How to Combine Inbound and Outbound Marketing

You may recall in a previous post, we considered what outbound marketing was and whether it still worked. Outbound, we concluded, is a traditional form of marketing that largely involves cold calls, email blasts, TV, radio and newspaper advertisements. Although the Digital Age has certainly given way to the rise and rise of inbound marketing (i.e. strategies that draw potential buyers in through the effective creation and distribution of content), there is still a place for outbound marketing methods.
And so, this time, we’re going to be looking at some practical methods to combine inbound and outbound marketing, and how to get these separate disciplines working together to drive results. And we’ll do so by focussing on the strengths of each approach.

Inbound Marketing: The Strengths

The number 1 strength of inbound is in its broad appeal. Inbound marketing involves creating large volumes of content that is designed to garner the attention of many, many people online, who will then start to think about your brand and your business and visit your website.
Another core strength of the inbound approach is that it is non-invasive. Indeed, one of the perceived problems with outbound tactics is that they invariably interrupt people in order to slap them around the face with an unsolicited email, cold call, commercial or printed advertisement. Inbound tactics, by contrast, work like marketing magnets. They involve attracting prospects non-intrusively through the distribution of useful content that has value in its own right.

Outbound Marketing: The Strengths

Whereas inbound is about casting the net far and wide, there are certain outbound marketing tactics that take the targeted approach, and this is highly beneficial. Inbound may very well generate lots of traffic and attention, however not all of this will be relevant. By contrast, outbound tactics like PPC (pay-per-click) advertising and pixel-based retargeting methods (such as the Facebook pixel, for instance) can be used to directly target specific content to specific users who are displaying behaviours which indicate that they’re ready to convert.
Furthermore, if you’ve got some new offers that need mass marketing, want to garner contract renewals or win back old customers, then it is toward these types of outbound tactics that you must look.
And finally, the power that outbound methods have to raise brand awareness should also not be sniffed at. Branded, intrusive advertisements that are designed not to be missed will not be missed and deliver the brand lift you’re after. True, many users will not like having your messages forced upon them in such a way – which indeed is why a combination of outbound and inbound is important.

How to combine Inbound and Outbound marketing

Outbound and inbound marketing tactics both have their strengths, but the true power of them is released when put to work in combination. Indeed, when you get inbound and outbound toiling in tandem you will present a more well-rounded view of your company for your prospects to engage with. So let’s consider a couple of practical ways that you can combine the forces of inbound and outbound to best effect.

Targeting Inbound content with Outbound Tactics

As part of your inbound content strategy, you will of course be producing blogs and infographics and eBooks and videos and lots more besides. Some of these inbound content assets will be of more value to your MoFu (middle of the (sales) funnel) prospects than they will be to your broader ToFu (top of funnel) segment.
The trick, then, is ensuring that the MoFu cohort don’t miss these most valuable pieces. So, through the use of outbound tactics – such as banner advertisements, calls from sales reps, or promotional emails – you can target the people who have shown that they are ready to engage, and then deliver an eBook, infographic or link to a specific blog post directly to these people.
Retargeting pixels are of great benefit in this type of scenario. Let’s say you’re in business selling SaaS (software as a service) subscriptions to video editing software. With a retargeting pixel in place on your website, you can retarget anyone who experiments with your software across other channels on the web. I use this example, indeed, because I see it in action myself. I’ve personally experimented with the free version of Shakr – a video making platform. Since I’ve used the service, when I now visit Facebook, the following message is delivered to my news feed encouraging me to download an eBook:

Clearly, Shakr is using the Facebook pixel to complement its outbound marketing tactics and retarget users like me who have experimented with the platform. However, the eBook is also in circulation as part of Shakr’s inbound campaign – thus, providing us with a brilliant example of inbound and outbound tactics being used in conjunction.

Follow up communications

Another great way to combine outbound and inbound is to simply reach out with targeted communications to those that have engaged with you inbound content.
For example, those users who fill out a form before downloading an eBook or whitepaper can be contacted directly by a sales rep with a follow-up call or email. This way you know exactly who to target, and that they have already shown considerable interest in what you do and will therefore be more ready to buy.

