Need of Today’s Business – Content Marketing and Social Media Management

With the pace of digitization content marketing has gained a newer height. Content, be it an article, image, or caption, should be eye catchy and interesting. However, though content marketing is the main strategy of promoting brand identity, still through right social media management only you gain the complete result. Therefore, it has been said that where content marketing is regarded as king, social media management can be called the queen. Both are complementary to each other. If you craft an innovative content but failed to promote through all social media platforms, then you will lose that gamut of web traffic for sure.

Today brands spend enough time and money creating content that speaks to their target audience on social networking sites. Once you come up with your content you need to post them regularly on sites like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and others.

Social media platform allows you to grow a personal and friendly relation with your target audience through thoughtful one-to-one interactions. Through content you can try to convince your customers. However, if your customers or the potential prospects have any doubt over the content or complain in the comments about a piece of content, then with the help of social media channel you can reply back. While doing business it is imperative to build a close-knit relation with your target audience. Community management platforms like Facebook, Google+, Twitter and others let you answer every query and thank every visitor for their love for your brand. It is these social networking sites only through which you can assure a friend of future moderation while getting a negative feedback.  Thus, social media management is all about efficient customer service.

Social Media Management permits you to entertain and inform your target audience beyond the limited characters of content. It is made for conversations. Brands cannot survive if they fail to connect with people just by publishing or posting content on daily basis. Social media blesses brand by providing brand identity and brand loyalty and creates relationship with fans.

It is necessary to post content regularly on every social networking site to draw the interest of the target audience. Make a plan, a social calendar and schedule content, like blogs, press release, forum posting, motivational quotes, small post and use industry specific hashtags. Create articles for LinkedIn Pulse and publish them on a certain day.

Read Here: Why Web Content Syndication Is Critical for Content Marketing?

To make correct use of all the social media sites you should know the appropriate time of uploading a post. For example, people check Facebook in between 2 pm to 4 pm. So upload a post on that time. Likewise, upload a post on LinkedIn on Wednesday at 11.15 am as it is used by all the professionals for business and job related task. Hence, making a post on workdays will gain you more traffic than an off day like Sunday.

Thus, it has been seen that without social media management brand cannot expand its business through content marketing. Content marketing helps you promote your business through the medium of social media. You can gain reach only through effective social media management. Hence, we can sum up that authentic, informative and interactive content marketing and efficient social media management are two vital parts without which business cannot thrive.

Original article published on: http://www.inventive-smi.com/need-todays-business-content-marketing-social-media-management

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Effective Search Engine Optimization Tips [Infographic]

SEO is a dynamic industry which requires keen observation and consideration in any kind of on-page changes, off-page activities or link-building strategies. Marketers are always looking at ways to beef up their SEO plans and boost traffic, while on the other hand, search engines are getting smarter and smarter every day.

According to Ahrefs research, the most important factor for an optimized website is site layout and architecture, which contains well-researched and relevant keywords with proper title tags, meta descriptions, header tags and vice-versa.

Effective Search Engine Optimization Tips

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5 Things You Need to Know About SEO Strategy in 2017

You might have learn about SEO strategy in 2016 but there is lot more to learn in 2017. When we look at upcoming trends in SEO, lots of things are going to change how we think about website optimization for the search engines. The market is going to be human-centric in 2017. Without this approach, it will be like contributing to the noise. For making your business thrive in 2017, your research, writing, marketing and sales should be customer-centric. Read further for knowing the five factors everyone should know for SEO success in 2017.

1. High Quality Content, Not SEO Tricks

Google is becoming better and better and is keeping an eye on those who try to cheat it. In short, only the best quality content of websites and blogs are given preference and they are going to win the race in 2017. It’s the time to think about the content which will guide customer about your services, instead of thinking about tricks which will compel them to visit your website.

2. High Quality Back Links

Google loves backlinks. That is links given to you by external websites. What Google doesn’t like is fake backlinks generated by backlink farms. Job of backlink farm is to get backlinks from such websites, who don’t have any relevance with your business. So how you can get backlinks to your website? There are three best ways.

• By issuing press release on regular basis.
• Blogging on trusted third party websites.
• Getting your website listed on trusted directories and industry portals.

