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How to shift from outbound to inbound marketing in 2018

January 10, 2018 By admin

Happy New Year! Wishing you all the best in 2018 with tons of success, good luck, and happiness. Live long and prosper!

It’s a new year and although resolutions are usually made to be broken – at least I broke a few of my resolutions before – it’s a good idea to do some marketing strategy planning now.

That is if you want to grow your business this year. Which I’m sure you do.

But…. coming up with a marketing plan can be sooooo overwhelming. There’s tons of information out there, and if you get into reading about funnels and buyer awareness, it can become a tad bit confusing. Am I right?

Anyway, I’m sure there’s only one question on your mind.

Where do I get leads? Aaaaaaah!

via GIPHY Before anyone asks: this is not me, check me out on my Why me? page.

Ok, calm down. Don’t pull out your hair just yet. I’m here for you…

Confessions of a copywriter

So, the truth is… Like most of my clients, I’ve been relying on outbound marketing to promote my business. Meaning, I’m contacting prospects to see if they need help with their marketing. Or, clients are referred to me by other clients, friends, or family. And honestly, sometimes outbound marketing can make me feel just a little bit like this:

via GIPHY Begging! Youuuuu….

Just a little bit.

But so far, this approach has been successful enough.

Only, inbound marketing, where clients come to you is a much more effective approach in terms of sales.

How? The content that you publish makes you an expert in the eyes of your prospects.

Badabing badaboom: content marketing 101 right there. (Seasoned marketers, go away, I didn’t write this blog for you)

Once a prospect client thinks you’re an expert he (or she!) needs less convincing to actually buy your services or products by the time he contacts you. And as an added benefit, your prospect won’t argue over pricing as much as when you get in touch with them.

Basically, you’re in a better negotiation position every time someone contacts you as you would be the other way around. As a matter of fact, when you do inbound marketing right, it will get you more leads for fewer effort and costs.

And that’s why I’m dedicating January to creating my marketing plan for 2018. Who’s with me?

Creating the perfect inbound marketing strategy

You could say that there are three stages to creating an effective inbound marketing strategy. These are:

Knowing your client
Making a marketing plan
Sticking to the plan

Let me explain.

It seems super obvious but if you don’t know who your client is you won’t be able to connect with them, and your marketing efforts will simply fall flat.

via GIPHY: Can you tell I’m having fun with GIFs today?

Anyway, if you want to create a genuine connection with your clients you got to find out what their pain points are and solve them. You need to know where your prospect would go to find information about the type of services you offer. Because that’s what you want, you want your prospective client to find you. Once they find you, you need to conveniently leave them a piece of information that solves a problem they’re having. Keep in mind that to make them want to consume your content, you need to know what type of information your prospects are looking for. Do they like to watch videos or do they prefer to read articles? What type of lead magnet would attract them? Do they want to read a white paper or do they need a checklist?

Find out as much as you can about your perfect client. Until they can’t help but feel like:

via GIPHY I just had to include one New Girl GIF because this show makes me ugly laugh. Even going through the GIFs made me lol.

Once you’ve gathered as much information on your prospect as you can, you’re able to create a marketing plan. Think about your goals. Which result do you want to get out of your inbound marketing? Do you want to attract more website visitors? To generate leads? Or, do you want to position yourself as an expert?

via GIPHY What prof. X said.

Your goals determine the type of content you need to create. To attract more visitors, you might want to consider blogging. To generate leads, you need a free piece of content to give to prospects in exchange for their email address.

Sticking to the plan seems like a no-brainer, right? But what if you do not see any ROI? Well, I hate to break it to you, but with inbound marketing patience is key. It can take some time before you start seeing results. Give it at least 6 months to a year.

via GIPHY Even the A-team needed patience for their plans to work out. How are your plans any different?

Tracking results can be a bit hard because sometimes your results aren’t as tangible as a sale. And sometimes, you don’t exactly know if your inbound marketing efforts have made a difference in a deal. I’d advise you to track your website visitors, social shares and growth of your email list.

If all of this seems a bit overwhelming, just take it easy. The important thing to do is building your email list. You can do that with just one great lead magnet. Use social media to promote your lead magnet. Try to create content on a regular basis. Even if you blog only once a month, you can see results fast as this success story of my client Independent Expat Finance shows you.

Have questions about marketing? Post them in the comments below; I’d be happy to answer!

And if you’re wondering how you should get started, read my blog on your first step in setting up your inbound marketing here.

How FI’s Can Use Content as a Marketing Strategy

June 21, 2017 By admin

Companies are becoming increasingly more aware of the positive effect that content marketing can have on their business results. A survey by the Content Marketing Institute shows that 89% of B2B marketing managers use content marketing as a marketing strategy. Of the 11% that don’t use content marketing today, half say they are planning on getting into content marketing within the next year. If they pull through, that means that next year around 94.5% of B2B marketers will use content marketing as a marketing strategy.

