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Sozialia https://www.sozialia.com/ Just another WordPress site Sat, 17 Mar 2018 05:40:26 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.3.3 How to Find New Customers Using LinkedIn https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-find-new-customers-using-linkedin/ https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-find-new-customers-using-linkedin/#comments_reply Thu, 17 Sep 2015 19:15:44 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2739   LinkedIn is no longer just another job-related social network. Used by all professionals across varying industries, it allows users to showcase their authority on certain subjects. As a result, they can ascertain their position as thought leaders. Pew reports…

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how to find new customers using Linkedin

 

LinkedIn is no longer just another job-related social network. Used by all professionals across varying industries, it allows users to showcase their authority on certain subjects. As a result, they can ascertain their position as thought leaders. Pew reports that LinkedIn is used by 44% of Americans earning $75,000 or more. This comes to prove its high adoption among highly educated and high-income professionals. If you’re using LinkedIn, you should keep in mind that its biggest segment belongs to 35-44 year olds (22%) whereas 25-34 come second (21%) and 45-54 year olds come third (18%).

How to Find New Customers Using LinkedIn

If you want to become a success on LinkedIn, i.e. win more customers, the following tips will definitely help.

  • Make Your Customers Find You – Optimize your profile for the keywords you want to be associated with during users’ search. For instance, if you’re a commercial insurance agent, add ‘commercial insurance’ and related terms to your profile. Only then can your profile pop up in LinkedIn search results.
  • Get Introduced by Existing Clients – LinkedIn is business-oriented, so use customer referrals to get your foot in the door. You can visit your contact’s own list of contacts for prospects and learn more about the latter. Then, you can ask your mutual ‘friend’ to introduce you via the platform before you initiate a face-to-face meeting.
  • Get Involved in LinkedIn Groups – As most of LinkedIn’s users are B2B members, they’re bound to be on LinkedIn groups. Regardless of your industry, you can find a group where you can share content and information that attracts your clients. Better yet, answer questions to showcase your thought leadership and win more people over.
  • Invest in InMail – Don’t shy from contacting your customers, especially if you know that you have the product or service they need. Invest in LinkedIn’s premium service InMails to connect with higher-level prospects. That way, your messages will be rerouted to your prospects’ personal email addresses, ensuring higher chances of you receiving a reply. However, remember to draft a very effective message to win them over.

How to Nurture and Engage Customers on LinkedIn

Finding clients on LinkedIn is definitely harder than engaging them. However, don’t take this step lightly, especially since the following tips require a lot of your time and effort.

  • Put on Your Journalist Cap – When posting content, make sure that it comes with concise intros and snappy headlines. These will ensure higher engagement, especially since this extra bit of content indicates why your audience should care about what you posted.
  • Optimize Your Posts for Mobile – Keep your posts brief, fewer than 200 character, to optimize them for mobile. You should also do the same for your landing pages to capture more leads. Just remember to keep the number of form fields which need to be filled to a minimum. That way, you won’t annoy your leads or chase them away.
  • Share Others’ Updates with Your Network and Give Them Credit – If you come across great articles in your feed, share it with your network and acknowledge their authors. This will make your clients loyal to your brand by showing how much you care.
  • Wish Contacts on their Birthdays – LinkedIn will remind you on the day a contact celebrates their birthday. You can consider this a great way to put your way through the door and initiate a conversation. Just make sure to have multiple birthday messages if you don’t want to write new ones every time. Personalize each accordingly to make it seem as if it’s from the heart.

With your customers available through social media, you shouldn’t think twice before using this channel to get to them. So remember the information above to ensure your success both online and offline. We also wrote other tips on how to find customers on Facebook, Twitter or Pinterest.

 

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How to Use These Effective Manufacturing Lead Generation Techniques https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-use-these-effective-manufacturing-lead-generation-techniques/ https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-use-these-effective-manufacturing-lead-generation-techniques/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:48:39 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2527 According to Cultivate Communications’ 2014 Benchmark Study on Marketing for Manufacturers, lead generation has become a top priority. However, what makes this change so notable is the fact that marketing manufacturers have decided to generate leads through inbound marketing rather…

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how_to_Increase_Lead_Generation_Manufacturing

According to Cultivate Communications’ 2014 Benchmark Study on Marketing for Manufacturers, lead generation has become a top priority. However, what makes this change so notable is the fact that marketing manufacturers have decided to generate leads through inbound marketing rather than trade shows, printed directories and trade magazine ads. Inbound marketing allows companies to attract leads by providing helpful, educational and interesting information. Therefore, only those interested in your content and offering will give you their name and emails. As a result, the sale team won’t be wasting hours on dead-end leads (or complain about them!). Now, let’s dive into some effective manufacturing lead generation techniques.

If you’re planning a lead generation campaign using inbound marketing techniques, use the following six steps to guide your efforts.

Step #1) Start with the Buyer Persona

A buyer persona is a profile of a fictional buyer but based on real-life data and characteristics that help you understand who your best buyer is and how they function. By developing this profile, you’ll be able to make your efforts more targeted. As a result, lead generation and customer retention will grow more effective. After all, you’ll be creating more targeted content and offers. To create a buyer persona, use the following questions:

  1. What is your ideal customer’s demographic?
  2. What is your client’s level of seniority and decision-making authority?
  3. How does the client’s average day look like?
  4. What are the customer’s pain points?
  5. What are their values and goals?
  6. What channels do they conduct their research through?
  7. What is your clients’ ideal shopping experience while looking for your goods and services?
  8. What issues are usually highlighted?

(Read the Explanation of these Questions Here)

Step #2) Decide which Channels to Target Through

According to Cultivate Communications, manufacturing marketers use the following to generate leads:

  • Referrals (62%)
  • Email (53%)
  • Social Media (45%)
  • National Advertising (44%)
  • SEO (34%)
  • Tradeshow (30%)
  • Display (25%)
  • Telemarketing (23%)
  • Blogs (19%)
  • Video (18%)
  • Pay Per Click (15%)

You need to consider your buyer persona to determine which of these channels can help you generate maximum leads. For instance, if your target buyers are usually online, you can choose between email, social media, PPC and organic traffic. To further save your time and money, find which of these channels is most profitable and use it more often. For instance, CEOs aged 45+ are bound to rely more on email and organic traffic, so work on these channels to be visible through them.

