The value o social media marketing has been discussed and questioned often in the past. This is mostly because to measure social media marketing results have been a though thing.
Customers are discussing companies and even criticizing brands online, whether or not these brands are active in the social space. TNS found in 2011, that 64% of consumers worldwide wrote about brands online and 52% said they did so to criticize a brand.
Still companies lag behind when it comes to track what customers are saying in social media about their brands and following up on that feedback.
In January 2012, a survey made from customer experience management software company Satmetrix where they survey over 1,000 B2B found out that only 27% of B2B companies that both tracked mentions and followed up on them. Compared to B2C companies (53%) both tracked mentions and followed up on them.
Companies should track what are being said and following up on comments when it is appropriate.
Satmetrix found that the most popular process companies used was having a dedicated team that monitored and responded to customer feedback.
Tracking social media mentions is easy and there are a lot of free and paid tools to do so.
First you should register with more than one tool. Configure the tool with the necessary keywords, means your brand name, your and the names of your staff, product and services names, your competitor brands, names, products and so on.
As the second step you should take care of not oversee to the messages and alerts which come in. Monitor those alerts and take action if appropriate.
Time after time you will discover which of those tools you are using are the most useful for you and you will focus on them and leave the others behind you.
We all heard about facebook ads. Rumors out there stated that paid ads in facebook do not work. And also there have been rumors that Facebook ad revenue decreases.
Ok, rumors are one thing and facts are another!
Marin Software an advertising management company proved that Facebook ads work. Especially Facebook’s new ad units, Sponsored Stories which work in a social context are doing very well for social media marketing.
The simple reason why firms are not successful with their Facebook marketing is they do not understand that people go online to research and not to buy thing. In the case of Facebook marketing the people go to Facebook to connect, exchange ideas and to communicate. They go to Facebook to discover new things (research).
Companies which do Facebook marketing do some major mistakes when performing paid campaigns.
One major mistake is they attract the Facebook user to click on their Facebook ad and lead him or her away from Facebook. This is a bad idea as the people on Facebook want to communicate and learn about new things on Facebook and they do not want to be led away.
To avoid this mistake companies which perform Facebook paid ad campaigns should be creative and lead these ad attracted visitors to their Facebook page, for example with an exclusive offer. This would for sure improve the marketing results.
Another major mistake when businesses do Facebook social media marketing is, they do not take the opportunity to communicate with those ads attracted new visitors of their Facebook pages. Social media is about communication and connection with people. It’s not about selling and sales pitches.
Businesses should take the time to communicate with their network and carefully listen to them. This can result in a massive revenue growth when done right.
Also a major mistake is to think, to be on Facebook as a brand is enough and the audience will follow. Why should they follow your business page on Facebook? Do you have something remarkable, valuable and interesting to share with your audience? Did you take this chance to build trust and position you as a professional resource there?
You can expand your brand reach very easy and quick by expanding the reach of your content through “Facebook Sponsored Stories”. So your content reaches wide more people and the best thing is it reaches the right people. The way of social targeting helps to reach the right persons and attract those future customers to a business page.
This way you build trust and brand awareness the smart way.
The success of “Sponsored Stories” is huge. An increasing number of advertisers are using this smart marketing way to expand the reach of their custom created content.
Infographic: A Brief Insight Into Facebook Marketing
Here are five ways how you can make Facebook Sponsored Stories work for you:
1. Start a corporate blog and create and share content in social media like Facebook in which your audience is interested in
2. Create eBooks, whitepapers, how-to’s, etc. and offer a free download in exchange of the visitors contact information on a landing page. This way you generate targeted leads
Content marketing has established as a powerful way to engage customers. An increasing number of B2C and B2B marketer are faced with the challenge to produce and publish buyer persona oriented interesting and remarkable content to attract customers to their products and services.
A seriously executed content marketing strategy can be responsible for 25x times more business leads and boosts your revenue by up to 40%!
In a March 2012 poll of more than 400 US marketers and agencies content curation services providerCurata found that 95% had curated content in some way over the past six months by sharing a link, blog post or other content type with their target audience.
Curata results also showed that 85% of those marketers focus their main objective of content creation to establishing a thought leadership, 80% of those marketer see also brand building and buzz as a goal of their content creation strategy.
