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How to Close More Deals With a B2B Referral Program

How You Can Close More Deals Faster With a B2B Referral Program

Marketing, Sales / By

In today’s digital world, your customers are skeptical. It is easy for anyone to say anything online. With all the information, your B2B customers will likely listen only to opinions from those whom they trust.

Continue reading or use the links below to “jump” ahead:

The power of referrals is undeniable. Roughly 84% of B2B customers start their buying process with a referral. Additionally, companies with a B2B lead referral program have a 71% higher conversion rate.

Companies with referral programs sales stats

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What Is a B2B Referral Program?

A solid way to close more deals is through a B2B referral program. Referral marketing incentivizes satisfied customers to recommend your product or service to business decision-makers.

A referral program involves a process, often with a web page on which customers can enter business contacts. Occasionally, contacting representatives of referred businesses is not a B2B referral program. Instead, these recommendation programs track referrals and reward your customers when their recommendation produces a sale.

The Advantages of Having a B2B Referral Network

A network of customers who refer businesses to your brand can expand your B2B referral program and improve its effectiveness. Below are some advantages of a B2B referral network:

Increased Sales 

Word-of-mouth advertising is the basis of B2B referral marketing. When a prospective client is referred to you through someone they trust who loves your brand, they most likely will convert. Referrals can improve conversion rates by up to 71%.

A referral network builds relationships, improves customer experience and expands word-of-mouth advertising about your products and services. These three B2B referral program benefits increase sales. 

Lower Acquisition Costs

While getting new customers boosts sales, acquiring them can be expensive. It costs five times more to get new customers than keep current ones.

B2B referral programs lead to lower acquisition costs for new customers. Leads and signups recommended by a current customer are more likely to buy. This is because these new leads trust the opinion of the person who loves your product or service.  

Customer Retention Lower Acquisition Costs

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Lower Churn Rates 

You will have customers leave over time. Churn rate is the percentage of customers who stop doing business with you. You must have new customers to balance the amount of existing ones.

Besides lowering acquisition costs, a B2B referral program can lower churn rate. In fact, referred customers have a retention rate 37% higher than non-referred ones.

B2B referral marketing programs are powerful lead-generation tools that attract high-quality leads. These leads will likely stay and do business with you over the long term, reducing churn.

Increase in Customer Lifetime Value (LTV) 

Customer lifetime value (LTV) is the total revenue a customer generates for your business. LTV increases the more someone spends and the longer they are a customer.

A B2B referral program improves customer LTV with enhanced engagement with your company. Referred customers loyal to your business have a 25% higher lifetime value when recommended by friends, family members or colleagues. Customers will invest in your brand when the social proof and reputation of someone they trust are on the line.

Promote Brand Awareness 

B2B referral programs are excellent ways to promote your brand through word-of-mouth advertising. The more people talk about your brand, the greater your exposure, resulting in more sales. 

Brand awareness offers the following additional benefits: 

  • Builds brand equity
  • Makes scaling up easier  
  • Allows you to collect data on your audience for future marketing endeavors

Why B2B Referral Marketing Is So Effective

B2B referral programs increase the likelihood of closing deals. Below are some ways referral marketing is effective at producing sales:

1. Customers trust referrals.

Customers trust referrals from people they know. Reviews and recommendations from others perform much better than conventional advertisements. Studies show people are four times more likely to buy when referred by a friend.

2. Referred customers are more loyal.

When customers are referred to your company by someone they trust, they will stick around. Referral marketing helps potential customers start with a high opinion of your company.

3. Increase ROI

Referral marketing programs increase your return on investment (ROI) because it is more cost-effective than other forms of marketing. Getting customers through referrals can be up to five times less expensive than traditional advertising channels.

While there are costs with the rewards you offer, the benefits to your customers will be worth it. As mentioned, these referred customers are high-quality and will likely become loyal customers. 

Your B2B referral program can be even more cost-effective with the types of rewards you offer. Awarding points or credits to people who recommend your brand can be cheaper than giving an immediate gift or discount.

4. Increase your marketing reach

Word-of-mouth marketing is an effective way to spread awareness of your brand and build credibility. Customers trust you when they hear good things about your offerings from those they respect.

People who recommend your brand to others become your brand ambassadors, offering free advertising. Referral advertising is limitless since nobody can prevent people from talking about your business. You also expand your potential lead base as your ambassadors will have diverse circles of acquaintances. 

5. Easy setup

B2B referral programs are quick and easy to set up because many are automated. All you have to do is decide which rewards to offer and what people must do to earn the rewards. 

You can also create a referral marketing program by asking customers to share the name of whoever referred them. You then reward them according to what your program outlines.   

Referral marketing program example

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6. Collect valuable data

B2B referral programs allow you to gather information on prospective leads and market trends. When you know your referrals, you can give them an engaging and personalized experience by meeting their needs.

7. Increase customer engagement

Consumers buy from brands that are engaging with them. Customers are more engaged in sharing your brand through a referral program. A B2B referral program will drive brand advocates back to your website, increasing the chance of a sale.

8. Boost your social media

B2B referral marketing allows people to refer friends to your business via social media. Incentivizing loyal customers to promote your brand on their social networks will expand your social media presence.

Referral Marketing Stats

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How to Build a B2B Referral Program for Your Business

You may be wondering how you start building a B2B referral program. The first place to start is to figure out the right rewards for your B2B referrals.

To offer the right perks, you must know your audience and provide rewards that your referrals will enjoy. Gift cards, discounts on goods and services and credits are popular B2B referral program rewards.

After deciding on your B2B referral marketing rewards, here are some things to consider when building your program:

  1. Establish a service agreement with a referral section built in. When onboarding new customers, let them know you appreciate and reward referrals.
  2. Request referrals either via phone or in-person from satisfied customers. If you get a glowing review from a customer, ask them to refer your business when thanking them.
  3. Send follow-up emails. After communicating your referral program to customers, follow up with an email campaign.
  4. Conduct customer satisfaction surveys and questionnaires. Ask your customers about the quality of their experiences with your brand and services. Follow up with the ones most likely to refer you.
Referral program steps

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Examples of Successful B2B Referral Programs

The benefits of having a B2B referral program have convinced you to create one of your own. You know what you need to get one off the ground, but what does a good referral marketing program look like? Here are some examples of companies with effective referral programs:

1. Bench Accounting

Bench Accounting is a fintech company that provides automated bookkeeping software. Bench Accounting’s B2B referral program offers a free month of accounting to friends of existing customers.

2. Airtable

AirTable offers an all-in-one solution for teams to collaborate and communicate. Their referral marketing program gives credits to those who recommend the company to others.

Those who refer others to Airtable receive 100 credits for new accounts and 25 credits should those customers upgrade. Credits go towards discounts and perks.

3. SurveyMonkey

SurveyMonkey is a SaaS company that allows businesses to create and analyze the results of surveys. SurveyMonkey uses referral software to run its program automatically. Their referral marketing program gives members $500 for every organization registering a SurveyMonkey account.

4. DigitalOcean

DigitalOcean provides businesses with a workforce management tool to help them with their IT needs. DigitalOcean offers many perks based on the actions taken by the referrals.

With their B2B referral program, members receive a $25 credit when a referral spends $25. Members receive $100 and a 60-day credit when a referral adds a payment method.

DigitalOcean Referral Program

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5. Hotjar

Hotjar allows businesses to analyze and understand the behavior of people who visit their websites. Their referral program offers different rewards for different levels of referrals

The top referrer receives a free lifetime business account. The top-five runner-ups get a free hoodie. Those who make five referrals get a free T-shirt.

6. Jawfish Digital

Jawfish Digital is a content marketing and web design agency offering clients content creation, web design and e-book production services. Their B2B referral program awards $100 Amazon gift cards to anyone who recommends their content or web design services.

Businesses that want to attract quality leads and close more deals need a B2B referral program. These marketing programs offer many benefits and are easy to set up and customize.

Conclusion

Check out LeadBoxer today to learn how it can significantly help your company increase its lead generation through custom lead scoring combined with 20 of the most popular and requested app integrations.

Hyper Personalization Other Ways to Shorten the Sales Life Cycle

Hyper Personalization & Other Ways to Shorten the Sales Life Cycle

Marketing, Sales / By

As we emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses are continuing to face a challenging economy. For those who weathered the uncertainty of 2020, current rising interest rates and inflation are pushing businesses to streamline spending as much as possible. Despite fears of a recession, there are ways to grow and increase revenue for B2B companies.

Strategically using marketing and other tactics to shorten the sales life cycle (SLC) can help your team capitalize on existing resources, while improving return on investment (ROI).

Keep reading or use the following links to “jump ahead”:

What Is Hyper Personalization?

customer decision chart

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Superb customer experience (CX) should be the chief focus of your sales and marketing efforts. This includes reaching out to your target audience in a timely manner and ensuring your messaging contains helpful information. Customers most want to know how your product relates to their needs!

Incorporating automation and taking advantage of data-driven marketing techniques can help improve the individual CX throughout your sales cycle. Rather than trying to apply a one-size-fits-all approach, hyper personalization addresses the unique needs of each customer to help close a deal. This method relies heavily on data collection and proper data analysis, which gives your marketing team an informed understanding of their target audience.

Before jumping into using this strategy, it’s important to create and know your ideal customer profile. Effective lead segmentation is also key for success.

While you can’t personalize your outreach for each individual customer, content should be segmented based on audience groups in similar stages of the buying process. This helps funnel customers through the sales pipeline by providing relevant product information on a timeline that suits their needs.

Instead of selling your product to the masses, hyper personalization provides educational content to help cultivate and deepen customer relationships. This happens by using data to help uncover more information about prospective leads and current customers. This data includes browsing history, content engagement, purchasing behavior, and their activity timelines.

This type of marketing allows your team to capitalize on money that’s already been spent, rather than upping the budget. Your company may need to invest in lead generation software that tracks website engagement and stores data. Once in place, a quality lead information platform can prove pivotal in boosting your ROI.

Costs will begin to decrease as automation, audience segmentation, and a streamlined workflow helps reach your customers. Research conducted by Deloitte shows that in return for more personalized service, 22% of customers are willing to share personal data. In the same report, Deloitte asserts evidence suggests companies can see an 8x increase in ROI when hyper personalization is executed properly.

Maximizing revenue with this tactic can come from boosting online sales, improving CX and increasing customer retention. Start with focused content that showcases your product and brand making it stand out from your competitors. By creating this content, your marketing team can push educational resources to customers throughout the sales cycle to aid their product research.

How To Implement Hyper Personalization Into Your Marketing Strategy

Once you understand the concept, implementing this tactic takes a bit of advance work. Through techstacks, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), and data analytics, your team can apply hyper personalization to shorten the sales life cycle (SLC).

  • Get to know your customers. While this seems self-explanatory, this strategy relies heavily on a deep understanding of your current clients and leads. Buyer personas and ideal client profiles are a great starting point for this.

Digging a little deeper into your current customers and their product usage can help you understand what motivates new leads to seek out your services. Take time to gather feedback from your current customers. This can be done through social media, sales conversations, and website forms.

Gather insight through analyzing website and content engagement. Understanding how prospects interact with your page can inform the content your team creates. This information can be gathered and stored through a lead generation tool like Leadboxer for easy access.

  • Create a strong techstack. Utilizing technology will help streamline your marketing process, remove siloes between sales and marketing teams and shorten the SLC. Collecting clean data is vital to this strategy, and technology is the best way to gather reliable information.

Invest in a lead generation and lead management platform that integrates with your CRM to update data in real-time. This technology will capture prospect information, segment and score new leads, and track content engagement.

  • Build your content strategy. Using the data your marketing team has gathered, begin crafting a strategy to push out content. This will be a collection of social media posts, educational content, and email marketing.

Rather than rolling out all of this content to every customer, your team should focus on audience segmentation for a hyper personalized experience. Consider trigger points for promotional deals or educational pieces. For example, if an interested lead fills out a web form, your site can offer an informational guide about your industry.

Segmentation will help make sure email marketing campaigns are being sent to customers at the right stage in the sales cycle.  By dividing groups based on being in similar phases of the customer journey, your content can help push customers to quicker sales conversions.

  • Take advantage of automation. Remove some of the burden from your marketing team, and replace repetitive tasks with automation. This will help eliminate room for human error from the marketing and sales cycle, while freeing up resources for other activities.

Using automation to send out content based on different trigger points can help you keep your  product top of mind with your customer base. Automated email marketing keeps prospects informed of changes and advancements in the service or product you provide. Automation also helps cleanse your data, as an automated process collects and stores information in real time.

Successfully Using Email Marketing For Targeted Outreach

What Businesses Think Of Personalized Emails

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Shortening the SLC requires good communication to help nurture customer relationships. While your salespeople may be making a good effort to connect with prospects over the phone, engaging leads with email marketing can help increase ROI.

Rather than spending money on prospecting, take advantage of the contacts your company has gathered over the years. These are leads who have already heard of your service or product, so capitalize on their brand awareness to re-engage them in the sales funnel. Continuing communication through triggered email newsletters or drip campaigns can ensure your team is reaching out at the right moment.

According to Hubspot, audience segmentation is used by at least 30% of marketers to help increase email engagement. Some brands have seen strong improvement through a combination of hyper personalization and email marketing.

For example, Naked Wine, an e-commerce wine company, successfully uses this tactic to personalize wine selections for their customers. Using customer reviews, they tailor their customer recommendations based on preferences shared by similar target audiences. With this strategy, Naked Wine saw an improvement in overall email engagement and a 40% increase in campaign conversion rate.

Using segmented email lists can help your sales team time align its outreach efforts with customer needs. Your team can track lead engagement to pinpoint when potential customers are gearing up to make a purchase.

Key Takeaways

Shortening the sales cycle is a great way to increase ROI during an economic downturn. With customers spending less time in the sales cycle, resources are freed to engage new leads and attract new prospects. Using hyper personalization can help your team strengthen customer relationships while simultaneously introducing new leads to your brand.

By segmenting audiences and ensuring relevant information is reaching clients during their customer journey, your sales team can pitch your product in a timely manner. Hyper personalization relies on up-to-date data and automation to run smoothly. Incorporating this strategy with a techstack that includes a lead generation tool can help boost your success rate.

Take time to understand your current customers. Evaluate the ways in which your products are meeting their needs. This information will help attract similar leads, while providing valuable insight into the ways clients interact with your brand.

Plan content accordingly, and utilize trigger points to get relevant information into the hands of the most eager customers. By having content ready for all stages of the sales cycle, communication can help prospects make informed purchases.

Automate processes to free up time and other resources for sales and marketing teams. By allowing technology to play a key role in this strategy, your team can avoid human errors and plan content with the most accurate data points.

Increase brand loyalty by promoting new services or product lines to satisfied customers through email marketing. Utilizing email for continued communication, even after the sale has been made, can help retain clients and encourage repeat purchases. Targeted outreach helps demonstrate your willingness to meet customers’ needs.

Get started with a free Leadboxer trial today to experience what quality lead generation, lead management, and easy integration with the popular tools you already use can do to improve your bottom line!

Upcoming Trends in Lead Generation Management for 2023

Upcoming Trends in Lead Generation & Management for 2023

Lead Generation / By

B2B lead generation services are an essential element of any successful marketing and sales strategy for 2023. Lead generation is the first step in creating a full sales pipeline. Along with lead qualification, lead management is an important tactic to use as customers begin their sales journey.

Understanding the upcoming trends across the B2B industry can help your team plan for future success. Lead generation is a proven methodology that has doubled in popularity since 2017.

To get started with your lead generation strategy, keep reading, or use the links below to “jump ahead”:

What Is a Lead Generation Strategy?

lead generation for b2b marketers statistics

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Simply put, lead generation is the process of finding prospects who may be interested in your product and adding them to your sales pipeline. These potential clients should be qualified and scored based on their readiness to make a purchase. Then, they will be handed over to either marketing or sales to continue their customer journey.

Creating a lead generation strategy will help your marketing and sales team plan out where their energy should be used. This strategy will help uncover new leads as well as re-engage those who may have fallen out of the pipeline.

More than half of all marketers are spending at least 50% of their budget on generating leads, yet only 80% of marketers rate their efforts as somewhat effective. Capitalizing and improving lead generation tactics can make a huge difference in return on investment (ROI) for marketing departments.

There are four main components of a lead generation strategy: lead capture, lead magnets, conversion techniques and lead scoring. Understanding all of these elements will help your company create a well-rounded strategy and take advantage of upcoming trends.

Lead Capture

Many buyers do their own research when looking for solutions for their businesses. There’s a good chance most start with a Google search and click through the web pages that pop up.

It takes at least three months for 63% of generated leads to convert.This means identifying, capturing and engaging website traffic is extremely important for filling your sales funnel with prospects ready to start their customer journey.

Capturing leads can be accomplished in a few ways, including contact information forms and the use of lead generation software. Software like LeadBoxer helps your team identify and score prospects based on their activity on your website. Using these tools can help your team gather contact information and interact with interested customers.

Lead Magnets

This component can help your team avoid losing touch with one-time visitors to your website. If your attempts to gather contact information are stalling, lead magnets are a great way to interact with the customer and begin establishing a relationship. 

A lead magnet is a type of content that provides value information to online visitors in exchange for their contact information. Lead magnets can be as simple as a free trial or webinar. White papers or eBooks are also great lead magnet options.

Educational blogs see 52% more organic web traffic than blogs focused on company information. Search engine optimization (SEO) still matters, and prospects are interested in the value your content can provide. This type of marketing material may persuade website visitors to join your mailing list or schedule a sales call.

When a prospect goes to register or download your gated content, they will need to put in their contact information, which allows your team to easily add them to the sales pipeline.

Conversion Techniques

Using a lead generation landing page is another way to gather contact information from prospects. Utilizing this practice can help your team stay on top of the newest trends for 2023. Currently, just 68% of B2B companies use landing pages for lead generation.

These types of pages serve two purposes:

  1. Adding customers to your pipeline while educating them about the services you can provide.
  2. Combining landing pages with ads is a great way to direct web traffic to your site.

Lead Scoring

Before pushing your generated leads to the pipeline, it’s important to rank prospects based on how likely they are to convert. This will help manage your leads and make sure customers are receiving communication that fits their current stage in the buying journey.

According to Hubspot, 79% of B2B companies lack an established lead scoring system. Adopting this tactic can put your team ahead of the curve, ready and able to take advantage of current trends.

As the B2B industry continues its emergence out of the COVID-19 pandemic, some lasting effects can still be felt. In 2023, lead generation strategy will continue to remain fully digital.

According to McKinsey, the majority of decision makers for B2B companies prefer the digital landscape. Relying on automation can help companies stay competitive in the B2B industry.

Webinars and video content will continue to grow as key components of marketing for the B2B buyer in 2023. Insider Intelligence found that webinars about the product are attended by 55% of prospects before they accept a sales meeting,

Implementing a chat bot may be a way to get ahead of competitors. While it seems like a lot of websites have chat bots available, only 33% are used to create conversions with marketers.

