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3 Effective B2B Client Retention Tactics That Will Stand The Test of Time

Your clients are the heart of your business and it takes sincere dedication to gain their loyalty in return. They keep your operations flowing and are the reason you create value-centered products or services. For business-to-business (B2B) companies, in particular, the need to integrate lead generation efforts and guarantee client satisfaction is even more essential for retaining business clientele.

As we enter the new year with whispers of a recession, client retention is everything when it comes to companies surviving and thriving in economically turbulent times. According to Forbes and Econsultancy, American companies have lost over $136 billion annually as the result of avoidable customer loss and less than 50% of companies know how to measure Customer Lifetime Value (LTV).

Previous research has shown that B2B companies are able to maintain respectable client retention rates by building customer relationships and brand loyalty. However, there also continues to be a gap in client retention efforts that limits the long-term revenue each client provides. This makes it essential for businesses to place greater effort toward establishing solid B2B client retention tactics and practices.

The exact tactics and their execution are very likely to vary depending on business type and industry. Every company’s client retention strategy will look different. But the key here is that there must be an increased effort year over year in order to keep a pulse on client retention rates. This importance is emphasized in a 2023 study by Zippia, where it was found that 68% of B2B customers are lost due to perceived indifference or apathy.

To help your company build practical and long-standing client retention strategies in 2023, here are some proven approaches to get started.

1. Demonstrate That Your Company Has The Answers

To be both a successful and highly respected business, your brand must demonstrate its trustworthiness and authority to prospective and current clients. Each of your B2B consumers inevitably has many questions about the products or services available to them.

On the marketing side, this means creating inbound content that will answer the questions of target audiences, such as informative blogs, videos, white papers, e-books, or email campaigns. For B2B customer service leaders, this includes managing client communications to address real-time questions and concerns in a smooth, user-friendly and efficient manner. As an entrepreneur, this means thinking about current industry changes and the shifting needs of clientele.

Image Source: Zippia

Ensuring your company has the most effective, dedicated resources that deliver detailed and engaging solutions will quickly improve your B2B client retention rates. When your clients see that you are able to answer questions and provide quick solutions to their problems via mediums they find helpful, they will feel taken care of, secure, and valued from the start.

2. Show Clients That They Are Your Top Priority

When you are looking to turn business customers into highly-devoted, long-term clients, it is key to demonstrate how much you value their loyalty. Previous studies have shown that businesses that make their customers feel valued with client-friendly incentives are able to significantly impact retention efforts and future revenue outcomes. Businesses are able to demonstrate their customer appreciation in a myriad of ways throughout the year, making their clients feel top of mind.

This is often done by providing clients with exclusive benefits or limited-time offers. Other B2B leaders may look to custom retail and corporate gift-giving companies, like Spoonful of Comfort, to provide clients with personalized gifts on special occasions, or even during times of stress or loss. Leaders may also opt for making a simple phone call, sending a thank you card, or another gesture of appreciation.

No matter how you choose to show your business clients that they are your top priority, creating a thoughtful, customized experience is a simple but unique way to be proactive in client relationship building. These thoughtful tactics are often timeless, yet forgotten methods that leave a lasting impact with clients.

3. Share Client Success Stories

When it comes to establishing a growing client base, you want to use the power of storytelling to attract potential long-term business clientele. The most effective B2B customer success stories have the ability to improve prospective clients’ understanding of how your product/service can help them solve their problems. More so, potential business clients that see testimonials, trusted online reviews, personal recommendations, and other forms of customer success stories are likely to see your business as credible and trustworthy. Ultimately, influencing their initial purchasing decisions and pathing the way for lasting B2B client retention.

Your company’s client success stories can be shared on your website, blog, social media, and through more traditional marketing methods. Posting customer stories and videos on B2B social media channels, such as LinkedIn or Facebook, has been shown to increase potential customer interest and overall engagement. This is especially the case when you leverage a strong customer voice or a story that looks at challenges rather than successes. Thinking outside the box when it comes to creatively sharing your customer stories is a sure way to retain more long-term business clients.

Image Source: Trustmary

Sharing a wide range of narratives from your existing roster of clientele, allows your B2B business to focus on each client’s personal journey, highlight product/service successes, and further demonstrate the value of your brand. As a result, using the success stories of your most loyal customers has the capacity to drive conversions, boost sales, and provide the opportunity to maximize your audience reach and impact.

As we enter a new season in 2023, B2B client retention will continue to be essential to the growth and natural life cycle of your company. Implementing the most effective B2B client retention tactics will be necessary in order to create relationships with business clients that will stand the test of time. By focusing on maximizing your existing client relationships and providing functional support, you will be able to keep your clientele engaged and loyal to your company for years to come.

The post 3 Effective B2B Client Retention Tactics That Will Stand The Test of Time appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How to Create & Execute a Digital Content Strategy

woman staring a digital content strategy on laptop

Your digital content strategy is the key to driving some of your biggest success factors: organic web traffic, brand awareness, lead generation, and ultimately sales. The thing is, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to actually creating your strategy.

Content, audience, schedules, channels, KPIs — where do you even start?

Our advice: take it one step at a time. Start with what’s most important, and build on each step until you’re ready to launch an intentional, strategic plan that will drive ROI for your brand.

We’ve created a step-by-step guide you can follow to create and execute your digital content strategy right away.

Quick Takeaways

  • Audience should be #1 priority for any digital content plan.
  • Setting clear goals and measurable KPIs makes it easier to evaluate progress.
  • An annual content plan forces an always-on marketing approach
  • Test, measure, and focus on the things that work to drive marketing ROI

8 Steps to Launching Your Digital Content Strategy

Think Audience-First

Who are you creating your content for? This should be the first question every marketing team asks themselves when developing a digital content strategy.

Hint: the answer is never for your own executives.

It’s tempting to create content that touts all the really great things about your company, but that’s why you have a sales team.

Content marketing, when it’s done the right way, steers away from over-selling the brand. Instead, it focuses on consistent, quality content that’s relevant to your industry and engaging for your audience.

venn diagram for content marketing showing executive instinct to promote vs customer desire to be entertained

So, back to the original question: Who are you creating content for?

You can use a number of strategies to find the answer to this question. It’s a good idea to spend substantial time researching your audience to be sure you get it right. Customer personas (when they don’t suck) can be a really effective way to understand your different audience segments. Looking at customer demographic data (like web analytics and historical sales data) is another powerful tool for understanding your audience.

You should also think about your audience from the perspective of the problem you’re helping them solve. Why would someone search for your content? What need do they have that would drive them to your website? Considering your audience this way helps you create a content marketing plan that specifically addresses your audience’s needs and thus resonates with them more directly.

When you do your due diligence to know your audience, you are much better equipped to launch a digital content strategy that works.

Set Goals with Measurable KPIs

Now that you know your audience and what your content will do for them, it’s time to think about what you need it to do for your brand. What are your goals for your content marketing strategy? Is it to increase brand awareness at the top of the funnel? Convert leads you can pass along to your sales team? Increase your search engine rankings?

It’s likely you have more than one goal for your content. By spending time outlining each of the goals of your digital content strategy, your team can be more intentional about creating content that hits all of your objectives.

Just as important to knowing your marketing goals is establishing how you will measure your progress. First, think about the key performance indicators (KPIs) you’ll use. Is it the number of people who visit your website? The amount of leads you generate from your blog? The number of people who follow your social media accounts? Whatever your specific KPIs, be clear about them from the start so you can craft your content accordingly.

