Marketing automation strategy is one of the most important aspects of your business that you should routinely be thinking about. Without a clear plan in place, you will find that your investment in marketing content will not be effective, and returns will be limited, or nonexistent.
So how do you create content for your marketing automation strategy? What do you need to consider and how can you go about being more efficient?
Email marketing is one of the best ways to sell to your target audience. According to research, it is the third best online sales generator, with only direct visits and organic search being better. However, the effectiveness of email marketing is only possible when you use best practices.
Here are 10 of the most important email marketing best practices you should be using for your campaigns.
What marketing automation stats do you need to know for success?
Marketing automation is one of the best ways to reach your audience without spending a lot on staff. Also, it saves you a significant amount of time managing your marketing campaigns. Also, for your marketing campaigns to be effective, you need to have the best information to guide you in the management of the automation processes.
Certain statistics and studies can help you make the best decisions for your business so here are some of the most important stats to maximize your returns.
What gift can you give away to get new leads?
The number of touch points (the interactions between a brand and a prospective customer) has increased since the development of the Internet. No longer are only one or two connections enough for your business to make that all important sale. Sometimes a prospective customer will interact with your brand at least eight times before making a purchase.
The problem is when a potential customer lands on your website or visits you at a trade show; there is little chance they will remember you beyond that meeting unless you provide them with a giveaway item.
When you are starting up a new venture, you will experience challenges. Some of these will probably be easy to solve such as choosing suppliers and implementing the right procedures to get the work done. But there will be barriers that are harder to answer.
One of the biggest problems startups face is hiring a competent sales team. Some commentators report that a bad sales team will lead to the business’ failure and with 90% of businesses failing within two years, bringing in customers is an essential task that must be done right.
So what are the five biggest challenges that startups have to endure in today’s modern world?Continue Reading..
Your website can be one of the best lead generation paths you have at your disposal. It can be used to collect a variety of information from your visitors, so you can segregate them into different lists to advertise and sell relevant products to.
Without market segmentation, you can’t properly sell to your leads.
Lead segmenting is a vital task if you want to be successful in generating new customers for your business. Segmenting a list allows you to send more relevant sales materials to each lead and achieve better sales results. It can also save you costs by not sending irrelevant content to particular contacts.
As with any aspect of running a business, there are several options for you to choose from when segmenting a list. The only challenge for you is to decide which is best for your target audience and business.Continue Reading..
Tracking your best lead sources optimizes your marketing and sales process for profit and efficiency.
The lead source for each sale your business makes is an important piece of information. It informs you where you are making good investments and where investment is not being returned. It also allows you to refine your marketing budgets to take advantage of opportunities and reduce funding for avenues that are proving less effective.
For instance, you could be spending $500 on two marketing channels, social media, and PPC. You find with lead tracking that PPC is making 80% of your sales and generating $8,000 per month compared to just $2,000 per month from social media. While both are making a profit, it is evident to see that there is a greater opportunity from PPC and the extra money could be funneled into that avenue to increase sales and grow the business.
The difficulty is in determining what your lead sources are. With the rise of the internet, the places that leads could be generated from has multiplied to an incomprehensible size. So you have to be smart in the way that you track your lead sources.
Here are some of your options with the advantages and disadvantages of each.Continue Reading..
When you are processing a lead to generate new business, you have to be sure that they are ready to speak to your sales team.
Research has found that 73% of your prospects are cold at any given time – this means that the lead is not ready to speak to a member of your team. If you do talk to them too early, then you risk of turning them from a cold lead to a lost cause.
Cold calling is a particular problem. Surveys have discovered that only 20% of customers trust the information they receive during a cold call. That is why using techniques such as email marketing, and inbound marketing can be excellent to determine whether your lead is hot or not.
So how do you know when a lead is ready to speak with a member of your sales team? Here are a few factors that could help you determine that.Continue Reading..