Taking advantage of this opportunity can help funnel more interested prospects into your pipeline. Research predicts the use of chat bots will help facilitate $142 billion USD of consumer spending by 2024.

What Is Lead Management? 

Lead Management Cycle

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Lead management is the strategy your marketing team uses to capture, qualify and track leads before passing them along to your salespeople. It is crucial to organize this data. If your company isn’t focused on executing a strong lead management system, resources and efforts will go to waste, which can contribute to an overall lower ROI from marketing costs.

Inbound leads can lower costs per lead by 61%; outbound leads tend to cost 39% more. This means using lead generation strategies and creating a successful management plan can help lower overall costs for your organization.

A main component of successful lead management is automation. Investing in the right software can help your team reduce manual labor, maintain clean data and analyze leads in real time. 80% of marketers believe incorporating automation into their marketing efforts helps generate more leads, as well as conversions.

Using LeadBoxer as your lead generation and management platform can help you identify, qualify, score and manage leads in one place. It also includes integrations that work seamlessly with other software in your tech stack. This helps streamline communication between sales and marketing departments.

Leadboxer successfully helps with data cleansing by using profile enrichment to update customer information. The platform also provides marketing insights, which helps give automatic data analytics for your team to use.

LeadBoxer’s Custom Lead Scoring Tool works to make sure your sales team is concentrating on customers who are most likely to convert. This cutting edge software automatically calculates a lead score using a variety of factors to determine how each prospect should be ranked.

By integrating with your tech stack, Leadboxer works with Google, HubSpot, LinkedIn, Mailchimp, Marketo, Outlook, WordPress and others to ensure your data is clean and leads are properly qualified.

Using lead management and qualification can help your company stay ahead of the curve. For companies working without automation, verifying leads and deciding their value can be a difficult challenge. 

Just 56% of B2B marketers verify a business and its information before sending the lead to sales. With Leadboxer’s platform, lead scoring is handled automatically, so marketing doesn’t have to worry about passing along bad leads.

The B2B Lead Generation Services Market

The B2B lead generation services market is trending upwards for 2023 and beyond. This data can help predict what to watch for in the coming years.

Experts predict the market will continue to benefit from technological innovation. With new advancements, products will continue to improve, which will increase usage across the industry.

The market is expected to expand to multi-millions by 2027. Reports show the 2021 market held a value of 1900.34 million USD, which is predicted to grow to 3733.52 million over the next four years.

Business Research Insights revealed challenges the industry may face in 2023 include a lack of awareness around its services. Smaller businesses need to discover the market so they can boost participation.

Get a jumpstart on your lead generation strategy for the new year, and see how LeadBoxer’s lead scoring feature can help your company with a free trial!

Why a SaaS Business Model Can Help Your Startup Budget Evolve and Grow

Why a SaaS Business Model Can Help Your Startup Budget, Evolve, and Grow!

Lead Generation, Other / By

Running a software as a service (SaaS) business is exciting but challenging. By offering a digital product or service, a traditional business model won’t help your company scale. A B2B SaaS lead generation model is needed. 

Read on for the full article or “jump ahead” to the following topics:

SaaS Lead Generation Model

The traditional software business model is losing popularity compared to the SaaS model. With the former, lead generation is based on acquisition. With the latter, it’s based on customer retention. This is because it costs 5-25 times more to acquire new customers than it does to retain existing ones. 

The SaaS lead generation model shows how incremental improvements are highly profitable. Bettering customer retention by a small amount can greatly scale a SaaS company as customers support the brand. In fact, a 5% increase in customer retention can boost revenue by up to 95%.

Of course, you’ll need to have a scalable SaaS company in order to take full advantage of the SaaS lead generation model. Successful SaaS businesses have the following elements: 

  • Find an unmet need and offer a solution to it.
  • Have a minimum viable product.
  • Have a deep understanding of your market and customers.
  • Add product features based on customer feedback.

Once you launch a SaaS company, you are ready to implement your SaaS lead generation strategy. A big part of this strategy is subscription payments. 

How Subscription Payments Help Your Budget and Financial Forecasting

Subscriptions are the backbone of a SaaS business. Your budget and profitability likely depend on these predictable transactions.

The B2B SaaS lead generation model “rents” access to software users instead of charging a one-time cost. This subscription payment method is effective at generating a profit and scaling a business. Instead of relying on new customers to make a purchase, SaaS companies can safely depend on monthly subscription payments.

To get people to subscribe to your product or service, they need to become customers. Afterward, the customers need to engage with you to make those payments. The SaaS business model emphasizes the use of smaller, regular subscriptions. 

The SaaS lead generation model stresses the use of more frequent, cheaper subscription payments. Instead of converting prospects into customers and then having them pay you for subscriptions, you direct customers to your website. Once on the website, customers can sign up for a subscription. 

Regularly charging customers smaller subscriptions removes the high price that keeps some prospects away.  Additionally, this business model increases customer loyalty and upgrades, and reduces security vulnerabilities. 

These frequent subscription payments help SaaS companies maintain a healthy budget that helps them plan for the future. This is because the subscription payments are predictable. You’ll have consistent money coming in. 

The lower subscription costs help attract and retain more customers. A high customer retention rate means companies save on high acquisition costs. SaaS companies scale by relying on loyal customers to pay subscriptions. 

The Data-Driven SaaS Model

Companies that adopt a traditional business model tend to make decisions based on intuition and gut feelings. With SaaS lead generation, the emphasis is on data, and there are numerous tools readily available for data analysis. 

In the SaaS business model, information about website visitors and prospects is gathered and used to attract and retain customers. Prospect information leads the nurturing process. Data obtained in the SaaS model also helps the company to see which areas are going well and which areas need review. 

While it is easier than ever to analyze business data, an astonishing 73% of organizational data is never analyzed. This means non-data-driven organizations are not able to make the best decisions to scale. 

Barriers to harnessing digital analytics

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The Benefits of Customer Feedback

Customer feedback is some of the most valuable data you can get for B2B SaaS lead generation. When you make necessary feedback improvements, you acquire more prospects, have higher net revenue, and accelerated product growth.  

Feedback from current customers helps you identify your ideal client profile. The information you obtain can also be used to create buyer personas that direct your sales and marketing efforts. 

When you listen to your current customers, you provide better customer service and experiences. These go a long way in acquiring and retaining customers. Forward-thinking, customer-driven SaaS companies do the following: 

  • Segment their customers.
  • Design customer-friendly onboarding and in-app product walkthroughs.
  • Reach out to customers to increase engagement based on product data.
  • Create health scores on prospects and automate plans of action based on those scores.

With customer feedback-driven data, companies can meet their customers where they’re at. Your business can do its lead generation for SaaS with less time and cost using automated triggers.

The benefits of customer feedback include improvement of your product or service, higher brand loyalty, and better lead generation endorsements. These will help your SaaS lead generation efforts succeed and make your company grow.

Creating a flow of qualified leads

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Improve Your Product or Service

Under the traditional business model, the sales team is responsible for pushing product or service upgrades onto customers. This creates a one-sided, transactional relationship between a company and a buyer. As a result, customer service dwindles and buyers don’t have a positive experience. 

With lead generation for SaaS, the customer success team drives customer attainment and upgrade conversations into authentic experiences. When customers don’t feel pressured to upgrade but have positive relationships with a brand, they are more likely to convert. When clients have a good experience with your brand, they will enjoy your product and be eager to upgrade. 

SaaS lead generation increases net revenue retention (NRR), which indicates potential business growth from customers. This metric measures recurring revenue from existing customers. Upgrades, churn, and downgrades are included in the NRR. 

Automation helps your customer success team in getting upgrades and renewals. Your sales managers will be freed up for high-risk accounts. Automation enables your customer service teams to better their outreach prioritization with growth likelihood and churn forecasts. 

SaaS B2B companies that use automation give customers consistent service that leads them to value a brand, product, or service. These businesses rely on user experience gained from customer segmentation, behavioral data, and buyer’s journeys. Through data and analytics, SaaS businesses can improve the adoption of their product or service. 

Increase Brand Loyalty

Customer feedback can help increase brand loyalty by letting companies know how to improve and better meet customer needs. You can better market your product and service to meet the pain points of your customers. 

You can develop a customer journey map once you know their needs. Monitor your customers as they go through the sales process. If a customer stalls in the funnel, your team can intervene to keep them progressing forward.

Conversely, if a customer masters your product or service, you can use feedback to upgrade or upsell advanced features. Strategic touch points along the buyer’s journey help sales teams track customer engagement throughout their lifecycle. 

These touchpoints go beyond specific milestones such as onboarding and renewing. Observing customer behavior, where they are at, and what they need, creates more touchpoints. Additional touchpoints lead to reduced churn, customer value maximization, and improvement in customer service. 

Encourage Endorsements for Lead Generation

Word of mouth is one of the most powerful SaaS B2B lead generation strategies. People are more willing to do business with you when they see others benefiting from your products or services. Endorsements are a great way to up your lead generation.  

Endorsements of a product or service are through a distinct, outside party, usually an influencer, celebrity, or industry titan. These people or companies help sell your product or service to your customers. Credible spokespeople boost your company’s brand so your products and services appeal to and are trusted by a wider customer base. 

Product and service endorsements are an important component of lead generation for SaaS. This is because the SaaS business model is customer-centric. Customers are skeptical of working with a business unless its brand, services, and products get approval from trusted others.  

Word of Mouth Marketing Statistics

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Importance of Nurturing and Retargeting

To scale a SaaS business, you must attract and retain customers. B2B SaaS lead generation is customer-centric. Each person in the company needs to make customer success their priority. 

One way to get lead prospects interested in your brand, service, or product is through retargeting. This effective advertising strategy shows targeted, customized ads to each prospect. The tracking of a customer’s interaction with a business’s website generates these ads. 

Retargeting is a way to get prospects into your sales funnel to begin the nurturing process. These ads keep your business at the top of a customer’s mind, making it more likely they will convert. 

Lead nurturing is also important and is tied to retargeting. Nurtured prospects are higher quality and more likely to make a purchase. 

Nurtured leads will have consistent interactions with your brand and are more likely to convert. They will know your brand and what you offer. The personalized treatment they receive will give them increased confidence in your company. 

How to Create a Content Distribution Strategy to Boost Lead Generation

How to Create a Content Distribution Strategy to Boost Lead Generation

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Your company, like every business, wants to draw in website traffic and generate sales. With everyone online, your first step is to create a website. You could try and wow potential customers with a fancy website and hope that word gets around about it. 

However, a snazzy, optimized website is not a recipe for effective digital marketing and lead generation. You’ll have to do more. You need a comprehensive content distribution strategy. 

A content-focused marketing strategy is essential for many reasons. The most important reason to invest in content distribution is that content fosters relationships between your customers and your brand. When it comes to people buying your products or services, relationships mean everything.

People who have a relationship with a brand are more likely to do business with that company. Content distribution and content promotion are key to building vital customer relationships. Lead generation content begins with a solid content distribution strategy. Keep reading, or use the links below to learn how to create a content distribution strategy in your company:

Content Distribution

To produce content your customers will love, you must know what content distribution is and how to do it well. Content distribution is when you share, create, and promote content on various media channels to an online audience. Content comes in many forms that include: 

  • Ebooks 
  • Podcasts
  • Videos 
  • Infographics 
  • Case studies 
  • Webinars 
  • Blogs and articles
  • Social media posts
  • Thought leadership and Point of Views
Types of content

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There are three types of content you can share with your online customers. These are: owned, earned, and paid. For effective content promotion, you need a content distribution strategy that uses all three types. 

Owned

Owned content is that which your company has already produced. With this type of content, you can control how and when it is published and distributed. Examples of owned content include website content, blogs, social media pages, and e-newsletters. 

Earned

With earned content, third parties share or promote your content. These third parties include bloggers, customers, influencers, and journalists. This sharing and promoting of content is free to your business. 

Earned content are product reviews, social shares and mentions, guests posts, forums, and public relations shared by third parties. Though the sharing of the content is free, the third party owns it, not your business. 

Paid

With paid content, you pay to have your content distributed. The most common paid content distribution forms include pay-per-click ads, sponsored content, paid influencer content, and paid social ads. Each type of paid content has varying price points, format, and audience.

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Ads

With pay-per-click (PPC) ads, you pay a third party when people click or have an impression on your ad.  These ads are commonly seen on search engine results pages (SERPs). They can also appear on social media platforms where they have “ad” identifiers next to the page listing.

PPC is a search engine marketing tactic that, when paired with your SEO strategy, can produce quality leads. Google Ads is a popular pay-per-click ad platform used by businesses.

Sponsored Content

Sponsored content is paid for by an advertiser that is shared by a publisher, person, influencer, or brand. The most effective sponsored content includes a company or person that targets your ideal audience. Sponsored content can include videos, images, podcasts, and social media. 

Paid Influencer Content

With paid influencer content, you pay a top content creator to write and promote the content for you. This influencer should be a well-known person in your industry. Influencer content benefits your business by boosting your brand awareness, conversions, and website traffic. 

Paid influencer marketing uses word-of-mouth and social proof. Both of these are crucial in establishing brand trust with customers. This type of content has been so successful that companies spend around $15 billion on influencer marketing. 

Paid Social Ads

Paid social ads include influencer content, PPC, and sponsored content. These paid ads share your content on social media platforms like Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. Your content targets a specific audience most likely to interact with it. 

To maximize your content’s impact on social media, you need a strategy.  A strong PPC social strategy will include native social media tools to create, schedule, and share the ads. 

To have an effective content marketing strategy, you need to incorporate owned, earned, and paid content. SEO, PPC, and paid promotion are ways to blend the three content types. The most powerful content is the middle ground where the three types overlap.  

Content Distribution Trifecta

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The Power of Content Marketing

Content production and distribution takes time, effort, and resources. It also tends to be overlooked. While content marketing may have taken a back seat in your strategy, there are many reasons to prioritize it. 

You can undergo a thorough search engine optimization (SEO) strategy to make your website and your brand more visible. What you’ll find is that you can’t optimize your website without quality content. Additionally, posting content because you have it will not do you any good. 

Regular content production and distribution are important in your lead generation strategy. Content marketing is important because it centers around relationship-building. It is a chance for you to both share information and bond with your online customers. 

Your customers will expect a fair share of content production and distribution. With all the websites out there, they will only do business with those whose content is valuable. This is because people want quick, relevant answers to their problems and questions.

If you’re still skeptical of content marketing, here are some key statistics to consider: 

  • Around 90% of companies do content marketing
  • 91% of business-to-business marketers use content marketing
  • 80% of customers learn about a company through custom content
  • Content marketing costs 60% less than traditional marketing and generates 3 times as many leads 
  • 87% of business-to-business marketers use social media to distribute content and encourage sharing
  • 78% of customers feel there is a relationship with a brand through custom content 
  • Content creates brand awareness, cultivates loyal customers, and incentivizes readers to convert 

Now you know the importance of content marketing, we’ll show you how to create an effective content distribution strategy.

Current state of content marketing

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Step-by-Step Process for Creating a Content Distribution Strategy:

Not all content distribution strategies are created equal. Throwing out poorly conceived digital marketing content everywhere you possibly can is not a good strategy. You’ll find success with strategic content distribution that shows you know your audience and what they find interesting.

Promoting your content can be overwhelming and time-consuming. If you want your content promotion to be effective, here are some steps to get you started: 

1. Clearly Identify Your Target Audience

As great as you think your content is, not everyone will be interested in reading it. Those who could care less about your content will go to another website for content they deem to be more relevant. When people bounce from your website, your search rankings and reputation can take a hit. 

For successful lead-generating content, you need your content to be read by people interested in it. This requires you to research and identify precisely who your target audience is. 

People who see value in your content are more likely to continue consuming the information you make available. Ultimately, these are the leads that are most likely to convert into successful sales. This is your target audience. 

To create content your target audience will value, in addition to properly identifying who your ideal audience is, you must understand  their typical consumer journey. Look at their demographics, pain points, objections to buying, and what they are interested in reading. 

Research your customers’, website visitors’, email subscribers’, and social media followers’ income, age, gender, education, location, and other relevant demographics. You can find this information using Google Analytics and social media analytics tools. Try to narrow down the reach of your content, but don’t over-filter your audience so that it is too narrow. 

After looking at the demographics, collect customer feedback. Ask readers how they feel about the content and how it’s distributed. Ask them what their pain points are and whether the content you provide adequately addresses these issues.  

Use the feedback and demographics to create buyer personas. These buyer personas represent the preferences, motivations, and pain points of your ideal customers. Write different versions of content geared toward each of your personas.

2. Choose Your Content Types

There are different types of content. Each type of content caters to a different audience. Every content distribution channel also requires a specific content type. 

The kind of content you choose to create will largely depend on where it is distributed. For instance, content developed for a blog is very different in style and length compared to what would be appropriate to share in a social media post. 

A company blog is a highly recommended place to start creating online content. Blog posts are easy to share and repurpose.  Additionally, nearly half your customers will read your blog before making a purchasing decision. 

Depending on your objective, tailor your blog content to match the type of action you want the reader to take. If you want to generate leads, for example, offer lead generation and traffic generation content. 

In contrast, social media content is much more casual and concise. With social media, it is important to research your audience using each platform’s analytics tools. This knowledge will assist you in delivering content that will not only catch the readers’ attention, it will help you to make personal connections with them.

Similarly, when you send emails, you have to carefully think about what to say and how to say it. Email marketing is one of the most effective forms of lead generation around, making it a form of content marketing you should engage in on a regular basis.

Content can also be shared via videos and images. Infographics work well when promoted via social media. Video content needs to be engaging, interesting, clear, and brief.

3. Choose Your Distribution Channels

Your website is your first-stop distribution channel. On your site, you have greater freedom as to what you say and how you say it. Your website includes information on your pages and your blog posts. 

You must conduct audience research and choose your distribution channels before you write your content. These two pieces of data will inform the type of content you write and where and to whom it is distributed. 

Popular content distribution channels include blogs, social media, email, directories, guest posting sites, and forums. Sometimes traditional public relations may be an option. The content distribution channel you choose must be aligned with your target audience’s interests, demographics, and behaviors.

It’s important to know your audience and where they regularly visit online. Young people, for instance, spend a lot of time on various social media sites. Even among social media sites, there are different audiences. 

Look to see where your target audience tends to go to gather information. Do they read industry blogs, watch YouTube videos, or scroll through Facebook? Knowing which distribution channels your audience frequents most is vital to planning a successful content marketing strategy.

Your blog should be your first distribution channel as it is one of your company’s owned properties. Two others that you need to optimize are your social media pages and e-newsletter. With these three channels, you control the content and its distribution. 

Social media is a popular distribution channel. In fact, 87% of marketers use social media to share content. Of those, most use an average of five social media platforms.   