Second, put a specific number on your KPIs. If you’re aiming to increase your social media following, set a clear numerical goal (for example, increase organic web traffic by 10% in the next 3 months) so your team can objectively measure whether or not your goal is met.

Perform a Current Content Audit

It’s easy to get so focused on the new content you’re going to create that you forget about what you already have. But auditing your existing content is a key part of creating a new digital content strategy. It helps you identify what’s working and what’s not. You can build on content that’s performing well and eliminate content that’s outdated or underperforming.

To perform a current content audit, establish first what you want to accomplish with the exercise. Are you aiming to reorganize your content to create a better system? Update old content to optimize SEO? Eliminate outdated web pages and links? Assess brand voice and messaging? Again, you’re likely to have more than one goal for your audit.

Once you know what you’re trying to accomplish, clearly outline which content you’ll include. Are you auditing your website? Your YouTube channel? Your social media content? Maybe you’re planning to audit everything. Either way, decide what’s going to be audited before you start.

Then, think about how you’ll evaluate the content you’re auditing. Decide how you’ll track the content you audit and create consistent rating scales and systems. Once you do, you’re ready to begin the actual auditing.

Want a deeper dive into the process? Check out Laura Creekmore’s content audit talk from a recent Content Marketing World conference.

Decide What Types of Digital Content You’ll Create

People often think blogs right away when they consider digital content strategies. And they’re right — blogs are a huge part of effective content marketing. But they definitely aren’t the only option when it comes to content. By creating different types of content, you can better engage your audience and let your content work together to drive higher rankings and more traffic.

For example, OptinMonster reports that articles with videos get 94% more views than those that are text-only and video content is 50 times more likely to drive organic search traffic than plain text.

Including content like infographics, images, videos, polls, quizzes and more can enhance your text content and create a more interactive, engaging experience for your audience. Creating email newsletters can help drive your subscriber base. Publishing how-to videos can increase your brand authority.

The important thing to know here is that diverse content is effective, and you have options. Decide what fits best with your brand, and work it into your content plan.

Be SEO-Focused

This one’s easy, right? We all know that SEO is important. Your search rankings are essentially the deciding factor for your brand visibility and the number one driver of organic web traffic. In fact, 93% of all online experiences begin with a search engine.

The thing to keep in mind here is that Google ranking factors are constantly evolving. A decade ago, you could stuff your blogs with keywords to your heart’s content and expect results. Today Google can assess quality and sentiment (among many other things) to eliminate spammy content and push the best stuff to the top of their SERPs. In other words: you can’t cheat the system.

And that’s a good thing! It means the hard work you put into creating great content won’t go unrewarded. But it also means you have to keep up with trends, algorithm changes, and best practices.

screenshot shows Oberer Homes online growth

Brainstorm Fresh Content Ideas

Okay — you know your audience, you’ve set your goals, you audited your content. You know what kinds of content you want to create, and you’ve done your research on SEO’s latest trends. Now you just need a ton of great ideas.

No big deal, right?

Actually, right! Don’t be intimidated by the prospect of coming up with topics to cover with your content. First and foremost, know that there are keyword tools out there to do most of this work for you. SEMRush is one of my favorites. Their keyword research tool can generate millions (yes, millions) of ideas from just one seed keyword. Pretty awesome.

That’s not the only place to get ideas, either. Stay up to date on news and trends to provide commentary on what’s happening in your industry. This can help establish brand authority and build your brand personality by offering unique opinions.

You can also check out what your competitors are doing and cover the same topics. It might sound counterintuitive, but it’s actually a proven content marketing strategy called the skyscraper technique. Basically, you reverse-engineer the SEO system by finding topics that are already ranking high and being covered frequently. Then, you publish your own content on those topics and put your own spin on it.

That last part is important. Skyscraper content is not duplicate content. It’s content that adds something new and novel to the existing library of content that already exists on a topic.

Finally, you can ask your team and your customers for ideas. What are the people in your organization finding important? What do your customers want to know more about? Going directly to the source can be an easy and effective way to find content ideas. You can send surveys and emails to large groups at once to make the process even easier.

The key takeaways here: coming up with fresh content ideas is important and it’s an ongoing process. Build time in your plan for sourcing ideas and do it periodically — not just at the launch of your plan.

Create (and stick to) a Publishing Schedule

Creating a publishing schedule and sticking to it is one of the big keys to digital content strategy success. Content calendars keep you organized and accountable, help you identify opportunities and gaps in your content plan, and ultimately lead to better content and stronger results.

There are many tools out there that can help you maintain your content schedule. Using a dynamic content calendar that lives online and comes with automatic alerts to help you manage the process is an ideal option. But there are also free tools and content calendar templates you can download and start using right away. Creating your own calendar using Excel or Google Sheets is a simple starter option that many brands find effective, too.

Have a Multichannel Digital Content Strategy

Did you know you have the opportunity to be your own best brand promoter? A multichannel digital content strategy can exponentially increase your views and web traffic. Think about ways you can share your own content across channels. For example, share your blog posts on social media platforms, or highlight your newest article as the headline of your email newsletter.

Optimizing Content Promotion Channels To Increase Conversion Rates - Marketing Insider Group

From: Optimizing Content Promotion Channels To Increase Conversion Rates

Another way to drive your multichannel strategy is to create highly shareable content. Seemingly small details like social media share buttons on your blog or encouraging followers to share something in your caption can go a long way in increasing your brand visibility.

Some of the most shareable types of content include:

  • Facts and statistics
  • Infographics
  • Commentary on current events and news
  • Listicles
  • How-to Guides
  • Videos

Launch Your Digital Content Strategy Now

Hiring a content strategy agency is one of the smartest ways you can ensure your digital content strategy launch is successful, Marketing Insider Group has the right tools and people to help you do it. Content Builder Services include a full content audit and customized editorial plan. Our writers can deliver you SEO-optimized, publish-ready blogs every week.

If you’re interested in learning more, set up a free consultation with me today!

The post How to Create & Execute a Digital Content Strategy appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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Why Quality Leads are Expensive

cat with money to show expensive leads

Getting more leads at a lower cost is always at the top of marketing and lead generation objectives, especially for startups and small businesses. In fact, our own research on marketing strategy found that 65% of B2B marketers claim that generating traffic and leads is their top priority.

While generating a high volume of leads is a good thing, it doesn’t necessarily translate into sales and revenue. You may be getting a lot of traffic to your site, but only a small percentage may opt-in to receive your gated content, and an even smaller percentage of your leads convert into paying customers.

Much of the focus these days is on lead quality as marketers take cost-per-acquisition into consideration.

Another one of our studies revealed that 61% of B2B marketers find it extremely difficult to generate high-quality leads. Most companies aim to reduce their cost per lead (CPL), thinking that the cheaper the lead is, the lower the cost per acquisition (CPA), and the bigger the profit margin. But in reality, quality sales leads don’t come cheap.

🤫 PS – I put together these 10 tips for optimizing your content marketing. Watch Now!

What is a Quality Lead?

A quality lead is someone who has the budget, authority and need to buy your product within a relatively short period of time. I have used the common acronym BANT to describe this lead quality criteria:

  • Budget: do they have the money to spend on your product or service?
  • Authority: do they have the ability to make the decision to buy it?
  • Need: do they have the problem your product or service solves?
  • Timing: are they planning to make the decision within the next 3-6 months?