Step #3) Develop a Lead Magnet to Offer to Your Target

Lead magnets are usually free offers which you provide to get potential clients’ email addresses. They make your prospects super excited, especially since they get ample value without paying for it. To develop a lead magnet for your brand, you can create a downloadable offer to convert traffic. Here are some options you can go for:

  • Case Studies – Case studies offer relevant, necessary and engaging content. Moreover, they document client satisfaction and success, assuring prospects that they aren’t new test subjects. As a result, case studies are effective in building trust in brands and products. However, you need to write them effectively to maximize their benefits.
  • Guides/Reports – Though they’re the most common types of lead magnets, guides or reports can be quite tricky since it’s easy to violate the specificity rule (i.e. creating content that isn’t too lengthy, complex or time-intensive). So focus on a single problem, offer solutions and be simple and direct in your approach.
  • Cheat Sheets – Cheat sheets and handouts are very effective. Usually one page or so, they cut straight to a specific point, delivering a blueprint of sorts to readers.

Choose the best lead magnet according to your persona. For example, CEOs and decision makers will prefer concise case studies since they showcase your brand and how it can solve issues similar to those they currently face. Next, create content they may be interested in. That way, you’ll get them to read what you’re offering until the very last line.

In addition to your lead magnet, you’ll need to have a landing page that incorporates the following suggestions:

  1. Include Important Components – Your landing page should have a headline, brief description of the offer, at least one image that complements your text, and a form for visitors’ information.
  2. Remove Main Navigation – It’s your job to keep your visitors on your landing page, so don’t distract them with links to your website. So remove the main navigation from the page to increase its page conversion.
  3. Keep Things Simple – A cluttered page will distract, confuse, and/or overwhelm your visitors. So add more white space whenever possible and keep text and images very simple.
  4. Emphasize the Offer’s Value – Highlight the benefits of the offer either with a brief paragraph or a few bullet points.
  5. Encourage Social Sharing – Add buttons of social platforms your buyer persona uses to evangelize content and offers. Even if your prospects don’t download your magnet, someone in their network might.

Step #4) Create Content around Your Offer

Generate a buzz around your lead magnet by creating content around it. For instance, if your buyer persona is mainly online, you can have social media posts and blog posts explaining the value of your freebie and what others can expect from it. Even if your clients are offline, you can write about your offer in your trade show brochures. Just make sure to use graphics that stand out and content which can appeal to readers so that they can take note of your new addition.

Step #5) Promote Your Content

With your offer and complementary content in hand, it’s time for you to start promote both and generating leads. While you can use trade shows’ brochures and ruffles for this, inbound marketing trumps every time. You can use the following three for this purpose.

  1. Social Media – Social media, especially LinkedIn, has the power to increase your reach to B2B clients. Therefore, run a few posts highlighting your freebie and what it has to offer.
  2. PPC – Be it through LinkedIn or AdWords, Pay Per Click allows you to capture clients searching for your type of offerings or services. They’re also more effective than regular calls to action since they provide value rather than just hollow promotional materials.
  3. Emails – Use the email lists you currently have to tell your existing clients about your new content. If some of them are already active as brand evangelists, they’ll help you generate leads by sending your email to their own circles.

Step #6) Rinse and Repeat

Take a step back to determine which channels have ensures more conversions. Compare your results with the key performance indicators you established at the beginning of the campaign and tracked throughout. Based on your data, modify your campaign to ensure better results. Make sure to establish a plan for this process as well as a schedule. That way, you can hone your marketing techniques and ensure an edge over the competition.

With these steps, you’ll be able to increase the amount of leads and results of your sales and marketing teams. However, make sure to take into consideration othertips and guides to maximize the return on your efforts and ensure value for money.

Do you want to learn more how you can increase your sales and marketing results with inbound marketing? Download the guide below by clicking the image.

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How to Attract the Ideal Customer in the Manufacturing Industry https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-attract-the-ideal-customer-in-the-manufacturing-industry/ https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-attract-the-ideal-customer-in-the-manufacturing-industry/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:47:55 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2525 Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan couldn’t have been more accurate when they wrote: “By 2020, 60-70% of new car sales leads will be generated by a digital platform. Be it via websites, mobile sites, social media or apps.” It’s predictions…

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Attract the Ideal Customer

Consulting firm Frost & Sullivan couldn’t have been more accurate when they wrote: “By 2020, 60-70% of new car sales leads will be generated by a digital platform. Be it via websites, mobile sites, social media or apps.” It’s predictions like these that have pushed the manufacturing industry to embrace digital marketing and especially inbound marketing. Benefits such as connecting with more potential buyers, getting feedback or referrals easily, and lowering marketing costs further drove manufacturers to reconsider their marketing strategies. However, in addition to knowing what they’re selling, to attract the ideal customer marketers need to learn who they’re selling to.

Creating the Perfect Customer’s Persona

Understanding your customers allows you to better craft your content. As a result, you can win their business and even ensure their loyalty to your brand. This is where buyer personas come in the picture. Through this tool, you can determine who your ideal customer is and target your marketing efforts at them. To develop a buyer persona, seek answers for the following questions:

  • What is their Demographic? – Basic information such as your client’s age, gender and annual income allows you to shape your client’s image in your mind and customize your tone and message in a way that appeals to them. For instance, writing for 40-year-old male executive who earns $100,000 a year demands formal wording that showcases your expertise in your niche.
  • What is the Reader’s Level of Seniority? – Find out what your buyer does for a living and what post they serve at their company. This will help you determine the amount and style of information you should deliver through your content, changing your communication style in the process.
  • How Does Your Buyer Spend their Day? – Add substance and personality to your buyer’s persona by learning how often they spend their time online, when they’re likely to view marketing materials, and even what they do for fun. As surprising as the latter may sound, it’s actually very helpful in certain campaigns. For example, a clothing manufacturer can appeal to retailers with a sense of humor by posting something like: “Winter is Coming… Prepare with X Coats and Sweaters.”
  • What are Your Buyers’ Needs? – Understand what you can actually do for your clients. List down a set of needs to break down your persona. For instance, microchip manufacturers need to create their products for computers and household electronics. A buyer persona for computer chips would entail highly technical individuals who prefer quality, durability and functionality even if it means higher complexity and costs. On the other hand, household electronics chips will have buyers who need simpler, less expensive chips with limited functionality.
  • What are the Buyer’s Goals or Values? – Learning your buyer’s goals and what they value helps you further tweak your marketing efforts and appeal to them. For example, if your client aims to provide better services for less, you can win them over by advertising inexpensive yet high quality materials or offering tempting discounts on bulk orders.
  • Where Does Your Buyer Carry Out their Research? – To assess the success of your efforts, find out where your persona looks for information. Do they even search online or simply rely on word of mouth? If they use the web, find out if they use social media or simply input keywords for Google to search by. Learning this important aspect will help you determine where you should focus your marketing efforts.
  • What’s their Ideal Shopping Experience? – Use an array of tools to determine how much time your clients are willing to spend looking for you and how much time they expect you to give them. You should also learn how much contact they want from you and whether they’ll need one-on-one sessions or simply suffice with a phone call or email. Answering these questions will help you establish what your clients’ expectations and push you to meet them.
  • What Objections May the Client Have? – Anticipating any concerns or objections your clients may have will boost your sales efforts. You’ll also be able to deliver strong content that addresses these issues, showing them that you’re aware of their fears and can help them around them.

The Next Step: Marketing for the Manufacturing Industry

After understanding who you’ll be targeting through your promotional messages, it’s time for you to start creating an inbound marketing strategy for your content. You can use the following steps to guide you on this aspect.

  1. Create an Effective Content Marketing Strategy – For the manufacturing industry, the best marketing strategies include five elements: Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Personas, Overlapping Interest, Seasonality, and Devices. Addressing these while planning your marketing efforts will increase your efforts’ ROI and prevent unnecessary costs.
  2. Decide on the Best Content Marketing Technique – According to the ‘B2B Manufacturing Content Marketing: 2014 Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends – North America’ report by the Content Marketing Institute, eNewsletters, in-person events, videos, articles on client’s website, social media content, and guest posts are the top five techniques. Based on your buyer’s persona though, your potential clients may prefer something else altogether. For example, experienced C-level executives may prefer reading a well-written case study to decide whether your brand is the best choice for theirs.
  3. Step in the World of Video Marketing – Approximately 81% of manufacturing marketers have started distributing their content via YouTube channels. This is because videos allow you to demonstrate the strengths of your products as well as engage in storytelling.
  4. Be Social – If your buyer persona uses social media, don’t hesitate to set up an account on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Pinterest. These are the most popular platforms for manufacturing marketers and their clients alike.
  5. Don’t Sell AT ALL – While your goal is to increase your sales, you should do more than showcase your company’s products and overwhelm buyers with calls to action. Instead, share information that establishes your position as a thought leader. To get in touch with clients, generate surveys and work on following their feedback.

There’s more to content marketing for manufacturers than these five tips. However, they’ll definitely help you attract your clients once you successfully identify their personas.

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See How to Find New Customers on Pinterest https://www.sozialia.com/see-how-to-find-new-customers-on-pinterest/ https://www.sozialia.com/see-how-to-find-new-customers-on-pinterest/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:47:14 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2523 Flaunting over 72.8 million users, Pinterest is quickly expanding its reach, claiming 47.1 million users in the U.S. Like Facebook, its top three demographics are 25-34 (26%), 35-44 (21%), and 45-54 (17%). Meanwhile, 18-24 year olds as well as 55-64…

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How To Find Customers on Pinterest

Flaunting over 72.8 million users, Pinterest is quickly expanding its reach, claiming 47.1 million users in the U.S. Like Facebook, its top three demographics are 25-34 (26%), 35-44 (21%), and 45-54 (17%). Meanwhile, 18-24 year olds as well as 55-64 year olds equally make up 30% of the social network’s community. One thing worth mentioning here is that Pinterest is popular with women; 85% of the social network’s community comprises of females. As for industries, arts and crafts, travel, food and drink, fashion, music, and health and self-improvement tend to thrive on the social network. However, HubSpot recently added healthcare, manufacturing and engineering, education, software and IT, and insurance to this list.

How to Find New Customers on Pinterest

Regardless of which industry you belong to, you can use the following to attract customers via Pinterest.

  • Pin About Popular but Relevant Occasions – Find content which people like in order to win them over and ensure their engagement. Using Pinterest analytics, you can discover which type of content people pin from your site and which curate content can make your boards more engaging.
  • Add Descriptions to Your Content with Hashtags – The titles and descriptions you incorporate can make your pins easy to find, especially if you optimize them for search engines and using hashtags. Also make sure to educate and inspire through your content to make it of value.
  • Make Your Images Pinterest Friendly – To make sure that your images make their way to your clients, ensure that they’re clear, high res photos that are visually appealing and very professional. Also remember that lighter images are 20 times more likely to be repined. Finally, keep it simple and less crisp photos convey your messages rather than relying fully on text.

How to Nurture and Engage Customers on Pinterest

After finding your customers on Pinterest, use the following recommendations to keep them hooked to your brand.

  • Put Your Customers in the Spotlight – Add user-generated pictures to increase conversions up to 7%. While images where your clients enjoy your products are definitely a great idea, avoid pictures with faces to secure at least 23% more repins.
  • Learn When is the Right Time and Frequency to Post Content
  • Find Out What Your Clients Want and Give Just That – Find out what you can offer your customers, starting from promo codes to recognition and all the way to moments of fun. Make sure to vary the content accordingly to pique the interest of all segments of your target market.
  • Focus on Building an Emotional Connection – While many say that businesses should be devoid of emotions, social media begs to differ. Pinterest especially focuses on this aspect, which will help you charge your clients 20-200% more than you currently do.
  • Step into the World of Instructographics – A term coined by Pinterest, instructographics is an infographic which explains how to do something, such as tie the perfect knot. In case you didn’t know, this type of image is categorized under DIY/how-to, which is the second most popular category for users on Pinterest.

Interested in learning new tips to nail your social media? Read our post.