Content distribution via social media is a good option for many reasons:

  • Ease of distribution
  • The content is short and largely image-dominant
  • Ease of audience targeting
  • Provides a great opportunity to have casual, personal interactions with customers
  • A majority of your customers likely use at least one social media channel
  • Content is instantaneously shared with customers
  • It is free to share your content

People are more likely to do business with your company when they trust you. Finding the best combination of distribution channels to share your content will boost your brand authority. When customers see and consume your knowledgeable content, they are more likely to accept you as an authority in your field and will look to your organization as the best solution to their challenges.   

Guest posting on reputable, industry-specific websites and forums like Reddit or Quora are excellent ways to distribute content to new customers. Be sure that the information you provide is high-quality and free from self-promotion and spammy links. This content should not be focused on your company, products, or services, but should be geared toward educating readers. 

Best times to post on social media - Facebook

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4. Develop a Content Distribution Plan

An effective content distribution strategy involves having a plan for how, where, and when to disperse information. Both the creation of lead-generating content and its distribution need careful thought. Once you settle on a writing and distribution process, you need to be consistent. 

Writing content and publishing it everywhere on the Internet will lead to unsuccessful content promotion. If search engines don’t rank your content highly and the appropriate marketing strategies aren’t applied, your target audience will never find your content.

A good foundation for your content distribution strategy is having S.M.A.R.T goals. These goals are specific, measurable, attainable, relevant, and timely. Having such goals helps you see where your current strategy is at and what future success looks like. 

With your content distribution strategy goals in mind, develop a detailed editorial calendar. There are many tools out there for you to use such as Google Sheets, Excel, Asana, Trello, and Google Calendar.  

To start a consistent content distribution plan, assign certain people to develop and create different kinds of content. Then, establish an editorial calendar for publishing the content on a consistent basis.  

An editorial calendar focuses and aligns your team to work toward common goals. If you contract out your writing, a calendar can inform your editors and writers about what’s coming up. 

Some questions to ask as you start developing your editorial calendar include: 

  • What audiences use which channels?
  • What opportunities exist on each channel that you can’t achieve on others? 
  • What subjects are most likely to resonate with your target audience?
  • How often and when does each audience post on each channel?
  • What content types or formats should you use on each channel?
  • When should you post on each channel to get the most engagement? 
  • What conversations work best on each channel?
  • Who will be in charge of managing each channel and posting on them on behalf of the company? 
  • Where do you want to drive traffic to on each channel?
  • What metrics will you use to assess the success of your content distribution strategy?

No two content distribution strategies are the same. The best one for your company will be unique as there is no silver-bullet solution. 

How you produce and publish content will depend on how many resources you have, team size, industry, and brand. The concept of creating a comprehensive content promotion strategy can seem overwhelming at first.  Useful content creation and distribution tools include Anchor, AnswerthePublic, Canva, and Vidyard. 

Content Backlog in Asana

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5. Develop Effective Lead Magnets 

You’ve created lead-generating content, but if it doesn’t have a call to action (CTA), it won’t be effective. CTAs tell the reader what to do next after reading your content. With CTAs in your content promotion, be sure to somehow capture the reader’s contact information, especially phone number or email. 

To bring more readers to conversion from your content, you need to consistently get new leads to cultivate. Lead magnets are the best ways to capture the names and contact information of prospective leads. Lead magnets have content people are willing to give information to read. 

Lead magnet content needs to be interesting, valuable, and applicable to the reader. If you don’t know where to start, here are three lead magnet strategies to try: 

White Papers

White paper content highlights industry news like trends, the current state of the industry, and what the future holds. Industry overview white papers are the most common. 

The other type of white paper is a product breakdown. Product breakdowns highlight company products. These white papers may go into detail about what a product does, who benefits, and the problems these items help solve.

White papers let prospective leads know that your brand understands their pain points and questions. These types of content also show leads that your product solves their problems.

Webinars

Webinars are another effective lead magnet. You can use live and recorded webinars to get a lead’s contact information. With webinars, you can ask someone to leave their phone number or email address to access the webinar. 

Webinars can be one-off or regular events. Webinars are great ways to show your product or service. When you conduct live webinars, you allow the audience to interact with you. 

Risk-Free Trial

Offering a limited-time risk-free trial has been a long-time favorite lead magnet for B2B and SaaS companies. With this type of lead magnet, customers enter their contact and payment information to access a product or service. Besides free access, some free trials give customers temporary access to an upgraded or premium version of products or services. 

For most sign-ups, the terms and conditions of the risk-free trial must be clearly stated. You should be up-front about subscription cancellation and when a customer will be charged after the trial period ends. Besides transparency, your risk-free sign-up form must be simple and quick to complete.

Once you’ve created your lead magnet, publish it on your website, in blog posts, and on your social media channels. Lead magnets are also effective when used as part of your email marketing strategy.

6. Publish and Promote Content

Now that you’ve created your content, it’s time to publish it. Use your editorial calendar to push it out to your ideal audience at the best time and on appropriate channels. Regardless of what channel you use, follow the rules to optimize your content promotion on each channel. 

Using a combination of platforms for your content distribution is a great way to maximize its effectiveness. For example, you can publish an industry white paper and push it out via email, social media, and paid ads. Use these channels to get your content before readers or have them sign up to see it.  

Content marketing is and will be key in generating leads. For effective lead-generating content that drives sales, you need carefully-crafted content. A strong content distribution strategy looks at the best content type and what channels you should use.  

 Thorough familiarity with your target audience is the foundation of any successful content promotion strategy. 

Contact LeadBoxer today to learn how we can partner with you to generate more leads and drive more sales.  

7 Reasons for the Growing Demand for Lead Management Software

7 Reasons for the Growing Demand for Lead Management Software

Lead Generation, Lead Nurturing, Marketing, Tools / By

You know how important it is to find potential customers most interested in your products or services. These are the consumers who will make a purchase. Quickly finding these prospects with a lead management platform shortens your sales cycle, increasing profits. 

To learn more about lead management software and the importance of qualifying leads, keep reading or use the links below to jump ahead:

The Purposes of Lead Management Software

To make any sale, you need to invest in building relationships with the best prospects. 

Relationship-building takes time and energy. A lead management platform helps salespeople qualify good leads and disqualify bad ones.

Why is it important to qualify leads? 67% of lost sales are a result of sales reps not properly qualifying potential customers. Unqualified prospects will not go through the entire sales process, so they won’t become paying customers. 

Qualifying leads will not only result in more sales. It shortens your sales cycle and betters the use of your sales team’s time by focusing them on ideal leads. Sales teams can prioritize building relationships with the most promising prospects with lead qualification tools.

There are people out there who want your product or service. Lead qualification software helps your sales team identify and build relationships with them. Engaging the right people will bring more sales at a quicker pace.  

LeadBoard

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What Is Lead Qualification?

Lead qualification is the process of identifying prospects most likely to make a purchase. The process prioritizes the nurturing of the most promising leads.

Below are the three types of qualified leads: 

  • Marketing qualified leads (MQL): These leads gain interest in a brand, product, or service through marketing strategies. These leads come by clicking on a link in an email, downloading an e-book, or subscribing to a newsletter.
  • Sales qualified leads (SQL): These leads are interested in a brand, product, or service after interacting with a sales representative. They often will ask about pricing and agree to a presentation or demo.
  • Product/Service qualified leads (PQL): These leads are interested in a company, service, or product. They usually contact a salesperson after a free trial or consultation.

Lead management platforms identify the prospects your sales team needs to prioritize in nurturing. Qualified leads will progress through the sales funnel at a more rapid rate, resulting in revenue.

MQLs vs Other Types of Leads

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Lead Qualification Tools

Qualified leads are crucial in generating revenue for your organization. Lead qualification tools can help you quickly identify your most promising prospects. Here are some lead qualification tools you can use to attract and nurture quality prospects: 

Interactive PDFs

PDFs are effective ways of informing people in a way that is easily accessible. They are downloadable, saveable, and shareable.  Interactive PDFs add engagement and shorten your sales cycle.  

Interactive PDFs are lead qualification tools that allow you to add filtering questions, thereby identifying your most promising prospects. These PDFs can help tailor your follow-up and move them quickly down the funnel. 

Solution Finders

Other effective lead qualification tools are solution finders. They help identify and provide a custom-tailored solution to a customer’s problem. When leveraged appropriately, solution finders can shorten the sales cycle. 

Solution finders, also called product pickers, help leads navigate the various products or services your company offers. Prospects get personalized product or service recommendations with short assessments. 

Qualified leads may not always know what they want or the best solution. Through solution finders, you help prospects avoid frustration and headaches. This goes a long way in building relationships between your salespeople and customers. 

ROI Calculators

ROI calculators work similarly to solution finders in that they provide tailored customer service. These tools generate numeric results for each lead based on a formula generated by customer input. These calculators quickly identify and evaluate pain points, speeding up the qualification process. 

ROI calculators offer personalized, valuable content tailored to each stage of the buyer’s journey. ROI calculator data can be used for scoring, disqualification, and trigger campaigns.

ROI Calculators

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The Lead Qualification Process

Leads don’t automatically get qualified or disqualified on their own. There is a lead qualification process that is simplified using lead qualification tools.

1. Establish Lead Qualification Criteria

The first part of the lead qualification process is establishing prospect criteria. This has two parts: whether the lead is a good fit and how interested the lead is in your offerings. 

When looking at whether a lead is a good fit for your offerings, use the BANT methodology. This looks at the following four factors a lead will consider when faced with a buying decision. 

  • Budget: What is the financial capacity of the lead to make a purchase? What budgetary constraints are there that will affect their willingness to spend? 
  • Authority: What is the lead’s position, authority, or power to finalize a deal or make a purchasing decision? 
  • Need: How useful are your products or services for meeting the wants and pain points of the lead? 
  • Timeline: When does the lead need to make a purchase? 
What is BANT

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2. Lead Generation

The second stage of lead qualification is lead generation. Once you have the qualification criteria set up, you’ll need to attract prospects. There are a variety of inbound and outbound strategies you can use for lead generation.  

Inbound lead generation involves methods to get leads to come to you. These include referrals, social media ads, and web form submissions. 

Outbound lead generation strategies involve seeking potential leads and using sales strategies. Cold calling, introductory emails, and meetings are examples of outbound lead generation activities. Once you’ve generated leads, you can begin the process of qualifying them. 

3. Lead Score and Categorization

Once you have your lead qualifying criteria and the prospects pouring in, it’s time to score and categorize them. The leads that show the greatest interest through your inbound or outbound sales activities will earn more points.

It’s important to separate sales and marketing qualified leads. As you’re interested in sales leads, assign fewer points to prospects that interact with your marketing campaigns. They will be nurtured differently. 

You can score and categorize leads manually, though lead management platforms and customer relationship management software does this automatically. After you score your sales prospects, it’s time to rank them. 

4. Distribute and Rank Leads 

Once you generate your leads and score them, it is time to distribute and rank them. MQLs and SQLs require different lead nurturing techniques. 

For example, a sales qualified lead will get a sales presentation or demo to understand your product or service better. Each sales prospect should be ranked and prioritized by lead score or BANT analysis.  

To nurture MQLs, offer more in-depth content. Start with emails and free trials for top-of-funnel prospects. Offer an e-newsletter and then whitepapers and e-books to bottom-of-funnel leads.

Once you categorize and distribute your leads, it’s time to rank them. Lead qualification tools prioritize sales-qualified leads with the highest score and rank. These will be your most qualified leads.

5. Continue Qualifying Leads Throughout the Pipeline

The last step for lead qualification is to continue down the steps of your sales pipeline. The goal of lead qualification is to move prospects through the funnel. 

For SQLs, your salespeople may ask additional probing questions during presentations and demos. They are qualified and nurtured to move on through the sales funnel.  

For marketing-qualified leads, you need to get them sales qualified and handed over to your sales team. MQLs will continue receiving lead scoring points as they show additional interest and interact with your campaign. 

Lead management platforms that qualify leads make it easier to move prospects through your funnel. The quicker leads become paying customers, the more closed sales you’ll have.

Steps to Effective Lead Scoring

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The Importance of Qualifying Leads

Every company has a sales process or funnel whereby prospects enter as mildly interested leads and leave as paying customers. Along the way, you employ various marketing and sales tactics to move them onto the next stage. If your sales process is long, there are more opportunities for leads to drop off before becoming customers. 

When you nurture your ideal prospects, they quickly progress through your sales funnel. As they are already excited and knowledgeable about your service or product, a long sales process is unnecessary. 

Lead qualification tools shorten your sales cycle. A shorter sales funnel leads to more conversions and quicker sales.

The Growth of Lead Management Software

Lead management software is by no means going away anytime soon. Lead qualification software use will increase. Technavio predicts that the lead qualification solutions market will increase by 17.5% between 2021-2028.

Some of the driving factors that contribute to the growth of lead management platforms include: 

  • The development of cloud-based and SaaS software and solutions (especially on mobile)
  • Increased demand for social interaction between companies and consumers
  • The heightened popularity of crowdsourcing 
  • The increase in CRMs integrating lead qualification into their marketing and sales automation platforms
  • More companies looking to improve the relationship between their sales and marketing departments
  • The higher likelihood of sales conversions
  • The increased need for enterprise-level lead management software

With information at their fingertips, your leads and prospects will be selective about who they do business with. Building relationships and nurturing the right people will make them paying customers. Lead qualification platforms do this.

Lead management platforms like LeadBoxer are becoming increasingly popular because they allow salespeople to focus on the most promising prospects. There are various lead qualification tools to move prospects through your funnel. Maximize your prospect generation efforts by following a lead qualification process. 

The Growing Importance of Product Led Growth in B2B Selling

The Growing Importance of Product Led Growth in B2B Selling

Marketing, Other / By

Remaining competitive in the B2B sales industry relies on customer retention and overall satisfaction. Many companies are embracing the idea of product led growth (PLG) to help boost their numbers and increase brand loyalty. 

It seems obvious you must have a good product, but the value of providing quality services continues to increase. PLG is more complex than simply having something worth buying. It relies on ensuring a user-friendly experience and excellent customer service to create lasting relationships.

Marketing is no longer the only way to push leads through the sales cycle. By combining a focus on the customer experience, sales and marketing can create a cohesive end goal. Not only does a product centric approach help align departmental goals, it allows the customer to have a voice throughout the sales cycle.

To learn more about the ways your team can benefit from PLG, keep reading, or use the following links to jump ahead:

What is Product Led Growth (PLG)?

Like many trending B2B strategies, product led growth is not a new concept. It is, however, an important strategy to empower customers and retain sales. As PLG continues to increase in popularity, your team should better its understanding and implementation of the concept.

Simply put, PLG allows the product or service to drive sales and retain customers. This relies on several factors like ease of use and excellent product experience. Rather than expecting marketing to do the heavy lifting for brand awareness, this strategy incorporates product functionality directly into the sales process.

By putting the product at the center of all conversations, it can help align goals across departments and boost business growth. This also means employees will be working toward the single objective of excellent product experience for all customers.

Through this all-company collaboration, more people are introduced to the user experience, which drives conversations with customers from all angles. However, PLG isn’t solely based on your team’s understanding of the services your company sells.

Another key component of this strategy is allowing customers to see the product value before asking for a purchase. This means having a strong user experience that allows prospects to dive deep and trial the product on their own. 

Rather than watching product demonstrations or Q&A webinars, customers should be able to test the functionality on their own. Through implementation of this strategy, success relies on overall customer satisfaction before a sale has been completed.

For example, free trials work hand-in-hand with product centric approaches. Allowing customers to test how the product can provide solutions to their unique problems helps provide valuable insight before purchase. It also allows prospects to address concerns and work out potential problems with a company expert. 

PLG helps instill confidence in clients through transparency of service. By providing an inside look at user experience, your team can boost customer satisfaction and increase overall retention rates. 

Product Led Growth Public Companes

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It is not surprising that the B2B industry saw rapid digitization during the COVID-19 pandemic. Before this sudden shift to virtual sales, leaders in the industry were finding ways to innovate customer experience through increased use of technology. While the pandemic sped things up, trends like PLG are here to stay.

Buyers have the resources to be more educated than ever on products before making a purchase decision. This means remaining competitive in the industry relies heavily on customer experience throughout the entire sales cycle. 

As brands continue to have an increased online presence, customers are able to interact with products before they even speak with a salesperson. In fact, research shows 94% of B2B buyers perform online research before initiating contact with a sales team. 

Educated buyers are now interacting with demos and free trials as early as possible in the sales cycle. Rather than wanting to speak with salespeople for a product introduction, clients are eager to have a hands-on approach to testing solutions. According to a 2015 Forrester survey, almost 75% of buyers would rather make an online purchase than go through a sales team.

This has shifted initial sales conversations to focus more on product details and the technical capabilities of products. Customer preparation has led to an expectation of expert customer service throughout the sales process. In most cases, buyers want salespeople to act in tandem with the website so they can navigate the process alongside an expert.

The Benefits of a PLG Strategy

Product led funnel vs Traditional funnel

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To understand how this strategy can benefit your business, it is important to make a comparison between traditional growth methods. Starting off, marketing teams usually qualify leads through online interactions like targeted ads, web forms, and email marketing. From there, leads enter the sales funnel and the salespeople reach out for an introduction.

Next, the sales department focuses on showcasing product benefits and providing details on how the product can provide needed solutions. If interested, the customer chooses to make a purchase. 

Once the sale has been completed, the customer works with the success team for onboarding and implementation. Assuming things go well, the customer becomes a repeat buyer and the sales cycle restarts.

The traditional strategy allows for a long period of time before the customer is introduced to the product’s functionality. In a time where buyers are prone to making quick decisions and competitors can offer easy demos, following a traditional timeline may not land your company the sale.

In contrast, PLG allows the prospect to jump right into the product. Marketing and sales departments act as experts to help guide customers through the user experience. Rather than client information being captured from online traffic, this cycle starts as soon as the customer signs up for a trial.

Known as product-qualified leads (PQLs), these clients begin interacting with the product as soon as possible. Rather than waiting to be contacted by a salesperson, clients are most often familiar with the brand before the introduction occurs. Once a salesperson reaches out, the conversation can focus heavily on the client’s specific areas of interest, potential personalized features, and any other questions the customer may have about the product.

This kind of transparency is a huge benefit to companies. PQLs convert at a rate 3-4x higher than traditional marketing leads. When customers feel confident in a product before making the purchase, retention increases. 

PLG is a great way to gather feedback from customers and improve overall product functionality. When the product is a driving force behind sales, customers are able to provide honest feedback to companies about their experiences.

When a sale is completed, your team is able to hear what was the deciding factor. On the flip side, offering your customers a free trial of your product, even if the sale falls through, helps provide insight into areas that need improvement. 

This strategy is cost-effective. Customers begin the onboarding process by themselves, which frees up your employees to concentrate on providing excellent customer service. Less time and money are wasted on deals that don’t come to fruition. 

Providing a better user experience increases customer retention and provides incentives for word-of-mouth advertisement. When clients are able to test out a product for free, they are able to share this information with others in their network who may be looking for similar solutions.