Two sides of the same coin

You can see that inbound and outbound are essentially two sides of the same coin. By utilising the strengths of each you can make them work together to deliver better results. Indeed, a solid marketing strategy will encompass both inbound and outbound tactics and ensure that you’re targeting the right prospects with the right content, whilst simultaneously spreading the net wide with lots of inbound efforts, and creating brand lift through outbound.
Need a platform that can help you target customers? Check out the LeadSeed sales and marketing platform to find out how our solution can help you. And please use our Contact Page to reach out.

3 Reasons Why Customer Engagement Counts

“A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption on work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him… He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do it.”

In the days when the above quote was uttered, there was no such thing as the internet, let alone social media. However, the importance of customer service was equally as imperative then as it is now.
Word-of-mouth marketing is indeed an age-old story. Business owners have always known that the second a customer steps back outside the store, they are free to share their experiences – both good and bad.
Today, no matter if you’ve got a physical store, an ecommerce site or both, your customers reside online. They are members of social networking communities that contain millions of users. Any experience shared with these communities, therefore, has massive impact-potential on your future sales – so those experiences need to be good ones.

From Customer Service to Customer Engagement 

And this is where the distinction between customer service and customer engagement comes into play.
Customer service is all about providing due attention at the point of sale, or during the moments when the customer is actively engaging with your business.
Customer engagement, on the other hand, is ongoing. Customer engagement is about fostering all those connections that you have in between customer visits – and social media provides ample opportunity to do so.
Customer engagement requires a business to learn more about each customer beyond the transactions that they make. It means delivering personalised and useful content to your customers in order to extend the engagement time with your brand.
In short, customer engagement means building and nurturing relationships online over time.

3 Reasons Why Customer Engagement Counts 

Customer engagement helps to grow your business. That’s why it counts.

1- Acquiring New Customers Costs More the Retaining Existing Ones  

How much more? Well, according to Invesp, five times more – that’s how much.
What’s more, Marketing Metrics tells us that the probability of selling to an existing customer is 60 – 70%, whilst the probability of selling to a new prospect is just 5-20%.
Engaging your existing customers online, therefore, is vital, for these are the people who have been good enough to give you their business already. Focus on targeting these guys and gals with interesting content in between purchases and they are far more likely to come back for more.

2- They Can Always Go Elsewhere 

Today, no business holds a monopoly. If you aren’t acting on your customers’ expressed needs, then there is a competitor out there who will more than happy to pick up the slack.
Customer engagement means listening to those who do business with you. It means actively seeking out discussions where your brand is mentioned online and addressing as many pain-points your customers are expressing as possible. If this means that you need to add additional services or improve existing ones, then that’s what you’re going to have to do.

3- Bad News Travels Fast 

Negative customer feedback travels a lot faster than positive feedback. As mentioned earlier, word-of-mouth marketing these days takes place primarily online, and so managing and even pre-empting any negative review that you may receive online can make all the difference to how you are viewed by larger swathes of the online community.
The good news, however, is that feedbacklite.com reports that 51% of people who do write a negative review will react positively again towards your brand if you address their issues. The lesson, then, is not to bury your head in the sand. Engage your customers even when they have grievances and your business will benefit.

Want to do more to improve your customer engagement processes? Check out the LeadSeed sales and marketing platform to find out how our automated solutions can help you.  

What Are Outbound Marketing Methods, and do they Still Work?

These days, we hear so much about the importance of inbound marketing it can be too easy to forget that there are any other options.

Whilst it’s most certainly true that in 2016 inbound is unequivocally reigning supreme, it’s important for all marketers to take all approaches into account. So let’s today consider outbound marketing and whether or not it still has a place in the modern world.

What Are Outbound Marketing Methods? 

Outbound marketing, aka “traditional marketing”, refers to the old ways that companies went about making connections with customers.
Perhaps it’s best to contrast outbound marketing with inbound marketing – the latter being what most of us are more familiar with these days.
Inbound marketing is the process of creating various content, usually for the web – blogs, eBooks, videos, whitepapers, even websites themselves – in order that your potential customers may find you.
Outbound marketing, by contrast, is all about a company initiating customer connections and conversations itself, sending messages directly to a targeted audience.
Examples of outbound marketing include:

In short, outbound marketing tries to reach potential customers through traditional media advertising and in-person contact. The purpose is to generate sales leads, which are then passed across to internal sales representatives.
When compared to inbound marketing, outbound marketing is very much the aggressive approach – but does it still work?