 

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How to Find Customers with Twitter https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-find-customers-with-twitter/ https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-find-customers-with-twitter/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:46:42 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2521   According to Twitter’s About Us page, the social network has 302 million monthly active users, of which 53.1 million are in the U.S. Like Facebook, Twitter has started aging with 22% of its users comprising of 25-35 year olds…

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How To Find Customers With Twitter

 

According to Twitter’s About Us page, the social network has 302 million monthly active users, of which 53.1 million are in the U.S. Like Facebook, Twitter has started aging with 22% of its users comprising of 25-35 year olds and 21% 35-44 year olds. However, 18-24 year olds come third at 19% followed by 45-54 at 18%. As for industries that succeed on Twitter, AllTwitter reports that retailers and restaurants are the most successful while engaging clients on Twitter whereas apparel brands need to work harder on their strategies. Now this doesn’t mean that your industry can’t make it; it just means that you should try harder.

 

How to find customers with Twitter

In addition to sending a Twitter invitation to clients already in your database, consider the following tips to locate them on this social network.

  • Search with Twitter’s Advanced Search – Using Advanced Search, you can find people discussing topics related to your industry or niche. Simply enter a keyword and specify the location along with the distance to view hundreds of tweets on the topic of your interest. Strike a conversation on each tweet and showcase your expertise. This will prompt others to respond as well and eventually connect to you.
  • Target through Twitter Ads – Create ads to target your clients and reel them towards your profile. While setting an ad up though, remember Twitter’s words of wisdom: “Consider the characteristics of your potential customers. Then use those characteristics to guide your choice of targeting options so that you can reach your most receptive audience.”
  • Know Which Hashtags are the Best for You – Hashtags are exactly what they look like: little windows. The difference is that they lead into larger conversations on what’s popular on Twitter and your industry. You should especially take a leaf from influencers’ books and use the hashtags they use for their tweets.

How to Nurture and Engage Customers on Twitter

To make sure that the customers you’ve gained through Twitter stay by your side, here are some tips to keep them engaged:

  • Respond to Mentions and Retweets – Show your clients that you care by daily checking and responding to mentions, retweets of your content, and mentions of your brand. To add a more personal touch and prevent them from believing that an automated tool is responding, use their first name and their username in the tweet.
  • Show that You Care – Follow those who follow you and send ‘thank you tweets’ whenever someone does a sweet gesture such as retweeting and recommending your post. Your ‘thank you’ can be the beginning of a good conversation that concludes with a sale.
  • Initiate or Participate in Twitter Chats – Twitter Chat is one of the effective tools for engaging others and attracting followers who are interested in your content. For an hour, users come together to chat under a specific hashtag on a certain topic. You can use this as an opportunity to flaunt your expertise and reel in even more followers.

To know more about nurturing leads, I suggest downloading this guide.

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How to Find Your Customers on Facebook https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-find-your-customers-on-facebook/ https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-find-your-customers-on-facebook/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:45:45 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2519 By April 2015, Facebook flaunted 1.44 billion monthly active users and 936 million daily active users. According to ComScore, the social network’s community mainly comprises of 24-34 year olds (22%) followed by 35-44 year olds (21%) and 45-54 year olds…

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how_to_find_customers_On_Facebook

By April 2015, Facebook flaunted 1.44 billion monthly active users and 936 million daily active users. According to ComScore, the social network’s community mainly comprises of 24-34 year olds (22%) followed by 35-44 year olds (21%) and 45-54 year olds (18%). While these numbers show that Facebook has started maturing, the Social Media Examiner points out that B2C businesses are more likely to use Facebook groups and profiles than B2B ones.

Further confirming this is Social Bakers’ 2012 ‘Top 10 Facebook Industries by Engagement Rate’, which lists sport, retail, automobile, alcohol, airlines, services, telecom, fashion, news/media, and finance as the main industries benefiting from this social network. If you’re marketing a business that belongs in one of these industries, here are some valuable tips to find customers via Facebook and retain them.

 

How to Find Your Customers on Facebook

If you’re not sure of how to reach to your prospects, here are some tips to start you off.

  • Use Facebook Ads’ Targeting for Your Advantage – Facebook Ads allows you to reach the people you want to reach by targeting their interests, location or demographics. In addition to setting your business apart from the competition, this strategy will reel in near shoppers as they’re still considering their options and would like to stumble upon a company that provides them with what they need. Similarly, you can attract in-market buyers with the same as they’re searching for a new product and are ready to choose a business that caters their needs. So use this feature to target new fans and potential leads.
  • Focus on Cultivating Customer Loyalty – While focusing on increasing your list of potential buyers, you may end up neglecting the people who have put your name on the map already. The best way to prevent that is by creating messages tailored for them, offering them exclusive sales or quicker access to new services or events. You can also match your data with Facebook to discover prospects who can become repeated clients. As a result, you’ll gain more loyal followers and generate revenue in the future.
  • Connect with Influencers Your Customers Follow – Aside from your business, your clients will seek other industry leaders for information as well as inspiration. You should connect with these influencers in order to connect with your clients. To find them, look for hashtags and Facebook pages related to your niche. Consider searching Twitter lists and communities as well to gather names before taking the next step on Facebook.
  • Offer Giveaways and Discounts on a Regular Basis – Everyone loves free stuff, especially if you’re offering something that can complement their purchase. For instance, Lexus San Diego dealership offered a discount for current car owners. From a $500 budget, the dealership was able to reach out to 500,000 potential clients and generate 670 offer claims as well as new page fans and customers. This technique can double as an effective engagement strategy for the future.

How to Nurture and Engage Customers on Facebook

To engage your clients and ensure their loyalty, consider embracing the following practices.

  • Generate the Content Your Fans Want to See – Keep your social pages active via multiple posts throughout the week. While you should know when to post on different social networks, your focus should be the quality of the content. That way, you can increase engagement. To further make your posts a success, include photos. Photo content ensures engagement 87% more often than posts with only text.
  • Focus on Building Your Brand Before Sales – You first need to build your brand and establishing its awareness. Doing so will assure you of a strong customer base, to which you can sell your goods later on. So interact with your clients, know about them, listen to their opinions and complaints before responding politely and effectively, and then post promotions according to their interests.
  • Have Surveys to Give Your Fans a Voice – Let your fans grow engaged with your brand. You can ask anything from which color they’ll want your next car to be in to who they think will win the game that day. This information will help you with your research and allow you to create better targeted updates.
  • Crowdsource for Answers – Encourage your community members to interact with one another to engage them further. For instance, share a fan’s question on your page and have others provide answers. If you’re worried that this may affect your status as an authority, don’t. You can provide your own answers in the thread of comments, but encourage others to offer their own experiences and opinions.

