sale.
Thank them for an order or update them on the status of one.

Many businesses have found great success with this marketing strategy. 98% of people will open your message, which is why thousands have used texting to drive customer retention.

6. Set Clear Employee Expectations

As your company’s leader, you must train your employees in the customer service model you want to exude. Make sure everyone understands your expectations and their role in the buyer’s journey.

Write out what your company policies and philosophies are.
Encourage employees to tell others why it’s a great place to work.
Feature your top staff members. Put a face on the workers for better brand awareness.

At the same time, you don’t want to create an atmosphere where people say, “That’s not in my job description.” Set the example by jumping in and helping when someone feels overwhelmed or has a tight deadline. If your employees see you taking the lead and helping others, they’ll be more likely to embrace the same spirit with their work.

7. Watch Trends

Pay attention to what kids are into and how other businesses in your industry market to their customer bases.

When apps like TikTok first arrived on the scene, mainly preteens used it to repeat dances and popular songs. Today, companies worldwide use them to reach new customers via fun marketing videos.

Stay on top of what your competitors are doing.

Study their social media presence. What kinds of posts do they schedule? How often do they post? Do they use paid ads?
Why do people know their names? Do they do a lot of radio interviews? Perhaps they sponsor local groups and have a strong presence in your community.
Study their name versus yours. Is their business moniker more memorable or more applicable to the industry?

Take a step back and rethink your brand image. Don’t be afraid to rebrand if necessary or to tweak colors and messaging until you hit what keeps your brand at the forefront.

Why Should You Change Up Your Marketing?

Embracing new trends and paying attention to what works for the competition are the secrets to successful marketing. You may not have time to woo people one-on-one, but you can automate relationship management and invest in social media marketing.

If you fail to step up and try new things, you risk growing stale and your customers getting bored with your brand. You only have time and effort to spend. If something doesn’t work, replace it with a new idea.

If you choose to focus on a top-of-mind awareness strategy as outlined above, run everything through the filter of how it will impact brand recognition and keep your audience engaged.

Which one of these list items would you like to implement today to find your successful marketing strategy?

Eleanor Hecks is the founder and managing editor of Designerly Magazine. She’s also a web design consultant with a focus on customer experience and user interface. She lives in Philadelphia with her husband and dogs, Bear and Lucy. Connect with her about marketing, design, and/or tea on LinkedIn!

Advice on How Small Businesses Can Recruit Top Talent

by Yoon Cannon | Attract More Customers, Build Your Dream Team, Business Growth Tips Blog, General, Management-Leadership, Management-Leadership, Outsourcing and Hiring Tips Blog

In today’s world, many small businesses are struggling to compete against large companies because most people would love to work for those organizations. The most typical scenario is that small businesses get what’s left from the applicants of big companies.

Your employees will help you make your business bigger. So it’s always best to look for top candidates as they’ll contribute to your organization more.

Hiring top talents in a company is one of the keys to its success. If you’re running a small business, one of the challenges your company faces is recruiting excellent employees.

This article will give tips on how small businesses can hire top talents and improve their company’s performance in the industry.

5 Recruitment Strategies For Small Businesses

It may sound easy to create your hiring system, but it is challenging, especially for small businesses. There are plenty of ways you can secure the best candidates.

Offer Flexible Schedules

Small businesses can attract excellent talents by offering flexitime. Most people are looking for a flexible job, especially regarding schedules. Employees use the time to search for other ways to earn money, such as freelancing, while others use it for personal growth.

Most employers think employees might not do their tasks if they don’t keep an eye on them. On the contrary, giving them flexible time allows them to increase productivity in your organization.

For instance, they have to finish 40 hours a week. Instead of making them complete it in five days, they can finish the 40 hours in four days with a 10-hour shift. They would have more free time for themselves to be used for personal growth or family.

Another example is they did 12 hours today; they can come in late the next day. Not only will it give your team more rest, but they can also make critical decisions for the company’s betterment.

Offer Competitive Compensation

Let’s be practical. We all need money to live and enjoy our lives, so job seekers consider salary before applying for the opening. If they have the skills but think they wouldn’t get the salary they deserve, they’d most likely turn away and look for another company.

Their skills are investments. They have spent countless hours studying to earn from them.

However, when it comes to compensation, salary isn’t the only thing involved. You can also add insurance, incentives, bonuses, and other perks that employees can get. Doing this will also improve your employee retention rating.

