It’s all well and good knowing what
YOU can provide and the services YOU offer in your business, but could you be
losing potential business for other departments in your company, by simply not
knowing enough about them? This article teaches you how to do some internal networking with others of expertise within the company, so that you can all
help each other to gain more business for the company overall.
Even in the era of social media and podcasts on demand and online video sharing sites, I still think email marketing provides the best return on your marketing dollar.
When you are hosting an event, the natural thing to do is to introduce one person to another.But how often, as a guest at an event, do you introduce one guest to another?I am sure you do it regularly, but let me give you some ideas as to how to make both parties feel comfortable at the moment of introduction.
Look, I don’t really think that the mySpaces and Facebooks of the world are that important for the typical small business as they stand today. There may be very practical business reasons for some to actually use these and other, what are called social networks, for business gain, but most people that have jumped on the social network bandwagon have found themselves left with a “is this all there is” kind of feeling.
A recent survey conducted by research firm, MarketingSherpa, found that business-to-business marketers are shifting from offline to online marketing programs in record numbers.
This is a good move.
In most B2B situations, online lead generation will get you more good leads, faster and potentially at less cost than offline tactics. The only requirement is that your prospects must be online themselves.
Online lead generation has become critical for business-to-business marketers because prospects are actively researching B2B products and services, and they’re doing it online.
For example:
80% of business technology buyers say that they found the vendor – the vendor did not find them. (MarketingSherpa, Business Technology Marketing Benchmark Guide 2007 – 2008).
Well over 70% of B2B purchases begin with an online search. (Enquiro Research Business to Business Survey 2007).
Even C-Level executives (82%) use search engines. (Forbes.com and Gartner online C-Level survey Nov & Dec 2007).
Take a look again at those first two points. The combined concept is worth repeating. 80% of your potential prospects are looking for solutions like yours, and most of them are finding those solutions online. It pays to be where they’re looking for you.
Another reason online lead generation will get you more good leads, faster and potentially at less cost than offline approaches is because it is easy to track and measure the results of online tactics. It’s easy to keep what’s working and drop what isn’t. That saves you money.
It’s also easy to compare one version against another until you’ve found the combination that produces the greatest results. That makes your marketing investment more efficient.
To succeed in online lead generation, you have to lay a good foundation. Here are five fundamental secrets to doing that.
Be very visible. Your goal should be to become highly visible and easy to find anywhere your prospects are hanging out or looking for products or services like yours.
Get your prospects to take action. Just as with conventional offline marketing programs, the goal of an online program should be to get your desired prospects to do something.
Be prepared to convert the leads you generate. Only a small percentage of prospects will be ready buy or to talk with a sales person on the initial contact. Sending traffic or leads to your website is only the first step in a multi-stage process.
Participate in the community. Your target audiences – prospects, customers, journalists, employees and investors - are talking online. There’s much to be gained by participating – correctly – in those conversations.
Test and measure. The ability to quantify and compare results from nearly every aspect of an online marketing program is a key advantage of online marketing.
Marketers are moving to online lead generation because it works – and especially in a poor economy, it offers many advantages over offline programs. But, like more conventional marketing tactics, you can waste a lot of money if you don’t do it right. Keep the above “secrets” in mind and you’ll vastly improve your chances for success.
A wonderful, hardworking marketing tool is a giant postcard! With colorful eye-catching graphics on one side and your promotional copy on the back, it will grab attention faster than an email, ad or sales letter.
Every SE has its own web crawler program and its own formula for ranking pages. However, while page factors might be ranked differently by different engines, the idea behind the web crawlers is basically the same. Getting your site crawled often is a good indicator that the SE finds your site important.
For reasons that are difficult to fathom, business-to-business website developers are frequently guilty of overlooking – or ignoring - two of the easiest – and most important – ways of ensuring a website performs at peak levels. These are testing and measuring.
Successful business leaders recommend that all business owners should have a business plan, and it pays to heed their advice. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, over 50% of small businesses fail in the first year and 95% fail within the first five years.
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