Main content marketing objectives of marketers are:
One of the most difficulties when doing content creation is the time investment. About 70% of marketers say they did not have enough time to devote to the process of content creation and content marketing. Also the marketers stated that is difficult for them to create original content to share with their audience.
Main content marketing challenges of marketers are:
• Understanding how it fits in overall marketing strategy
The most popular channel to share content is social media. About 76% of marketers say they used a social network as the main channel for content distribution.
To share published content in social media is not enough. Content creation and content marketing as a holistic strategy must be performed on regular basis to gain measurable and profitable results on the long term.
Only those activities performed on a regular basis pave the way to get found online by an increasing number of future customers and keeping them coming back to company offers and information.
Infographic: The Rise of Content Marketing
Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report an up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.
A recent survey from Oracle found out that a growing number of customers are reaching out to companies for support through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp and thought their corporate blog.
Those users expect companies to response quickly, in less than a day, to their requests. The quick response and serious reaction to requests or events which happen is an essential part to profit from the communication which breaks out. To wait hours to give comments or answers could cost the essential market and marketing advantage.
But customers do not only contact brands for support requests they also often reach out to them to learn more about new products and services. If a brand is able to publish important product and services related news exclusively to their network first this would help to improve loyalty with their network. This can also result in an improvement of revenue in the long term.
About one third of surveyed customers expect to reach a customer service representative or product expert when they reach out to a brand.
The possible benefits for companies who stick to serious social media communication can be huge. They can build a solid base to build brand advocates who spread the word on their behalf.
One of the most successful ways to start the conversation is to publish interesting content on a blog and spread it to social networks where the target audience is around.Content marketing is the name of this strategy.
Companies which publish remarkable and buyer persona oriented content, means you should talk about topics your customer is interested in rather than abut topics you are interested in, show their expertise and build trust with their audience.
4 Reasons why companies should leverage social media:
• Increase brand awareness
• Humanize B2B companies
• Establish as thought leader
• Connecting with customers and prospects
Social Media has proven to be a great source of targeted high quality leads for B2C and B2B. An increasing number of marketers see lead generation as their greatest online marketing challenge.
Infographic: Social Customer Service
7 Steps how you can you profit from social media?
1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there
2. Research for industry related groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in social media and ask for feedback for your publication
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related leads
6. Measure your activities
7. Improve your activities and repeat
Social customer support is your great chance to showcase the quality and dedication of your company. Use every request as an opportunity to make a WOW feeling with the person who reaches out to your company.
Social Media Marketing has been one of the successful marketing strategies for marketers and companies online in recent years.
There are some major social media communities and emerging social media communities that can help business to improve their marketing strategies online. These social media networks help in providing b2b marketing solutions and generate quality marketing tips for new business online.
This article discusses about using 6 top social media communities for b2b marketing best practices and an eye of b2b marketing data giving a glimpse of the power of these social media communities.
Top 6 social networks for B2B marketing solutions
Social Networks have changed the marketing strategies for businesses online with wide range of advantages and quality leads for their business. There are quite a few social networks that help in providing b2b marketing solutions. This article focuses on top 6 social networks that had a major impact on small business b2b marketing.
Facebook
Google+
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Youtube
Infographic: Social Media B2B
Given below are some of the key points on using these social networks for b2b sales strategies.
Using Facebook for b2b Viral Marketing
Social Media is viral and if your business is successfully promoted in social media, you are very much successful in generating quality leads for your business online.
One of the major social media networks that have a huge impact on b2b marketing solutions is facebook. Given below are some of the b2b marketing best practices with facebook
Build your brand presence in facebook
If your brand presence in facebook is successful, you are likely to generate quality leads through facebook. Some of the best ways to generate b2b marketing leads through facebook is by bringing more visibility for your facebook page and generate quality leads using latest facebook apps.
Use Latest features of facebook for optimized lead generation
With the new facebook timeline, you can now share the latest updates regarding your business thus bringing more engagement for your facebook fans. Use the latest features such as pins and stars to bring more visibility for your lead generation pages.
Use the popular features such as open graph to know your visitors approach which is one of the key points for your b2b sales strategies.