Does Outbound Marketing Still Work?  

Outbound marketing, generally speaking, is being increasingly regarded with more and more caution by many modern-day marketers – not least over concerns about its costs.
TV commercials, trade show stalls, newspaper ads, cold call initiatives – all of these things are highly expensive endeavors, and require huge amounts of resources to complete.
The other problem with outbound marketing initiatives is that they often have only a short shelf-life. A TV commercial may last 90 seconds, and then it vanishes into the past. Newspaper ads suffer from the same problem – nobody reads yesterday’s papers, let alone last week’s. Cold calls very often end up with the prospect slamming the phone down or the door shut. Emails are very easily deleted – that’s if they don’t end up in spam folders in the first place.
By contrast, most inbound content lasts forever on the web. If you write a blog post, create a video for YouTube, or craft a whitepaper for your website – that content will still be there to be discovered perhaps years after you first published it.
Brian Halligan from HubSpot talks about the difficulties of outbound marketing:
“I think outbound marketing techniques are getting less and less effective over time for two reasons.  First, your average human today is inundated with over 2000 outbound marketing interruptions per day and is figuring out more and more creative ways to block them out, including caller ID, spam filtering, TiVo, and Sirius satellite radio.  Second, the cost of coordination around learning about something new or shopping for something new using the internet (search engines, blogs, and social media) is now much lower than going to a seminar at the Marriott or flying to a trade show in Las Vegas.”

So, Is Outbound Marketing Dead? 

Well, frankly, it all depends on your target customer.
Generally speaking, if you’ve got a product that’s aimed at an older demographic, then writing inbound blogs and posting links to them on Facebook and Twitter might not have much of an impact. By contrast, outbound marketing methods – such as TV commercials and newspaper advertisements – are the types of marketing material that the older generations are already comfortable with. Indeed, many people still make a point of scanning newspaper advertisements when considering a purchase.
In the B2B realm, in-person events such as trade shows have been rated as the most effective marketing tactic for B2B marketers for the past six years running, with a 75% effectiveness rating being cited in 2016, according to the Content Marketing Institute’s yearly B2B marketing report.
And in truth, although inbound marketing is the most cost-effective option – particularly for emerging SMEs with small budgets and tight margins to contend with – there is still a place for outbound marketing in the Digital Age.
And this is something that I want to explore in greater detail next time, where we will be discussing how to combine inbound and outbound marketing to best effect. Look forward to catching you there!

How to Reconnect with and Win Back Lost Customers

Losing customers from time to time is, unfortunately, inevitable.  Even with the best will, and perhaps even the best product or service in the world, you are still going to experience some level of churn in your entrepreneurial journey.

However, rather than simply sitting back and accepting that a few of your once-loyal customers have veered from your path, you will be pleased to learn that there are a number of efforts you can make to win them back. Let’s take a look…

How to Reconnect with and Win Back Lost Customers 

Identification 

Your first challenge, of course, is to identify exactly who and where your lost customers are.
This might not be too difficult if you’ve been organised, for you will of course have been keeping a spreadsheet or some other database in which all customer details, both existing and past, are stored for future reference.
If you haven’t got one of those, then not to worry, all is not lost.
Instead, start by digging out your sales records (surely you keep those!). Pore over them, and make a new spreadsheet that contains a list of any customers who have gone quiet for a while. It might be a bit of a manual task that consumes a few hours of your time, but it’s nonetheless a necessary one, for you will be left with a list of prime targets for your reconnection campaign.
With this list in hand, you can now head onto your social networks and locate your targets.
Before you reach out, however, the next step is to conduct some self-analysis.