Since there are no hold-ups on anyone being able to trial the service, these leads come directly into the pipeline once they sign up. Along with increasing a user base, this helps speed up the sales cycle. 

Gaining valuable customer contact information is easier when your product leads the marketing strategy. Usually, web traffic may visit a page or interact with an online ad, but their contact information might never reach your pipeline. Since users have to fill out a full form for free trial access, your marketing team is able to take PQLs directly to the sales team.

For example, when using Leadboxer to capture web traffic, your team can tell these customers are already qualified and scored since they began the demo. This pushes them to the top of the sales cycle, which allows for speedy outreach from your team. By encouraging a quick turnaround time, PLG helps outreach happen faster while leads are still interested in the product.

Implementing PLG Into Your Business

Before jumping into this strategy with your employees, it is crucial to understand PLG is a long-term approach rather than a short-term fix. Implementation will take time and resources to be successful. It may require departmental changes and an overhaul of the company mission to ensure a product-centric focus. 

When implemented correctly, PLG will help lead your team to higher sales and increased customer retention. Below are tips on successfully getting started and utilizing a PLG strategy:

1. Evaluate your product

Having an intimate understanding of your product, including its flaws, is the first step in implementing a PLG strategy. Before it can sell itself, your company needs to thoroughly understand the value the product brings to the market. 

Evaluation can begin with a few simple questions:

What is the core function? What solutions does your product provide to customers? What feedback is most often received?

Compare your product to the competition. Notice the similarities and differences. 

Find the best way to engage prospective customers when speaking on these topics. Educated clients are willing to ask directly about these types of variances. Be prepared to answer honestly during these conversations.

For example, your product may lack certain features compared to that of a competitor. However, your starting price point may be lower. Understanding how to explain this to prospects will help build trust within the relationship.

2. Focus on the customer experience

When the customer is driving the sale through self-education, a user-friendly experience is crucial to finalizing a deal. Beginning with initial onboarding, signing up for the product should be self-explanatory and easily accessible. Prospects are eager to get started, so the sign-up process should be quick enough to hold a customer’s attention.

Sales conversations should bring value to the customer. Rather than relying on old-school tactics, your team needs to focus on acting as product experts to prospective clients. 

Removing fluff from these interactions is one way to increase trust within the relationship. Make sure customers feel like they took away valuable information from each conversation with your salespeople.

Allow ample opportunities for clients to provide feedback. Not only will this help customers feel more valued, but it will give your team vital information regarding potential product improvements. 

Customize features when possible. Buyers love the idea of personalization, especially when they’re looking for solutions to unique problems within their organization. 80% of customers favor the ability to customize their user experience. 

3. Provide continuous onboarding

In the initial onboarding process, users will be signing themselves up for a trial. That doesn’t mean your team should take a backseat to onboarding, though. Instead, customer success teams should concentrate on secondary and next-tier opportunities to increase user engagement.

Customer retention increases when there is a strong need for your product. By encouraging clients to continuously use new features and engage with your software, your product will quickly integrate into their daily workflow.

This is another opportunity to allow conversations with customers about their user experience. As they add more features to their product usage, make sure your team is doing their due diligence. 

Having check-ins about new features during the continuous onboarding process will help your team have internal conversations about product performance. This allows your team to collect data on what is working, as well as find areas that may benefit from improvements.

4. Align departmental goals within your company

Overhauling long-term business strategy can be a big undertaking. For success, departments must be on the same page about the company’s mission. When practicing a PLG strategy, marketing and sales teams will be trying out nontraditional tactics.

It is important to make sure the product is always central to the mission. Marketing teams should work closely with sales and customer success to understand the feedback being given. Adjust your marketing outreach to lead with the product.

These efforts from all departments should encourage excellent customer journeys and work to increase brand loyalty. Even though the product and customers are doing a lot of heavy lifting, it is still the goal of your team to provide value throughout the sales cycle.

5. Tailor your marketing practices to showcase the value

Since much of the beginning sales cycle in PLG strategy involves solitary customer research, messaging is key. Customers will want to see an overview of key features as well as pricing when comparing brands.

Make sure your pricing sheet is accessible and easy to understand. Marketing content should help explain how clients can benefit from the premium version of your product. Simple explanations of which plans work well for specific groups can encourage prospects to explore the features that are most relevant to their needs.

Online resources, like blogs or social media posts, should showcase the features your product offers. Many users will be looking at multiple options during their research. It is important to make your product stand out by providing valuable information about the user experience rather than fluff content.

6. Utilize upsells and premium features 

Once a sale is made, the goal should be to encourage repeat purchases from that customer. This typically happens through contract renewals, but there is an opportunity to add more revenue through upsells and new features.

If a client is thoroughly enjoying the service your product provides, your team should brainstorm ways new features may bring additional value. Asking customers what they want to see in future rollouts is a great starting point.

Offer items in discounted bundles or find ways to include an option for premium features. These types of add-ons may be an easier sell once clients are familiar with your product. Ongoing outreach from the sales team to current customers is crucial for landing these upsells. 

7. Encourage user referrals

PLG provides ample room for customers to refer your product to others in their network. If your trial period is easy to access, prospects can sign up and get started within the same day of hearing about your product. 

Capitalize on your customer experience by offering a referral program that incentivizes current relationships to bring in new business. This type of program can help boost brand loyalty, as clients can continue to tell others about your product.

According to McKinsey, a recommendation from a trusted friend or colleague is 50x more likely to result in a purchase. This helps boost your overall return-on-investment (ROI) since referrals typically cost less than acquiring a brand-new lead.

User referrals can help boost overall customer satisfaction. Current clients will feel appreciated when their recommendations are rewarded by the brand.

8. Follow through on your advertisements

When customer experience is a major driving factor for sales, following through on promises is crucial. The classic saying ‘under promise, but over deliver is a good motto to have when implementing PLG.

Your product will be doing most of the selling, and it should be able to stand alone while customers are participating in a demo. However, if your salespeople make promises about product features or capabilities in conversations, it is important to see them through.

Transparency is huge when utilizing product led marketing. It will negatively impact customer retention if users don’t see sales agreements come to fruition. 

This comes into play when customers are making the transition from the free trial to the premium version. If your team offers specific features or personalized capabilities, it is crucial to ensure these are available as soon as onboarding begins.

Clients have educated themselves on the benefits of your product versus your competitors. Since they’ll have spent time with your services, they will notice any lack of follow-through on promises. 

PLG relies heavily on customer retention, and the easiest way to lose a relationship is by not providing the right service. Make sure to have honest conversations about the features your product has, and address any concerns as soon as they arise.

9. Use data to drive product choices

PLG strategy relies heavily on accurate data to understand the customer’s needs. Data analytics will help your company ascertain what value users are receiving from your product. This information can also help develop product improvements as your team rolls out new features. 

When implementing a PLG strategy, it is important for your company to equip itself with the right tools and resources for success. Make sure you have a way to track data and pilot the user experience. 

Along with using these kinds of tools, manage expectations among departments by setting KPIs and reviewing targeted goals. This allows your employees to easily measure success throughout the process. 

Key Takeaways

Product led growth may be the newest trendy buzzword in the B2B industry, but the strategy is here to stay. In order to remain competitive, your company should be looking at the long-term benefits of a product-centric approach. 

As customers continue to push for more virtual sales options, your product will need to be able to sell itself during the trial phase. Focus on having your salespeople become experts on product features. Tailor your marketing to showcase features that set your product apart from competitors. 

Understand the best way to implement PLG into your organization. Invest in the right resources to ensure this strategy increases your customer base and retention. 

Allow user experience and customer feedback to drive initiatives within your departments. Build lasting customer relationships through transparency. By focusing on the customer experience and product value, your company can benefit from this strategy.

To get started with Leadboxer, click here for your free trial!

The Value of Pre CRM and Marketing CRM

The Value of Pre-CRM and Marketing CRM

Marketing, Tools / By

Using a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software and strategy is vital to a successful B2B sales team. CRM software has become a major asset for many companies as it helps organize, integrate, and streamline customer management.

With more businesses offering remote or hybrid work options, keeping up with customers has begun to rely heavily on the successful use of CRM software. While using a CRM is great once a lead has come into the pipeline, there is value in developing a pre-CRM strategy.

To learn more about the function of pre-CRM strategy and the usage of a marketing CRM, keep reading or use the links below to jump ahead:

What Does Pre-CRM Mean?

Traditional vs Modern CRM

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Tracking website activity and importing potential customer data into a CRM is usually the first step in creating a relationship. Although, there are probably more website visitors than contacts in your CRM. Not every prospect is going to input data into your web forms, so there needs to be a strategy in place to anticipate prospects who may eventually enter the sales pipeline.

Having a Pre-CRM strategy means your departments are working to improve initial customer interactions to begin developing a strong business relationship. Before companies were able to have a strong digital presence, salespeople needed to greet customers and have organic interactions to cultivate their pipeline.

By taking these old-school tactics and adapting them to fit your company’s digital presence, the pre-CRM stage can help present your company to prospects. Engaging potential customers before they’ve been entered into your CRM can be tough. Utilizing social media, email marketing, and a website can help introduce your brand before customers are familiar with your team.

Most importantly, taking advantage of the Pre-CRM stage means your company is using its marketing and digital presence to help create product awareness. Many customers only become active when they have a need, but engagement can start before then. Marketing should focus on sharing what your company offers while allowing customers to interact with your content.

Reaching Out to Pre-CRM Leads

How do you reach out to customers before you know their needs, or before they understand what your company specializes in? Finding ways to engage pre-CRM leads takes creativity, but the payoff can help boost your sales pipeline.

Thinking of it as similar to greeting customers in the offline world can help map out the best way for outreach. Find ways to humanize digital communication, like displaying employee profiles and making contact information readily available. Encourage engagement through chatbots, and utilize video features to showcase products and salespeople.

The goal of this outreach is to improve initial customer impressions. When your company is able to create a positive first touchpoint, prospects will be more inclined to continue engagement with the brand. This will help filter leads in your pipeline and CRM, which will help boost sales. 

What Is a CRM?

Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is software that can be used to manage your company’s relationships and interactions with clients and prospects. This technology helps streamline your business, grow your pipeline, and organize goals across departments.

A CRM can be used throughout the entire customer lifecycle, including marketing, sales, and customer service. This software stores prospect and customer information, which helps build out your database for maintaining relationships.

By keeping data all in one platform, your CRM can help make sure all of the necessary steps are being done to provide clients with quality service. It also allows your teams to track customer engagement, plan outreach, and identify future sales opportunities.

Many teams have turned to a remote or hybrid working environment, so utilizing a CRM can make a big difference in collaboration when employees are stationed across multiple locations. This software can also align your sales and marketing departments to tighten up the lead generation and nurturing process.

Along with creating more efficient workflow within departments, CRMs can integrate with other technology to streamline the sales process. Many CRMs have the ability to work with your current tech stack to free up time and resources for customer outreach. For example, Leadboxer integrates seamlessly with CRMs to improve lead-generation processes.

The CRM Cycle

CRM is a great strategy for improving the quality of your outreach, and in turn, creating stronger customer relationships. Rather than aiming to cast a wider net, successful customer management will help encourage repeat sales and brand loyalty.

There are seven stages within the CRM cycle, and each plays an important role in customer success. Walking clients through this journey will help fill your pipeline with quality prospects and increase sales.

The Pre-CRM stage begins with brand awareness and creating an environment that encourages customer engagement. Inputting a new lead into the CRM happens once your team has contact and basic information about the prospect. Log the details in your CRM and begin walking them to the next step in the cycle.

Once a prospect begins interacting with your brand, like clicking on an email link or filling out a web form, the nurturing process can begin. By using features in your CRM software, you can tag clients and track their engagement. This helps your sales team determine which leads are cold or warm.

Moving toward the sales opportunity happens once a lead schedules a sales call. This moves the customer from warm to hot. 

Your team should be tracking the movements of this client as they move through the sales funnel. Enter the details from the sales call to log the outcome in your CRM. This helps your team see which leads are actively working their way toward closing a deal.

A little over halfway through the cycle, the goal is to have hot leads converted into closed deals. Once the client says ‘yes’ to your sales pitch, you can consider them an active customer. 

However, the CRM cycle does not end here.

Next, delivery of your product or services should be scheduled. It’s important to create follow-up reminders to keep in touch with the customer as they begin using your product. This phase should also include gathering feedback and providing any additional training or information that the customer may need to be successful.

Instead of moving on to the next cold lead once a deal has been completed, try bringing your customers into the ‘upselling’ stage. If clients are happy with the product and experience they’ve had so far, pitching an upgrade in your services can help boost the overall sale. Engage with customers to see if there are any additional needs your team can help fill.

Lastly, the CRM cycle relies on continuity to cultivate strong customer relationships and promote lasting brand loyalty. Continue reaching out to current clients. 

Schedule regular check-ins and encourage feedback. These actions can help increase repeat purchases throughout the length of the business relationship.

The Benefits and Challenges of a Marketing CRM

CRM Strategy Enablement

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Implementing a CRM can play a huge role in the success of your marketing department. Since the goal of marketing is to create awareness and generate leads for the sales team, a CRM can help align the efforts of these departments.

By breaking down barriers to avoid organizational silos within your company, a CRM helps increase the flow of information between teams. This will improve the overall quality of customer service as your marketing campaigns direct qualified leads into the sales pipeline. 

As website visitors interact with content and email recipients click on links, a marketing CRM can help your team track these actions to qualify leads. By integrating with other technologies like lead generation software, the CRM increases conversions and campaign effectiveness.

While a CRM can be a huge asset to many companies, there are a few challenges to be aware of before implementing the software. For employees who are unfamiliar with the system, learning how to use a CRM effectively can be a daunting task. Provide extensive training to make sure your team is confident in the program.

Integration with tech stacks is a great benefit to using a CRM, but it is important to make sure the CRM you choose works with your current technology. Marketing campaigns can benefit from tracking customer engagement, and a marketing CRM can help organize this data. 

Key Takeaways

A Pre-CRM strategy can help humanize your company and begin nurturing leads before they have entered your pipeline. Use this strategy to create positive brand awareness with potential prospects. Encouraging early engagement will help drive customers to your business when they have a need for your product.

Utilizing a marketing CRM is a great way to create a communication flow between departments and increase campaign effectiveness. Tracking and tagging engagement from customers can help inform future marketing efforts and outreach for sales pitches. 

To see how Leadboxer can integrate with your CRM, click here for a free trial!

Automated Lead Sales Intelligence Platforms

Automated Lead & Sales Intelligence Platforms: The Key to Successful Sales Strategies

Lead Generation, Marketing, Sales, Tools / By

Automated lead generation software is paving the way to success for B2B companies. These highly integrated platforms have continued to rise in popularity. For businesses who want to keep a competitive edge within their sales and marketing departments, lead generation software has become a necessity.

Diving deeper into the market trends and forecasts, several reports have closely inspected how lead generation and automated marketing will trend through 2029. Keep reading, or use the links below to explore these findings:

According to an Insight Partners study, the lead generation market was valued at 3,103.80 million USD in 2021. It is expected to see a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 17.5%, and reach a value of 9,589.11 million USD by 2028.

The Global Lead Generation B2B Software Market Research Report 2022 shows that the lead generation market is split up into four areas. They are lead capture software, lead intelligence software, lead mining software, and lead scoring software. 

These sections each play a role in successfully generating and nurturing leads while saving companies time and valuable resources. 20% more sales opportunities are created when leads are properly nurtured. However, 65% of B2B companies have not established a process for lead nurturing.

Technology-driven processes are crucial for companies to identify quality leads. In fact, 44% of marketers are already using software like automated marketing for lead scoring.

On average, sales leads for B2B companies can cost between $31 and $60. Within six to nine months of utilizing lead management automation, companies can see a revenue boost of 10%. This software helps drive sales and increases (return on investment) ROI. 

Lead generation software continues to increase in popularity due to its flexibility, low maintenance, and resistance to corrosion. As businesses continue to grow within the digital space, this software helps companies remain competitive within their industries.

Forbes reports that 58% of business leaders see lead generation as a key challenge. Lead generation platforms like Leadboxer are instrumental in helping companies find qualified prospects to fill their pipeline. Through automation, data collection, and software integration, these platforms are able to improve processes across multiple departments.

Lead generation software has benefited from the advancement of technology, and it will continue to optimize its product performance. Integration between customer relationship management (CRM) and lead generation platforms is a step toward success.

52% of companies have already integrated their marketing software and CRM. 88% of marketers will use web analytics to continue improving their lead-generation strategies. Lead generation platforms like Leadboxer integrate with CRMs and other technology to provide quality leads and analyze data.

Lead generation priorities of marketers

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The Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 released by researchsandmarkets.com takes a closer look at the current environment for this software. The report finds the market was valued at 5.45 billion USD in 2021. As automated marketing software continues to gain traction among businesses, it is projected to reach 8.58 billion USD by 2026.

Due to the increased usage of these platforms, the market is expected to grow by 9.49% between 2022-2026. The report notes the advantages of using this software include improved efficiency, reduced staffing costs, and an overall increase in revenue. 

Cloud and On-Premise are the two studied segments of marketing automation deployment types. Cloud deployment was found to cover a market majority at 58%.

This report studied eight channels of marketing automation: 

  • lead nurturing
  • mobile application 
  • campaign management
  • inbound marketing
  • social media 
  • email
  • reporting/analytics 
  • other

Out of the channel categories, email marketing automation led the way with 17%. 

A Demand Gen Report found that 53% of marketing teams say that early-stage lead generation is most effective when done through email. With email automation pulling ahead of other channels, automated marketing software can help companies save time and resources in producing email campaigns. 

Across industry applications, it was observed that healthcare began utilizing marketing automation software strategies. This implementation has helped create consistent messaging and improved customer service. During 2022-2026, the use of marketing automation in healthcare is expected to grow by 12.5%.

As for regions, this report discovered that North America made up the largest share of marketing automation at 34.3%. Over the forecasted period of 2022-2026, Europe and North America are expected to be the largest markets. Due to a rise in mobile usage and increasing use of advertisement campaigns, the Asia Pacific is projected to be the fastest-growing market. 

How the COVID-19 Pandemic Shaped Automated Software

COVID-19 continues to show lasting effects on the way businesses handle sales outreach. With quick switches to digital communication as in-person meetings were canceled, many B2B companies had to adapt to a virtual environment.

58% of experts believe poor technology infrastructure led to businesses struggling to deal with the pandemic.  The Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 suggests that the pandemic highlighted the importance of marketing automation as companies made the switch to digital channels to keep in touch with customers.

Automation and artificial intelligence (AI) are playing a significant role in the post-pandemic world. 50% of businesses plan to push forward with their AI strategies as they enter into post-COVID operations.

While the pandemic caused upheaval across all industries, it also helped drive innovation and advancement. 43.42% of B2B marketers plan to switch their in-person meeting budgets to digital efforts. 

