Join us on Tuesday, June 7th, from 11-12pm, PST, for a live Twitter Chat (#LoveYourCRM) with with CEO & co-founder of Captora, Paul Albright.
As CEO & co-founder of Captora, Paul brings unique experiences from leading product, marketing and sales in some of Silicon Valley’s most innovative, market-creating, private and public software companies. Paul currently serves on the Board of Directors of Clarizen, and is a frequent speaker and blogger, helping to demystify modern marketing strategies that accelerate growth in high-performing companies.
Paul will discuss a variety of topics for small business owners, including tips about growing your top of funnel marketing, how to hone your leadership skills, and more.
Join us at #LoveYourCRM!
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
Your small business is chugging right along and your marketing efforts have done pretty well, but you’re ready to take things to the next level. You wonder, what do marketing professionals do that I could implement in my company? Well, wonder no more. We’ve got some of the best practices in the marketing industry happening right now. And the great news? You don’t have to run a giant corporation to benefit from them.
Get to Know Your Customers Before You Start Marketing.
Picture your business as a bicycle tire with your customer at the center. Everything you do, every spoke of your tire, radiates from that customer. So it only makes sense that you should know exactly who you’re marketing to before you waste any energy moving in the wrong direction.
Surveys and website analytics are excellent places to start getting to know your customers.
When Others Zig With Their Content, Zag.
Content marketing is so 2011, so how can you stand out? The key is to deliver what your audience can’t get anywhere else. Get creative. Use Q&As, behind-the-scenes looks, and interviews to spice up what you post on your blog.
Once again, website analytics come in handy here because you can find out exactly which blog posts resonate with your audience.
Take One Piece of Content and Expand It.
Think beyond the blog post. Content marketing opens up a whole world of possibilities and you should leverage them all; videos, ebooks, podcasts, and infographics just scratch the surface. Use blog topics as a jumping off point for a variety of content.
Outsource What You’re Not Good At.
You may love managing social media for your brand, but have no time to do it. Or you may dread writing blog posts. Whether it’s a lack of time or interest, don’t forsake these useful marketing tools. Instead, hire someone else to manage them for you.
A perk of outsourcing is that you get access to some cutting-edge tools you might not have discovered on your own.
Stay on Top of Customer Data.
Your CRM is no good if you don’t leverage what you’ve got! If you’re diligent about entering information about leads and customers, this is a data goldmine that you can then use to decide what sorts of products to add to your offerings, determine where you’ll market, and stay in touch with past clients.
Another neat thing about Insightly’s CRM is integration with other tools you’re already using, like email marketing and other marketing tools, so that data can take you even further in your marketing.
Have a Crisis Management Plan.
No one wants to think it will happen to them, but PR crises do occur. How you handle one will determine your brand’s ability to bounce back quickly. Have a plan in place for what you’ll do if you make a major public mistake or get a nasty review on Yelp.
Use a Content Calendar.
An editorial or content calendar can help you see the big picture in regards to marketing campaigns as well as dive into the specifics of what you’ll cover on your blog (or social media) in a given month. This helps you plan ahead and stay organized.
Upgrade Your Marketing Tools.
What worked five years ago to market to your audience might turn them off these days. Consider the popup box. Years ago, these offended people and they’d leave your website. If you’re still using a popup from 1999, you’re probably not getting the conversion rate you’d like. On the other hand, if you use an upgraded version like SumoMe’s ListBuilder, you’ll be able to leverage modern technology that actually works to convert visitors into customers.
Pay for Your Stock Photos.
Please stop using Creative Commons or just “some site” for your blog images. Yes, it can cost several hundred dollars a year to subscribe to a stock photo site, but it’s worth every penny if you attract more people with your professional-quality photos. PhotoSpin is an affordable site with a variety of images.
Have Sales Talk to Marketing.
For some reason, sales and marketing departments rarely overlap. One doesn’t know what the other is doing, and that makes for problems down the road. Even if you’re a small operation and don’t have sales and marketing teams per se, still consider them two sides to the same coin, and have your efforts in both areas work together for the greater good.
These are just a few examples of marketing best practices that you can integrate into your small business.
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
In a perfect world, your ideal customer would come directly to you knowing exactly what he needs and ready to purchase. However, this is rarely how it goes down. Instead, businesses must cultivate and nurture leads to the point of purchase. For many small businesses, there’s often no concrete process in place for attracting and managing leads, which can lead to lost opportunity and a less than ideal customer experience. In order to find and close the deal with customers, your team needs to have a streamlined process for bringing leads through the pipeline. Thankfully, there have been plenty of technology advancements over the years that make this easier than ever. Here are 5 tips to improve lead generation and management.
Know your ideal customer
What problems does he face? What is he most interested in? On what channels does he prefer to be communicated? This will help you to create the most compelling content delivered in the most ideal manner, which will increase the chances that he will pay attention to you and what you’re selling. Segment your customers into profiles – there will be different buyer personas, all requiring a different approach.
Create the right content
To attract attention and educate your prospects, you’ll need to create a portfolio of content – blogs, webinars, e-books, SlideShares. This is your shot to control how your company and products are positioned and hype up all the ways in which you can help alleviate the challenges your customer is facing. Even more compelling is that 54 percent more leads are generated by inbound tactics versus paid marketing. This can save companies an average of $20,000 per year.
Build the relationship
Now that you’ve hooked your prospect with compelling content, it’s time to nurture that lead in order to bring him to the next step in the buyer journey. If he’s not ready at that moment, back off and make a note in your customer relationship management (CRM) tool to circle back at a later date. According to Smart Insights, marketing leads convert less than those that have been nurtured over time; so think about your personalized communication strategy throughout the sales funnel rather than one-off campaigns. Seventy-five percent of leads are not ready to buy! Another smart way to stay top of mind during a situation like this is to share relevant content without the expectation of a sale. It’s all about educating and building a rapport.
Get feedback
This is a step that a lot of organizations miss. Whether you closed or lost the deal, you should always try to get feedback. If you couldn’t close, what happened? Where was the breakdown? Adversely, what did you do right that brought him to purchase? This information is key in order to improve your process and identify the winning approach.
Businesses can’t survive without leads and loyal customers. By following these tips, your organization is more likely to generate and convert leads more efficiently.
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a huge variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
Join us on Tuesday, June 7th, from 11-12pm, PST, for a live Twitter Chat (#LoveYourCRM) with with CEO & co-founder of Captora, Paul Albright.