Build your business community
It is important to build your own business community to stay ahead of your competitors. For this it is very much necessary to brand your facebook page and update it with the latest happenings. Use your page to provide useful information for your community.
Using Google+ for B2B Lead generation
Google+ is one of the popular social communities which are just started receiving popularity with Google indexing and prioritizing it in search results. Millions of users have already started using Google+
There is huge potential for B2b marketers to generate leads through Google+. Some of the best ways to use Google+ for business are
- Use the feature of Hangout to create live stream of your business hangout. The latest feature allows up to nine people to hangout using the video function of Google+
- Use Circles to share your content. It is very important to generate business specific content that is interested by users in your Google+. The best information that can be shared through your circles are virtual conferences, events, interviews and webinars which are very much useful for B2b marketers
- More is your content in Google+, more is the visibility of your content is search engines especially Google+.
Using twitter for B2b Marketing
Twitter is another top social media community that helps in B2b Viral marketing. Given below are some of the ways b2b marketers can use twitter
- Use B2b Marketing with your blogs and share your blog content in twitter. This increases visibility of your business in twitter.
- Increase reach of your business in twitter by increasing your followers. As your business reach increases, more people know about your business which is one of the key B2b viral marketing strategy.
- Another way of increasing reach and visibility is by asking your employees to tweet your business content. Sharing buttons for your B2b Marketing blogs and allowing your employees to share your business content brings more visibility for your business.
Using LinkedIn for B2b Marketing solutions
LinkedIn is one of the powerful social networks for b2b marketing solutions. As it is professional network, you have major chances for generating b2b marketing leads with LinkedIn.
Some of the best B2b marketing practices of using LinkedIn are
- Index your B2b marketing blog in LinkedIn and share your latest contest in LinkedIn. This brings more approach for your business in LinkedIn.
- Use Applications like Slideshare to share your business presentations in LinkedIn.
- Create your own company page and share business updates through your status updates and group updates. You can also promote your business products through the products tab in LinkedIn. Show your creativity in generating impressive business promotion strategies through LinkedIn.
- Another important feature of LinkedIn is email marketing, one of the important B2b Viral marketing strategies. Mail your LinkedIn members with email marketing feature of LinkedIn.
Using Pinterest for B2b marketing solutions
Pinterest is another powerful social network for generating B2b marketing leads for new business. Given below are some of the best ways to leverage your b2b marketing solution with Pinterest
- One of the best ways to promote b2b marketing through Pinterest in developing quality boards and creating pins in suitable boards. This gives members flexibility to find useful information through boards.
- New product offerings, services can be pinned through suitable boards which increase interest in readers to visit the boards and thereby generating leads.
- Use Pin info graphics, data and charts to know more about your business reach and thereby optimizing your marketing strategies in Pinterest.
- Share useful E-books and content information through your pins.
Using YouTube for B2b Marketing solutions
YouTube is one of the popular social media networks which can be used for quality B2b lead generation. Some of the ways of using YouTube for your b2b marketing are given below
- Share your top level management and interviews in YouTube.
- Share informative videos related to your business products, new launches and reviews of your business products in Youtube.
- How to videos, product tours and optimized YouTube search are some of the ways to generate b2b marketing leads with YouTube.
These are some of the best examples of using social networks for b2b lead generation. Consult the inbound marketing experts in optimizing marketing strategies in these social networks thereby increasing profits.
The tremendous success of content marketing is the result of giving away valuable information – remarkable content for free to attract people to your business like a magnet.
Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report an up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.
This marketing system works 100% for any business!
Video: What you can learn for your Marketing from the Greatful Dead
Infographic: Content Marketing
Here is how content marketing can work for you to attract new customers to your business like a magnet. To empower your content marketing you should start with a corporate blog.
Some facts about the power of blogging: Blogging companies get…
1. …up to 55% more Traffic
2. …up to 97% more Inbound Links
3. …up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines
4. …up to 25x times more business leads
The next steps you should do are to craft further buyer persona oriented content like:
Take care to include a call to action in each of your content pieces. This ensures that the user exactly will discover what to do next.
Each of this these pieces of content are outposts of your business which increase your visibility, brand reach and can direct more future customers to your business.