By investing in automated marketing and lead generation software, B2B companies will be prepared to face a post-pandemic world. 

The Future of Lead Generation and Marketing Automation

Marketing Automation Valuable Features

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Lead generation software and marketing automation is a growing markets. The Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 found several factors for these upward trends including higher social media usage and trending mobile marketing.

While many marketing budgets continue to shrink, a survey from Gartner finds 26.6% of Chief Marketing Officers plan to increase their spending on automated tools. Statista Research Department shows that 2.6 billion USD was spent on lead generation in the United States in 2019. This number is predicted to hit 3.2 billion USD by the end of 2023.

The demand for these tools continues to increase, but this market does face challenges as well. Cyber security and data quality issues were found to be impeding issues for market growth. The quick nature of social media and continued internet usage has posed security and compliance challenges for marketing teams.

Despite advancements in automated software, 40% of businesses find their marketing tools are outdated. This suggests companies are still working to find the best lead-generation platform for their needs. 

As the B2B industry continues to evolve within the digital sphere, lead generation and marketing automation will increase in marketing and sales departments. The content marketing platform is expected to grow the fastest between 2022-2026. Global Marketing Automation Market Analysis Report 2022 suggests it will increase at a CAGR of 17%. 

85% of marketers say their biggest focus from content marketing is lead generation. Research shows an emphasis on producing quality customer experiences and a growing need for analytics-based content will drive content marketing growth. 

AI integration, predictive analytics, and a focus on personalized marketing are contributing to the market increase.

The combination of AI and automation software is pushing businesses toward better customer service and creating stronger interactions with prospects. Lead generation platforms help target the correct customers to drive marketing efforts in the right direction.

Key Takeaways

Lead generation and marketing automation are paving the way for companies to save time and resources when filling the sales pipeline. 80% of marketers saw an increase in their leads after using marketing automation. 

Both markets continue to grow and are projected to rise to new levels by 2029. B2B companies will need to include lead generation platforms and automated marketing into their business strategies to remain competitive in their respective industries.

Marketing automation provides a huge boost in sales leads. Using this software for marketing campaigns can increase these numbers by 451%. Content marketing is used for lead generation by 80% of companies. It is expected to be the fastest-growing channel for automated marketing between 2022-2029.

Lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic will continue to push companies toward digital communication. Customer trends show that many prefer buying in a virtual space. These habits will most likely increase as social media marketing trends upward.

While lead generation and personalized outreach benefit from automated software, challenges with consumer privacy and data quality will continue to be part of the conversation. Salesforce found that 86% of consumers want more transparency regarding the usage of their personal information. 

Investing in highly integrated platforms like LeadBoxer will help departments utilize their existing tech stack to its full potential for lead generation, marketing automation, and customer management.

See what LeadBoxer can do for your business. Get your free trial today!

Harnessing the Power of Video Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Harnessing the Power of Video Marketing for B2B Lead Generation

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Creative lead generation can help your B2B company fill the sales funnel with qualified prospects. Social media continues to be vital for marketing teams, and jumping on the upward trend of video content is a way to boost your outreach. 

Utilizing video marketing is a great way to increase brand awareness and encourage content engagement. This tactic can push your outreach to additional target audiences and help increase your lead generation. Video marketing can also work when trying to retarget and engage potential prospects.

Keep reading, or use the following links to jump ahead:

What is Video Marketing?

Video marketing statistics

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While the strategy isn’t new, video marketing has become crucial for staying relevant in a competitive market. According to WyzOwl’s 2022 Video Marketing Statistic Report, 86% of businesses already use video in their marketing strategy. 

This marketing tool is important to have across all channels. Videos are an easy way to educate prospects on your product, as well as create brand awareness.

In a Hubspot survey, it was found that video content was the second most popular way to increase social media engagement. By encouraging interaction from customers, this strategy can help boost shares and expand audience reach. 

Even though video marketing has been around for a while, many businesses saw a rise in demand for this content during the pandemic. 64% of marketing teams feel the pandemic has affected their 2022 video marketing strategies. Coupling this with the rise of marketing on social media platforms like TikTok, utilizing these tools can make a big difference in engagement.

Increasing Sales Conversions Through Videos

Marketing teams work hard to reach audiences that can be converted successfully for the sales department. These tactics require a lot of planning and resources to make sure content is being delivered to the right prospects.

Video marketing is an accessible tool that helps engage customers before they’ve even spoken to a salesperson. If you’re just beginning your video strategy, a great place to start is finding ways to include this type of content on your website.

According to BizCommunity, conversion rates can be increased by 80% if you include video content on your landing pages. When leads are visiting your site for the first time, videos are able to introduce your product and brand quickly. This type of content encourages engagement as prospects are able to get a glimpse of what your company has to offer.

Additionally, adding videos to your site can help improve search engine optimization (SEO). By having this content on your pages, visitors are more likely to spend more time on your website, which helps boost your page in search engines.

Moving on from initial lead impressions, video marketing can play a role in boosting customer retention. This content has the ability to support salespeople as they walk clients through the sales journey. By having video tutorials and demonstrations, leads are able to interact with your product before making a purchase, which can increase customer confidence.

The options for video content are endless, and it is a great tool to build trust while showcasing an authentic brand to prospects. Utilizing how-tos, customer testimonials, and customer support videos are just a few ways your team can take its marketing strategy to the next level.

How to Create a Successful Video Strategy

Creating content that encourages audience engagement is a good starting place. With high-quality smartphone cameras and a multitude of editing apps to choose from, access to video creation is easier than ever. 

However, starting without a plan can be an overwhelming undertaking for any marketing team. Take time to allocate resources and prepare your team for the content rollout. This type of foresight will help align the marketing and sales department to ensure the highest return on investment (ROI) is being achieved.

Once your teams are ready to go, begin by evaluating your company’s needs. Determine which pages and social platforms will benefit most from the content. Laying out the areas that will receive videos can help decide what the content will showcase.

Next, determine the target audience. For video marketing lead generation, have your team identify what platforms see the most traffic from prospects. 

Bizcommunity found that videos help 90% of customers make buying decisions. By getting this content on pages that see the most interaction from leads, video influence can help push these prospects into the sales funnel. 

Align the goals of the campaign across departments. Multiple videos can serve different purposes, but it is good to have a clear objective before creating any content. This data will also play a role in determining the video’s success late in the journey.

Decide on the video distribution platform. There are a few factors that will help narrow down the best place for your content. Consider your budget, including money for sponsored posts, and your current tools. 

Shorter videos may find their home on TikTok or Instagram, whereas Youtube remains a leader for long-form content. Determining a platform before filming will help drive the subject matter. It is important to take into consideration the type of audience on each social media channel, as well as how engagement is measured.

Platforms like Instagram reels and TikTok rely on short, snappy videos that can quickly grab a viewer’s attention. These sites also work off of algorithms that rely on comments, likes, and shares. Longer videos may do better on Youtube or LinkedIn, especially if the goal of the content is to educate. 

Begin scripting and filming content. If you are not sure where to start, look at similar businesses or competitors to see what type of videos they are sharing. This can help your team gather an understanding of where your industry fits into the digital sphere. 

Once posted, begin measuring the content’s success. While each business may track unique metrics, there are a few basic ones that can help your team see what works and what needs improvement. Engagement is huge. Track comments, likes, and shares. 

Time spent on your site is another great metric to consider. If you have longer videos, are your visitors watching the whole thing? Take a look at any generated leads or conversion boosts. 

Are your visitors interacting with other areas of your site after watching the video? For example, keep an eye out for any upticks in form completion.

Lastly, continue to re-evaluate and produce video content. While you shouldn’t fix any content that seems to be working, don’t be afraid to add new posts. Variety in content can boost engagement and encourage frequent customer interaction. 

Revisit any videos that don’t produce the results your team wants. This form of content is constantly evolving, and it is good to be prepared to embrace changes as needed.

Best Practices for Video Marketing

Once you have a strategy ready to go, implementing best practices can help boost the success of your marketing campaigns. Understanding the different types of video content can help your team see a positive ROI from this work.

Videos like product demonstrations, educational content, or expert interviews can help increase lead generation. While content like customer testimonials, live streams, or personalized messages from employees can create brand awareness.

Use video marketing to retarget old leads. This content can help encourage prospects to re-engage with the sales journey. Maybe the lead wasn’t sure your product was the right fit, but an educational tutorial or how-to guide can help show the ways their company can benefit from a purchase. 

Video Marketing & Social Media

Time spent watching online videos

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The rise of platforms like TikTok and Instagram has expedited the evolution of video content. Now, businesses are able to utilize these channels and interact with leads at a faster pace. In turn, social media has also helped shape marketing trends.

Viral trends dominate the ways content is viewed across platforms, and brands are not exempt from participation. While being TikTok famous isn’t the goal of video content for your business, it’s becoming more common for companies to participate in these trends. 

In 2020, Statistica found that one-fourth of adults online have viewed videos posted on TikTok. Tapping into these markets and finding ways to engage with viewers is important for making the most out of your online presence. 

Influencer marketing has also continued to rise in popularity. Videos like a how-to or product reviews from influencers help create brand awareness and build trust with customers. This type of sponsored content speaks to viewers without seeming too forced. 

According to HubSpot, 64% of businesses found new customers because of a Facebook video. Social media helps successfully mix business with pleasure, as many adults spend time scrolling through Facebook and Instagram throughout the day. By posting video content on social media, your company can see a higher ROI on video marketing.

Get started with lead generation by trying out Leadboxer today!

Top B2B Lead Magnet Examples

Top B2B Lead Magnet Examples

Lead Generation, Marketing, Sales / By

Attracting qualified leads to the sales pipeline is crucial for B2B businesses. Identifying prospects and cultivating relationships will increase sales conversions and create loyal customers.

With email marketing filling up a prospect’s inbox from your company and competitors, it is important to offer valuable content that will help your product stand out. Finding ways to establish yourself as an expert in the industry and producing informative marketing materials can help create lasting customer relationships.

When trying to find potential clients and obtain their contact information, utilizing a lead magnet can kickstart the conversation. Use the links, or keep reading, to learn about lead magnet examples and how your company can benefit from their usage:

What is a Lead Magnet?

Number of lead magnets on websites

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Simply defined, a lead magnet is an incentive that companies can provide to prospects in exchange for contact information. More than that, though, this type of offer can start building trust with potential clients from their first interaction with a business.

Types of lead magnets can vary across industries, but all of them should provide value to the recipient. For example, retailers may offer first-time website visitors a small discount code if they join their mailing list. 

For B2B companies, lead magnets can be more than just a way to grow their email marketing outreach. Connecting with prospects and exchanging contact information is vital for building out a B2B sales pipeline. 

By utilizing a lead magnet, prospective clients can begin to see the value your product offers. With this in mind, planning and executing lead magnets may be different for each potential customer. 

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to this marketing strategy, and businesses that provide innovative and informative lead magnets can boost themselves ahead of competitors. The content within the lead magnet is crucial to forming the foundations of a strong business relationship.

Lead magnets are not seen as optional for businesses that want to remain competitive within their industries. These tools can help plot the trajectory of a prospect’s customer journey by providing a valuable glimpse into a business’s product. 

For technical industries, a lead magnet tends to lean into a demonstration of a product’s solution. This can be done in many ways, like White Papers or Webinars, but the content should provide valuable market insight. 

The Importance of Customizing Lead Magnets

Just like any other marketing tool, customization of outreach is important for lead magnets to be used to their fullest potential. Whether your business has a large array of products or only a few solutions to offer, customers will be coming to you with unique problems that are specific to their organization.

Initial content provided by your business, especially as a way to gain contact information and create first touchpoints, should begin the process of selling your solution. The magnet isn’t a sales pitch itself, though. Rather, it’s a marketing tool to generate interest and educate prospect’s on your product’s capability.

The goal of your marketing efforts is to be seen as an expert in the field. This means prospects and current customers will look to your content for industry insight. Using a lead magnet should entice prospects to provide contact information because they want to engage with the content of value.

Knowing your audience and understanding their needs will help create trust between customers and the business, as well as cultivate interest in your products. Alongside providing solutions, loyal customers will appreciate customized content that caters to their interests.

Before choosing the types of content you want to produce, it is important to identify your target audience and take the time to understand their needs. Research prospective clients, find pain points that your product can help alleviate, and pay attention to market trends. 

Identifying and targeting the correct audience will make sure your content is providing information to those who are most likely to become loyal customers. By investing in research to understand your prospect’s interests, your company should see a higher ROI for lead magnets and other marketing materials.

Along with customization for specific customer bases, making sure your content is up-to-date and relevant to current events can help create engagement. Utilize statistics to show ongoing trends in your industry. For example, as the economy continues to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, providing customers with content that addresses this topic will help your business be seen as an informed source.

Lead Magnet Examples

Lead Magnet with Highest Conversion Rate

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Email marketing, lead generation, and content engagement are all important tools for becoming a successful B2B company. These are no longer optional if you want to be a competitor in the market. On top of utilizing digital marketing to reach prospects, any content provided to potential clients should begin to build a relationship.

Creating sales pipelines and adding qualified leads to the funnel can be a tough task. Some prospects may be weary of providing contact information, and others may have no idea who your company is. 

By creating and providing quality lead magnets, your business should be able to showcase its value to these potential clients to build trust and begin the sales journey.

Not all lead magnets are the same. Some will serve different purposes depending on the type of customer you are working to attract. All of these tools should be enticing enough to earn contact information. 

Digital marketing continues to evolve as new social media platforms pop up and customers continue to be inundated with content. However, lots of clients are still beginning their search for solutions by turning to Google. 

Attracting potential clients through organic web traffic is a great way to score contact information from potential leads. This is where lead magnets can become a huge game changer. This content should be accessible on your website, in exchange for contact data, and it should be interesting enough to catch a prospect’s attention.

Below are lead magnet examples that can help your business take its lead generation to the next level.

White Paper

This tool is one of the top lead generators for B2B companies, but it needs to be interesting enough to garner interest from website visitors. There are several approaches you can take to white papers, and any form should provide unique information that is specific to your client’s industry.

A white paper is a tool that provides industry information using facts and statistics, but also helps build a case for the product that is sponsoring it. This content provides research-backed knowledge and promotes a solution through authority on the topic. 

As with all lead magnets, the content within the paper should be valuable, and it is important to make sure it’s enough to convert a prospect into a qualified lead. The subject should be creative, but something that can be heavily backed by data.

Providing a professional reference guide or one written by a C-Suite member can be a great start for a white paper. Allowing the CEO or COO to be the face of a paper on a trending topic in the industry can help establish your company’s expertise.

A professional reference guide would act as a comprehensive resource for professionals in your industry. While this type of content may seem basic and geared toward beginners in the field, it helps show off the knowledge of your company. This content is also easily refreshable, which takes fewer resources to maintain. 

Taking a more statistical approach can help gain points from prospects who may value insight into market trends. Analyze a case study or write about market predictions based on past trends. This content can help establish your organization’s credibility and focus on how your product fits into the current market. 

A simple type of white paper can be a comprehensive product breakdown to provide crucial insight into the solutions your business provides. This helps with the technical aspect of your sales pitch and can help introduce prospects to your tools.

Webinars

Leaning into a product demonstration, webinars are an easily accessible avenue for prospects to become acquainted with your company. Live webinars are a great resource to pitch your product to potential customers who may be exploring several solutions. 

These live streams provide in-depth product demonstrations and leave time for questions that participants might have. By showcasing your product and demonstrating your team’s expertise through answering questions in real time, webinars help prospects familiarize themselves with the solution your company provides.

Also, webinars make capturing contact information extremely easy. Many platforms require participants to sign in with their email addresses and include information regarding their role within the company. This allows your team to start targeted outreach to these prospective clients as soon as the webinar begins.

Live webinars help give easy to provide participants with a call-to-action at the conclusion of the demonstration. After seeing your product and its features, potential clients can easily take the next step to set up a meeting with one of your business development employees.

Another option for webinars is creating an ongoing series that is relevant to current market trends. This moves the presentation away from a simple demonstration and allows your team to discuss your product’s role within the industry.

This type of series helps create fresh content to promote engagement from prospects and loyal customers. Along with providing valuable market insight, these conversations and the Q&A following can help potential clients see the way your team interacts with existing customers.

By showcasing your customer service and your expertise within the industry, prospects may feel more inclined to move along within your sales funnel.

Risk-Free Trials

A classic lead magnet for many B2B companies is offering a free trial of the product. This is particularly popular for businesses that are promoting software as a solution. Some prospects may benefit from exploring the product on their own to determine if it’s a good fit.

Important factors for a risk-free trial to be successful in qualifying leads include clear communication about the trial’s terms and ease of cancellation before being charged for the service. 

Free trial sign-up forms will capture contact data so your team can reach out to these prospects and discuss their needs while they’re trying out the product. This is a great way to establish a relationship and help potential customers see the full benefit of your services.

Another aspect of the risk-free trial is gaining feedback from prospects as they self-navigate your product. Conducting check-ins to the contact information provided can start the conversation and allow your team to hear about the customer experience.

This type of lead magnet does require a product that can be easily trialed, but other types of products may be able to utilize a virtual demonstration if a free trial is not possible. Allowing prospects to test the software before purchasing can help build trust. 

Communication is important for successfully providing free trials as a lead magnet. Make sure your team is able to reach out to the user as they work, listen to feedback that’s given, and be transparent about the subscription details. 

eBooks

Similar to a white paper, an eBook is a long form of content that can serve as an informational guide to prospects. However, an eBook tends to cover general topics and may combine multiple pieces into one piece of content.

This type of lead magnet is great if your marketing team works heavily with blogs or has a series on specific topics that relate to your product and industry.  Different from a white paper, an eBook tends to be less academic and bundles more information together.

Sharing an eBook with prospects helps them save time that they would’ve spent searching through your website. The information covered in the content can go over trending industry topics and the solution your product provides. 

Since prospects won’t be able to view the content in your book before providing contact information, the brief overview and title should be catchy enough to catch their interest. 

Quizzes

A creative option for lead magnets is creating a quiz that prospects can take on your website. This type of content encourages direct engagement with your site, and should tell the potential client something about themselves and your product at the end of it.

A quiz can be a fun way to introduce your product and help clients feel comfortable sharing their contact information with your business. 

Making sure you’re implementing an appropriate quiz format is important for this type of lead magnet to be successful. Create a relevant title that entices website visitors to engage.

For example, if your company offers multiple solutions to workplace problems, you could use something as simple as “What Type of Product is Right For You?”. Next, the length of the quiz matters. Avoid making it too long because you don’t want prospects to get bored and abandon the activity.

The results of this should prompt action from the prospect. Try to tailor the results to collect contact information from qualified leads. You can take it a step further by using a quiz to assess where the prospect is in their customer journey.

This type of lead magnet can provide your team with data to move the lead within the sales funnel, as well as encourage prospects to take the next step with your product.

Templates

Offering a way for a prospect to streamline their process by simply providing contact information in return is an easy way to start building a relationship. Often, potential clients are trying to achieve something through their search and that’s how they’ve ended up on your webpage.