If your business is in sales, you can offer incentives if they reach their weekly or monthly target. This will make them try to sell more, increasing your sales.

Providing competitive compensation can also increase productivity in your organization. The employees will become more motivated to do their job, improving your business situation.

State Clear & Appealing Job Descriptions

Job seekers dislike unclear job descriptions. Before they consider the position available in your organization, they will read the description. If they find it very confusing, they’re more likely to give up on the job before applying.

Nobody wants to read texts that are full of jargon. So, it’s best to create straightforward job descriptions. You should include all the essential details, especially about the compensation, qualifications, and responsibilities.

Serious applicants and job seekers always want to be clear on what they are getting into. They don’t want to waste their time going through a hiring process that doesn’t give them clarity about the job description and requirements.

Job descriptions are your first move to attract top talents, so make sure that you write concise and appealing words to reach your target people.

Create a Referral Program

Small companies have more limited funds than larger ones. They would try to save costs as much as possible, including the recruitment process. You can lessen the cost of your recruitment by using referrals.

Referral programs are affordable. You don’t need to allocate a large budget to run the program because your employees will do it for you.

It’s one of the best ways to find new talents for your company and, at the same time, promote a stronger employer brand as your current employees would recommend your company as one of the best places to work.

Your current employees will help you look for the talent you need. For it to become more effective, you can offer the referrers monetary incentives for every successful referral. Giving them gift coupons or shopping vouchers will encourage them to invite the people they know to apply for the job.

Remember to keep the referral program simple and keep the referrers updated even if their referral didn’t qualify. This will boost the employer-employee relationship.

Share Equity or Ownership

Sharing equity/stocks or ownership is not a very common approach when looking for talents. However, it is very effective and can keep the key people in the company.

Candidates are not just looking for jobs; they want to ensure their future and create opportunities for themselves.

Offering them a certain amount of your company’s equity can motivate them. The percentage isn’t necessarily large. A small amount is a good start, but when the company becomes bigger, its share value also increases.

You’re also teaching them how stocks work and probably become great entrepreneurs in the future.

Build a Strong Employer Brand

Think about large companies, such as Google and Amazon. They have built their brands that many people could easily recognize as one of the biggest companies in the world.

To build your company brand, you will create a strong connection with your clients or customers as a company. Creating beautifully designed logos, attractive websites, and effective marketing strategies are some ways to establish your brand.

Creating a strong employer brand is similar to your company brand. As an employer, building relationships with current employees is beneficial in successfully recruiting the best people.

Talents want a stable job where they can work for a long time and see improvement. Aside from offering competitive compensation, invest in upskilling and professional development. You can provide them with free training and seminars. This will help you acquire high performing teams to help your business improve and become bigger.

Serious job seekers will surely love to work for your organization because they can also improve themselves and become better at what they do.

Start Succession Planning

Employees usually ask themselves what they would get if they stayed longer in a small company.

Larger companies offer various opportunities to their current employees. A small business might not be able to compete with all of those, but when you offer promotions, such as leadership, to your current employees, they would feel valuable.

Recruiting external candidates isn’t the only option for small businesses. You have your current employees to become the next key person you need. You don’t need to look elsewhere to find the right person because your employees are your excellent people source.

Always use data to back up your succession planning. It’s important to know who the right candidate is among your workforce. Using a metric performance system is the best way to identify the person.

You can check which person has been doing well and deserves a promotion.

Use Combinations of Recruiting Techniques

Small businesses shouldn’t just focus on their recruitment process; they should also consider the ways to secure top talents for their companies. Posting a job and waiting for a candidate isn’t a strategy to help your business grow.

Follow the tips above to attract more top talents. You’ll have more candidates to choose from and will be able to hire the best ones to improve your company.

7 Local SEO Strategies That Work for 2021

by Yoon Cannon | Attract More Customers, Business Growth Tips Blog, Create Your Dream Business, Marketing and Sales Blog Posts

It’s funny how ranking high in search engine results locally can often be far more challenging than ranking high globally. That may seem counterintuitive, but in many instances it’s true.

But just because it’s hard doesn’t mean that it can’t be done – and done effectively. In this article, we’ll share with you proven local SEO strategies that you can implement immediately to get your content or webpage to rank high in local search engine results in 2021.