Find Out Why They left 

No one will simply give up on you without reason – so find out what the reason is.
Is your pricing too high? Your service out of date? Does one of your competitors offer a better solution than you?
The key here is to be honest with yourself. Conduct a SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) analysis to try and assess exactly why your service or product is no longer perceived to have the best value to your lost customers.
The trick is to put yourself in your customers’ shoes. It can be hard to be objective in this sense – and if it’s too difficult, then assign the task to someone else, or indeed take a closer look at any complaints that you have received to try and unearth your most likely weaknesses there.

Get Back in Touch 

The next phase is to reach out to your lost customers. With your SWOT analysis completed objectively, you will have a pretty good idea as to how they might be feeling, but you won’t ever be entirely sure until you actually ask them.
You can do this through social media, or it may be more appropriate to send a personalized email. In your message, you should ask the lost customer if they wouldn’t mind jumping on a quick call – for which you may even reward them with some sort of coupon or voucher – to talk through exactly what it was they were no longer happy with.
You might think that your hit rate for these types of calls would be pretty low, but you will actually be surprised at how well a customer loyalty initiative such as this will be received. And an added benefit of doing this, of course, is that even if you don’t manage to win them back, you will at least leave them with a better feeling about your business and your attention to customer service, which will not harm your reputation one bit.

Make Them a Great Offer 

In the B2C realm, great offers are pretty easy to come up with. Discounts and coupons are very simple to organize and distribute, and you will have no problem coming up with something very attractive that will be hard for your customers to refuse.
In the B2B space, however, you’re going to have to be a little more creative. Discounts, of course, will still speak very loudly, but perhaps you could offer something along the lines of a free assessment of their business’s situation and needs. A free report or white paper that shares invaluable insights about their industry might also be well received, and can be particularly effective if it explains in no uncertain terms exactly how your service will continue to benefit their business.

Introduce a Loyalty Program 

One of the best ways, of course, to not have to go through the trouble of trying to reconnect with and win back old customers is to not lose them in the first place, and introducing a loyalty program to your business model is one sure fire way to cut down on your customer churn rate.
Of course, there’s nothing to stop you extending the benefits of your loyalty program to those lost customers you’re trying to reconnect with, and indeed this may well be just the offer that they’re looking for to come back to you.
You can launch your loyalty program through an email campaign, through your website, your social networks, or any combination of the above. However you do it, you will at the very least be encouraging your existing customers to re-engage with your content. But, furthermore, you will also be encouraging those that have left you to at least pay you a revisit, take a look around to see what you have to offer and explore the benefits and rewards of doing business with you once more. And if you create the right package, this could be a really attractive opportunity for them indeed.

Want to do more to nurture your business relationships? Check out the LeadSeed sales and marketing platform to find out how our solution can help you. And please use our Contact Page to reach out. 

How to Use Social Media to Improve Customer Relationships

The advent of social media has been a game-changer when it comes to the relationships people form with their favourite brands (and indeed their least favourite ones).

No longer can brands just be brands – faceless, unreachable, with communication basically a one-way street.
These days, brands have to be human. Indeed, they have to be social – because that’s what social media demands.
Setting up a Facebook Page and expecting people to visit it and buy something doesn’t really cut the mustard in 2016. And the same goes for Twitter, Instagram and all the other platforms.
The trick is to leverage your presence on social media to build meaningful, lasting relationships with your followers and customers, and ensure that they keep coming back for more.
And so, we’ve put together this blog post to give you five super-easy ways you can start doing that today.

How to Use Social Media to Improve Customer Relationships 

Create Dedicated Channels to Handle Questions and Complaints 

Today, when a customer has a query or a complaint, they will turn to social media whether you’re there to handle the comment or not.
It might seem like you will be inviting complaints if you, for instance, set up a Twitter account to handle such things. But consider the fact that a dissatisfied customer is probably going to head over to the network to air their grievances anyway.
Rather than burying your head in the sand, it makes much better sense to engage with the customer quickly and politely, show that you are listening and publicly endeavour to try and fix whatever the problem is that the customer is encountering.
Indeed, by engaging with a disgruntled customer in this way, and by proving to them that you care about their experiences with your brand, you are in fact much more likely to keep them, and of course will have some element of control over what is being said about your service online.