By providing templates as a lead magnet, customers are able to gain access to a quick solution and then explore your product in more depth as your team begins targeted outreach. Templates are a great resource for your marketing team to create as well because they don’t require constant refreshing.

Templates can also be used for most industries since they are easy to create in any form. For example, your business can offer email, design, social media, or spreadsheet templates. This type of content targets qualified prospects by tapping into their needs and providing a quick solution.

While templates don’t necessarily demonstrate how your product works, they are able to provide market insight. Tailoring these templates to things such as “Cold Outreach” or “Instagram Posts” can help your prospect see the understanding you have of the industry.

Email Courses

While online courses are easily accessible, taking it one step further and implementing an email course can expand your reach. According to a Statista survey, 96% of workers check their email outside of office hours, and 13% say they check theirs multiple times per hour. 

Email inboxes are cluttered with promotional emails and irrelevant content, so it is important to find ways to reach your prospect with valuable information. Email courses are a great way to allow potential clients to opt-in to a sequence providing insight into industry topics.

This helps establish a relationship between your company and the customer, and they are actively engaging with your content by reading the course. Also, it can help promote the ways your product integrates with the topics covered in the emails.

An email course provides multiple touchpoints to continue nurturing the lead and qualifying their needs. While some prospects may download an eBook but never get around to reading it, email courses provide a consistent stream of digestible content.

This helps your company stay at the forefront of prospect’s mind while they are searching for solutions to their needs. By sharing educational content, the customer will feel like your business has added value and they may be more inclined to move forward in the sales process.

Another great thing about email courses is they can help continue engagement with prospects who may not be ready for purchase yet, but will want to buy your product in the future. These sequences serve as a quick reminder of your business and help cultivate the business relationship, even before a sale is made.

Using Lead Magnets to Demonstrate Product Solutions

Lead magnets are resources that your marketing team is investing time and money into creating, which means you want it to serve a strong purpose. Rather than passively capturing contact information, a lead magnet should do more than just expand your email campaign lists.

Using these tools to their full potential means finding ways for them to demonstrate how your product provides solutions. Potential clients want to see the value your business can share, and a lead magnet is a great first step.

By relating the magnet to your service, your business should be able to qualify the incoming leads and ensure they are getting to the right salespeople. High-tech service providers need to demonstrate the value of their product, whether its data analytics or AI software. By using a lead magnet to begin showcasing the product’s features, potential clients will start to understand the solution.

While it may seem like the easiest way to do this is using a free trial as a lead magnet, other formats can provide the same kind of experience. Webinars, email courses, and white papers help establish businesses as key players within their industries while building trust with clients.

The important thing is to make sure lead magnets are providing educational information, not just serving as an advertisement for the tools your business offers. White papers can lean into your product’s ability while providing data-backed research on market trends. Webinars and email courses can cover industry-specific topics and demonstrate the solutions offered by your product.

This content should be specific to the audience you are trying to engage. Lead magnets should be tailored to the interests of your potential clients and refreshed as needed to stay relevant within the industry. By demonstrating how a product works and the features it has, targeted prospects should feel more confident in allowing your business to provide the solution.

To get started with engaging prospects with these lead magnet examples, check out Leadboxer’s free trial. 

The Benefits of Sales Team Diversity

The Benefits of Sales Team Diversity

Sales / By

The subjects of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are leading conversations surrounding best business practices. While discussions about diversity in the workplace have increased over the past few years, these topics are more than just trendy buzzwords. Research suggests that diversity in sales can increase return on investment (ROI) and improve customer satisfaction ratings.

Staying competitive in the sales industry starts with creating a company that attracts diverse talent. Accomplishing this takes more than simply acknowledging the need for a diverse sales team. To benefit from DEI, companies must work to provide welcoming environments that offer a pathway for professional success for employees of varying backgrounds, genders, races, and ethnicities.

Keep reading, or use the links below to see how sales team diversity can help your company succeed:

Diversity Drives Increased Sales

Reasons to create more inclusive work groups

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Every business to business (B2B) company shares one major goal: increasing sales. Successful companies work hard to drive higher sales each year. 

A diverse sales team can be the key to higher numbers. According to a study by Forrester, 60% of sales teams surveyed attributed increased sales to having a diverse and inclusive sales force. 

Creating a diverse work environment means more than hiring from underrepresented groups. Successful teams will create a culture that celebrates diversity and allows these differences to become a driving force for their sales process.

Racial and cultural diversity has been at the forefront of these discussions, and with good reason. According to a 2019 study, only 5% of employees at Silicon Valley tech firms were people of color. The same study found women filled just 28% of roles in the tech industry. 

These numbers provide insight into the glaring DEI issues many industries are still facing.  Along with obvious race and gender gaps, diversity in age and life experience are important for driving increased sales. 

The Census Bureau notes that an annual $4 trillion dollars in buying power comes from Millenials, African Americans, and Latinx populations. Having a diverse sales team that is representative of these groups can help you tap into this lucrative market. 

On top of achieving higher sales numbers, diverse hiring practices can help bridge the gap for unfilled positions. Many companies struggle to fill sales roles with employees who meet or exceed their quotas. By expanding the candidate pool outside of the usual network and into more diverse groups, the time it takes to fill these open positions can decrease.

Sales team diversity also leads to innovation in the workplace. When collaboration is needed to explore new sales tactics, having a team with members from different backgrounds can make a huge difference. 

The Harvard Business Review reports that companies leading in diversity are 45% more likely to report market growth from previous years. This research suggests that sales team diversity drives innovation and allows new ideas to be heard.

Widening Your Lead Pool

Leads are vital for any B2B sales model, and most companies spend time and resources to widen their lead pools. Sales team diversity is another tool to help add leads to your pipeline, and research suggests diversity leads to higher conversions. 

According to Forrester, teams leading in diversity see a conversion rate of 54% for leads to opportunities. In contrast, other teams only see a 26% rate. 

When more groups are represented on your sales team, it is easier for customers to connect with salespeople. This helps engage leads and nurture them throughout the customer journey.

Harvard Business Review found that salespeople who share ethnicity with a potential client are 125% more likely to understand their needs. This statistic shows how vital diversity is for converting leads. When new prospects enter the sales pipeline, being able to provide a positive customer interaction is crucial for landing the sale.

Customer bases are diverse, and reaching out beyond your immediate network can help introduce your team to new leads. It’s important to acknowledge that American consumers expect brands to embrace DEI practices. Forrester found that 55% of consumers will buy from a brand that reflects their personality.

These statistics show how important it is to employ a diverse pool of salespeople. For your sales team to succeed, it is crucial that it be made up of different ethnicities, races, ages, and backgrounds your customer base can relate to. 

40% of Americans identify as diverse, based on race or ethnicity. With such a large group of diverse consumers, sales teams must reflect this reality. 

Increasing ROI With Diversity and Inclusion

Successful sales practices are an investment for any company. These costs include hiring, software, lead generation, customer retention resources, and marketing. The goal of these business investments are to see a higher return due to increased sales conversions.

By attracting a diverse sales team, the ROI for your company can increase. Through higher sales forecasts, lead conversions, sales attainment, and customer satisfaction, DEI can play a huge role in bolstering B2B sales success. 

During a 2021 study, Forrester found that the sales team leading in DEI initiatives had already hit 43% of their sales attainment goals, while other groups were sitting at 31%. Understanding the value of DEI can help set your team apart from those who are lagging in diverse hiring practices.

Among those businesses who lead the way in DEI, 44% believe diversity will continue to play a larger role in business decisions for the next two years. Investing in

inclusive practices will pave the way for future success.

While creating a diverse sales team with an inclusive environment does not happen overnight, taking the necessary steps can pay off by leading your team to higher sales. To begin, analyze the demographics of your existing team and look for areas where improvements are needed. Survey current employees to better understand how their gender, race, or background affects their experience at your company.

Harvard Business Review found that in the absence of diverse leadership, underrepresented groups are less likely to see idea endorsement compared to their counterparts who are straight, white, and male. Women are 20% less likely, LGBTQ+ are 21% less likely, and people of color are 24% less likely to have their suggestions seriously considered.

Understanding how these numbers can harm your business will help unlock insight into ways to drive a higher ROI. Establishing a culture that encourages innovation from diverse employees will help tap into underrepresented markets. 

Improving Customer Satisfaction

Importance of inclusive and diverse marketing ads

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Customers are the most important part of B2B sales. Retaining customers helps increase ROI, as it is five times more expensive to attract new customers than it is to engage current customers. By improving customer satisfaction rates, your company can save money and increase sales conversions.

Sales teams leading the way in DEI report a 24% increase in customer satisfaction scores. Having an accurate representation of your customer base on your sales team can help improve customer relations. 

Leaning on the ideas of your employees can help engage customers in a personal way. By diversifying your sales team in age, race, and gender, each customer can interact with a point-of-contact that understands their needs. 

Along with customer representation, sales team diversity helps bring fresh ideas that can appeal to other demographics. For example, having older employees on your team can help engage customers in the same age group through proper marketing channels.

With multiple generations in the workforce and a diverse American population, understanding motivation is the key to customer success. These varying viewpoints can allow your team to see what types of sales pitches, products, and marketing materials different groups prefer.

Marketing and sales work hand-in-hand to identify and qualify leads. Creating targeted audiences for marketing materials is important for a personalized customer experience. Through DEI practices, these resources are more easily refined to appeal to each target base. 

Through research, Facebook found that 71% of consumers want to see promotion of diversity and inclusion in their online marketing materials.Yet, 54% don’t feel represented in online ads. Utilizing diverse sales teams can help encourage marketing that accurately represents an equally diverse consumer base.

By representing customers accurately, customer loyalty will follow. In fact, 59% of consumers are more loyal to brands with inclusive marketing practices. Incorporating DEI into your hiring practices and customer experiences can have a huge, positive impact on customer loyalty with your brand.

Key Takeaways

Sales team diversity is not just the right thing to do, it has a direct correlation to success in the current market. Investing in the resources, tools, training, and employees who can bring diverse outlooks to your sales team takes time and money, but ultimately increases sales and ROI.

The consumer base wants to feel represented when buying from companies, and diverse sales employees can lead to improved customer experience rates. Alongside marketing tactics, inclusive practices will help engage underrepresented communities and generate brand loyalty.

The research is clear: diversity in the workplace leads to more innovation. Remaining a competitor in B2B sales is vital, and leading teams in DEI see higher sales attainment coupled with longer employee retention. 

Understanding and acknowledging the importance of an inclusive company culture is the first step to creating sales team diversity. Next, listening to employees and improving DEI practices can help launch your B2B sales to a higher level.

Creating Generational Marketing Strategy

Create a Generational Marketing Strategy Without Alienating Key Target Audiences

Marketing / By

Creating a marketing strategy that appeals to a diverse range of ages can be a difficult undertaking. Mass appeal to multiple generations requires a deep understanding of how each group tends to interact with marketing materials. Planning ahead and using appropriate resources are essential elements of any successful generational marketing campaign.

Reaching a broad range of target audience members during a marketing campaign is important for maximizing your return-on-investment (ROI). The goal of your generational marketing strategy should be to reach potential customers without alienating any key audience bases. 

For tips on creating a successful generational marketing strategy, keep reading, or use the links below to skip ahead:

What Is Generational Marketing and Why Does It Matter?

As you are probably well aware, marketing is not a one-size-fits-all approach when building the right customer base for your business. Even if your team is only selling one product, the pitch needs to be adjusted based on a variety of factors, including age. It’s important to understand ways you can incorporate content that appeals to mass audiences throughout your generational marketing strategy to avoid alienating key target groups.

Generational marketing uses segmentation to split audiences by age to better reach each target demographic. Currently, there are four generations of consumers your marketing team should be targeting: Baby Boomers, Gen X, Millennials, and Gen Z. 

It is important to understand that each generation interacts with marketing differently. By understanding which age demographics are in your target audience, your team will be able to produce appropriate content. 

For most businesses, it is beneficial to appeal to multiple generations. By analyzing the preferences of each generation you seek to engage and eventually convert, you can gain valuable insights, making it possible for your team to develop and apply a successful generational marketing strategy.

Annual Consumer Spending by Generation Feb 2019

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Baby Boomers

In 2020, the Baby Boomer generation made up 21.45% of the U.S. population. This generation refers to those born between 1946-1964. Their substantial makeup of the population means they play a significant role in the economy.

Most importantly, Baby Boomers are a generation that has had to embrace major advancements in technology as it has developed at an accelerated rate in recent decades. In comparison, younger generations have had high levels of technology use incorporated into almost every aspect of their lives from a young age. Because of this disparity in lived experience, many Baby Boomers are used to traditional marketing tactics and tend to prefer in-person interactions. 

This isn’t to imply Baby Boomers are out of touch when it comes to technology. According to Pew Research, in 2021, 71% of adults aged 50-64 use at least one social media site. Baby Boomers are a great example of how traditional sales tactics can be combined with social media for maximum outreach.

Generation X

Sometimes referred to as the “Middle Child” generation, Gen X encompasses those born between 1965-1980. This group was the first to grow up with access to personal computers, and tend to be more tech-savvy than their predecessors.

This group makes up less of the population than Boomers and Millennials, coming in at 19.71% of the U.S. population in 2020. Gen Xers tend to be swayed by customer testimonials, and it’s helpful to provide a mix of traditional marketing with digital tactics.

Millennials

Also known as Generation Y, Millennials surpassed the Baby Boomers in size in 2020. Currently, Millennials make up 21.93% of the U.S. population.  

Those born between 1981-1996 are classified as Millennials, which means they grew up during the rise of technology. This demographic tends to have a large online presence and a good grasp of digital marketing tactics. 
There are more than 80 million millennials, most of whom are very active on social media and tend to consume information on their cell phones. Marketing tactics should take mobile compatibility into consideration when trying to reach this generation. Delivery of advertising and other content via online blogs and social media is highly effective with this demographic.

Generation Z

A young generation on the rise, this group makes up those born between 1997-2012. They account for 20.35% of the U.S. population, but only a fraction of this group is old enough to enter the workforce. 

Gen Zers grew up online, and have embraced social media from a young age. They tend to have a shorter attention span and the ability to consume different forms of media simultaneously. A  2017 survey by the National Retail Foundation (NRF) shows 74% of Gen Zers consider ‘spending time online’ to be a hobby. 

As a unique group, Gen Z may not be fully entered into the workplace yet, but that hasn’t stopped them from having a substantial impact on the economy. The NRF found that consumer spending on Gen Z equated to $829.6 billion in 2015. 

Generation Z prefers quick messaging and dislikes marketing ads that disrupt their online experience. They tend to lean toward tech-savvy sales tactics, but they place a larger emphasis on quality when it comes to products.

Establishing Your Target Audience

With such diversity spread across the generations, it is important for your marketing team to know which groups they need to target. Not all products will appeal to a mass audience, and that’s okay. By knowing your customer base, your company can allocate its resources towards marketing efforts aimed at reaching the right people.

Start by creating your ideal customer profile. The idea is to target clients who will most likely benefit from using your product. Odds are, your customer base will span across several generations, but it is possible it may not appeal to all of them.

Creating an ideal client profile takes time and resources.But the information gleaned is worth doing the necessary research so you understand who is most likely to benefit from and purchase your service or product. This information will prove vital in assisting your marketing team as it begins creating successful campaigns aimed at nurturing potential customer relationships. 

Once established, take a look at the generational demographics of your target audience. If your list contains members of Generation X or younger (and it most likely will), your team should start thinking about the best ways to incorporate social media into its campaigns.

Millennials and Generation Zers are known for their online presence, but they are also in tune with marketing tactics. These groups don’t want to be bombarded with ads during their content scrolls, but they do want quality information delivered in an easy-to-digest format. 

According to a 2022 consumer survey, 81% of consumers prefer receiving personalized communications from brands. This means your company needs to establish which customers are buying your products and then find ways to personalize your marketing outreach.

What is Attitudinal Segmentation?

Similar to generational marketing, attitudinal segmentation involves splitting your audience into groups. Rather than focusing on age, attitudinal segmentation groups customers together based on shared beliefs. This strategy dives deeper into the way customers think and feel.

This type of audience segmentation can help your marketing team personalize their outreach based on the feelings of specific customer groups. It is also most successful when combined with other tactics, such as generational marketing.

Using these strategies together can help maximize outreach and avoid alienating key audiences. When beginning the implementation of attitudinal segmentation, starting off with a few simple questions can kick start the process.

Try establishing motivations with questions like “Why do you…”, or focus on opinions with “What do you think of…”. These answers will help guide audience members into segmented groups based on their purchasing behaviors. By understanding the way consumers feel, your marketing team will be able to develop content that speaks to the needs of your customers. 

The Importance of Brand Loyalty Across Generations

The Importance of Brand Loyalty for Consumers

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There is more to creating a successful marketing campaign than simply understanding generational preferences and customer attitudes. Audience engagement helps lead a marketing campaign to the finish line by filling the sales pipeline with qualified leads ready to start the purchasing process. 84% of consumers will interact with advertising when they feel loyal to the brand. 

The sales cycle begins with marketing touchpoints that happen long before customers get the chance to speak with the sales or customer service departments. That means brands start building their reputation from the moment content is extended to an audience. Establishing and maintaining a credible brand is important for encouraging customer engagement.

According to Havas, over half (60%) of brand-related content fails to deliver and is considered clutter by consumers. Before taking any concrete steps to plan a marketing campaign, the team should understand that consumers value quality over quantity when it comes to brand communications. 

Generational and attitudinal marketing strategies align when it comes to understanding what customers want to get from a brand. Not all consumers share the same attitudes, and many are loyal to the same brands for different reasons. Diving into the insights that generational and attitudinal preferences share with brands can help your team create a successful campaign that reaches the correct audience.

For example, Gen Z looks for brands who are able to provide for the greater good and offer value. As a group that has grown up connected to communities through the internet, 68% of Gen Zers say they expect to see brands positively contribute to society. On top of their overall belief in bettering society, Gen Zers look for tech-savvy brands. In fact, the majority of this group won’t engage with websites/apps that are slow to upload.

Gen X is known for being the most brand-loyal group. Statistics show four out of 10 Gen Xers will stick with brands with which they have already established relationships. Continued outreach and implementation of customer feedback will be important to maintaining loyalty with many in this age group.

Along with preserving a good standing among consumers, brand loyalty leads to repeat purchases by customers. Studies demonstrate purchases by repeat customers are vital to success, accounting for up to 65% of a company’s business. Brand loyalty helps establish long-term relationships with consumers and encourages multiple purchases from these buyers. 

In between buying cycles, marketing plays a large role in nurturing customer relationships through targeted content. This outreach helps your company and the services or products it provides stay top of mind for consumers. 

Creating a Generational Marketing Strategy Without Alienation

After taking a deeper look at the different generational motivations, the best place to start with campaign creation is understanding how incorrect use of this information may cause alienation. Generational marketing can help successfully reach out to consumers across different age ranges, but overgeneralizations about the groups can cause more harm than good. 