94.5%!

My history teacher used to say that 99.9% of the population in a dictatorship would ‘vote’ for the president. If one person hadn’t been sick, the voting percentage would have been 100%.

The content marketing percentage comes close to dictatorship voting numbers, except marketers are voting for content marketing willingly and with good reason.

See, content marketing is 62% less expensive than traditional marketing efforts while generating 3 times as many leads. Can you imagine what could happen to your sales if you would increase your content marketing budget?

Still, there are many companies that aren’t on board the content marketing train yet.

I did some research on company blogs of financial institutions recently, some of them do have blogs, a lot of them don’t. When they do have blogs, most of them aren’t well maintained. Obviously, content marketing doesn’t exist solely out of blogging. But, it can be a very powerful content marketing tool. And, if you want to reap the benefits of content marketing and see an increase in your sales, you need to step up your game sooner rather than later.

So, where should you concentrate your efforts to make your content marketing strategy a success?

The same report by the Content Marketing Institute finds that marketing managers that saw their content marketing strategy become more successful in the last year attribute that success to content creation. Marketing managers think that high quality and more efficient content creation accounted for 85% of the increased success of their content marketing strategy. They also cite making content marketing a bigger priority as a large factor in their increased success. That makes sense, right?

On the other hand, marketers blamed their stagnant or decreased success with content marketing on too little time spent on content marketing and on content creation challenges.

Which goals can companies achieve with their content marketing strategy?

Why is content marketing so important to B2B marketers? The below list proves how versatile content marketing can be in terms of results. Companies can use content marketing to achieve a number of important business goals:

● Lead Generation
● Brand Awareness
● Engagement
● Lead Nurturing
● Sales
● Customer Retention/Loyalty
● Building an Audience via Subscription Growth

According to a survey done by Demand Gen Report, 47% of B2B clients consume an average of 3 to 5 pieces of content before they ever engage with a salesperson. Meaning, your clients are checking out your content before they decide if you are worth their time, effort, and most importantly, their money. In the past, it might have been enough to have a website. Now, you really need more than just a website to convince your customers to enter the buying process.

And don’t you dare consider putting up a white paper that customers can download in exchange for their email address. You can do that, only if you also have content that is freely available. Why? Well, who in their right mind would leave you their email address without knowing if your white paper will be worth it? Clients want to check out your free content first. If your free content is any good, then they might become interested in your white paper.

This means that you have to produce high-quality content. That doesn’t mean that you should choose quality over quantity, though. You should create a lot of content that’s high in quality. It’s always better to put out some content over nothing. According to a Hubspot study, you get 3.5 times more traffic if you put out content 16 or more times a month over 0 to 4 times a month.

There are many ways to put out content. You can create social media posts, newsletters, blogs, e-books, white papers, videos, webinars, and infographics to name a few.

Guess what marketers are saying will be the most critical to content marketing success in 2017?

Blogs.

Why is that? Because that’s the way to reel your potential clients in. Yes, you want to share on social media, but you also want your clients to come to your website. Once they are on your website they can view all your content in one place and they can download your lead magnet.

Your blog can definitely help you to demonstrate your authority in your field and convince people to enter your sales funnel. Actually, your blog is the top of your sales funnel.

How can you measure the success of your content marketing efforts?

On average, companies spend 29% of their marketing budget on content marketing. This number excludes the budget going towards staff.

If your company is keen on starting to use content marketing, you could start with the 29% average and see how it goes. Or, you could start low and gradually increase your budget over the years. Keep in mind that you shouldn’t approach content marketing as a campaign. You should integrate it into your business processes. And as with every other business process, you are going to want to track the results you get from content marketing.

The most effective ways to measure the results of your content marketing strategy according to the B2B Marketers surveyed by the Content Marketing Institute are:

● Website traffic
● Sales Lead Quality
● Sales
● Higher Conversion Rates
● SEO Ranking
● Sales Lead Quantity
● Time Spent on Website
● Social Media Sharing
● Subscriber/Community Growth

Take the current results of all these measurables and use them as a baseline. After a few months of putting out high-quality content, you should see your numbers growing.

There’s a lot of competition in the financial industry. If you want to professionalize your content marketing, you’re lucky. Many of your competitors haven’t professionalized their content marketing strategy yet. If you start investing now, you can still be ahead of the game and come out on top.

Start by attracting a digital marketing manager to set up your content marketing strategy.

Customer is King: How to Enhance Client Loyalty Through Customer Care

June 13, 2017 By admin

There’s no question that customer care remains vital for any business. That’s why for ages companies have lived by the adage, ‘customer is king’ to ensure great customer service.