Use Social Media to Solve Problems for Your Customers 

Here’s a rather inspiring story I’ve taken from a blog post by Jennifer Lonoff Schiff for CIO.
Schiff quotes Esti Chazanow, cofounder and brand manager at LIV – Swiss Watches who tells a tale about a moment when their marketing team intervened on a conversation that was taking place on their Instagram account:
“We noticed that two siblings were having a conversation on one of our Instagram photos, saying they wanted to purchase a watch for their dad, but just couldn’t afford it. We piped in saying we would pitch in by offering a coupon code. Their response: ‘Wow now that is impressive @livwatches awesome customer awareness and service!!!’”
How’s about that!
The lesson – monitor all conversations that are taking place on social and take the opportunity to solve a problem, make a sale, and grow your reputation in one fell swoop.

gif-burburry
(Image source – mashable.com)

Who are your biggest and most important followers on social media? No doubt you know who they are – but do they?
Everyone appreciates acknowledgment and recognition – and saying thank you is sometimes all it takes. It’s something that British fashion house Burberry made somewhat of a name for itself over. Back in 2012, to celebrate its first 1 million Twitter followers, @Burberry sent out 3,000 personalised virtual thank you cards written in the chief creation officer’s handwriting style to show how much the company appreciated the engagement from their most important followers.
It’s a tactic that seems to have worked – today the company has over 7 million followers.

Run Competitions 

Everyone loves a bit of competition – and your most loyal following will certainly appreciate the chance of winning something for nothing from their favourite brand.
But of course, a good “like and share” contest is a great way to spread the word about what you do beyond your existing following, and you will be particularly successful if you make appropriate use of hashtags.
Beyond “like and share” comps, however, a good way of increasing engagement is to get your audience actively involved and commenting on what you’re doing. For instance, if you’ve got a new product on offer, then why not give everyone the chance to invent a name for it, with a prize going to the winning nomination.
If it’s a service you’re offering, no worries – how about naming a new company mascot?

Exclusive Offers 

Another sure fire way of making your social audience feel special is to make them offers that they can’t access elsewhere.
Create special offers that are “For our valued Facebook/Pinterest/Twitter/etc. fans only”.
You’ve built up these relationships on these platforms, so it makes sense to nurture them there, too.

All these tips have been designed so that you can start putting them into practice right away. There are of course many more things that you can be doing to improve your customer relationships on social, and some pretty powerful software that can transform your business through these channels. Check out the LeadSeed sales and marketing platform to find out how we can help you nurture your relationships on social, and turn more of your followers into satisfied and engaged paying customers.  

Why Your Business Needs Digital Transformation

The effects of Digital Darwinism are being felt by enterprises the world over. The business world has always been governed in cut-throat “survival of the fittest” terms, but, as the relentless barrage of transformative technology continues to disrupt markets on every level, what constitutes a business as being the “fittest” is quickly being redefined.

Take the entertainment retailer and self-declared “Top Dog for Music” HMV, for instance. Here a company that once dominated the music retail market – and later gaming, video and DVD retail markets – became a most notable victim of Digital Darwinism, calling in the administrators in January 2013. Its failure is epitomized in the words of Managing Director Steve Knott during a meeting with HMV’s advertising partners some ten years previous. The story goes that upon being warned that among the greatest threats to HMV were music downloads and online retailers, Knott shut the speaker down, barking angrily, "Downloadable music is just a fad and people will always want the atmosphere and experience of a music store rather than online shopping.”
Its failure to evolve in a fast-changing market – changing consumer demand, changing technology and changing competition – ultimately left HMV whimpering to the administrators with its tail tucked between its legs.
This is the problem that Digital Transformation is trying to solve for the modern enterprise.

What is Digital Transformation?

Let’s begin with a concise definition: Digital Transformation refers to all of the changes associated with the application of digital technology on all aspects and operations of an enterprise.

It’s important, however, that it is fully understood what is meant by “Transformation”. Transformation does not mean a mere shake-up of processes, the exploration of one or two new marketing or sales avenues, nor even the diversification of current offerings. No, transformation means a fundamental, wholescale change to the very foundational components of the business – from its infrastructure to its marketing models to its operating processes, and even to what it sells and to whom.

