So how well did your marketing efforts perform in 2016 and do you want to increase your impact in the forthcoming year? If the answer to the latter is a resounding yes then perhaps this post will help shed some light on the forthcoming trends for 2017.
It’s no secret that converting leads in to sales has become increasingly difficult over the last five or so years. It seems that consumers are becoming wiser to the methods employed by many marketers and equally consumers have diversified their behaviours and brand expectations.
According to a recent report on Hubspot, four out of five people have abandoned a website because of a pop-up or an auto playing video.
As more and more businesses pour their money in to outbound advertising in the hope of gaining a return, the savvy owners are investing in their own companies and brands through inbound marketing.
Having an agile marketing strategy is key to achieving and maintaining a competitive advantage in today’s fragmented digital marketplace.
Here are three top things that if you are not doing you should be looking at right now
1 – Your ideal client
I remember when I first started out freelancing and after about 6 months I was on the lookout for a big corporate client that I could add to my list. I thought that was when I would know I had made it – Big mistake! It turns out large corporations have to go through a tonne of red tape to get anything approved, meeting after meeting and different departments etc. To cut a long story short (and it was a long story), the job I thought would be ideal turned out to be a drain on my resources. From that point on I began working with small to medium size businesses and honed my skills down to firms that fit certain criteria.
We’ve all been there I’m sure, chasing after those “dream clients” and many of them never converted in the first place, costing you valuable time and resources. It’s easy to get swept up in the chase – don’t get caught in the trap though!
Review your own company history and see which leads are more likely to convert for your business. You will be able to see which ones will be opting for the competition, even if you throw a tonne of incentives at them.
Now look at your current leads and see how many of them are likely to convert. If they are not, then stop wasting your time “nurturing” them. Cut them out of the line and focus on the prize.
2 – Nurture the ones you have
Just because 7 out of 10 of the leads generated from inbound marketing are not sale ready, doesn’t mean they are not qualified, they are just not ready to buy yet!
By nurturing those leads with your content marketing, email marketing and outbound marketing you will be top of their mind when they are ready to buy.
3 – Influencer marketing (look local)
Influencer marketing was almost (but not quite) a buzz word for 2016. It seems every company has some kind of influencer strategy or influencer content and certainly if you don’t then you are missing out.
As the internet has shifted so far from Global to Glocal in recent years, as has the influence of local (familiar) brands, celebrities, consumers input become more influential on your own company.
Take a look around you right now and look at ways you can strategically align yourself with your local niche.
All in all
The whole lead generation and marketing is an ongoing process which is why adopting an agile approach is so key.
If you want to implement positive change to your business marketing strategy you need to look and understand the key metric of how well it has been converting and your ROI.
There is no better time to do this than today! So if you are not best placed to do it yourself then find someone who can help you as the efforts now will be richly rewarded in the future.
Comments
No comment yet.