You should also distribute these pieces of content to social media and sites like y Prweb.com, Flickr.com, Pinterest.com, Slideshare.net and YouTube.com to increase the reach of your message.
Buyer Persona Sheet:
To get the most out of your content creation and marketing efforts you should think of a strategic way to measure and improve your efforts.Inbound marketing is the way to get the most out in business leads and revenue for your business.
There’s major buzz in the marketing space regarding Google’s addition to the social media madness, “Google Plus (+)”.
“If Facebook and Twitter had a baby, they’d call it Google+” – Olaf Wempe
Some believe Google Plus will quickly replace Twitter, as it provides an easier way to manage and communicate with friends.
Others believe that Google Plus will be a valuable addition to their personal connections, and for marketers, it offers a whole new way of reaching out and networking with other entrepreneurs in your niche market.
In just a few weeks of beta launch, Google+ has amassed more than 12 million users, with over a billion pieces of content being posted throughout Google+ every single day.
While Google+ has rolled out its services to focus on the average user and individual, they have created extensions within Google+ primarily for businesses.
Still, thousands of Internet Marketers and entrepreneurs have already started using Google+ to further their outreach, connect with their target audience and develop relationships with new partners and networking opportunities.
Since November 2011 brands are able to create company pages on Google+.
Recent numbers show that brand engagement on Google+ is increasing but is still far away behind players like Facebook and Twitter.
A recent report from Simply Measured which was released on May and shows results of Top 100 companies of which 64 of them have verified Google+ pages.
An increasing number of consumers are adding these companies to their Circles. At least 5,000 people had added 35% of these Top 100 brands to their Circles until May. This is a 21% increase from February. About 22% of brands Google+ pages had been added to Circles by more than 100,000 Google+ users. This is an increase from of 13% in February to May.
1. If do not have a Google account, go an register one
2. Go to Google+ and complete all necessary information for a personal profile
3. Create a Google+ Page and complete the businesses profile regarding your business, like a logo, address, phone number, address, link to your website and blog, etc.
4. Search for business partners on Google+ and add them to your circles for your Google+ Page
5. Link from your website to your Google+ Page
6. Start the interaction by +1 posts of your circles and by republishing your blog articles or other content on your Google+ Page
7. Listen and learn what your audience is interested in
8. Craft a how to on base of the information you have collected on Google+ and offer it for download on a landing page
9. Setup landing pages which specially are dedicated to Google+ so you will know for sure that these leads are from your Google+ Page
Online Business has developed tremendously in recent years. To promote business online, there are many important marketing strategies adopted by companies to generate revenue for their business. Closed loop marketing is one efficient marketing strategy that is key point in generating quality business leads and revenue for organizations.
About Closed Loop marketing
A successful company online is the one which manages its Closed Loop Marketing effectively and strategically. For large companies, inbound marketing experts help to maintain stability over their Closed Loop Marketing strategies and thereby generating Quality Leads for business. But what is this Closed Loop Marketing which helps businesses to develop faster and securely? This article gives a glimpse of Closed Loop Marketing and advantages of using it with the help of marketing experts.
In every business there is competition and company’s invest huge money in generating quality leads. While generating leads is one part of the marketing strategy, the other part is to maintain the marketing budgets by using latest technology and marketing tools.
4 Phases of Closed Loop Marketing
Closed Loop marketing is one of the effective online marketing strategies that help companies to decrease marketing budgets by providing strategic lead generation reports and giving powerful tools for the sales team to increase their lead generation capacity.
One advantage of Closed Loop Marketing is that it increases the Sales of the company as well as giving more freedom for marketing team to generate Quality Leads through proven marketing tools.
There are 4 phases of Closed Loop marketing which in simple words are
4. Converting leads into customers through a lead nurturing process using powerful Customer Relationship Management software.
Let’s briefly discuss about these four essential steps that helps in a successful inbound marketing strategy.
Step 1: Managing your Visitors
Every company online have lead capture pages and useful content that drives traffic to their website or business online. There are many marketing software’s and tools available online that help you to identify and track the visitors location, source of visitors and give information related to your visitor information.
Marketing experts advise using tracking URL’s for each of these sources so that it is easy to identify the main sources of traffic to your business. This is the first step of closed loop marketing that would be helpful in generating list of visitors who are interested in your business.