But let’s not forget the “Digital” element. Digital Transformation involves harnessing the combined powers of the four great digital disruptors of our time – social media, analytics, mobile, and the cloud (known collectively as the “Third Platform”) – in order to transform the business from its current state, and ultimately save it from the onslaught of Digital Darwinism.

What Problem Is Digital Transformation Trying to Solve? 

Let’s be clear: businesses don’t one day embark upon a Digital Transformation overhaul through choice – rather through necessity.

In order to stay competitive in continuously-evolving markets, it is necessary that enterprises keep pace with technological disruption – in fact, it’s imperative. Businesses need to be continuously embracing new online marketing channels, bringing new digitally-evolved products to market, refreshing the value propositions of their offerings, and utilising cloud technologies to enable scaling and globalisation at pace. Indeed, it is only with Digital Transformation that businesses will continue to be able to reach new sets of customers and increase the lifetime value of existing ones.

HMV needed Digital Transformation. Continuing to base its business model around in-store customers buying expensive CDs and DVDs, when consumer demand had monumentally shifted in favour of digital downloads and online streaming, meant that its doors were always doomed to shut eventually. Indeed, by the time the retailer decided to reinvent itself, iTunes, Netflix and all the rest were already in ascendancy, and HMV was no longer “Top Dog”.

Today’s digitally empowered, mobile-ready, 2016 consumer causes many problems to the enterprises which aren’t equipped to cater for modern needs and demands. These problems manifest themselves through loss of custom (to digitally equipped competitors), inefficient marketing, poor consumer insights, and an inability to scale.

And it’s not just in retail where these difficulties are felt. Financial services, telecoms, media, marketing, aerospace & defence, travel & leisure – in fact, there’s barely an industry landscape in 2016 that isn’t undergoing rapid digital revolution as you read this, and indeed none that will forever be impervious to Digital Darwinism.

What is the problem Digital Transformation is trying to solve? The answer is simple – the problem of businesses in all sectors going the way of HMV through failure to evolve.

The Advantages of Digital Transformation 

Of course, Digital Transformation does more than simply rescue enterprises running on dated models from a doomed path – the digitally transformed business is set to reap huge benefits and advantages as it finds its place in an evolved and internet-dependent marketplace.

Here are five key advantages of Digital Transformation for the enterprise.

  1.        Enhanced Customer Acquisition and Retention

Losing custom to emerging, digitally evolved competitors is a real threat to the modern, established enterprise that is still relying on legacy marketing operations – and even more so for those that haven’t been constantly refreshing their products and services in line with advances in technology and consumer expectation. Digital Transformation will reinvent the offerings and the reach of such enterprises, providing access to larger online markets that are currently out of reach.

  1.      Streamlined Workflow and Operations

A digitally transformed business has powerful technology oiling the machinery behind internal operations, enabling teams to collaborate seamlessly across departments, and streamline communications across a whole workforce and supply chain. The ability, for instance, to share material and inventory data from the warehouse can quickly and efficiently determine production levels and shipments from the manufacturing plant. This level of digital structuring on every operating level enables accurate sales and income forecasts, which in turn facilitates the company’s ability to plan for future growth.

  1.      Greater (i.e. Global) Reach

It is the advancements in digital technology that have enabled the globalised marketplace. Recent advances in cloud technology in particular have removed barriers to entry for even the smallest companies, whose growth now is only limited perhaps by ambition or access to funds – for the technology is there for them to expand as far and wide as they like. Geographical location is no longer an issue for a growing company, as cloud resources are accessible anywhere with an internet connection. Communication processes – even across borders – are streamlined and comprehensive through the use of cloud-based and often freely-available collaboration tools. Software resources can be distributed to a worldwide workforce, all the infrastructure a rapidly-expanding company needs is a simple click away, and the storage, security and backup recovery of a business’s digital assets are all safely handled by cloud service providers. In short, with Digital Transformation there is no limit to a company’s world-wide reach.