Strategy #1 – Take Advantage of Directories and Listings

This is one of the more obvious steps to take when trying to rank high in local search results, but it’s a good place to start. You should list your company or website in as many relevant directories as possible. These directories will, more often than not, be national or global directories, but they serve as a search engine in and of themselves. They require you to include a local address, then they can filter queries for their users based on location.

In addition to this helpful service directories provide, the fact that your company or website is listed in several different directories is something search engines look for.

Strategy #2 – Set Up a Google My Business Account (GMB)

According to a recent study carried out by Search Engine Land, “GMB and reviews are the variables that have grown the most in their perceived impact.”

Setting up a GMB will not only help your company rank high in search results but will get you listed on Google Maps as well. You can also post social media engagements onto your GMB listening, which would be another good way to boost your search engine results ranking.

As valuable as the service is, you might be surprised to know that it is completely free to set up a GMB listing.

Strategy #3 – Solicit Reviews

Whatever you have to do to get your company or your product or service reviewed, chances are that it will be well worth it. Reviews play a major role in search engine results. Also, there are many users who, when looking for information about a company or a product, will only click on reviews or review sites.

The best way to get your customers or clients to leave reviews is to ask. Sounds easy enough. And in most cases it is. You should be engaging with your customers, and asking for their feedback in the form of a posted review is a good way to engage. But make it easy for them. If you’re engaging with your customers or clients via email or social media, attach a link to some review sites where they can post their reviews. You could also send them a simple review template along with the link so that they could write and post a review in a matter of minutes.

As a general rule of thumb, people love sharing their opinions. And when it comes to ranking high in local search results, that is definitely behavior you want to encourage.

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Strategy #4 – Solicit the Help of a Professional

While there is certainly the right way to go about it and plenty of wrong ways, there is no shortcut. The truth of the matter is that in order to get a high search engine ranking, you need backlinks – and a lot of them. Getting backlinks means creating a lot of content that features a link to your company’s website and then getting that content published on high-traffic sites. The process takes a good amount of time and manpower.

The good news is that there is no shortage of professionals willing and eager to lend a helping hand. A digital marketing manager is one of the top careers in IT in 2021. Along with SEO content writers you can find on sites like ProBlogger or BloggingPro, soliciting help from professionals can be a real-time-saver in addition to yielding results – for the right price; of course.

Strategy #5 – Publish Local Keyword Optimized Content

It’s more beneficial in terms of SEO results for your company to be linked to from an outside source (like a directory, reviews, or a blog). But publishing your own content that ranks high for certain local keywords then linking to your company from there (even if it’s internal) still has value.

The added bonus of this strategy is that it shouldn’t be difficult to find local keywords that are easy to rank for. You can use a powerful tool like Ahref’s Keyword Difficulty Checker to get an idea of what keywords you should target, then create and publish your content accordingly.

Strategy #6 – Optimize Headers and Meta Descriptions for Local Searches

In the grand scheme of SEO, this is a relatively small factor – though not inconsequential. However, it’s so easy to do it would be negligent not to. Simply include your location in headers and meta descriptions of your online content. It’s a quick fix and implemented along with other smart SEO strategies, it will yield results.

Strategy #7 – Partner With Local Service Providers

There’s strength in numbers. It’s possible to succeed on your own, but the odds are far more in your favor if you have help, if you are an army rather than an individual going into battle.

You probably already have associations with other businesses – suppliers or couriers, for example. The chances are that they, too, are looking to boost their local search engine results. Talk to them. See if you can’t find a way to work together toward these shared objectives. It could be as simple as a mention with a link on their website in exchange for doing the same for them.

The Bottom Line

Boosting your local search engine results won’t happen overnight, which is a further reason to get started implementing these strategies today. Optimize your website, target easier local keywords at first, take advantage of directories and GMB. Engage with your customers and solicit them for reviews, and boost your backlinks with the help of a freelance writer and local businesses you already partner with.

QUESTION: Which of the 7 strategies in this article do you think will yield the fastest results? If you implement all 7, how soon do you think it will be before your business is on page one? Share with us in the comments below!

How to Generate More Leads with Content Marketing When You Hate to Write

by Yoon Cannon | Attract More Customers, Business Growth Tips Blog

Generating leads is all about capturing a prospective buyer’s attention and compelling them to investigate further. And while you certainly don’t need to be a gifted novelist or best-selling author to create dynamic content that will generate more leads – in fact, the skillset of a copywriter is quite different than that of an author – you still need to convey information succinctly and compellingly, often with the written word.