While understanding generational differences, especially with the preferred communication styles, is important for marketing, it is just as important to avoid stereotyping. A successful generational marketing strategy will combine with attitudinal segmentation to provide a positive personal experience for the target audience. 

To start a successful campaign, it is important to identify where age will play a role within your company’s outreach. Knowing how generational differences factor into your brand will help your team segment audiences appropriately.

Diversity Within Generations

One of the main problems with traditional generational marketing is failing to take into account how large these groups are. For example, with 80 million Millennials in the generation, it is safe to assume not all of these consumers share the same beliefs. All of the generations are made up of diverse groups who may act differently from their peers.

Consumer age can provide insights into their preferences, but these trends do not replace a personal connection with the customer. Simply assuming your client will act a certain way due to their generation can cause tension and potentially ruin the business relationship if those assumptions are proven false.

Implementing attitudinal segmentation alongside generational marketing can be a great way to find middle ground when creating campaigns. Using data that provides insight into customer opinions, purchasing history, and lifestyle, these tactics can help companies avoid getting caught in a stereotype trap. 

This allows your marketing team to focus on creating content for groups with similar interests, rather than just age. By delivering quality content that speaks to a consumer’s preferences, attitudinal segmentation can boost overall engagement and reach mass audiences.

Stick With Tried and True Marketing Tactics

Social media usage continues to grow across generations, but traditional marketing tactics still have a place in campaigns. Email communications continue to be the preferred marketing channel for most generations, except Gen Z. 

Continue to communicate with groups via email blasts, but focus on tailoring content to reach the targeted audience. Segment these groups based on preferences like the amount of communication the consumer wants or specific products they may buy. 

Quality customer service remains a high priority for consumers. According to Microsoft, 69% of U.S. consumers view customer service as an important factor when maintaining brand loyalty. Customers will continue to repeat purchases from companies they view as excellent in the customer service department. To ensure these efforts are reaching the right audiences, tailor your customer services to the needs of different generations. 

Millennials and Gen Z are known for their online presence, and online customer service options make addressing these issues easy. For those who may prefer a more traditional route, implement customer service over the phone and make sure consumers are able to interact with a real person. 

Marketing for Tech-Savvy Groups

A huge mistake that can be made during generational marketing is assuming some groups may not be active on social media. While Millennials and Gen Z tend to spend more time online than others, it would be incorrect to assume Gen X and Baby Boomers avoid the internet completely.

68% of Baby Boomers are active on Facebook, which means a majority of this generation sees Facebook advertisements daily. For those companies who want to utilize social media for all generations, sticking with traditional outlets like Facebook can help with effective outreach.

Two-thirds of the Millennial generation are active on Facebook daily. Reaching Gen Z, however, may be more successful with Snapchat or Instagram, since over 50% of this generation uses these apps daily.

Due to the Millennial’s and Gen Z’s tech-savvy lifestyle, digital marketing tactics are important for reaching consumers in these age groups. It is important to have a strong understanding of the way these groups interact with online communities to maximize outreach efforts.

According to Epsilon, 75% of these generations shop online with their smartphone. That means usability across devices is important for closing sales. Website compatibility and access on smartphones will help connect younger consumers with your products. The study also found that Millennials spend more money online than other generations. Having the ability to purchase items directly on a website is important for tapping into this generation’s spending potential.

While Millennials lead the way in e-commerce buying on sites like Amazon, Gen Z has adopted a different tactic when it comes to online purchasing. According to Forbes, 97% of Gen Z view social media as their main source of shopping inspiration. Being able to purchase items in apps, like Instagram, TikTok, and Pinterest, helps Gen Z have a more personalized shopping experience. 

While younger generations tend to lead the way in online shopping, multi-generational households are changing the way older generations make purchases. Baby Boomers with kids are 42% more likely to shop online. 

77% of consumers in Gen Z who still live with their families say they have an influence over household food and beverage decisions. These multigenerational interactions mean it is important to maintain digital marketing with mass appeal. 

Embracing Brand Authenticity

Generalizations about age groups are nothing new, but falling into these traps can be detrimental to your generational marketing strategy. Avoid getting stuck in the belief that all boomers hate technology or that millennials are entitled. These stereotypes often find their way into conversations, but they alienate audiences and can negatively impact your brand’s image.

Instead, focus on authentically presenting your brand in a way that can resonate across generations. Consumers are smart, and they will easily identify inauthentic attempts to ‘fit in’. For example, unless it is already part of your company’s persona, using cheesy social media lingo can be a turn-off to younger customers.

According to a study done in 2018, transparency is one of the most attractive qualities for 69% of consumers. Hiding behind generational stereotypes can cause customers to feel as though your brand is not presenting an authentic vision. Forbes points out that over one third of Gen Z follows brands that they like, which means consistent branding is important for this generation.

Not only does the youngest generation care about authenticity, but overall, brands with consistent presentation saw a 33% increase in revenue. Across generations, consumers are focused on the image a company presents and how its actions back this up. With customers holding the buying power, authentic brands will benefit and continue to rise to the top.

Key Takeaways

Generational marketing is not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Marketing teams should avoid jumping into a campaign that is based on age alone.   Instead, creating a diverse plan with attitudinal segmentation and patterns based on generational behavior will avoid the alienation of key target audiences.

Embracing technology works for all generations, but some may require more creativity to be persuaded into a purchase. Stick with traditional outlets to reach Baby Boomers and Gen X, but don’t be afraid to try out new platforms like TikTok in hopes of reaching Gen Z. Maintain authenticity and transparency across all social media and email, though. Consumers will appreciate consistent branding, and this can increase your company’s brand loyalty. 

Establish your target audience through a range of factors. Look into their lifestyles, communication preferences, and product interests. Segment your audience based on attitudes and opinions, as well as generation when applicable. Focus on creating brand loyalty and rewarding repeat customers. 

Overall, generational marketing can help companies better reach their targeted demographic, but it is crucial to approach this strategy with ample research. To avoid missing out on outreach to key audiences, combine generational and attitudinal marketing strategies for a successful campaign.

For a free trial on using customer insights from web traffic, check out LeadBoxer!

Lead Generation Strategies that Boost Sales

Lead Generation Strategies that Boost Sales

Lead Generation, Sales / By

Your business wants to up its lead generation game. However, there are many strategies out there that promise you exceptional results. How do you improve your lead generation?

You may already have some of the pieces in place. Before you stress out over what new lead generation trend to follow, here are some strategies to try:

Update Your Website

Your website is the first interaction customers have with your brand. Make a good first impression with an updated website. 

Updating your website doesn’t mean going overboard with videos, graphics, or text. If you think your website is “cool” because it has Adobe Flash Player, think again. 

Great websites are optimized for search engines, have user-friendly designs, and valuable content. You may already have these on your website, but here are more tips to make your website great:

Don’t Overwhelm Visitors With Options 

People like having choices. However, too many choices can be a bad thing. 

When people have too many options, they can get confused and overwhelmed. They may get flustered and bounce from your website because they can’t make a decision. 

To see how easy (or difficult) it is to navigate the options on your website, explore it yourself. Better yet, have someone else poke around your site. Ask them to write down questions and observe their experience. 

Pay attention to how easy it is to go on to the next step. Look at whether your pages make sense and accomplish your company’s goals.

Put in the Effort to Tell People Who You Are

Chances are you put more blood, sweat, and tears into certain pages of your site. Your product or services pages and testimonial pages likely took much of your attention. How much time did you devote to your About Us page?

It’s great to give specifics on your products and services and share the experiences of satisfied customers. Consumers want to know about your company before doing business with you. Your About Us page is your chance to give a good impression and build trust with potential customers. 

Information to put on the website homepage

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Your customers will feel more comfortable working with your business if they know its background, staff, mission, values, and awards. Think of it as introducing your business to a new customer or friend. 

Be sure to include high-resolution images of your leadership and staff on your About Us page. For content, include your mission, value proposition, and a clear call to action. 

Get Information on Who Visits Your Website

Gone are the days when you hope the right people find your website, make a sale, and return. With our Lead Identification solution, you can know valuable information about who visits your site. We can tell you:

  • Who visits your website
  • What company do they work for
  • All the company’s firmographic details
  • What services or products they are interested in
  • Visitor’s company contact information
  • How many visitors from this company visited
  • Based on above and more, what is the visitor’s lead score value

Embedded Lead Identification into your website requires no buttons or forms to fill out. All the data is collected automatically and discreetly.

Utilize Effective Landing Pages

Landing pages are good at capturing leads. However, a poorly-created one will not give you the amount or quality of leads you want. Here are some tips for creating effective landing pages:

Keep Your Landing Pages Simple 

Marketers can overthink when it comes to creating landing pages. They want them to be complex and sleek. An overly-complex landing page, however, will lead to more bounces. 

The purpose of a landing page is for people to leave their contact information to access valuable content. It is important to grab people’s attention and offer high-quality content. You also need a clear call to action telling people what to do next. 

Get straight to the point in telling visitors why they need your services or products. Also clearly show them what they need to do to get started.

Include Testimonials on Your Landing Pages 

You know how powerful testimonials are. You use them on your website. Why not use them on your landing pages?

Testimonials by satisfied customers let people know your offerings are effective and your brand is trustworthy. Adding testimonials to your landing pages are simple and effective lead generation strategies.

It is easy to find testimonials. Look at your company’s social media channels, customer support emails, and product reviews. Before you use a testimonial, reach out to the source and get permission. 

Have a Mobile-Friendly Landing Page 

Your leads and customers are more likely to view your website and landing page on the go via their cellphone. Your landing page needs to be optimized to fit on the tiny screen of a phone. If it isn’t, your landing page will look clunky and unappealing. 

If you don’t think a mobile-responsive website is important, you might want to think again:

  • 70% of web traffic comes from mobile devices 
  • 80% of the best websites are mobile-friendly
  • 61% of users won’t return to a non-mobile-friendly website  
  • 70% of mobile searches lead to a conversion 
Importance of optimizing opt-in forms.

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Since your landing page will be formatted and look different than it would on a desktop or tablet, shorten your opt-in forms. Be sure to optimize your call to action (CTA) buttons and make them highly visible. 

Remove Menus From Your  Landing Pages

Menus on your landing pages are distracting. Going back to the first point, the simpler the landing page, the better the conversion rate. Remember, you want them to stay on the landing page and follow the call to action. 

Upgrade Your Content

Using the text on your website and blog simply as an area to stuff keywords won’t get you conversions. To generate leads, you need to know your desired customer and what content will be valuable to them. You’ll attract customers most likely to convert and your informative content will boost your brand’s authority. 

There are many ways to use high-quality content. You can have it on your website and feature an opt-in form for visitors to read more. A blog with good content has a better chance of getting noticed and shared.  

Start Blogging and do it Consistently

Blogs are real estate for you to share valuable information with website visitors and they can boost your SEO. A blog adds personality to our brand and improves your brand’s credibility. They can also attract 67% more leads per month.

First-time website visitors will want to know more about your company than the great products or services you offer. They expect your business to be knowledgeable in your industry. They also want to be treated with the utmost importance. 

Once you start a blog, you need to regularly produce high-quality content. If you’re not consistently blogging, customers will get bored. Your blog content will no longer be engaging, current, or relevant. 

When you blog consistently, you help create an engaging interaction with potential leads. The longer a lead engages with you before signing up or opting in, the more likely they will become paying customers. 

A relationship with a lead not only increases their likelihood of becoming a paid customer, but also a returning customer. Loyal customers can be counted on for repeat business and they can become valuable brand ambassadors. 

Before you write your blog posts, research your target audience and keywords to use throughout the content. If you need help coming up with topics to write about, look up trends happening in your industry. When writing your blogs, be sure to include clear CTAs (call to actions) alerting readers what to do next. 

Email Marketing is Your Friend

You may think flooding people’s inboxes with emails is a bad idea. However, email marketing is one of the most effective lead generation strategies around. It is also one of the easiest to do.  

According to Neil Patel, email marketing has an effectiveness of 48% and a difficulty rating of only 18%. Email marketing beats out content marketing, landing pages, social media marketing, and SEO. Only the creation of landing pages is easier.

Lead generation difficulty and effectiveness by channel.

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To get results, you’ll need to carefully plan out your content, segment your audience, and schedule your emails. 

Get Active Online

Your blog isn’t the only way you can engage with leads online. Here are some ideas you can try to share your expertise: 

  • Answer questions on Q&A sites like Quora or HARO (Help a Reporter Out) that relate to your industry
  • Get involved in relevant conversations on Twitter
  • Cross-promote content on other websites and blogs via guest posting. (Remember: guest posting is reciprocal)

Get Active on Twitter

You may think that LinkedIn is the go-to source for professional social networking. Twitter offers options to form valuable business and sales connections. 

When you create a Twitter lead card and attach it to a tweet, you can get people’s emails. This happens when someone clicks on the CTA button on your tweet. 

Lead generation on twitter

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Whether you need a landing page, a blogging or email strategy, or to get started on social media, LeadBoxer can help you to translate your Lead Generation Strategies into qualified leads. They know how important lead generation is for your business. 

Effective online lead generation is easier than you think. You may be doing some of the listed ideas already. Regardless of what strategies you try, remember it is about the customer.

How Intent Data Can Increase Sales Conversions 3

How Intent Data Can Increase Sales Conversions

Lead Generation, Sales / By

Having a deep understanding of customer behavior can increase sales conversions. As technology continues to advance, businesses have the advantage of utilizing data to target their audience and successfully pitch their products.

Collecting this data helps marketing departments better understand their ideal customers. Sales teams are able to improve outreach and streamline their communication with potential clients. 

Use the following links to jump ahead, or keep reading to learn ways to successfully increase sales through internal data. 

What is Intent Data?

As industries continue to face constant evolution within technology, the way sales are made have changed. Most customers begin their journey for new products or services through a web search. Online behavior can provide crucial insights for sales teams.

Intent data is information that is collected regarding a user’s online behavior, specifically through content interaction. By tracking these actions, businesses are able to see patterns and gain knowledge about their prospect’s interests.

Most importantly, this data can provide clues that help sales professionals understand the likelihood of a purchase from customers. This helps tailor sales tactics, drive marketing campaigns, and increase the chances of conversions within the pipeline.

Behavioral data is collected through the ways users are interacting with your content. This allows your team to see what areas of your site are most attractive to potential customers. This information can also help sales professionals gain an understanding of where a client is at in the buying process.

Gaining Insight Through Behavioral Data

Intent Data Uses for B2B Digital Marketing Strategy

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Having access to this information helps take the guesswork out of the sales process. Intent data can help pinpoint the market for your product, how to segment clients for marketing outreach, and what their purchase intent looks like.

Analyzing behavior is a huge asset for marketing. This allows teams to personalize content to target the proper audience for your products and services. By reaching these prospects, your sales team will have more leads funneling into their pipeline.

Behavioral data can help with brand exposure. Having an accurate idea of the topics and areas on your site that get the most traction provides marketing with important insights. The team is able to customize messaging to drive similar customers to your web pages. 

This type of brand awareness helps your business reach more individuals who are still in the research stage. By having content that reaches customers in need of your solutions, information on how your business is the best fit for prospective buyers is provided.

Another major benefit of behavioral data is aligning your marketing and sales to see a higher return on investment (ROI) on your outreach. Research shows that companies become 67% better at closing deals when marketing and sales collaborate for account-based marketing (ABM). 

This data allows your teams to sync up by higher quality leads and better understanding of client behavior. Marketers are able to discover unique interests among target customers, and this information allows sales to strengthen relationships with their accounts.

Behavioral data provides your business with the necessary tools to accurately predict buying patterns. By having insight into their actions, it is possible to track where customers are at in their purchase process. This allows marketing and sales to accurately plan outreach to nurture leads and walk clients to the end of the sales process.

First Party Intent Data Vs. Third Party Intent Data

While intent data can help increase sales, it is important to understand the different types and how they can play a role in your business. First party data is collected through your website and content pages. This tracks how visitors are engaging with your marketing.

First party data is something most businesses already track in some form. Analytics, automated tools, and the backend of your website keep up with this engagement. Internal data provides deep insight into customers, but often, it comes across as anonymous engagement.

Leadboxer helps your business discover the leads behind internal data. The platform captures the cycle of behavior from online engagement, starting with the first visit to your site. By uncovering this data, Leadboxer is able to identify who your visitors are.

This allows your team to have access to qualified leads, which helps plan client outreach. The identification of these customers happens through IP addresses, email engagement, and other touchpoints.

Third party data comes from providers who are able to collect the ways prospects are engaging on other sites. This allows for a complete view of buyer activity to see how customers are interacting with competitors. Behavior data can provide a sense of consumer purchasing patterns online.

This side of things provides valuable insight into any backtracking or missteps that are made throughout the buying cycle. By seeing where customers are spending their time, it is easy to pinpoint their pain areas and see where their greatest needs lie. 

Most third party intent data will surface during the research stage. This information can provide crucial guidance for future outreach and marketing tactics. Third party data shows what keywords customers are using, which brands they interact with first, and what solutions they are searching for.

Privacy Concerns and Third Party Intent Data

Difference Between First, Second & Third Party Data Intent

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While first party data comes directly from users interacting with your content, third party information can be trickier. As privacy concerns push for tighter restrictions, companies that rely on third party data are beginning to focus on ways to utilize what they are able to collect.

The biggest concern regarding third party data is that it can be unknowingly collected. This information comes from tracked behavior across websites, and it can contain personal identifiable information (PII). As concerns have grown, actions have been taken to promote transparency within the data.

Sites that use third-party cookies, which track engagement across sites, are putting banners on their content to ask for consent from visitors. These regulations have caused restrictions on the data that third parties are able to provide. This shift promotes the need for businesses to rely on first-party data.

Internal Data and Its Importance to Closing Deals

Once your business understands the importance of intent data, it is time to optimize its use. Most importantly, internal data is a tool that can help increase sales conversions by encouraging warmer leads and stronger client relationships.

Businesses must qualify prospects as part of their sales planning. In order to see higher sales conversions, the team must know where to spend their time and resources. Not every lead that comes through a website will be a buyer. 

Through behavioral data, engagement can provide insight into how serious a customer is about making a purchase. From the first website visit, Leadboxer tracks the content, forms, and emails that see prospect interaction. This helps put together a timeline for sales professionals, as they are able to gauge where a client is in their customer journey.

Creating Customer Profiles Based on Internal Data

A customer profile helps your business keep personalized records of your clients. This information helps marketing segment their messaging and allows sales to keep up with their pipelines.

Each profile is a detailed record of a customer’s needs, demographics, and behavior patterns. By using intent data to fill out these descriptions, your team can keep track of customer relationships and note their behaviors to increase conversions.

By understanding what problems individual customers are facing, sales will be able to drive solutions to their doorstep. Online behavior can provide insights through touchpoints to help illustrate a customer’s current needs. 