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Why a CRM and How It Will Improve Your Business https://www.sozialia.com/why-a-crm-and-how-it-will-improve-your-business/ https://www.sozialia.com/why-a-crm-and-how-it-will-improve-your-business/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:45:03 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2517 What is a CRM and What Does it Do? For as long as there have been businesses, there have been Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, though they might not always have been called that. Basically, anything that facilitates a relationship…

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What_is_CRM

What is a CRM and What Does it Do?

For as long as there have been businesses, there have been Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems, though they might not always have been called that. Basically, anything that facilitates a relationship between a business and its customers – sales, marketing, service, adverting – is a CRM or part of one. But let’s dive into the big questios, why a CRM?

In the old days, CRMs might have been something as simple as an address book or a card file. The arrival of the spreadsheet was a great leap forward, but even today, despite countless improvements, it has its limitations. A spreadsheet package like Excel is handy for standalone functions such as telephone lists, but quickly becomes cumbersome when you try to integrate one function with another. A user faced with dozens of spreadsheets may be baffled as to which one to turn to for a particular piece of data. Worse still, getting one spreadsheet to populate another with data can be a nightmare. These problems are compounded when you have multiple users updating spreadsheets and copies of spreadsheets without any central control.

CRM systems overcome the limitations of spreadsheets by keeping data in a central depository and ensuring it is used and updated in a controlled manner.

BusinessDictionary.com defines a Customer Relationship Management system as:

A computerized system for identifying, targeting, acquiring, and retaining the best mix of customers.

Amongst other things, a good CRM system will help a business do some or all of the following:

  • store customer details (names, email addresses, phone numbers etc …)
  • help retain existing customers and discover new ones
  • provide services and products tailored to individual customers
  • offer better customer service
  • cross-sell products more effectively
  • help sales staff close more deals
  • track phone calls,
  • log emails sent to and received from prospects
  • keep track of prospects’ social media activity
  • rotate leads to the most appropriate sales reps
  • log interactions between customers and customer support teams.

How Companies Put CRMs to Use

At the heart of every CRM system lies a database containing information on customers and their interactions with the business. This information can be used by the business to tailor products and promotions according to the customers’ wants and needs. It can also offer  insights into how to deal with each customer and what their worth to the business is and might be.

A Customer Relation Management System is not a Marketing Automation System

CRM is often confused with Marketing Automation. This is hardly surprising as the two systems have much in common and create a dynamic synergy when used in conjunction with each other.

Many CRM systems come with a so-called marketing module, however the functionality usually consists of little more than a bulk emailing tool. Marketing Automation software does a whole lot more. It enables businesses to market more effectively through online channels such as email, social media, blogs and websites and to automate repetitive tasks.

CRM systems and Marketing Automation systems both collect and manage customer data and use that data to trigger sales and marketing actions. The difference between the two is their approach. Whereas CRM is sales orientated, Marketing Automation puts the emphasis on online marketing.

Simplistically put, Marketing Automation is all about acquiring leads while CRM focuses on turning those leads into sales.

The Benefits of a CRM System

Without the use of CRM software, keeping track of customer dealings can be something of a nightmare.

Customer data comes to businesses from a plethora of sources such as telephone conversations, emails, social media and sales reports. This data does not always get to the marketers and salespeople who could use it to generate sales. Even if the right people do get their hands on it, they may not be able to make as much sense of it as they need to.

Salesmen are just that: salesmen. They’re not necessarily good administrators. They may have all sorts of valuable information on their laptops, in their Filofaxes or even written on scraps of paper.

All this leads to lost opportunities and disgruntled customers who feel they’re not getting the attention they deserve.

A good CRM system:

  • Enables collaboration between different parts of the business such as marketing and sales, thus allowing them to collaborate effectively and share resources.
  • Recommends the most effective and relevant content for specific selling scenarios.
  • Saves on administration.
  • Collects and centralises data from diverse sources (telephone, emails, social media etc…) and makes it accessible.
  • Helps identify new leads and convert them to sales.
  • Helps sales staff focus their attention on the right clients.
  • Increases referrals from existing customers.
  • Highlights cross-selling and up-selling opportunities.
  • Improves products and services.

OK. I’m Convinced I Need a CRM System. But Which One?

Although no two CRMs are the same, they are all designed to do the same thing: to help businesses understand their contacts better and act on that understanding. The trick is to find the one that best suits your business. When doing so, never lose sight of the fact that CRM is more than just software; it is part of your company culture. CRM software is no substitute for salesmanship and service.

There are, of course, any number of factors to take into account when choosing a CRM system. Which matters most to a particular business is down to that business’s priorities when it comes to dealing with customers. That said, there are five factors which should nearly always be considered:

Cost

As well as the up-front costs, you should think about indirect costs such as running costs, system integration, software customisation and any additional hardware needed to run the system.

How Well Does the Software Support your Processes?

It is essential to understand how your business currently deals with Customer Relations and how a CRM system could emulate and improve upon it. Paying for features that are never used is a waste of money. Discovering after it’s been bought and paid for that your CRM doesn’t cover all the bases you need it to will cost time and money to fix. In a worst case scenario, you may have to scrap the CRM system and start all over again.

Cloud Based orIn-House?

Going for a cloud-based CRM solution means you’re up and running in next to no time. It also cuts down on the amount of hardware you need to purchase. On the other hand, you may wish to keep the CRM in-house as this gives you greater scope to tailor the software to your needs.

Scalability

The whole point of CRM software is to help you grow your business. It is therefore essential to have a system that will grow with it. You don’t want to find a few years down the line that your CRM system is no longer fit for purpose and you have to start all over again.

The Vendor

They say no-one ever got sacked for buying Microsoft. Can the same be said of whoever provides your CRM system? Before opting for a provider, check them and their software out on the Internet and in specialist magazines. You want to know that both provider and software are reliable. This really is a situation where Google is your friend.