What is BANT and How Can It Streamline Lead Qualification? | Lucidchart Blog

When I was at SAP, we added an “S” the acronym to have our lead qualification criteria include a defined next Step. So, BANTS.

What is Lead Scoring?

Lead scoring is the approach of giving leads are specific score to determine if they are worthy of sales follow-up or further marketing nurture.

At SAP, we also weighted the scoring of each lead depending on how explicitly they answered each question:

Using “Weighted BANT” Lead Qualification process with Microsoft Dynamics CRM - Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog

So no budget would get 0 points, have budget would get the most points, and each answer in between would get somewhere in between.

Leads that scored a certain amount determined to be high quality would be sent to sales as a Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL). Those with a score below that would get marketing nurture emails and offers with the hope of moving them along the buyer journey.

But, Why are Quality Leads So Expensive?

1. It can be hard to find accurate data and valid contact information

Accurate data is one of the most important aspects of quality lead generation. In fact, a lead should never even be considered a lead unless you know something verifiable about the contact. Email address is a bare minimum but ideally company name as well so you can validate where they work, size of the company and whether they are a fit for your business.

2. Many leads do not fit your buyer persona and target market

If you only sell to large businesses but most of your leads are small businesses, then you cannot really call them quality leads. Same is true for industry, title, location and in many ways all of the BANT criteria mentioned above.

3. Some leads might not have the right budget for your services

While one of the criterial in BANT, it may be the most important, after Need. Because if the prospect is never going to get the budget for your product, what is the point of even talking to them. In my own contact form, I ask prospects if they can afford my starter or basic levels of service.

4. Decision-makers and company influencers can be hard to reach

This covers the “Authority” question in BANT. However, there is really no bad answer here. Because one of the best follow-ups is: can you point me to the right person in your company who handles [whoever the right person is for your product]. This is one of the many goals of Account Based Marketing: to get to the right people and all the people who influence the buying decision.

5. Most of your leads will not be sales-ready

This is mainly all about the Time factor in BANT. But it may be the least important. You can always try and convince them of the need to move sooner. Discounts, offers, really good sales people can all help to escalate the decision to buy your product.

6. It can be hard to create content that attracts the right leads

Now this should never be a problem. Because you can just reach out to us right here and we’ll help you attract the right people through relevant weekly content. We can also help you create e-books and other offers to generate the leads, convert them to qualified prospects and turn them into customers. Having the right content marketing strategy should not be a problem.

How Are Marketers Improving Lead Gen Quality? - Marketing Charts

When leads aren’t qualified, you can expect to spend significantly more (in terms of effort and resources) on converting them into customers. That’s why there’s a high premium on quality leads.

In general, the free and inexpensive lead generation strategies cost you more time and effort, while more expensive tactics will produce faster results. However, it’s not just speed you should be focusing on. You want quality leads that can be converted into actual revenue – leads with a higher propensity to purchase.

There’s a good reason you’ve created a buyer persona for your target market. This buyer persona not only fits your brand but is also the ideal client that you want to be working with. Use it to qualify your leads and focus your efforts on the low-hanging fruit (leads that are easiest to convert).

You don’t want to waste your sales team’s time trying to sell to someone who doesn’t need your product. Time wasted is money lost.

Quality leads are priceless commodities. You can have a funnel overflowing with leads, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into lots of customers. It’s the quality leads that bring home the bacon.

The Cost of Quality Leads

Quality sales leads don’t come cheap. If you think you’re in the clear because you’ve successfully lowered your CPL and amassed a high volume of leads, then think again. Leads are leads, yes. But are they the quality leads that you can eventually convert into paying customers?

Investing in a lead generation strategy that brings in revenue will help your business grow. You’ll not only save yourself the trouble of spending precious resources on ineffective tactics, but you’ll also save your sales team the effort of following up on leads that may never convert.

When it comes to spending your lead generation budget effectively, the old saying holds true: “You get what you pay for.”

We Can Help You Get Quality Leads

We are a top-ranked content marketing agency helping companies like yours to reach, engage and convert quality leads. We’d love to help you grow your business successfully by developing superbly written, keyword-rich articles to help you generate quality leads as quickly as possible.

Learn about our Content Builder Services. We’ll help you create all the content you need to win customers and boost sales. Reach out to us today!

🔥 PS – Check out our latest case study that shows how we helped one company double their leads!

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8 Effective Ways to Drive E-Commerce Lead Generation

cowboy roping in ecommerce leads

The internet– amplified by the pandemic– has revolutionized the way people acquire goods and services, thus giving birth to a robust e-commerce industry. There are 3.9 million e-commerce companies in the US, creating some heavy competition.

With all these options available at customers’ finger tips, the right lead generation strategies should be in place to make sure you are reaching (and roping in) the right audience.

Even then, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it.. But you probably could by telling him the water will be gone in 30 minutes! The e-commerce industry requires more specific methods of generating and converting leads that other industries do not.

Key takeaways: 

  • Cookies are great– for now. Use the data while you can, but prepare for a time when user information is less accessible.
  • Don’t underestimate email marketing. Build your subscription list and entice customers with psychological tricks (the good kind, of course).
  • Create content your consumers can use! Capitalize on social media with paid ads and online with quality blog posts to improve SEO rankings.

Here are some techniques you can apply to generate more leads for your e-commerce business:

Use Cookie Data While You Can

While they’re still here with us, cookies are an excellent tool for retargeting. If your visitors don’t purchase after their first visit, encourage them to return by quickly reminding them of a product they viewed even when they are on a different website (i.e. Facebook).

The cookies demise has been pushed back a few times now, so their future is uncertain. At least for the rest of 2023 you can capitalize on the benefit they offer. But looking ahead…

Plan for a Cookie-less Future

That future is zero-party data. Zero-party data is information that a user consciously shares with a business or website. This data can be acquired through surveys, editing a website or apps preference centers, purchase intentions and more.

Zero-party data is different from first-party data in the fact that zero party data is volunteered while first-party data is collected by a website tracking user activity. The user is being observed rather than offering their own information.

zero party data vs first party data chart

Image Source: Bloomreach

The difference is important to note when we beg the question, why are cookies dying in the first place? The answer is plain and simple; people are becoming increasingly concerned about their privacy online. Zero-party data is the most ethical way to acquire information about your consumer.

If you want to remain relevant and successful in the cookie-less future that is sooner than you may think, start collecting zero-party data ASAP.

Optimize Your Email Marketing Efforts

An email address is much easier to obtain than a sale, so make sure you’re taking advantage of it! Don’t let a potential buyer’s email address collect dust. Email addresses are the gateway to talking to your customers.

Send a welcome email, follow-ups, a newsletter and throw in a few discounts. This gives your potential customer a few opportunities to circle back and cross the finish line to purchase your product. The most effective means of email communication…

Offer Discounts and Deals– for a limited time only!

The way you talk about products on your site affects what visitors think of them. By creating urgency around your product, customers will be psychologically influenced to purchase faster. FOMO is real people!

shopping on amazing and seeing 50% off ends in 3 hours and 41 minutes

Image Source: Optinmonster

People will do anything for a deal, so use this to your advantage. Encourage both first-time visitors and existing customers to sign up for your newsletter. The key is to give them something instantly in return, like a 10% discount voucher. This strategy is a popular incentive for email collection, which should be a top priority in your lead generation efforts.

