B2B Business – These are all pretty straightforward, but our experience is that many companies we talk to don’t, or at best, only a few. So if you’re trying to grow your business and who isn’t, consider these easy-to-implement ideas before spending a lot of money on advertising or other outbound marketing initiatives.
1. Put a chat on your website
It’s an easy fix for you in delivering the kinds of engagement your site visitors want. They want to discuss.
We recently ran a test with a large customer, and they went from 100 Contact Us conversions per month to 60 Contact Us conversions and 400 chat conversations the following month. It’s huge! It’s fast! Chat is what your visitors want and how they want to communicate with you.
Why? This is the world we live in. Direct connection wins. Reduce friction and layers between your employees and the people who need your help. Make your access easier.
2. Manage your Emails and Contacts
Clean, review and update your database regularly. Make sure to keep all your contacts from any source in a central database. Databases degrade each year significantly, up to 15% in some industries. Make sure to delete old contacts, update contact information for your customers and check who is active in the database. You don’t want to keep messaging potential customers who don’t interact with your emails.
If you are not sure how well you build and manage your contact list, I suggest this is priority one if you want to grow your business.
Nothing is more essential to your business than your contact list.
3. Restore your website already
Keywords are significant when it comes to inbound marketing. Keywords are the main reason your website ranks in search engines, which is a big way for people to find you. People have to see you before they become prospects. But as with everything inbound marketing, it’s about attracting the right kinds of people so they can become valid and qualified leads.
Before you can start keyword optimization, you need to begin keyword research and focus on long-tail rather than the high-level keywords. High-level keywords are tempted to focus because they are often intuitive. If you make laser marking systems, “laser” is probably one of the first keywords you come up with.
However, there are many issues with high-level keywords. First, high-level keywords often have a lot of competition. If you have thought of the “laser”, all of your competitors. This means that it will be much more difficult to rank higher for high-sounding types of keywords.
Once you have started your keyword research, you need to group your keywords into groups around a particular topic. Each of your main topic groups should have 5-20 keywords associated with it. This strategy tells the search engines that your site is an authority on the central topic. Use a page on your site to create detailed, useful content that central topic, and link to other pages and blog posts with their related issues. The main page is your main page for this topic.
If you do keyword research and create great content that your target character finds useful, you are well on your way to fixing your website.
4. Update all your proprietary media files
Proprietary media includes your website, trade literature, social media channels, emails, trade shows, sales teams, lobbies, and anything else you have direct control over. Many businesses make the mistake of switching to paid media before maximizing their media. One way to think about your media is to think about where you could promote an eBook, to give you one example. Think about all the places you can share this eBook where the people you want to influence would find it. Your target audience could be potential customers, customers, partners, suppliers, connectors, or anyone else who you think is might be interested in that particular content.
Make sure your messages and content are about them and not you. It’s pretty easy to say, but so few companies do. Buyers don’t care about you. They care about the work they have to do and how to do it. Talk about them.
Maximize your channels first, make the most of what you already have before moving on to paid and earned media.
5. Create new content targeted to potential customers
Long-tail keywords can help you create new, highly targeted and relevant content for your ideal prospects. Long-tail keywords let you know the specific areas of your business that are of interest to your competitors, so consider them as writing guides.
If one of your long-tail keywords is “20-watt air-cooled fibre laser”, brainstorm all the things you can think of to do with 20-watt air-cooled fibre lasers. You can create comparison and contrast articles, whitepapers on buying guides, or blog posts with best practices. Whatever content you create, however, will help you for a long-tail keyword that your potential customers are looking for.
Long keywords are a great way to do this because they let you know what your potential customers are looking for and allow you to create content that will get you ranked. Long-tail keywords will bring your website to the attention of potential customers.
6. Get Everyone Prospecting
Are your sales representatives and departments using LinkedIn to connect with their peers? Is everyone thinking about connections in your industry, your suppliers, partners and industry associations to find ways to communicate with your potential customers?
Use your new content to educate and help them to consider you when they’re ready to solve a problem.
74% of sales go to the first business that was helpful
Are you helpful with your marketing and content, or do you offer features and products? Please stop doing this. Buyers just want help, period. They have to do their job, and you better help them. In fact, they want you to find them, as long as you help them. Prospecting does not fail because nobody listens. Prospecting fails because the seeker is selfish and is just launching a product and is not helpful.
7. Call your customers
Understand how to add more value and give them a call. Staying connected and letting them know you care precious nowadays. Be regularly present and available and not just when you want to close another order.
Pretty simple, but I’m always amazed how few companies are doing this simple thing.
Stay in touch with your customers, ask relevant questions and listen to help them. Think about assisting them to more and not just selling them more. Help first, and the sale will follow.
Ask them if they know all of your services. Tell them about your latest offers. Think like they’re driving through a fast food place, “do you want chips with that?”
8. Ask clients for rB2B Business – These are all pretty straightforward, but our experience is that many companies we talk to don’t, or at best, only a few. So if you’re trying to grow your business and who isn’t, consider these easy-to-implement ideasB2B Business – These are all pretty straightforward, but our experience is that many companies we talk to don’t, or at best, only a few. So if you’re trying to grow your business and who isn’t, consider these easy-to-implement ideaseferences, testimonials and case studies
Have a concrete outline and a detailed plan, know how to make queries and why you deserve a recommendation (remind them of the value you offer them), and make it easy for them to recommend you. Write an email for them so they can easily send it to a potential customer. Or write a great case study for them to forward. You need to educate your customers about your ideal prospect, and then ask them to refer you. If you provide them with value, they will be happy to introduce you. Not just because they want to help you (the principle of reciprocity), but because it makes them look smart.
Like leads at a trade show that are never followed, a quote dying on the vine is a waste of anyone’s resources. Make fewer quotes by targeting your ideal characters, qualifying yourself more deeply, and use the section to confirm what’s already been agreed, and you won’t need to follow up as often. When you follow up, make sure that tracking your quote has added value and includes useful information. Don’t just call to ask when you receive your purchase order or send an email asking what’s up with the quote. Be a pro and continue to help them with their problems, and they will remind you when it’s time to make the purchase.
Opinions expressed by US Insider contributors are their own.