3. Keyword Optimization

To help Google help you, your website should be easily found. Come up with the keywords, which you think will be used by the customer for finding the relevant information on your website. If you would like to take help from some tools, then SEMRush, Google Planner or Moz are some of the tools which can help you with keywords. These tools will let you know, the exact number of searches done for your keyword and amount of competition for that keyword. You should aim on high search keywords which have low competition. Keywords should be smartly inserted in titles, URL, and content.

4. Beware Of Keyword Stuffing

Inserting keywords in your content, titles and URLs in a flow, which convey proper meaning is a smart way of attaining good ranking. But using keywords more than content is a practice which should be avoided. Google has become very smart to block such strategies which will directly hit your website ranking.

5. Meta-tag Is Designed For Clicking Not For Optimizing

Meta tags are those paragraphs, which you see just below the title of your website. Earlier you needed keywords to be mentioned in that tags, but no more now. But still you need a cracking and appealing meta tags for convincing customers to visit your website. It separates you from other websites and makes people to click on your website, instead of your competitor one.

The future of SEO in 2017 is bright. The only important step you need to take in 2017 is to make sure that your focus should be on customers. Consistently providing relevant and informative content to the visitors is the only strategy for making you stand out of crowd in 2017.

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8 Steps for Using B2B Lead Management to Boost Sales Results

B2B lead management is a strategy in which marketing team handles, nurtures and gives leads to sales persons. Sounds easy, right?

Many companies do not follow any standard for proper management of leads, thus making it difficult to weed out potential customers from those who are only poking around. Most of the times, sales team gets false leads, thereby results in wastage of time and loss of revenue. Following a well-planned approach facilitates lead generation and its conversion in an efficient way. If you are looking for sales lead management from the scratch, let’s put some spotlight on eight steps for adding revenue in your pocket.

1.    Know Your Leads

This is the most crucial step for identifying your target audience and their position in the sales pipeline. The marketing team needs to find out buyer types and their personas. This will cater a clear picture of lead for your products or services. Dig dipper for understanding the mindset of buyers. Classify the persona of potential buyers by 

• Location: Where the customer lives? In which industry, he works? What are their demands, and problems?

• Behaviour: Is the buyer more interested in blogs, articles and white papers for getting information or he simply searches on Google.

• Lead Source: How is your target audience reaching you? Is it through the website, articles or by any other medium?

2.    Rate Your Leads

Rating of leads is an indispensable step for determining the interest of buyers in the product or services. This scoring completely depends on the demographic data and different behaviors of prospects. This data helps in passing only qualified leads to the sales channel. Higher the ranking, greater will be the chances of lead conversion. Your business rating information relies on various parameters, which should be considered for bringing quality in the sales process. Spend some time and find out which facets are imperative from the business point of view and rate your leads accordingly, which is an effective approach.

3.    Nurture Your Leads

Make use of the information captured in the above two steps and understand the position of each prospect in the sale pipeline. Are the customers lying at the mid-of-the-funnel or they are at the top of the funnel?

Leads which are not capable of passing through the sales channel, keep them aside. It might be possible that the some of the leads are in the research phase, try to address their pain points through your products and services. This is the right time to show your significance through informative content and offers, thereby turning visitors into customers of your company.

4.    Come Up With Sales Qualified Leads

Your sales team might be complaining about the unqualified leads passed by the marketing department. If it is true, then it will result in two problems. Sales people need to spend more time in weeding out the wheat from the chaff. And also they will lose trust in the marketing department and will throw out qualified leads with the bunch of unqualified ones. Finding a solution for this is crucial for boosting your sales procedure. Spend time with your sales team and come up with the common definition of qualified leads. This should include whether the customer has the budget to buy, the need of the product and the urgency of buying. Also, you may rank the lead before giving it in the hands of the sales team.

5.    Data Which Should Be Included With Qualified Leads

Which information is needed by the sales team for making a conversion successful? You may want to include title, the name of the company, industry, contact information and social media presence like Facebook, Twitter, etc. Other beneficial data may include the budget of customer, authority which is going to take purchasing decision, other factors which might have an impact on sales, how your product or services address the pain points of customers, and when the sales will be done. Mentioning all the discussed information will save sales team time thereby enabling them to do more sales.