Optimize Your Web Design

If your website’s UX design isn’t polished, visitors may get confused. The primary goal is to make things simple and straightforward so that your buyers can successfully go to the checkout page without getting lost. The same goes for your call-to-action buttons. Use big fonts and colors that are attention-grabbing yet pleasing to the eyes, so they know what to do.

Another design consideration to take into account is the need for conversion rate optimization. This means regularly analyzing your conversion performance and running experiments to find the best-possible strategies for enticing sales.

Don’t forget to optimize your website for mobile. People shop on the go, all the time. If your text is too difficult to read or your site is too tricky to navigate, you may risk losing a customer’s interest.

Increase Social Media Presence

E-commerce is living in a world of social media and the internet. Most people spend an accumulated 2.5 hours or more on their social media accounts. Take advantage of this by investing in Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram ads. Most platforms allow you to include a link to your website and showcase your products in a carousel format.

Additionally, offer a sneak peak of your collection on social media. Features such as the Shop on Facebook Pages and Instagram Shoppable make things convenient for your audience. Plus, these tools can help boost your brand awareness by putting it in front of as many people within your target market as possible.

Improve Your SEO Ranking

If people aren’t visiting your site, there will be no emails to collect, surveys to conduct or people to target! The best way to drive traffic is to ensure you have good SEO practices in place, so your store ranks well on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs).

When it comes to brand visibility, search engines are your bread and butter. If you can successfully rank your website well organically, that’ll mean a steady flow of visitors to your site and consistent growth of your sales funnel, for free!

Research the most commonly used keywords and search phrases and incorporate them into your product descriptions. Continuously monitor the SEO trends and invest in SEM and paid search ads to propel your lead generation efforts forward.

Create Quality Content for Your Website

Take your SEO optimization a step further and start blogging! Answer your customers’ questions, not only about your product but about the space you’re in. When people look to you as a source of trustworthy information, your traffic will increase. Even just posting at a regular cadence increases your traffic significantly.

traffic directly increases with # of posts per week

By answering questions related to your industry, even in a broad sense, you target top of the funnel consumers who might be your next perfect customer. And with more specific topics, bottom of the funnel, ready-to-purchase consumers will find your page and hence, your product.

Get started today!

Competition in the e-commerce industry is fierce, but finding new and improved methods of attracting the right buyers and turning them into leads will help you stay in the game. Contact information is the currency of a great inbound marketing strategy for e-commerce.

Focus on the customer and use real insights to improve your value proposition. The more you know about your target audience, the better you can tailor-fit your processes, increase delivered value, and generate more e-commerce leads.

Need help developing quality content to reel your next customer in? You’ve landed in the right place. Check out our SEO blog writing service or schedule a free consultation to learn more about how blog writing can help your e-commerce business grow.

The post 8 Effective Ways to Drive E-Commerce Lead Generation appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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Top Customer Retention Strategies for B2B Marketers in 2023

customer retention strategies working for a young business man

With 2023 on the horizon, the chatter of a recession, and a marked increase in reports of poor client retention, it’s more important than ever that B2B marketers focus on retaining reliable clients. Aside from increasing lead generation efforts, ensuring client satisfaction is vital to keeping your business profitable.

No one likes losing customers, but it does happen. And when it does, many business leaders start racking their brains, polling their teams, and trying to figure out where things went wrong. There’s not always going to be a cut-and-dry reason that a client leaves. But when customer retention poses a threat for an ongoing issue, a few strategies can help you hold on to patrons, keeping your business on a successful track for the year ahead. Here are key customer retention strategies your business should consider for 2023.

Deliver a Thoughtful Onboarding Experience

Remember, a client’s journey doesn’t stop when they sign a contract. You must continue providing support and value throughout your relationship. Onboarding is the first chance for your team to deliver and delight through communication, videos, guides, and emails that welcome new customers, offer value, and create a strong foundation with your team, products, and services. Take this further and personalize the onboarding process and content to help bolster customer retention, which leads to the next strategy…

Personalize, Personalize, Personalize

Your customers will likely be very different from one another, and more than likely have different needs. A basic one-size-fits-all approach will ensure some customers fall through the cracks. People want solutions and experiences tailored to their needs, scale, timeline, and preferences. Personalization ensures relevance for the client now and flexibility in the future. This will help them address the problems they enlisted your business to resolve, which boosts customer retention because you’re proving to be attentive for the long haul.

Build (& Maintain) Trust

Trust is a hard thing to come by. It takes time and effort to build trust. And just because your client signed a contract, doesn’t mean trust is a guarantee. You must stick to your brand promises and remain reliable throughout the relationship. If you consistently deliver, trust will follow. If you fail to do so or constantly change your brand, you’ll naturally lose trust with existing customers and stall trust-building with prospects. Consistency and reliability are critical: stick to them!

Provide High-Quality Content

Did you know that providing high-value, educational content is one of the best ways to improve your Google ranking? It’s true. Google knows the value of relevant content, and so do your customers. You can become a knowledgeable resource when you provide valuable and engaging content, like eBooks, whitepapers, and informative blogs. This builds the trust mentioned above and helps your business stand out. Educational content is helpful content. It can boost your position as a thought leader and add to your customer’s impression of your credibility, insight, and usefulness—all of which can increase customer retention.

Show Your Appreciation

Who doesn’t like to feel appreciated? You’re building a stronger relationship with clients by going out of your way to show your appreciation. Sending a gift, exclusive benefit, limited offer, or even a hand-written thank you note can go a long way. Customers don’t forget when you surprise them with kind words or attentive offers. Showing appreciation further separates you from a careless competitor, builds rapport with clients, and makes them feel confident about your relationship.

Monitor Client Satisfaction

Monitoring client satisfaction is straightforward but challenging. Stay engaged with clients through monthly or quarterly touchpoints to gauge satisfaction levels. You’ll learn directly what they’re happy with and what needs to be improved. There are several ways to monitor feedback, including surveys or focus groups, online reviews, and general communication. Once you know client likes and dislikes, you can apply that data to immediate issue resolution, improving processes, products, and other business areas. And you’ll be able to show your clients you value their opinions and ongoing success, encouraging greater customer retention.

Making Customer Retention a Priority in 2023

Marketers have been reporting lower customer retention rates over the last year. Don’t wait until after you start losing customers to make satisfaction and retention a priority! Leverage these strategies today, and you’ll be ahead of the game in 2023 (with a suit of armor when facing outside financial pressures).

If you’d like more information about improving your B2B marketing efforts, contact Sagefrog today.

The post Top Customer Retention Strategies for B2B Marketers in 2023 appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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5 Steps to Improve Lead Generation ROI

Let’s be honest, your lead generation strategy might need some work if it’s not producing ROI. The whole point of lead generation is to generate leads that close!

In modern times, B2B and B2C consumers are overwhelmed by sales, advertising and marketing teams vying for their attention. You can’t rely on one pipeline or blasting out an email to your prospect list and calling it a day.

More (quality) leads = more sales = increased revenue, which makes everyone happy. You need a long term strategy that incorporates each aspect of your business and pulls in the expertise of each department.

However, lead generation often starts with marketing.

Quick takeaways:

  • Majority of B2B marketers are struggling with lead generation – you’re in the right place!
  • Don’t put all of your eggs in the email campaign basket – diversify your lead generation strategy.
  • Each lead generation avenue comes with its own means of tracking data and ROI.
  • SEO-driven content on your website could help drive organic traffic and leads to you today!