I mean, businesses wouldn’t exist without their customers. So, we should always treat them well, right? There really is no question about it. Like kings over their subjects, customers have infinite power over your company. Not only by deciding if they want to buy from you, but also because they have the power to change the perception of your brand – for better or worse.

Remember those days when clients only had a small reach through word of mouth? Well, those days are over. In the internet and social media era, the reach of clients has become enormous — global, even.

Look at what happened to United Airlines after a video of a customer that got dragged off of the plane went viral. Their brand perception had to take an incredible hit for it.

Today’s customers have a gigantic toolbox at their disposal when deciding to buy or not to buy a product. They can and will Google everything they can before making their decision. From a product’s benefits to the features, prices, reviews, user videos, and complaints. They will do research on a company and best believe that they will find all the dirt that is out there.

This is even more the case for B2B customers. These customers deal with company money and have to spend large amounts. They base their decision on rationale instead of emotion. It doesn’t matter if you service B2C or B2B clients, you want your reputation to be impeccable. So, treating them like kings sounds like a good idea. But is it?

Why you shouldn’t think your customer is king

You want to treat your customers like kings to ensure they have a great customer experience, and to ensure that they will never write a bad review or tweet about you.

But think about this: with infinite power comes corruption. Like kings, customers can start to expect a certain type of service, to the point where they feel entitled to that level of service. They then start demanding ever-increasing quality for ever-decreasing prices — something you will most likely be unable to keep up with.

What kind of customers are you creating if they become used to you serving their every whim? Be careful with what you put in, the output might be less than desirable.

When you think your customer is king, what do you become?

You become a servant.

King and Servant. You have unnecessarily created an unbalanced relationship.

Click to Tweet:
When you treat your clients like kings, you become a servant and servants are replaceable.

And what to think about your own behavior?

When you believe that your customer is king, will you still be able to be personable and transparent? Or are you acting out of fear — fear because you don’t know if you can keep the King happy.

Will you neglect your boundaries as you receive pressure from your king?

If you adopt the attitude of a servant, that’s how people will start treating you.

But as a servant, you are replaceable.

What happens if you can’t keep up with your client’s ever-growing demands of quality for lower prices? Your client might threaten to take his or her business somewhere else. That’s because he or she doesn’t care about you.

And let me ask you: do you genuinely care about your king?

If customers aren’t kings, what are they?

How should you treat customers if you stop living by the adage ‘customer is king’? How can you make sure you still give outstanding client care if you let go of the thought customer is king?

Treat your clients like friends.

Focus on an equal relationship. Treat your customers like friends and they will start treating you as a friend as well. That way, you teach them to treat you with care, politeness, and respect.

Think about your best friend. How do you treat him or her?

You probably want what’s best for him or her.

Your best friend is very important to you so you listen with interest to what’s going on in his or her life. Wherever you can, you will help him or her out. And you help in the best way possible. If your BFF needs it, you will even give him some tough love. You will speak the truth to your best friend.

Wouldn’t it be easier to be transparent towards your best friend than it would be to the king you serve? It would certainly be a lot easier to be personable.

Be a friend and trusted advisor to your customers. Become somebody that will make them feel cared for, in return, they will be loyal to you and your company.

Why would you want your clients’ friendship and loyalty?

Easy. Because they will reciprocate whatever you give them.

Imagine Bob, a customer that wants to buy a new cloud solution for his general physician practice. Bob is already a customer of yours but is unaware that you offer the solution that he needs. He has been looking around and found multiple brands that offer the solution that he needs. So far, he understands “Brand A” to be the cheapest option.

Bob finds some customer reviews mentioning the bad customer service Brand A provides. Those reviews recommend looking at your brand instead. Your solution is more expensive but your customer service is the best in your industry.

Bob is very happy that you offer the solution that he needs. He knows he can trust you and decides to immediately purchase your solution.

Sounds too easy? It really works this way. People aren’t only creatures of habit, they also feel the intense urge to reciprocate what you give to them. That’s why content marketing works so well. That’s also why treating customers like friends makes them loyal customers (while treating customers like kings won’t!)

Click to Tweet:
People need to reciprocate. Treat customers like friends instead of kings to make loyal customers.

How to treat customers as friends?

Be kind.

Listen to what your customers have to say and ask them for their opinion. Don’t try to sell them anything that doesn’t bring them value. Fix their problems. If you can’t fix their problems, be transparent about it and offer them another solution.

Most importantly, treat them as human beings. Don’t look at them as if they are walking dollar signs. Keep their best interest in mind. If a product is perfect for them, they will want to buy it. If you sell them something that doesn’t fit their needs, you lose their trust.

Find service agents that are empathic and are the type of people that like to take care of others. It takes a person that really loves to help and solve other people’s problems.

If this seems all too obvious, it’s because it is. Like most things in life, it’s better not to overthink customer service. Instead, treat people the same way you want them to treat you. That way you can’t go wrong.