  1.      Gained Insight and Foresight to Improve Management and Marketing Decisions

A Digital Transformation program will streamline management on every level. Digital tools will gather, analyse and visualize (graphs, charts, etc.) data gathered from every corner of the enterprise. From this, predictive models will be produced to help CxOs and managers identify business opportunities and risks. All equipment and machinery will be analysed in such a way, which will aid in the formation of the most effective maintenance programs to prevent breakdown. Consumer behaviors will also be analysed to predict the next market trend. The hottest sales leads can be reliably identified early in the sales cycle. And areas of workflow inefficiency in production chains can be recognized and singled out for improvement.

  1.      Speedier Development of New Products and Services Going Forward

Businesses that need Digital Transformation are those that have not kept up with the pace of market, technological and competitor evolution. Once they have embarked on the process to put themselves back in the game, they will then need to make sure that they don’t start slipping behind again. The implementation of modern systems and technology will aid in the market research, production and subsequent sign-off of all new services, campaigns and products, ensuring that, once regained, their place in the modern market does not later give way once more.

Is your business embracing Digital Transformation? Take a look at the LeadSeed sales and marketing platform – our technology can help you identify and convert more qualified business leads with ease, and ensure that your business does not succumb to the fate of Digital Darwinism. Get in touch today to find out more. 

How To Write An Effective Content Marketing Strategy

Whether your business resides in the B2B (business-to-business) or B2C (business-to-consumer) space, content marketing in 2016 is almost certainly one of your top priorities (and if it isn’t, then you need to remedy that pretty sharpish).
Indeed, a recent study from the Content Marketing Institute found that a whopping 88% of B2B marketers use content marketing as part of their marketing strategy. I have to say that I was relieved and encouraged when I read that stat, for it clearly indicates that the overwhelming majority of marketers already understand the modern importance of the practice.
My delight was short-lived, however. For, upon reading the remainder of the article, it was revealed to me that whilst a very pleasing 88% of marketers are using content marketing, only 32% of these have a documented content marketing strategy.

2016_B2B_DocumentedStrategy
Image source: Content Marketing Institute

 

Does Having A Documented Content Marketing Strategy Make A Difference? 

Yes.
Documenting your content marketing strategy provides you with a figurative map and compass which can be used to steer your business towards success. Without one, you are simply driving in the dark without headlights. Granted, you may eventually get to where you want to be like this, but the avoidance of obstacles cannot be guaranteed, and your vessel will most likely suffer damage on the journey.
I don’t like making wild claims without evidence to back it up, mind you, and so once again let’s turn to the Content Marketing Institute’s study.
The research found that the more sophisticated/mature a company’s content marketing strategy, the more effective the results. Take a look at their infographic and then consider the statistics below:

2016_B2B_maturity
Image source: Content Marketing Institute

 

The correlation is therefore simple – the more sophisticated your content marketing strategy, the more effective the results.


How To Write An Effective Content Marketing Strategy 

Writing a content marketing strategy may appear intimidating, but, as the statistics show, it is necessary if you want all of your content marketing efforts to pay off.
The good news is that the writing of an effective content marketing strategy isn’t as difficult as it may first appear. In fact, the process can be a lot simpler than actually creating the content itself – although, having said that, when you’ve got a solid content marketing strategy, content creation becomes a lot easier, so it’s a win-win situation all round.
So let’s now walk through exactly what you need to start building a strategy that will put you in great stead for content marketing success.

1- Define Your Goals 

What are the ultimate goals of your content marketing plans?  
In the first instance, increasing your SEO (search engine optimization) will almost certainly be at the top of your list – the more content you create, the higher you will find yourself on SERPs (search engine results pages), and the higher you are on SERPs, the more discoverable you are.
But, beyond brand awareness, what are your other goals?  
Improving your credibility and status as an industry authority may also be a priority – so you will be wanting to create lots of content that positions you as an expert in your field.
What else? Do you have a mission statement? 
Perhaps you’re selling some sort of product that aims to get young people out and about more. In this case, your mission statement might be something like “[Brand name] seeks to improve the physical health and fitness of young people in a fun and exciting way.”
With your goals set, you can begin to understand more clearly exactly who your target audience is, and from there work out the content that will most appeal to them.