What does lead generation look like today?

Lead generation is the process of identifying, qualifying and nurturing potential customers for a business’s products or services.

You can generate leads through a number of different ways. Some examples include:

  • Content marketing
  • In-person events
  • Direct marketing
  • Email campaigns

Each lead generation avenue should be employed with an end goal in mind. For example, if you’re planning an in-person event to target your audience 1:1, come prepared with compelling visual aids that draw them in. Bring your top sales and product reps to nurture new connections and share how your company can solve their problems.

Another key component to lead generation ROI is by investing in education for your customers, and consistent messaging across channels. Content marketing ties into each area of lead generation because it not only provides your team with a landing page of resources to reference in emails and conversations with potential customers, but also offers a way for your audience to find you organically.

Email lists and cold calls are not going to cut it for these crafty buyers of today. If you expect customers to trust you when making a high-involvement purchase such as your products or services, you need to tailor your efforts to your audience’s requirements.

By building and fostering connections with prospects at multiple touch-points, your prospects could turn leads and soon, paying customers.

Why is Lead Generation ROI Important?

You’re not alone! 61% of marketers say that lead generation is their number 1 challenge. Second at 39% is proving lead generation ROI.

Chart surveying marketers that demonstrates the struggle of lead generation and proving ROI

Each means of lead generation will come with its own set of rules and standards. But acquiring and converting leads is clearly a major pain point in the realm of business that you can begin to solve today.

We understand, you’re responsible for the decisions you make and it all comes back to ROI. How do you measure lead generation ROI to show your boss that your efforts are paying off and contributing to the bottom line?

5 Steps to Improve Lead Generation ROI

Step 1: Set your objective with clear goals

The metrics you choose should be quantifiable and aligned to your sales goals.  Think sales, leads, pipeline. Focus on the goal – not the way to get there.

Sit down with your Sales VP and ask them what they want. If they want only “Hot Leads” ask how they define that. Create a lead scoring system. Aim to deliver to the right quality and then forecast the quantity.

Focus on delivering quality over quantity.

Step 2: Create your marketing plan

Use past performance to determine what worked. It might benefit you to take inventory of all of your former means of lead generation and marketing campaigns to find trends and gaps in the data. Maybe there’s an old email campaign that could be repurposed or modernized.

Reverse-engineer previous tactics that have delivered exactly what your sales peers have asked for. This is a quantifiable science. There are plenty of statistical modeling tools that can help you determine which mix of tactics, topics, and partners will deliver a predictable result.

Another part of your plan that shouldn’t take more than a few weeks of dedication is to clean and update your website, testimonials and reviews, and social media.

Website

Your website should not only be optimized for search, but it should act as its own lead generation machine. You should be proud to showcase your work and send prospects through a seamless buying journey.

Having a well-designed, mobile-friendly, and easily navigable website is a must today.

Statistics that show why you should redesign your website and how it could benefit your lead generation ROI.

Keep in mind, a fantastic website will cost you a sizable chunk of money, but the ROI is immeasurable.

Testimonials

Are you asking for Google reviews or testimonials? Maybe your customers are raving to you privately via email about your product or service, but you feel uncomfortable asking for a public review.

The only mistake you’re making is not asking your customers for reviews at all. Start by asking them to copy and paste what they’ve already written to you in a Google review. It’s public, and then you could even turn it into a visually pleasing asset on your website! Two birds, one stone.

Social media

Social media can amplify your presence in the industry, but don’t be a robot.

If you’re willing to invest in the proper social platforms for your business, you could attract unique leads who appreciate what you have to say.

Step 3: Negotiate with top partners

Call those vendors that have delivered targeted prospects that have converted in the past and negotiate on a pay-for-performance basis. Your partners need to share the risk of your investment and they will reap the rewards in renewed sales.

Now might be a good time to put feelers out there for other lead generation companies. Dedicate a few hours per week shopping around and see if any agency or tool jumps out at you. If that’s too daunting of a task, ask your peers at other companies if they’ve had success with a particular agency. What works for them could work for you, too!

Step 4: Identify or create valuable content and offers

This is the trickiest part. If you have content, test which pieces work best. If you need to create content – research the top trending keywords, article titles and customer pain points.

Ask your partners. Ask your current customers. Whatever you do, do not assume that product brochures, customer case studies, or articles written by your boss will resonate.

According to Content Marketing Institute, 80% of B2B marketers utilize content marketing for lead generation. And great news, it actually works. Marketers that use blogs to generate traffic are 13 times more likely to generate positive ROIs.

Is your company blog in good shape? Or is your CEO preaching to you that you need more content on your shiny products?

Through consistent SEO blog writing, your organic website traffic could double in just 12 months. And those aren’t even cold leads, rather customers looking for answers to their problems, and you’re the one with the solution!

Step 5: Optimize & analyze

Numbers don’t lie. Use internal data to identify trends and constantly optimize based on them.

Make yourself aware of economic, social and behavioral changes within your target audience so you can adjust your messaging and strategies accordingly. Only when you know where your leads are coming from will you be able to hone in on converting them.

This is where the conversation with sales and the relationship with your vendor partners pay off. If your Sales VP isn’t happy, adjust the plan, and work with your vendors to deliver what is really needed.

Once you’ve got the basics down and the leads are pouring in, consider how your team will most efficiently manage and nurture your leads.

BONUS: Check out these 20 lead generation resources.

If you follow these 5 steps, you will produce leads and revenue for your company, build a better relationship with sales, and improve your engagement with your customers. Now go out and become a demand generation rock star and come back to tell us about your success.

With content marketing, you can drive qualified traffic to your website and engage new visitors. Build your brand story and online presence for tremendous success in the new year. Establish yourself as a thought leader and build trust with customers with quality, consistent content production.

MIG is a content marketing agency and a thought leader. We’d love to help you grow your business successfully by developing superbly written, keyword-rich articles to help your company climb the SERPs as quickly as possible.

Learn about our Content Builder Services. We’ll help you create all the content you need to win customers and boost sales.

The post 5 Steps to Improve Lead Generation ROI appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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How a Tech Media Agency Earned 2-3X the Inbound Leads with MIG’s Content Services

increase leads

Sometimes, even companies providing content expertise for their own clients lose sight of doing the very same for themselves.

That’s the predicament this Marketing Insider Group client was facing. A marketing services agency providing lead generation and custom content for technology companies, they knew the important role content plays in driving website traffic, leads, and ultimately new business.

Still, due to bandwidth limitations, they had never been able to execute a consistent content strategy for their business. Their leads were being driven by piecemeal tactics, and while many of them were successful, this approach wasn’t allowing them to reach their full potential.

As the agency looked ahead at their goals to scale up the business, they knew they needed a new kind of support.

After partnering with Marketing Insider Group in early 2022, this client was able to surge ahead of their competitors, boost the number of inbound leads they generated, and earn hundreds of top-ranking keywords.

Let’s explore their journey in greater detail to learn exactly how they achieved these results.

The Problem: Random Acts of Marketing

Prior to engaging with Marketing Insider Group, this client was already delivering awesome content for their own clients. They were no stranger to what great content looked like and how to create it.

The thing was, they were growing. Historically focused on IT companies, they were branching out to other areas of the industry like data science and HR tech. They needed to scale, which meant shifting from their high-touch outbound prospecting activities to a more consistent and automated way of generating inbound leads.

“We were doing what a lot of people affectionately refer to as random acts of marketing,” shared one of the client’s marketing leaders in a recent conversation.