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Lead Scoring – Ranking Prospects to Ensure Effective Lead Nurturing https://www.sozialia.com/lead-scoring-ranking-prospects-to-ensure-effective-lead-nurturing/ https://www.sozialia.com/lead-scoring-ranking-prospects-to-ensure-effective-lead-nurturing/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:44:17 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2515 The behavior of today’s buyers has changed. Your prospects resort to online channels to research your offerings, find out about the best practices of your industry and skim through thought leadership, before making a purchase. To get them to pick…

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lead_scoring_ranking_proscpetcs

The behavior of today’s buyers has changed. Your prospects resort to online channels to research your offerings, find out about the best practices of your industry and skim through thought leadership, before making a purchase. To get them to pick your brand, you’ll need to engage them early in the buying process. However, engagement costs money; you need to be selective and pursue prospects that’ll prove to be profitable in the long run. This is where lead scoring comes into the picture.

Defining Lead Scoring and its Types

Lead scoring, a methodology which both sales and marketing teams rely on, is used for ranking leads based on their readiness for sale. Basically, it’s a system that allows you to determine whether a lead is going to move to sales or if it requires more nurturing. You can assign points or letters to denote rankings, or use terms such as ‘hot’, ‘warm’ or ‘cold’. However, to designate these ranks, marketers resort to two types of scoring: implicit lead scoring and explicit lead scoring. Both of these take into consideration behaviors and demographics, but in different ways.

Explicit lead scoring is based on information that is either observable or shared with you via online forms or during the registration process. For the demographics aspect of this scoring method, marketers consider demographic and firmographic attributes such as job title, company size and industry. As a result, they can determine how a prospect compares against their persona of an ideal buyer. As for behaviors, BANT (Budget, Authority, Need and Timeline) attributes are analyzed to assess sales readiness.

  • Budget: Analyzing the budget allows you to determine whether or not the prospect can afford your offerings. It also helps you identify individuals who may be willing to spend generously.
  • Authority: Each business has different types of authority: decision makers, influencers and end users. You’ll need to know which of these you’re addressing, before investing time on winning them over.
  • Need: Find out whether your prospects need what you’re offering. You should especially focus on identifying what drives their need and market accordingly.
  • Timeline: The timeline defines when the prospect will be ready to buy from you, be it prior to a large event, or simply around the time budgets are allocated at year-end.

However, your prospects may not share this information right away, which is why you need to use implicit scoring as well. By definition, implicit scoring entails tracking your prospects’ behaviors to determine how interested they are in your products or solutions. For instance, opened emails, responses to offers and completed forms may be signs of your prospects’ readiness for a sales pitch.  As for the demographics attributes, these include inferred geography, data quality factors, etc. collected via tools on your website.

The Importance of Lead Nurturing

According to HubSpot’s survey in 2013, 67% of marketers think that lead scoring plays a fundamental role when it comes to reaching their marketing goals.International marketers agree as well, with 75% of them considering lead scoring important, while 41% believe that lead scoring is of utmost importance. However, lead scoring wouldn’t have such a high approval rate, if it wasn’t for successful lead nurturing.

While lead nurturing and lead scoring aren’t necessarily dependent on one another, the surveys show that B2B businesses which implement both, have a higher rate of success when it comes to closing deals. Lead nurturing is a way to keep your potential buyers engaged, by delivering content which is sufficiently valuable and which matches their interest. Through the different marketing channels, you will be able to build a relationship with a lead, long before scoring, which will stay active until he’s ready to buy. Here are some of the key benefits of using lead nurturing:

Converting the marketing leads into sales

According to MarketingSherpa, only 21% of marketing leads convert into sales. The reason for this poor performance is that the leads haven’t been nurtured enough sending them through the next steps.

Ensuring that the leads are valid before being passed to sales

If the leads aren’t nurtured enough, you will fail to understand their business and their needs, since you didn’t spend any time on building a connection with them or keeping them invested in your brand; not knowing your leads makes a dent in your business. MarketingSherpa says that because 61% of B2B marketers send their leads to Sales, without having any built foundation, a whopping 73% of those leads prove to be unqualified. On the same note, only 56% of B2B companies actually verify their business leads before sending them to Sales.

Generating more sales

Lead nurturing, as well as lead scoring, have a poor establishment percentage among B2B marketers (35% and 21%, respectively), despite being the lifeblood of such businesses. Statistics show that nurtured leads are 20% more likely to materialize the sale opportunity than non-nurtured ones. The Annuitas Group says that nurtured leads also make 47% bigger purchases than the non-nurtured.

Lowering your costs

The Forrester Research surveys claim that effective lead nurturing not only boosts considerably the leads which are sales-ready, generating 50% more, but they also reduce the costs significantly, with 33%.

Increasing the email response rate

In comparison to standard emails, the response rate of personalized (nurtured) emails is highly encouraging (up to 10 times more). Such emails also manage to generate 5% more CTR than the non-nurtured ones. When it comes to unsubscribe rates, lead-nurtured emails are in fact 0.5% higher – but this is a positive result, because it means that you are less likely to have leads which are not recommended for your B2B, thus saving you time and money.

Should You Start Lead Scoring as Well?

Lead scoring can easily be integrated into your automated marketing system, CRM, email marketing efforts, content personalization and business directory. However, there’s a reason only 21% of B2B marketers have established their own lead scoring program: it’s not for everyone. Yes, the benefits you’ve just read may be tempting, but there are times when implementing lead scoring is a big waste of time.

To determine whether lead scoring should be part of your lead management strategy, ask yourself the following three questions:

#1) Does the Sales Team Have Enough Leads?

You won’t need to worry about lead scoring if your sales team is effectively managing the leads you’re providing. In fact, if that would be the case, it means you haven’t been providing enough leads for your sales team in the first place. Therefore, until you have too many leads and can no longer touch base with all of them, lead scoring shouldn’t be on your agenda. Instead, focus on generating more leads through analyzing your traffic and visitor-to-lead conversion rates.

#2) Is Your Sales Team Calling ALL the Leads You’re Sending Through?

If your sales team has been complaining about the leads you’ve generated and is hesitating to call them, lead scoring won’t help. Your problems may be running deeper than you expected. There’s a big chance that the sales and marketing teams aren’t aligned, in which case your lead scoring efforts will go to waste. After all, how can you expect them to trust the score you provide, if they don’t like the leads themselves? Therefore, consider having a heart-to-heart with the people in sales, to solve the underlying issues.

#3) Do You Have Enough Data?