It’s worth exploring why you hate writing. There are likely some underlying reasons that can be identified, and steps can be made to transform a vital activity you hate into one you love. But instead of that noble pursuit, this article is going to focus more on immediate fixes or workarounds so that you can create marketing content that will generate more leads for you today, despite your hatred for writing.

Actionable Tip #1 – Hire A Freelance Copywriter

Delegate, that is often cited as a key component to success. When a task needs to get done, and you lack the skillset or the passion required, chances are there’s a professional you can turn to who will do the job for you.

There is no shortage of freelance copywriters looking for work. You can place an offer on popular job boards for writers like ProBlogger or BloggingPro. Or you can look for freelance copywriters on popular Facebook groups for freelancers like Cult of Copy.

When you do find a freelance writer you want to hire, you will need to provide them with a bit of direction – similar kinds of content they should look at to get an idea of what you want, a narrow word count range, specifics about the call to action that should be included.

What You Can Expect to Pay

Most freelance writers charge by the word. You are likely to find writers charging anywhere from 4 cents a word to 8 cents a word. Be wary of a freelancer who offers to do the job for less than 4 cents per word. They are more than likely to be amateurs, and it is unlikely you will be satisfied with their work.

Many freelance writers will ask for a percentage of the conversions their content garners for email campaigns, and some freelance writers will want a combination of per word compensation and a conversion percentage.

It’s Hit or Miss

Finding the right freelance writer for your needs is a bit hit or miss. You may need to hire more than one before you find the best writer for your needs.

Any professional writer will have a portfolio you can look at, but it’s important to remember that they write for their clients. So, their portfolio is not always indicative of their voice or style but rather the voice and style the client has asked for. When you look at a prospective freelance writer’s portfolio, what you want to be on the lookout for, above all else, is variety. The writer’s portfolio should give you an indication of how flexible and versatile the writer is.

Actionable Tip #2 – Get Better at Writing with Online Courses

Hiring a freelance writer can get expensive. Plus, even if you do find a good writer who meets your needs, it is unlikely, in the long run, that you will be able to get as far as you want to go with content marketing if you, yourself, have a strong dislike for writing.

The most common reason people give for not liking writing is that they don’t feel confident in what they write or feel they are simply bad at it. Perhaps they don’t even know how to begin writing a piece of marketing content.

The good news is that you can easily address these issues. There is no shortage of competent professionals willing to share their tools of the trade. It’s always a good idea to level up your career through training, and if you feel that writing is a particular weakness, consider taking an online course in copywriting.

There are several good training platforms you can check out to find the right course for you. Many of them are free, though you may have to pay to receive a certification.

To start with, check out the popular platforms like LinkedIn Learning and Allison. Or check out a more comprehensive list of the 14 best sites for taking online classes.

Actionable Tip #3 – Use Transcription Software

Often, a blank screen or a blank page can provoke anxiety in people. This is another common reason cited why some people hate writing. If that sounds like you, perhaps you should consider dictating your lead-generating marketing content and let AI software create a transcript for you. If you choose this approach, you will still need to do some editing. But at least you won’t have to work from a blank screen or off of an empty page.

Some of the more popular speech-to-text software programs on the market include Veed, Otter, Amazon Transcribe, and Verbit. You can also check out this comprehensive list of the best speech-to-text apps on the market in 2022.

Actionable Tip #4 – Make a Video

A substantial amount of leads are generated online through video content. However, creating good-looking and engaging video content requires some technical know-how – recording and video editing. And the equipment you need to make something of a high enough quality is more than you would need to write a compelling piece of copy. However, creating engaging video content could be an example of taking a weakness (you hate writing) into a strength (you are obliged to make great video content).

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Actionable Tip #5 – Use Pictures

While it’s debatable whether a picture is worth a thousand words, in any event, it is true that when it comes to creating marketing content, a picture (or a series of pictures) can save you from having to write a thousand words.

You’d still need to write a caption or a quote and a call to action. But by relying on pictures, you could create compelling marketing content that will generate more leads for you without having to do much writing.

The Bottom Line

If you hate to write, that’s understandable. Though to create lead-generating content without putting down at least a few words is tricky. However, there are a few workarounds. At the end of the day, it’s best to focus on what you’re good at, what you’re passionate about, while taking steps to try and fortify your weak areas.

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