“We would support one single initiative and do some marketing around that. Then we would create sales enablement material and do a push around a new product. But one thing we have never done successfully ourselves is continuously executing one marketing activity over a long period of time to build momentum and generate inbound leads.”

That needed to change if the agency was going to scale successfully. Still, they had reservations about whether or not an outside writer or content team could capture their message.

“It’s challenging enough for us to write about our company ourselves, and we understand the business really well. Our reservation was about whether anyone else could do it. Writing an article that ranks is hard on its own, but to write something that wouldn’t be embarrassing when clients see it — I wasn’t sure anyone else could do it.”

During that time, their team saw Michael present about content marketing at an industry event. While their concerns lingered, his talk made them think it was maybe time to take the leap.

“There are a lot of companies out there that claim to do something similar, but they don’t have the experts. There’s cheap labor and AI, but not real expertise. When I heard Michael speak, I was convinced he understood [content marketing] on a deep level.”

The Solution: Close Collaboration and Consistent Content

The onboarding period is a key part of the Marketing Insider Group process — it’s what lays the foundation for everything else. During this time, the MIG and client teams work together to create briefing materials, perform keyword research, develop an extensive list of blog titles, and getting the actual writing and publishing schedule underway.

This client found onboarding surprisingly seamless:

“The writers have taken feedback even better and applied it in a more nuanced way than I expected. The initial ramp-up period was work, but I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly it happened — in just a couple of weeks.”

The client did their part too. As content was delivered, they published it consistently to their blog so that performance tracking could begin.

“It would have taken me quite a while to get to the point of understanding [the metrics] you guys track,” shared one of our client’s key leaders. “The position tracking and visibility tracking — they’re some of the most helpful things we can track when we’re thinking about the actual end goal. I probably would have been tracking some vanity metrics that don’t matter instead of those, so it was a huge help, and now other clients we work with find these metrics valuable.”

The Result: Big Ranking Gains and More Inbound Leads

In less than one year, the client has climbed the rankings on Google, earning more than 200 ranking keywords — 10+ in the top 5, 50+ in the top 10, and 100+ in the top 20. They’ve surged ahead of their four biggest competitors in online search visibility — going from the last-ranked to top-ranked position since working with Marketing Insider Group.

Most importantly, they’re gaining 2-3X the amount of inbound leads — and they’re coming directly from new blog posts.

“Our data shows that the flow of inbound leads is coming from the blog articles”, our client shared. “So [buyers] come from a blog article to a product page, then inquire about talking to our salespeople. That wasn’t happening at all before. The volume of inbound leads is now double or triple at this point, what it was before we started.”

Looking for results like these?

Marketing Insider Group’s content strategy has worked for clients in countless industries and uses best practices that have been tested and proven to work. We align them with the specific needs of every client and their audience to create a personalized strategy that drives results.

If you are ready to earn more leads and get more traffic to your site with consistently-published, quality content, check out our SEO Blog Writing Service or schedule a quick consultation to learn more about how we can help you earn more traffic and leads for your business.

The post How a Tech Media Agency Earned 2-3X the Inbound Leads with MIG’s Content Services appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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20 Handy B2B Lead Generation Resources

The Internet is chock-full of B2B lead generation resources crafted by marketing experts, business owners, and other specialists.

A quick Google search can bring you to several tips, infographics, case studies and presentations that can help you improve your current B2B lead generation campaigns.

Here’s a great one from Trustmary.com showing the differences between B2B and B2C lead generation strategies:

But not all of your online searches will yield helpful results. Sorting out the great advice from the just plain bad can end up being a pretty daunting task.

Here’s a quick video from Patrick Dang talking about B2B lead generation:

Quick Takeaways:

  1. Lead generation is the backbone of your sales numbers
  2. Deciding on what metrics to measure how your lead generation is performing is crucial to overall marketing efforts
  3. There are tons of online resources designed to make lead generation easier

We’ve got your back and have compiled some of the top online resources for you to check out:

Callbox

Callbox is an award-winning sales and marketing solutions provider. Don’t believe us? Check out their stunning credentials here. They provide quick, concise, and entertaining lead generation presentations that you can’t help but share.

They also have this really neat infographic about the role of content in B2B lead generation, as well as a SlideShare presentation on why businesses should outsource their lead generation initiatives.

Impact Plus

Are you looking for some quick courses to brush up on your B2B lead generation strategies? Look no further! Impact Plus has free courses designed to teach you the ins and outs of lead generation, SEO, content marketing trends, and more!

Canva

Source: Tech Radar

Canva is a user-friendly design tool meant to be easily accessed by anyone. You can design banner ads, graphics, and more to generate leads on your website. This website lets you skip the hassle of hiring someone else to use more complicated software to craft your website’s graphics.

You can also find videos online to step up your Canva game and design like the pros!

Lead Genius

Lead Genius’ SlideShare presentation on the best practices for lead generation walks you through the outbound and inbound sales funnel. Although it may be a bit heavy on stats for a 54-slide presentation, it’s still a great resource for those who want to understand the sales funnel journey.

Kissmetrics

A Cisco study found that by 2019, 80% of all consumer internet traffic will be from internet video traffic. Kissmetrics leveraged this stat in their blog article titled ‘Using Video Metrics to Collect Better Data for Lead Generation.’ If your company is big on video content, this resource is definitely a gold mine.

We’re not just talking about professionally made videos. If your company has blogger brand ambassadors, those quick Instagram videos can also be converted into big lead generation initiatives.

Formstack

Source: Formstack

When it comes to lead generation, the motto, “If you build it, they will come” is not always true. As you might have experienced, just because you have a website in place, that doesn’t always guarantee traffic and a successful sales conversion rate.

That’s where this SlideShare presentation from Formstack comes in handy. The presentation shows how three preferential customer behaviors come into play on every page of your site.

Demand Wave

If you feel like you’ve tried every lead generation tactic in the book, this SlideShare presentation from Demand Wave offers five more untapped areas for lead generation you might want to give a crack.

On their company blog, Demand Wave also has a great article about 2016’s top trends in B2B digital marketing and SEO. This post is definitely worth a read if you want to get updated on what’s going on in the digital world.

WordStream

In recent years, there has been a boom in the startup industry. Many of these startups have become quite popular through digital marketing.

In this blog article from WordStream, startup entrepreneurs share their top lead generation strategies. Whether you’re just starting off, or you’re a veteran entrepreneur, you can learn a thing or two from these newly minted business owners.

MarketingProfs

MarketingProfs has quite a collection of available lead generation materials for business owners. In one article, marketing blogger Matt Banner, talks about ways to optimize your social media conversation and enhance activities with lead generation tactics that will drive users through the sales funnel.

Podcasts

How To Cut Your Paid Advertising in Half and Boost Revenue: Michael Brenner on Quietlight [Podcast]

In this podcast, MIG’s leader Michael Brenner talks about using content marketing to draw users to your website, ultimately slashing your advertising costs. This podcast does an excellent job of telling you specific steps of just how to go about your content marketing strategy.

The Most Effective Lead Follow-Up Strategies: Adam Bluemner on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

In this podcast, Adam Bluemner from Find Accounting Software talks about the most effective follow-up strategies for web-based B2B lead generation from an analysis of 63,256 calls.

Based on the study, if a sales representative waits a day before calling, the contact rate goes down. Bluemner also wrote a case study on follow-up calls on the company website, which is another excellent resource for B2B companies trying to improve their sales strategies.