2- Create Client Personas 

Your client personas are fictional renditions of your ideal customer.
So, using the above example, your two main client personas are likely to be the parents of the young people you want to use your product, and the young people themselves.
But, you will need to refine these personas a little more. Does your product appeal to boys or girls the most? And is it mums or dads that you want to target?
Other things like age, physical ability and even household income are important – is your product top-of-the-range, for instance, and very expensive, or is it more affordable?
Once you know these things, you can start researching.

3- Research Your Audience 

So, you’ve developed your client personas – now you need to work out where these types of people hang out online, and what sort of content they are most likely to engage with.
Are they most likely to be found on Facebook or Instagram? Perhaps they’re all over Pinterest, or possibly Twitter?
A great way to determine this is to do some spying on your competitors – where are they posting their content, and how much engagement is it getting?

4- Decide On Formats

Your audience research will almost certainly reveal to you that you will need to be creating different types of content to target your different personas across different marketing channels.
You may realize that whilst parents are showing willing to read and share your blog posts across Twitter, the young people are only really interested in videos on Facebook and Instagram. Take note, and forge your strategy accordingly.

5- Draw Up An Editorial Calendar

By now, you will have a pretty clear content marketing strategy – you know what types of content you will be creating, for whom, and where you will post them. All that you need to do now is accept that you cannot and should not post everything at once, and so draw up an editorial calendar that will track your output over the coming weeks and months.
You will of course need to heed of your resources – writing three blogs a week may sound like the best idea, but if you’re working on your own and need to make time to create video content, infographics, and engage with your following across all of your social channels, then you’re going to have to have a rethink.
Consistency is key, however. If you’re going to focus on a regular blog, then make it regular – post at the same time on the same days of the week, as this way your audience will get to know when and where they can expect new content from you.

Final Word 

I’m afraid to say that making a content marketing strategy is a never-ending process. You will almost certainly find that some elements of your strategy are not paying off as well as you thought they would when you first started them.
This is fine – so long as you adjust your strategy accordingly. The great thing about having a documented content marketing strategy is that you can use it to track your successes and failures. Indeed, keeping yourself informed as to the performance levels of each piece of content that you post will help you make improvements for your future campaigns.
The only other thing to say is that make sure that you promote all of the content that you put out thoroughly and consistently. Share across social media, make sure that you engage with all comments that are left, and thank all likers. With this, you are sure to keep your audience engaged, which should always be one of the key goals of your content marketing efforts.
Good luck, and happy strategizing!

Inbound Marketing is Now a Necessity for Every Business

We live in a dynamic, ever-changing world, and the business and marketing strategies change as well. Nowadays, customers are different, so in order to get their attention, we have to use a different marketing strategy. One such is inbound marketing - it gives you the ability to give the consumer the answers he is looking for, exactly when he needs them. Unlike conventional marketing, you don't have to fight for the people's attention; you simply facilitate their search and help them find you, your business, product or services. It gives you the power to compete with big companies, but at the same time, it is way cheaper than traditional marketing.

The Larger the Audience, the Better for Your Business

Inbound marketing's primary aim is to attract more people to your website with the help of a set of powerful tools. But attracting just any people to your website is certainly not the best and most effective marketing strategy. You are looking for people who want the product or service you offer. By securing a large audience of interested people and raising awareness to your business, you get more potential customers, resulting in more sales and ultimately a more successful business. But how can you make it happen?

The Tools You Have at Your Disposal

A set of powerful tools are at the heart of inbound marketing, and blogging is one of them. Creating a blog can help you attract new visitors who are looking for educational and informative content. The search for such content goes through the use of a search engines like Google. This is where the second marketing tool comes in play - Search Engine Optimization or SEO. It involves choosing the right keywords, optimizing your webpage, creating informative content and incorporating these keywords in it. The texts you create are part of the content marketing category - they attract customers, increase your website's value and allow you to communicate with potential customers in a non-intrusive manner. By optimizing your site's pages, you will ensure that whenever customers are looking for the product you offer, they will find your website, instead of the page of your rival.

It Can Make the Difference between Success and Failure

In conclusion, just like any marketing strategy out there, inbound marketing is not easy and can be quite time-consuming. However, it certainly is the most effect marketing you have at your disposal; it gives you great power and can make the difference between success and failure. And although it requires a lot of knowledge and dedication, it pays to tap in the world of inbound marketing.