Step 2: Identifying visitor’s interests
One of the important parts of closed loop marketing is to identify the difference between the visitor and lead. Many visitors arrive through blogs, social media, pay per click campaigns and other ways of marketing as they are interested in your business.
Once they have a good impression and re-think of visiting your business, they provide their information either subscribing or giving information through lead capture forms.
Step 3: Generating visitors and leads database using powerful marketing software’s
These leads are potential for revenue growth of your business and for increasing customers for your company. By generating separate database for your leads and visitors through powerful marketing software’s, you can concentrate more on sources which have maximized your visitor to lead conversion.
Step 4: Call to action using powerful CRM software
Once you have your lead database, it is up to the CRM software’s and the sales team to put their efforts into action in the final step of Closed Loop Marketing.
Customer Relationship management software’s helps to do lead nurturing and in maintaining synchronization between the sales, marketing and customer support teams which are the critical part of customer’s interaction. There are many CRM software’s that are available in the markets that are recommended by inbound marketing experts according to the business niches.
Infographic: Social CRM Evolution
Start using closed loop marketing for your business by hiring inbound marketing experts who can help you in increasing business revenue and potential leads.
Social Media marketing has influenced the marketing strategies of business organizations online in recent years.
Almost all of the niches are now using social media marketing for their business promotion online. There is heavy competition in these social media sites as well on grabbing advertisers to market through these sites.
Newly emerged social media sites Google+ and Pinterest have been the major social media sites to watch in recent days. Many say Google+ is ideal for business where as there are experts describing Pinterest as one of the major social media competitors for business online. This article gives a glimpse of using these two social media marketing sites for business.
Identifying the right Social Media Sites for business
Everyone in the marketing world online knows about the advantages of social media marketing and how it can cut your marketing budgets if identified correctly. Previously there were very few promising social media sites such as facebook and twitter which are used by businesses for social media promotion.
But as days went by, top Internet organizations such as Google came up with Google+ with wide range of features for business organizations. Companies are now trying to cap their market share from these fast emerging social media statistics. Inbound marketing experts are now planning to use these social media sites for business lead generation.
Not only recent statistics suggest that Pinterest has also been used largely by organizations for their business promotions. All these social media marketing promotions for lead generations are only started after indepth analysis by marketing experts online. But what are these analytics which led to these decisions? Well an overview of the next paragraph will let you know why Google+ and Pinterest are valuable for business online.
Generating business leads with Google+ and Pinterest
Google+ has brought interest of millions of people online with the type of launch that they have made. Google has taken some of the best steps to create interest in users while launching Google+. Likely within the first 3 weeks of the launch 20 million users started using Google+.
Moreover Google+ profiles and stats have been remarkable and Google started indexing Google+ content. Another interesting stat is that 63% of Google+ users are male and sites that use Google+ started getting 3.5 times more traffic than the sites that haven’t used Google+ for their sites.
Google+ has been prominently used by software developers and college students which brings into the fact that Google+ has a wide range of influence on students and working software professionals.
One important stat that is very much useful for businesses is that 40% of marketers suggest Google+ as prominent tool to promote their business as it is expected to reach 400 million users by the end of this year.
Another prominent social media site Pinterest also managed to gather 10.5 million users as on February 2012. This made businesses eye on Pinterest to promote their business.
Not only for the number of users, Pinterest has prominence for re-use as 80% of pins which are done in Pinterest are re-pins. This means if you are successful in bringing interest to a small group of people using Pinterest , your business many go viral.
Also Pinterest has the power of retaining users similar to facebook and twitter which can be observed from the stat that users have increased by 145% from the month of January.
Another stat that is surprising is that 80% of Pinterest users are female and this is one of the successful social media sites that have brought female interest. If your business is a trending topic, then your business is likely to generate quality leads.
Another important stat that will generate interest in advertisers for business lead generation is lead conversion rate. Lead generation conversation rate in Pinterest is 15% compared to 9% from Google+.
Infographic: Pinterest
Infographic: Google Plus
So putting altogether you should be strategic and take expert opinion while promoting your business through Google+ and Pinterest. Take the expert opinion while make social media promotion through these social media sites. Generate quality business leads from these emerging social media sites and stay ahead of your competitors.
