Content

How to Increase Leads & Grow Your Brand

Ever wonder how you’re supposed to go from “unrecognizable startup” to a solid brand with actual leads? Follow a few simple, but time consuming steps to invest in your business and see lead generation.

 

1. Create Buyer Personas

Do you know who your target market is? If not, this is the first thing you should do. You can find buyer persona templates here and learn more about them here. If your current and interested customers are older, male, white-collar business owners, you won’t do well to advertise on Pinterest. Know your audience and know them well! Having a CRM that is

 

1. Narrow your message

 

With your buyer personas created you know exactly who you’re selling to and what they’re interested in. With this kind of information you can narrow down your social media presence, your email offers, and your giveaways. Spend less time trying to reach everyone, spend more time reaching the handful of people who are right on the cusp of being a dedicated brand follower.

 

1. Know what you have to offer and what you’re willing to change

 

Your entire team should know the passion that is driving your business decisions. Communicating this effectively will help your marketers and salespeople sell your product or service. Regular meetings with criticism and feedback will help you know if there are features you should change, routes that need to be taken, or other outlets that someone has information about. You can’t do it all, so know what you have to offer (what you’re best at) and go with it. The more you grow the more you can widen your scope but until then, stick with your expertise. When something needs to change, get feedback from others. Don’t make all of those decisions yourself because unless YOU are your target customer, you may not always know what is best.

 

1. Let your customers know you care. Get personal with them.

Showing your customers you care can produce a brand loyalty that is deep and will spread to their friends and contacts. We’ve all heard that it costs ten times as much to gain new customers as it does to retain one. There are plenty of reasons a customer can be lost and not all are up to you, but one that is entirely in your hands is customer service. You can control how you respond to, reach out to, and communicate with customers. When you’ve personalized emails and responded to their complaints on social media, you’ve shown that you’ll take responsibility for your product and that you’ll make time for them. Remember: the customer is why you’re doing what you’re doing!

 

1. Offer interesting content to your current and future customers.

 

Content creation isn’t something most businesses can afford to opt out of. For customer engagement, SEO, google search, etc. content is huge for anyone trying to gain new followers online. Once you know your target audience you should have an idea of what they like. With this information you can offer relevant incentives for readers and followers to engage your brand. Any time a follower shares or likes a post on social media or shares a blog post, you’re gaining brand awareness and reach. With new readers finding your page, continue to create new, fresh content they’ll want to read. Content creation is one of the most challenging and most rewarding parts of brand growth.
And just like that you’ve invested in the future of your brand! Contact our team to get further help on this topic.

How to use Email Marketing Correctly

Inspired by Nathan Barry, we wanted to throw out a few quick tips to our readers about writing and sending emails that your contacts actually want to open.

One thing we’ve noticed is that small business owners aren’t the best at communicating with their customers. This is a tragedy.

Why? Because who should be better at this than small businesses, with just enough customers that they could really fine-tune their content and marketing strategy? Small Business owners, who have contact information for almost all interested clients, have the absolute best database of interested clients, what they like, and what kind of email newsletters really click with them.

Tip 1: Do your research
If you’re not already using an email automation tool that provides analytics on what or when the recipients click on your emails, start here.

If you are, and you’re not paying attention, start with realizing that you’re throwing away great market research.

Tip 2: Don’t send useless information.
Berry puts it this way:
“The best emails are the ones that provide immense value to the reader. If your entire email sequence consists of “sell, sell, sell” then you’ve entirely missed the point. Instead you want to use education to help your reader. As you write each email ask yourself, “will this content help the recipient improve their life or work?” If not, don’t send it.”

Tip 3: Keep it short. Keep it short. Keep it short.
(see tip 2)

Tip 4: Know your audience.
If you’re sending real-estate emails to a group of professionals, your tone should be professional. Think of how much “free time” your readers have when they see your emails– the answer is none. They don’t want fluff, they want information and a way to respond if they’re interested. Make this part easy!
On the flip side, if you’re sending emails about your small business success to a group of people who have volunteered to help, keep it personal. They don’t want to feel like you’re a robot and suddenly too busy to make your emails personal. Make a joke, give them some information, and keep it casual.

P.S. It’s always a good idea to use real first names in mass emails (you can do this with Salesmanna).