When a qualified lead begins interacting with your product page, downloading your content, or filling out interest forms, sales will be able to reach out at the right time. This data helps sales nurture leads through the process.

Providing Insight to Identify, Segment, and Score Leads

Each visitor is tracked when they reach your site, but it is important they make it to the right place in the sales funnel. Throughout their time on your site, Leadboxer collects information and tracks their actions to accurately discover the lead’s identity. 

From there, leads can be integrated with a business’ tech stack to move them through the cycle. After identification, prospects can be segmented into groups to receive appropriate marketing. These segments allow your team to filter leads by company name, size, location, or behavior. 

Most importantly, Leadboxer handles automatic scoring to keep the most relevant leads at the top of your pipeline. This distinction is based on customer behavior, interests, and properties. Sales will be able to begin their outreach to provide the proper solutions according to specific customer needs.

With internal data, lead scoring is accurately ranked to help pinpoint prospects who are most likely to make a purchase. Their behavior helps determine where they are in the process, and what they need to get to the finish line.

Get started with your internal data analysis today by signing up for a free Leadboxer trial!

How Customer Connections Drive Relationship Based Sales

How Making a Customer Connection Drives Relationship Based Sales

Lead Engagement, Lead Nurturing, Sales / By

Successful businesses thrive on strong customer relationships. These connections help increase the number of sales conversions. Most importantly, the resources used to create a strong customer connection will see a strong return on investment (ROI).

Professional relationships go beyond initial contact points as good sales teams work hard to personalize the customer journey based on individual needs. By cultivating a strong relationship with clients, the likelihood of their repeated patronage increases.

As technology continues to evolve, businesses are constantly competing for attention from prospects in the digital realm. Focusing on relationship-based sales can help boost engagement with your social media, as well as direct your messaging to the correct target audience.

Keep reading, or use the following links, to learn more about how these connections drive customer relationships to a sale:

The goal of every sales team is to increase their numbers. There are many tactics out there to see higher conversions, but it is crucial to start at the beginning of the pipeline. Customer connections can happen during the first introduction to a prospect.

Making the most of interactions, even while a prospect is still in the ‘Lead’ stage, can have a huge impact on finalized sales. Before starting the process of making these connections, it is important to understand the driving idea behind this strategy.

Relationship based sales happen when a salesperson prioritizes the interactions and connections with a client to complete a sale. While price and types of services will always be a factor for customers, relationship based sales primarily focus on building customer loyalty.

Actions Needed to Move Towards Relationship-Based Selling

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Utilizing this strategy to foster relationships will help each customer feel more valued by your business. Clients will lean towards loyalty to brands when they are appreciated by the company.

B2B businesses can see a huge benefit from adopting this mindset. Since purchases of these services typically require a higher-level of commitment due to the size, customer loyalty goes a long way.

Personalized outreach is a great starting point for creating strong customer engagement strategies. Customers start their buying journey when they have a problem, so it’s important to segment your marketing for tailored audiences. Once a lead enters your pipeline, allow your salespeople to take time to nurture the prospect and gather insight into their needs.

These customer relationships have many aspects that will require personalization. The more effort your team puts into creating these lasting bonds, the higher your conversions will rise. Starting off with personal interests, encourage your salespeople to get to know their customer contacts.

By knowing their geographical location, personal hobbies, and basic profiles, it will be easier for your sales staff to find similarities to create connections. For example, an easy connecting point between sales and clients could be a similar interest in sports teams or graduation from the same alma mater. 

On the other side of things, ensure that your sales team is working hard to listen to the needs of each customer. Find out if your services or products can be tailored to provide the best solution possible. Take time to listen to customer insight before pitching specific packages.

Another crucial aspect to forming lasting customer connections is having continued contact once a sale is finalized. If your product requires training or onboarding, make sure the correct resources and enough support staff are available during this time. Be proactive in your outreach to gather feedback, and listen to any suggestions these customers may have.

Ensuring Loyalty Through Customer Experience

Once you’ve started focusing on the ways to foster strong connections, it is important to make sure these interactions are increasing customer loyalty. The key to this strategy is good customer experience throughout the buying journey.

Before implementing a customer connection strategy, you need to have an understanding of what your current clients think about your services and their experiences. According to Forbes, 80% of businesses believe they excel in customer service, but a mere 8% of customers agree with that statement.

Conducting research and opening the conversation for genuine client feedback can help your team see where improvements can happen. This information is valuable for sales strategies, and these interactions will help your customers feel valued and appreciated. Be sure to incorporate as much of their feedback as possible into your future relationship.

Looking ahead to future customer experiences, it’s important to understand how much each interaction matters in the cultivation of customer loyalty. Forbes asserts that within a day of a poor customer experience, 47% of consumers are willing to take their business to a competitor. Due to the ease of finding other options through a quick web search, there is little room for mistakes during the buying journey.

Speed and efficiency are key elements of a positive customer experience. While B2B sales cycles tend to be longer than B2C due to the nature of service, clients still value quickness. Instead of looking at ways to shorten the sales cycle itself, focus on the ways your communication can be streamlined.

Many people are conditioned to expect answers within seconds due to the availability of instant online search. While having salespeople within reach as soon as every problem occurs may not be possible, there should be resources  in place to help customers. Make sure your web forms work, check emails regularly, and don’t be afraid to hop on a call to quickly offer solutions.

Offer loyalty programs or rewards for repeat customers. 73% of customers enrolled in loyalty programs recommend that business to other buyers. By incentivizing current customers, your business will be able to attract new clients as well. 

How To Avoid a Bad Customer Journey

Conversion rates will increase when your clients feel they are on a good buying journey. There are a few ways to help avoid negative experiences during the purchasing process.

Start by focusing on the entirety of the process rather than singular pieces. Analyzing the customer journey from beginning to end will help your team pinpoint problem areas. From there, begin tracking customer behavior to identify patterns throughout your target audience.

Personalized messaging, optimized payment options, and convenient sales processes are all ways to engage modern consumers. Clients are online more than ever before, so use the data detailing their actions to your advantage.

Make sure your team is setting realistic conversion rates. Despite all of the great customer service your business provides, not every lead will result in a sale. To have an understanding of the genuine ROI from marketing and sales efforts, reasonable conversion goals are necessary.

Focus on communication while making customer connections. At the end of the day, most clients will appreciate when a business goes above and beyond to listen to their needs. Fostering strong relationships and ensuring quality customer journeys requires time, commitment, and consistent communication.

Social Media & Customer Connections

The Social Consumer Analytics

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While it is one of the newer resources in the long line of sales strategies, social media has begun to dominate the playing field. Utilizing these platforms can help accelerate your numbers, and provide valuable insights into consumer behavior.

The top platforms, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Youtube, will be enough to help provide your business with the tools for successful social selling. Starting off, social media will generate leads and track data for better understanding of customer behavior.

Leadboxer’s platform integrates with your team’s tech stack to access data, generate leads, and provide tools for higher conversion rates. Throughout your email and social media campaigns, Leadboxer is able to uncover data to provide contact information and behavior patterns for potential buyers.

One of the key benefits of social selling is gaining insight and learning about customers to create meaningful connections. By integrating your workflow with technology like the Leadboxer platform, your team will be able to gain a broad understanding of this data.

Generating leads through social platforms helps your salestaff find new prospects for outreach. From the very first interaction, customer connections can begin to take shape. Social media offers vital personal information to help your salespeople find similarities with their contacts.

Using social media as a way to teach about the industry and your products is another great use of the tool. By reaching your target audience with educational information, your business will be able to establish itself as a reliable leader in the industry. This allows prospects to find your product before your team even has a chance to discover them during a search process.

Engagement through social media helps to continue the professional relationship with clients. According to Hootsuite’s Digital Report 2021, 22.7% of internet users are using social media to network and handle work-related research. Continued social media outreach and marketing is crucial for maintaining strong customer connections, with many consumers using the internet to develop business relationships.

To see how social media integrations can help with customer connections, check out LeadBoxer with a free trial.

16 Best WordPress Plugins for Business

16 Best WordPress Plugins for Business

Lead Generation, Tools, WordPress / By

Generating leads is a crucial part of building revenue for any business. This involves having a constant stream of new customers to nurture into repeat, loyal patrons. Your prospects are looking online for products and services to meet their needs and solve their problems. 

The lead generation process begins with your website, your company’s online presence. With more than 455 million websites built on and hosted by WordPress, chances are yours is too. WordPress is a solid website builder that offers easy customization and SEO-friendly items. 

If you use  WordPress, the many plugins can be overwhelming. Which ones are best for your business? Which ones will generate leads?

Below are the 16 best WordPress plugins for business – read on or use the following links to jump ahead:

1. WPForms

Your website must have a way for customers to reach you. WPForms allow you to easily create surveys, payment forms, order forms, contact forms, and subscription forms. With WPForms, you can access 300+ pre-built landing pages and forms and see valuable analytics like tracking and abandonment. 

2. MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights connects websites to Google Analytics which allows you to gather data on who visits your site and how they find it. With MonsterInsights, you can make the necessary changes to boost subscribers and traffic. 

3. All in One SEO

More than three million websites use All in One SEO. This plugin is SEO-friendly and offers all the tools you need to maximize your on-page SEO. With an SEO-maximized site, you’ll boost your website traffic, which increases revenue. 

4. OptinMonster

OptinMonster is the most widely-used plugin for boosting sales and email subscribers. It allows you to convert bounced website visitors into email subscribers. With hundreds of conversion templates, it is easy to build personalized campaigns. 

OptinMonster WordPress Plugin

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5. PushEngage

Push notifications allow you to send targeted announcements to website visitors. PushEngage plugin offers A/B testing, drip campaigns, tracking, segmentation, and opt-in reminders. 

6. Shared Counts

Social sharing effectively allows your customers to tell others about your company. With Shared Counts, you can add social sharing buttons to your website. Additionally, this plugin lets you see how many people shared your content. 

7. WPML

With the Internet connecting people worldwide, you likely have customers in different countries speaking various languages. WPML allows your business to create multilingual websites. 

8. WooCommerce

WooCommerce is a must-have plugin for e-commerce businesses. More than five million websites and online stores use WooCommerce. WooCommerce offers a  WordPress ecosystem that includes hosting and themes.

WooCommerce WordPress Plugin

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9. Nextiva

Believe it or not, people do still contact you by phone. Nextiva’s plugin allows your business phone to have online faxing, unlimited calling, call routing, and more. 

10. Ahrefs

With Ahrefs, you can get an inside look into your competition. You’ll be able to see the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors. Ahrefs also track your and the competition’s backlinks.

11. Smash Balloon

Smash Balloon boosts website engagement by sharing your new content. It offers plugins to many popular social networks. Smash Balloon allows you to customize your feed anywhere on your website. 

12. BuzzSumo

BuzzSumo helps you get your content out there with the ability to connect with influencers and generate high-performing content. It also allows you to find trends in your industry. 

BuzzSumo WordPress Plugin

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13. WP Super Cache

With the speed of the Internet, customers are impatient. If your website takes too long to load, people will abandon your site and head to another. WP Super Cache improves your site’s speed by converting dynamic pages to static ones. 

14. Pure Chat

Having more than one way for customers to contact your company will help you retain them. In addition to contact forms, offering live chat with Pure Chat will allow customers to talk to someone at any time. With someone always available, your customers will be satisfied. 

15. MailChimp for WordPress

It is crucial to have an email list. MailChimp allows you to access customer emails from comments, contact forms, and opt-in pages. MailChimp is one of the best and easiest-to-use email platforms around. 

16. LeadBoxer

LeadBoxer tells you who visited your website. This notifies your sales team and lets them know who they need to reach out to. People who repeatedly visit and spend time on your site are interested in what you offer. 

LeadBoxer WordPress Plugin

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Leads are what generate sales for your business. One of the most important lead-generating options out there is a WordPress website. A website will ensure your company will be found online.

Having a website for your business is a great start. However, if you want to maximize the effectiveness of your website, you need customization. With these 16 WordPress plugins, you’ll be on the fast track to building your business. 

How to Develop and Implement Your First Successful SEO Campaign

How to Develop and Implement Your First Successful SEO Campaign

Lead Generation, Marketing / By

Marketing strategies are constantly evolving to keep up with the fast-paced digital world. Now, more than ever before, customers are able to see a comprehensive list of solutions in a matter of seconds.

As technology continues to get smarter, potential buyers are becoming even more accustomed to personalized product searches. In order to stay relevant, businesses must remain on top of the trends to make sure the internet is working to their advantage.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is not a new term to those familiar with digital marketing practices. However, SEO has become a major buzzword as these campaigns continue to rise to the forefront of marketing plans. With this increase in popularity, successful digital communications rely on an accurate understanding of SEO and best practices for campaigns.

Read on or jump ahead to these topics:

What is an SEO Campaign?

Search Engine Optimization is the process of improving your digital resources to increase visibility and engagement through web traffic. The goal of SEO campaigns should be twofold: to grow the volume of visitors and to improve the quality of their online experience.

This works when your content is able to show search engines that it is the best answer for the topic. While all search engines are powered by different algorithms, Google has a market share of about 92%. Focusing your optimization efforts around this platform is the best place to start.

Spending money and allocating resources for marketing strategies is an investment for future growth. You want to make sure your return-on-investment (ROI) is as high as possible. By using SEO, you should start to see an uptick in web traffic from qualified leads as your site reaches your target audience.

Timeframe for Seeing SEO Campaign Results

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Successful SEO campaigns are based on thoughtful and targeted keyword research, link building, and web analysis. An in depth understanding and correct implementation of fundamental SEO principles will significantly boost your ROI.

Over a three year average, B2B industries see a 702% ROI from SEO campaigns, and a 7 month timeline to break even.

Identifying Your Target Audience

The first step to successfully implementing an SEO campaign is understanding who your target audience is. A target audience is a real group of people that could be interested in the products or services offered by your company. 

Your SEO campaign should work hard to direct as many potential buyers to your site as possible. This kind of brand exposure will help increase your sales conversion rates and build out your sales pipelines with new leads.

By understanding the ideal base for your audience, you will be able to map out your SEO strategy. This will help guide your keyword search as you narrow down the most likely used terms for optimization. Tailor your online content toward this specific group of visitors to help improve your overall customer experience.

There are a few ways to determine your target prospects. Start by understanding your current client demographics. Open communication between marketing and sales teams will allow salespeople to share profiles of their customers. 

Take advantage of social insight tools. Social media and website tracking can provide vital information about exactly who is actively engaging with your content. 60% of consumers subscribe to email blasts to stay involved with promotional messaging. By analyzing current followers and subscribers, you can build out your ideal target audience.

Identify the questions being asked by potential buyers. Which problems does your current customer base have that are solved by your products? If you can pinpoint the topics of discussion, your content can reach similar groups facing these issues.

Organic Keywords & Data Analytics

Share of commerce traffic generation from organic searches

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An organic keyword attracts free traffic through SEO, whereas pay-per-click (PPC) words are bid on through paid campaigns. 

On average, there are 3.5 billion Google searches happening each day. Organic keywords can help drive traffic from those searches to your website. Using words in your content that people are actively searching for is the best place to start gaining organic traffic. 

Organization is also key. Avoid dumping words onto one page, and make sure to use them throughout your site. Unique content that offers genuine information is the best way to utilize these organic keywords.

Data-driven marketing means using collected data as the main component when creating your SEO campaigns. This tactic allows your research to guide the build-out of marketing strategies for effective implementation.

Use data analysis tools to better understand the ways traffic interacts with your content. By analyzing your data, you will gain a better understanding of visitor behavior and drive more organic traffic to your site. 

Developing and Implementing a Successful SEO Campaign

Now that you have the basics down, executing your SEO strategy should be easy. Try the following steps to get started.

1. Evaluate Your Current Site and Its Content

Are you using a modern website builder? If your site’s platform is up-to-date, optimization will be a much easier undertaking. SEO will not work outside of a user-friendly environment.

Audit your current SEO plan. Maybe some of your pages already have a good foundation. Don’t throw out anything that is already working. 

Make sure to pinpoint the areas that need change. Focus on evaluating your current URLs and page structures.

2. Topic & Keyword Research

Before you can develop a list of keywords, you will need to create a set of topics to explore. A topic is a set of related search terms broader than your keyword list. Gather all relevant details when building out these sets.

You will want to dive deep into the research to have comprehensive knowledge of your chosen topics. Figure out the total search volume for these words, analyze the type of existing content appearing, and gauge competition levels.

3. Create Quality Content

It’s a simple step, but it may be the most important one in creating your campaign. Content needs to be authentic and relevant to your audience. 

Your site should be free of technical errors. Pages should include strong titles, which is a key element in SEO.

Try to produce evergreen content. If your blog is full of pieces that are relevant to the industry, chances are you will see more engagement. This can include ‘how-to’ articles, product reviews, and videos. 

Establish partnerships and create strong relationships with social influencers. Your content should provide shareable information. Earn credibility by producing pieces to share your brand’s mission with your target audience.

Use backlinks to help build confidence in your brand. This helps signal to search engines that other sites approve of your content. Earning backlinks from highly respected sites should be a desired goal.

4. Implement On-Site Optimization

Once you have content ready to go, it is important to maintain your website for SEO-friendliness. Utilize keywords in your URL slugs. Optimize the alt-text for your digital media, and be sure to incorporate long-tail keywords. 

Don’t forget about technical optimization as well. Server speed, source code, and IP addresses should be evaluated for the best user experience. 

Making sure your content is mobile-friendly is extremely important. To help with this, use the smallest file sizes possible for graphic content.

Create meta titles and meta descriptions that look natural while featuring keywords. Optimize the layout for user experience and search engines. Focus on fixing any accessibility issues such as any 404 redirects from Google.

5. Combine Your Campaign With Other Marketing Resources

Email marketing is a strong tool on its own. It’s even more powerful when paired with a comprehensive SEO strategy. 

Use personalized blasts to drive qualified traffic to your site. Test content through email, and add successful elements to your site. 

While social media isn’t a direct ranking factor, you can still use it to boost your overall brand awareness. Increase engagement through social shares, find link opportunities, and have positive interactions with potential web traffic.

Thought leadership allows your brand to establish itself as a leader in the industry. 47% of C-Suite executives said they shared contact information after reading thought leadership content.

When providing this type of content, make sure it fits within your SEO plan. If potential decision makers engage with your site, it’s important to make sure they are directed to the right place.

Integrations and SEO Campaigns

Once you have a plan to roll out your SEO campaign, use integrations for smooth implementation. Leadboxer connects with email marketing tools like MailChimp to help track data from audience engagement.

This software allows you to see who is visiting your site so you can learn what they do once they land on the page. Use this information to fine-tune your content and improve the customer experience. 

By tracking engagement, Leadboxer helps demonstrate which parts of your SEO campaign are working and which areas could use improvement. 

To see how your business can benefit from the LeadBoxer lead generation platform and its many app integrations, sign up for your free trial today!