6.    Pass Leads To Sales Team

Make sure that your leads are sales-ready, before handling it to the sales team. Sales people are hungry for qualified leads, but a pre-mature lead can make them unhappy. Ranking of each lead can help you in getting qualified leads. Transfer the lead to the sales team in a systematic way.

• Score correctly just to make sure that the lead doesn’t require further nurturing.

• Make sure that the marketing team has gathered enough information about the lead which they got during generation and nurturing procedure.

• Make sure that the sales team also does some research work to know more about the qualified leads before contacting with the prospects.

• Include some incentive programs for your sales team which will be a kind of motivation for them.

• Keep tracking the lead at each step of the sales cycle.

• Measure the performance of leads.

• Keep an eye on the overall generation of revenue through each leads.

7.    Track and Measure Leads

Track and measure…..Track and measure……Track and measure and so on. Even if your leads are given to sales persons, never forget to evaluate the lead with the sales department. Refine and rank the leads as required. Keep a track of all the leads and make sure that they are not lost while moving forward in the sale pipeline.

8.   Nurture the Lead Nurturing Process

In the first go, nearly half of the prospects will not say ‘NO’ to purchase any product. However, they will buy from you or your competitors after some days. For ensuring that you may not miss this chance, it is essential to take help from email campaign and other mediums, which is a decent way of sending your tempting content to the prospects. While communicating, you can solve their pain points, and mention some attractive offers which will make them buy.

Inventive SMi is a B2B lead generation company that helps corporate sales and marketing teams drive more revenue and better understand their market through database building, custom marketing campaigns & B2B appointment setting. 

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Appointment Setting – What No One Ever Told You?

Marketing is a form of art that needs polished articulation along with a catchy script. Appointment setting company prepares strategic marketing policy to attract leads. You need to connect well with the prospects while making a call to schedule a meeting. A scheduled meeting over phone or face to face always works great as the prospect has given you his precious time willingly to know more about your products and services.

While making cold call as a first step of appointment setting services, it is important to simply introduce yourself and ask the prospect for his convenient time to formally inform the business benefits. Your call should not look like an interruption in the busy schedule of the prospect. Some required elements for an effective appointment setting agenda are as follows:

Patience

Patience is something you required most during your lead generation pursuit. Though your message is an attractive and informative enough, still there is minimum chance that your prospects call you back. So, don’t lose heart if you face rejection at first attempt. Keep patience and try 8 to 12 times to convince 3 to 5 potential customers for getting a positive response for the meeting.

Ask for Time

While you are promoting a sale, it is necessary for you to ask the client if he is busy or can give you few precious seconds. Your call should not sound like an interruption to prospect’s busy daily schedule. Many times out of sheer fear of rejection sales people ignore to ask the prospect for his valuable time. However, that should not be practised. While you ask the prospect for his time, it shows your sense of respect towards him and also gives you an opportunity to schedule a meeting in the near future at his leisured time.

Avoid Unnecessary Introduction

While making a call to your customers do not jump directly to sell. Instead of introducing your name and going immediately to sell the product, inform the prospect that you take some time in the future to speak about your products. Focusing on the right perspective, like fixing the meeting in client’s convenient time is wise rather than jump start on narrating your business benefits.

Fix a Call in Near Future

Don’t make the blunder of requesting an in-person meeting at the first attempt. While making the call for the first time, your first aim should be at shifting the context for delivering initial message from an interruption to a planned event. To increase your chances of success, suggest a specific day and time frame for a call.

Make Sure That Your Message Directs the Meeting

Salespersons are generally trained to avoid talking directly what they are selling. However, while doing so, customers remain in darkness and they may hesitant to give their valuable time to the appointment setter or that salesperson. This makes the whole appointment setting campaign a failure. So, to avoid such situation, it is healthy for telesales or appointment setters to speak gently about the objective of the call. If the prospect knows your objective then only he will give his time for a further meeting over phone.

Credit Link: http://www.inventive-smi.com/appointment-setting-no-one-ever-told-you

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