You’ll need behavior and demographic data in order to carry out lead scoring. Without these, you won’t be able to accurately assess the readiness of your leads and may end up failing to convert them. Therefore, you should focus on improving your conversion forms with the help of your sales team. That way, you can discover which data they need to follow up on leads. You may also need to use a marketing analytics and a lead management system to gather data automatically.

Conclusion

To sum it up, be selective when it comes to engaging your prospects and choose only those that line up with your brand’s identity. Keep in mind that ‘the more, the better’ is a philosophy that can make you lose time and money – it’s all about pursuing the right buyers for your business. Figure out if your marketing system is prepared for lead scoring and if yes, combine it with lead nurturing for a higher sales rate and a cost-effective strategy (click here for a lead scoring strategy), to maximize the revenue.

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How to Create a Cost-Effective Lead Scoring Strategy https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-create-a-cost-effective-lead-scoring-strategy/ https://www.sozialia.com/how-to-create-a-cost-effective-lead-scoring-strategy/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:43:15 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2513 Lead scoring, a methodology which both sales and marketing teams rely on, is used for ranking leads based on their readiness for sale. Basically, it’s a system that allows you to determine whether a lead is going to move to…

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how_to_create_cost_effective_lead_scoring

Lead scoring, a methodology which both sales and marketing teams rely on, is used for ranking leads based on their readiness for sale. Basically, it’s a system that allows you to determine whether a lead is going to move to sales or if it requires more nurturing. You can assign points or letters to denote rankings, or use terms such as ‘hot’, ‘warm’ or ‘cold’. However, to designate these ranks, marketers resort to two types of scoring: implicit lead scoring and explicit lead scoring. Both of these take into consideration behaviors and demographics, but in different ways.

After understanding the concept of lead scoring, it’s time for you to establish your own strategy. Here are the steps you can confidently follow to be successful.

Step #1) Make Sure Your Lead Scoring Team is Ready

Contrary to what some experts believe, lead scoring is an activity where sales and marketing should collaborate to ensure its success. Hence, create a team that comprises equally of sales and marketing personnel, so that both can share their insights and determine the traits defining ideal prospects. Remember to pick your team wisely, since its members will be meeting regularly to assess results, provide feedback and carry out necessary improvements.

Step #2) Define the Criteria You’ll Use for Ranking Leads

Study historical deal data and existing sales data to identify traits associated with closed deals, as well as those with transactions that either fall through or take a much longer time than expected.  You should also have your marketing automation and website analytics data in hand, as they provide you with behavioral attributes such as which pages appeal most to your clients, what content they download the most, and which forms they’ll happily fill out. The key to successfully tackling this messy task is to start simple and identify a few key indicators of success or failure, rather than starting with a large amount of data points.

Step #3) Establish a Scoring System

After collecting and analyzing your data, it’s time for you to create your own lead scoring strategy. Use the following steps to get started.

  1. Decide Which Criteria Matter the Most – You may have a lot of scoring criteria on mind, but some may be far more important than the rest. For instance, viewing a video on your product is more valuable than just visiting your site’s home page. Similarly, a Fortune 500 visitor is a better prospect than one from an unknown company.
  2. Clearly Mention Which Criteria Doesn’t Matter – You’ll need to determine criteria for less qualified and useless leads as well. For instance, a software provider’s sales team can pursue the interest expressed by a system administrator, but choose to keep a sales engineer as a last option. Establishing criteria for prospects less likely to buy will help both sales and marketing save their time and effort, especially if the teams have new members. Better yet, consider embracing the concept of negative scoring. For instance, if a CEO is spending time on your white papers and viewing your demo videos, you’ll need to subtract his points because he’s outside your target market and ultimately an unlikely prospect.
  3. Establish Scoring Thresholds – Decide how to segment your leads based on scores. Be it through letter grades, points, or the ‘hot-warm-cold’ grouping, establish thresholds for others to know the precise difference between each rank. This may be a tough process at first and you may need to tweak it regularly, but you’ll have enough time to experiment as long as your lead scoring team members work together smoothly.

Step #4) Create an Action Plan

Taking action based on lead scores would mean sending ‘hot’ leads to the sales team and discarding ‘cold’ leads. However, you need to do more than that. First off, you need to define the process for delivering top ranking leads to sales representatives. Determine how quickly the leads should reach, who should approve and route them, how to transfer leads to the sales pipeline, as well as other technical issues. Next, define the process for ‘warm’ leads. The best solution for these is sending them to a nurturing program that engages and prepares them for sales in the future.

Finally, establish a policy for dealing with ‘cold’ leads. If you don’t believe that engaging them on any level is possible, create a plan to properly discard them. For example, you can stow them away in a database if you think they’ll offer 10% value or simply hand them over to another company that may be interested in having this type of leads.

Step #5) Track Your Progress

In order to join the ranks of successful companies, you should always set some time for testing your lead scoring models. The best way of doing so is by comparing them to your actual results. For example, track the behavior of your ‘hot’ prospects to see if they’re contributing to more closed deals. If you do spot a problem, communicate its details to your lead scoring team immediately to correct it. Another way to track your progress is by reviewing data from your marketing and sales automation systems, to find patterns indicating the success of your strategy. To be very thorough, define metrics which you can use to measure the ROI of your lead scoring program. That way, you’ll be in a better position to prove just how effective your efforts have been.

Step #6) Refine Your Strategy

Don’t expect your current strategy to remain the same, especially if the testing phase uncovers discrepancies. Even if you don’t notice any issues, never be afraid to experiment, to further improve it. After all, you’ll need to abandon some old assumptions you’ve made in the past, to match the constant changes taking place in your market.

In a nutshell, if your business is ready for lead scoring, don’t hesitate to implement this strategy after perfecting it. You should especially take this opportunity to bridge the gaps between sales and marketing and to establish a robust lead nurturing strategy. With these in place, you’ll be prepared to see higher conversion rates, higher ROI and more revenue.

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Inbound Marketing Strategies: Are Microsites Valuable? https://www.sozialia.com/inbound-marketing-strategies-are-microsites-valuable/ https://www.sozialia.com/inbound-marketing-strategies-are-microsites-valuable/#comments_reply Tue, 15 Sep 2015 03:42:35 +0000 http://www.smbhelper.com/?p=2511 A Microsite is a small group of pages that are linked to a larger parent website, but have a different domain name and generally unique content and design.Microsites are usually used as a marketing tactic to specially distinguish certain information,…

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are_microsites_valuable

A Microsite is a small group of pages that are linked to a larger parent website, but have a different domain name and generally unique content and design.Microsites are usually used as a marketing tactic to specially distinguish certain information, campaigns, products, etc.