What Makes Buyers Tick: Dr. Carl Marci of Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

Nielsen Consumer Neuroscience’s chief neuroscientist, Dr. Carl Marci, shares insights into the customer’s decision-making process. The podcast can help you understand how your audience responds to a particular ad while they’re still watching it, or if a particular way that a product is packaged turns people away rather than inviting them in.

The biggest lesson here is that a customer’s emotions play a large role in deciding whether content is relevant or not. The secondary lesson is that B2B marketers are now capable of analyzing the effect of their marketing campaigns through a real-time collection of consumer reactions without disrupting the content consumption experience.

How B2B Brands Can Rock Social: B2B Marketing Forum Speaker Eric T. Tung on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

BMC Software’s social media manager, Eric Tung, shares how brands can be rock stars on social media. Social media can become an efficient lead tool for brands, but it requires planning. It’s not just about posting when or what you want to.

A great piece of advice from this podcast is to empower a company’s employees to become social media ambassadors by rolling out policies within the enterprise. Getting senior executives to be active on social media, especially LinkedIn, is also a good way to generate brand awareness.

Why Millennials Ignore Your Marketing (and How to Fix That): Matt Britton on Marketing Smarts [Podcast]

Millennials are experts in tuning out marketing in conventional media, which is a big problem for brands. Marketing expert, Matt Britton, is the CEO of social media agency, MRY.

In this podcast, Britton shares tips to catch the attention of elusive but powerful Millennials. If Millennials account for a significant chunk of your target market, then this is the podcast for you.

As you can see from the listed podcasts, Marketingprofs has an incredible amount of quality audio content for lead generation professionals to learn from.

Case Studies

Xeikon

This case study is about Xeikon, an Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) who used to focus on an annual trade show. The company decided to run a multi-month and multi-channel campaign to generate leads and create awareness.

The targeted marketing effort was able to achieve a 300% ROI and resulted in 140 qualified leads. That might not seem like much but for an OEM, that was an astonishing amount of new business.

ServiceMaster Solutions

This case study is about ServiceMaster Solutions, a commercial janitorial and cleaning services franchise based in Portland, Oregon. It’s one of the five biggest commercial franchises of its kind in the United States.

When the CEO realized they had exhausted their relationship-building initiatives, they decided to leverage an online direct response ‘marketing machine.’ The campaign resulted in a 9 percent conversion rate and a 150% surge in generated leads.

Maersk

Who would have thought that a shipping company could generate so many leads using social media? Danish shipping company, Maersk, turned to social media not just to increase its brand awareness but also to enhance employee satisfaction, gain market insight, and forge relationships with its customers.

They started sharing ‘inside stories’ that happen in their business such as where their staff comes from and how they are helping increase the sale of avocados from Kenya.

Since then, the shipping company has significantly increased brand awareness and grown a large social following all because of targeted content and social media marketing.

Source: Search Engine Journal

IBM

B2B marketing for software and hardware are harder than B2C. Conventional lead generation methods include email and telemarketing, but IBM decided to go a different route by launching the ‘intelligent listening’ program internally.

They ‘listened’ and investigated conversations about cloud computing on social media from users. Their sales people were given access to an RSS feed to find related content that they could then post on social media and to their internal IBM site profile pages. These efforts generated a boom in their B2B customers, showing how important it is to listen to your audience.

Inspired Marketing

Inspired Marketing is a B2B company that sells online training programs and digital materials about social networking tools such as Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

In 2010, the company released over 300 web seminars or webinars called GoToWebinars. The campaign resulted in more than $2.5 million in sales for 2011. In January alone, seven webinars resulted in sales of $250,000.

Wrap up

All of these online resources provide expert insights on lead generation. Success stories (case studies) can help show you particular tactics and strategies other companies have used successfully. This can direct your future efforts in a more strategic manner.

If you think you’ve exhausted your current relationship building capabilities, take a cue from some of the experts on the podcasts or leverage the cold, hard statistics available to help you craft a more effective lead generation campaign.

Better yet, your research and brainstorming might just lead you to discovering your own innovative way to generate leads. It may just be successful enough to land your business in a case study of your own!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation. 

The post 20 Handy B2B Lead Generation Resources appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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The Importance of Offline Lead Generation

With so much attention focused on online lead generation tactics nowadays, it’s easy to assume that traditional offline methods for B2B lead generation strategies have become irrelevant or unnecessary in today’s market.

Marketers can get so caught up in digital lead generation efforts that old school processes are often neglected. Online media giants often give the impression that traditional lead generation methods are now passé.

Leadgenera.com says –

Essentially, all your offline lead generation activities should aim to point towards your website or online presence so that you can collect and analyze all the data you can. Then, you can use this data to make better informed marketing decisions including your offline ones. Therefore, if you put together offline and online lead generation strategies, you could grow your business even further. 

If you’re moving your lead generation strategies online and completely ignoring offline methods, you should think again. There’s no reason to dismiss older but well-tested techniques just yet.

Both methodologies have their strengths and weaknesses, and you’re better off learning which ones to apply on a case by case basis.

Here’s a quick video from Patrick Dang talking about online and offline B2B lead generation:

Quick Takeaways:

  • There are still many impactful ways to generate leads offline
  • You don’t have to focus your attention on just offline or online generation – they should work in tandem
  • While SEO is important for lead generation, physical copies of your content and messaging are another method of gaining attention from prospects

To help you evaluate which techniques will work best for you, it’s best to know the pros and cons of both methods. Here’s how online and offline lead generation tactics differ from each other:

Cost per contact of online leads is less expensive than offline methods

With traditional lead generation efforts, the cost ranges between 300 to 500 dollars per lead, which covers a field staff person’s salary, per diem, travel, accommodation, and other incremental costs.

Online costs are significantly less, ranging from just 25 to 30 dollars, which covers an inside sales person doing the lead generation for the company. However, this is just one side of the story, considering the higher conversion rate for offline methods, which brings us to point number two.

Offline prospects have a higher conversion rate compared to online methods

Studies show that conversion typically hovers around 40% for face-to-face prospects, whereas that number takes a big dip at an 18.5% conversion rate for online virtual sales prospects.

In essence, this offsets the incremental costs incurred in traditional lead generation efforts, which proves that a highly personalized approach to selling is still effective if you want to turn qualified prospects into buying customers.

Building and nurturing relationships also increases the chance of converting leads into loyal customers as well, thereby increasing their profitability and lifetime value.

Online leads respond best to immediate attention after receipt of an online query

Although online leads are typically more sensitive to pressure tactics during the follow-up stage, the ones who initiate contact through your website expect an immediate response.

It pays off to act quickly because the odds of leads entering the sales process or becoming qualified are 21 times greater for those who respond immediately and with persistence.

There is a critical 5-minute window for successfully qualifying a lead, after which the odds go down significantly with every passing 5-minute increment.

If you act within the first hour after the inquiry, you have up to 60 times more chances to convert compared to your conversion chances after that window (stats via Leads Response Management’s Study).

Source: Everyday Health

Time is of the essence when it comes to online lead generation methods.

Neglecting offline tactics can cause you to miss part of your target audience

Let’s face it, you can’t easily target every one of your customers with online tactics. Certain people who need your products/services may not spend much of their time using computers. This is where newspaper ads, direct mail flyers, or industry events can complement your online efforts, reinforcing your brand with local prospects.