Microsites have been used for this purpose for some time now with varying degrees of success. They can be great for getting focused information across to intended users and have been a part of many brands’ marketing campaigns. However, questions about the value of microsites remain and they are definitely not recognized as universally effective.

While microsites may be good at times for promoting your brand or certain products, etc., they need to be approached very strategically, since they can also have a damaging effect on your SEO. The key to determining the value of a microsite is to consider it in light of your key marketing objectives. Stick to these following guidelines and decide when a microsite is good for your longer term marketing strategies:

Not an Answer to Your Redesign Needs

You are bound to need a website revamp or refresh at some point. Maybe it’s desperate and your main website is a hideous UI/UX nightmare. Maybe it hasn’t been maintained or updated regularly. Maybe it’s disorganized and disengaging to visitors. This means it’s time for a redesign, not for a microsite. While the idea of creating a microsite as a solution can be tempting in order to avoid the trouble of going through enormous changes and cost of a site redesign, a microsite can never and shoulnever act as parking spot for your brand and foundational information.

The convenience of avoiding a redesign is outweighed by the negative consequences this has on your SEO rankings and traffic flow:

  1. Google takes the age of a domain into consideration in ranking. Older domains are more highly valued. From this perspective, your original website has value no matter what. Whether it has been neglected or has too much information on it, or is behind the latest design trends, it would be foolish to replace it with a microsite.
  2. Another drawback of microsites is that you will actually succeed in dividing your own target audience between the two sites. Given that your website was your original web presence, creating a microsite that also houses foundational company/brand information rather than a very limited and specific set of pages will spread your customers and audience unevenly.

It should also be noted that creating and maintaining a microsite is not as easy and cost effective as you may think. Even if a total website overhaul is out of budget for you right now, you can likely do some housekeeping and updating for the same cost in time and resources it would take to build a microsite.

Finally, spreading key general information across multiple domains can be a frustrating to your visitors, who expect to be able to navigate from one relevant page to another and back again without being completely relocated. This experience is not going to encourage visitors to stay and look around your site. It will likely be disorienting and discouraging to their mission, driving them elsewhere to meet their needs.

Microsites Can Hurt Search Rankings

Microsites violate a few key pieces of SEO wisdom. If you are under the impression that having a microdite will increase your page count or drive better SEO rankings, be prepared to be disappointed. While its true that one emphasis for many inbound marketing strategies is content creation and the SEO benefits of content, microsites don’t contribute to this overarching goal:

  1. As already mentioned, a microsite is a completely different page with a separate domain name. When a customer visits the microsite instead of the main website, it does not register as a visit to your site. Your website and microsite do not share the visitors. Therefore, you are not improving your SEO in any way by building traffic to your site. Google registers a microsite as a separate website, so you’re going to have to build traffic to that site from scratch. Even piggy-backing your microsite off of your main website traffic results in redirecting traffic away from your own site.
  2. Duplicate content is another problem that can arise when using microsites. Fresh, unique content is another indicator of relevance and trust for Google. Any content that is repeated on your microsite from your main site will result in a lower ranking.
  3. If you are targeting the same keywords on both sites, you are essentially pitting your website against your own microsite for SEO rankings, which should really be considered in the context of a firmly established overarching strategy.

Even if your ranking does improve, the microsite will require regular maintenance and will need to have updated information to keep the ranking. Because most microsites are created for temporary purposes and are supposed to contain limited information, the race to keep the ranking up may cost more than you initially thought.

Ok, so we’ve established that having a microsite can hurt the health of a website instead of improving it. Now when, if ever, is it a good idea to have a microsite for marketing purposes? As long as you’re aware of the costs in SEO rankings, etc., discussed above, you may make a strategic call to build a microsite as part of a big campaign or product launch push. And, done well, under the right circumstances, this can be great.

Short-term Promotional Activities

Microsites can come with higher benefits than costs for short-term promotional activities in your marketing plan. For example, if you have a temporary or seasonal offer/product/campaign that does not mesh exactly with your website’s content and has a highly specific message, you can use a microsite to inform the customers about it. In this case the microsite isn’t out to extend your brand’s image. Instead, it’s focused on something unique and limited in scope that needs its own context. This is one huge plus of a microsite: focus. There’s little opportunity for a visitor to get distracted from the message and “next steps” of a campaign by content of a different nature.

Additionally, for your internal tracking and analysis purposes, collecting uncorrupted data about certain marketing campaigns or efforts can really inform your strategy.

Creating a New Market Segment

Microsites can be effective if your company is introducing a new product geared toward a new target audience or market segment. It can challenging to incorporate this move into your main website without creating an anomalistic break in organization, direction, and target.

A microsite build for this purpose can focus your customer’s attention on the new product and make the product stand out. For example, Unilever uses microsites for its separate brands such as Dove and Axe, which have very different targets and branding in themselves. In fact, the branding for each is so unique that, unless you’re looking into the higher level corporate ties, you aren’t likely to know that Dove and Axe are made by the same company. You can see why Unilever has opted to give each of them their own web presence.

Additional Effective Microsite Innovations

Here are some other companies that are putting microsites to effective and interesting use:

AYGO 360 was introduced by Toyota in style by creating a webpage that could only be opened on smart phones. The microsite took advantage of the Gyroscope sensors in the phone to get a 360 look of cars by moving around. The microsite by Toyota is representative of one stunning and delightful use of microsites.

Toyota_Aygo_Mobile_Site

Coke is another example of the way microsites can be used to achieve effective results. Coke released more than 50 microsites, all with highly interactive interfaces. Coke keeps adding more microsites to its already large database to keep customers engaged and reminding them why Coke is “so awesome.”

One item to note across the above examples: we are talking about huge companys that have veritable highway systems of traffic and plenty of SEO capital that they can experiment with. The costs to them are not as likely to outweigh the benefits

In short, microsites can be beneficial, but shouldn’t be implemented without deeper consideration of the impacts they are likely to have on your longer term marketing efforts.

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