According to Inkit.com:

Direct mail has over 10 times higher response rate than emails, paid search, and social media.

You can’t afford to not be reaching out with physical copies of your messaging and information.

This point is particularly dependent on your target audience and various buyer personas. If they make up a young, tech-savvy population that spends much of their time online, then digital efforts are likely to be more effective.

But it’s not likely that all of your buyer personas fall into this category, which is why you need to embrace alternative outreach techniques to target them effectively.

For B2B companies, offline lead generation yields more leads

There’s nothing quite like the experience of having a face to face interaction with potential clients. It’s still the best way to convey sincerity and personalized service, which is why offline lead generation is still important.

This is mostly attributed to the level of personalization you can impart when communicating with prospects offline, and we all know that a little marketing personalization goes a long way.

Source: Adobe

In the B2B realm, offline lead generation reigns supreme. One study showed that 76% of B2B leads come from offline sources compared to 18% generated via online methods. Of course, this particular case is circumstantial, but over three-quarters of leads generated is a figure that simply cannot be ignored.

Combining the best of both online and offline lead generation methods – Wrap up

The best lead generation strategies expertly combine both online and offline methods to suit their target audiences. It really depends on your audience’s demographics and preferences, as well as the nature of your business, product, or service offering.

For example, you can opt to use offline lead generation channels to drive traffic towards your landing pages without decreasing your online lead capture efforts, thereby optimizing the performance of both methods. Remember that offline brand recognition can lead to online traffic and conversions.

Continue to test a combination of each methodology until you find your lead generation sweet spot. Once you discover the perfect brew tailored for your business, build on it and watch as a steady stream of conversions result in a robust bottom line.

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation.

The post The Importance of Offline Lead Generation appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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Lead Generation Metrics You Should Be Aware Of

An effective lead generation strategy operates on a foundation of data, not guesswork. You need to have the right information about your business to develop well-informed decisions that increase your chances of success.

Using the right key metrics allow you to focus on objectives that will have the biggest impact on what matters most in your business. They serve as a guide to help you decide what to prioritize and where to allocate your time, energy, and resources.

Metrics reflect and support where you want to go while giving you a clear understanding of where you are at any given time.

Monitoring and analyzing the “right” metrics is a crucial step in your lead generation strategy – or any business strategy for that matter. You need to know what metrics to take into account to ensure that you’re not wasting resources on areas with little significance to your bottom line.

Here’s a great video on identifying key metrics from Eric Beer to get started:

Quick Takeaways:

  • Deciding on what metrics to measure how your lead generation is performing is crucial to overall marketing efforts
  • Creating systems and noting patterns will contribute to the understanding of your key metrics
  • All metric analysis starts by generating the right leads for your business

What to Measure

Identifying the best elements to focus on allows you to make the most of your finances, manpower, and time without spreading these finite resources too thin.

When coming up with your own metrics, the following questions about your company must be addressed:

  • What have the results been?
  • Where are the results headed/going?
  • What needs to be improved?
  • Have you reached your target? If so, when? If not, what must be done to achieve it?

Once you’ve identified your metrics, it’s important to monitor your data and to track your numbers consistently. You’ll be using this data to populate your systems and other analytics software used for measuring performance. These figures will influence what your next steps will be, how you’ll drive improvement, and what to do differently to correct any missteps.

For best results, keep it simple. Metrics should be straightforward and easy to understand. Everyone involved in the organization should have a solid grasp of which metrics to track.

Source: Basis Technologies

All of this must be clearly communicated to every member of the team, and each employee must know how they can influence it. They should also know what steps to take in order to achieve them, and what level of performance is expected from them based on these metrics.

Here’s a list of some suggestions for metrics to analyze your lead generation strategy:

Website Traffic

One of the first things to be on the lookout for is the traffic on your website. Not just the quantity of it (how many people are clicking), but the quality of it (their age, gender, overall demography).

Reaching a large audience is great, but understanding the specific audience you’re dealing with can help you personalize content and suggestions. This leads to increased rapport and trust between your prospects and your brand.

Here’s some flash micro-metrics on measuring your website traffic:

Click-Through Rate: 

Click-Through Rate (CTR) is a metric that measures the overall click performance of your Call To Action (CTA). CTR can be used to measure exactly how effective your banner ad, email blast, or website is at actually making a user look for more information.

Demography:

Demography shows you exactly who is clicking through your content. Key demographics include age, gender, and income. Using sites like Google Analytics can give you more insight on if your content is tailored enough to your target demographic.

Lead Conversion Rate

Revechat.com defines lead conversion rate as –

“It is the percentage of people who come to your site and actually convert. Conversion rate tells whether you are efficiently generating new leads with your website.”

In other words, your conversion rate will show if you are successfully (or unsuccessfully) convincing prospects to contact you. The higher your conversion rate, the more people you’re convincing. The lower your conversion rate, the better your competitors are doing.

Improving your lead generation can be as simple as experimenting with different CTAs, changing up how your advertisements look, or posting different kinds of content to your website blog.

Content Marketing Performance

Source: Entrepreneur

Another key metric is being aware of how your content creation efforts are driving traffic and sales. The whole point of regular article publishing, email marketing, and social media management is to increase awareness and trust in prospects and clients.

By maintaining these three practices you are keeping your advertising dollars down and organic engagement numbers up. Let’s talk about how:

Blog writing: 

Your blog is the keystone of your website traffic. Writing perfect blog posts and publishing regularly on a schedule is how you attract new eyes to your website, and in turn your product or service.

You know this, but when was the last time you actually checked up on your articles’ metrics? By using Google Analytics or SEMrush, you can check on your lead generation rates, conversion rates, and more.

Another easy metric that falls under your content category is time on page. 

Monica Carol of Team Bonding NYC says:

“There’s a strong correlation between how much time users spend on the page and the quality of the lead.”

If your content is quality, users are more likely to stick around and read it, increasing the average time on page per user. With quality content comes quality leads!

Email marketing:

Good SEO practices aren’t the only way you’ve been sharing your content though. Through sites like Mailchimp and Constant Contact you’ve been growing your email lists and staying in front of your customers’ eyes.

Much like other SEO tools, successful email marketing services offer excellent metrics like open rates, conversion rates, and forwarding rates (not to mention what times your emails are the most successful).

By experimenting with different formats and timed releases, you can find what’s drawing the most leads and conversions through your email marketing efforts.

Social media marketing:

Social media marketing metrics are a little different than the last two. While success is defined by lead generation and conversions, social media is less instantaneous. Being plugged into your community is important, but sometimes there aren’t actual numbers (ROI) to prove it.

This isn’t to say you can’t measure your own version of success. Depending on the platform you’re using, things like follower count, post engagements (likes, comments, shares), and general opinion of your presence are a couple of ways to determine your success in social media.

Wrap up

Metrics for your lead generation efforts aren’t always easy to identify, but this list is a great place to start! What’s important to remember is you have to be able to piece small metrics into a larger picture. Lead generation comes with critical thinking and data analysis.

So use your noggin’ and be ready to switch it up when things aren’t going your way the first try. Happy generating!

Do you want to use some of the marketing strategies seen here on MIG’s site but need some help or advice? Marketing Insider Group has a team of 35+ experienced writers ready to produce content for YOUR business. Check out our weekly blog content service or schedule a free consultation.

The post Lead Generation Metrics You Should Be Aware Of appeared first on Marketing Insider Group.

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