In March 2012, marketing agency Cargo and Inc. Magazine found the majority (52%) of US small-business owners felt companies did not market to them effectively.
Moreover 43% – 45% of the small business owners said companies made little effort to understand their individual needs and their business.
Most of the small business owners do the business important tasks them self, as they do their financials, marketing, sales and services. Their time is full stuffed with work and they do not sit behind a computer a whole day long. As they are mostly working their job and are with their employees and customers they are perfect to be reached by mobile devices as laptops and smart phones.
When B2B marketers want to connect with them they need to be where those small business owners are around and there where they can be reach and where they can reach out to the marketer.
As an increasing number of small business owners places importance on wireless communications and smart phones for their business this is the way to get in touch with them.
Infographic: Local Mobile Search
So what marketers need to do to reach small business owners with their brand massage?
1. Make your website mobile friendly. As small business owners love to use mobile devices like smart phones and tables, it makes sense to make it easier for them to consume your content
2. Adjust your email marketing, so it becomes and your email massage can be read on the fly. The most email communication is read from mobile devices
3. Become active in social media. As all known social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn have mobile Apps; you can reach small business owners there through your communication and attract them to your offers
4. Start to create and publish buyer persona “small business owners persona” oriented content on the web and in social media. This will increase your visibility and grow your trust
5. Respond friendly and professionally to every request, no matter if it comes publicly through social media or by email or support ticket.
An eMarketer study found out that 79% of US marketing professionals said they plan to increase spending on social media marketing and 24% of them said that social media will be the most-used tactic in the ad industry this year.
As the number of areas and activities increase marketers are confronted with various platforms and various ways to use and measure those platforms. Marketing tools and automation are the most seen challenges.
“In the Marketing Tools Study 2012 from digital marketing technology and services company PointRoll and Kelton Research, US marketing professionals reported using multiple tools in each campaign they execute. More than half of respondents used more than five tools in a single advertising and marketing campaign, with 33% saying they averaged five to six, 15% saying seven to nine and 13% saying they used an average of 10 or more.”
This results show that marketers come closer to paralysis through analysis! The more tools have been used the more time is spend on them.
Instead of to improving their marketing marketers are bound in tools mess!
Marketers should focus one tool which helps them to get found online and in social media by more qualified visitors, helps them to convert more visitors into leads, to close those leads efficiently and which provides analytics to help make smart marketing investments.
Successful companies use every possible communication channel to get in touch with their target audience. They are interested in what their recent and future customers are thinking and communicating about them.
This communication ability helps them to better understand and to serve their audience, which sets them apart from their competition and gives them wide advantages in their business field.
Businesses which are willing to communicate with their audience in blogs and social media show that they care about the people who spend their money with them.
Businesses which avoid an open and authentic communication in blogs and social media show exactly the opposite. Why should the customer than care about to make any further business with them?
Successful businesses in B2C and B2B have embraced the wide opportunities which blogs and social media offers to them to spread the word and to reach their audience where there are around.
Recent data show that B2B marketers are very satisfied with the benefits of their social media marketing:
– Over 56% of B2B marketers acquired new business partnerships through social media, compared to 45% of B2C
– 60% of B2B marketers saw improved search rankings from their social efforts, compared to 50% of B2C
– 69% of B2B marketers are more able to gather marketplace insights from their social efforts, compared to 60% of B2C
– But B2C marketers are better when it comes to developing a loyal fan base (63% of B2C vs. 53% of B2B marketers)
Where are Marketers going in 2012?
LinkedIn
• 76% of B2B marketers will increase their use of LinkedIn
• 55% of B2C marketers will increase their use of LinkedIn
Blogging
• 71% of B2B marketers plan to invest more time in blogging
• 65% of B2C marketers plan to invest more time in blogging
Facebook
• 68% B2B marketers will increase their use of Facebook
• 76% B2C companies will increase their use of Facebook
Infographic: How Engaged is Your Brand?
The 2012 topics of interest for Marketers are:
Marketer B2B and B2C are mostly interested to learn more about ways on how to use Google+, LinkedIn and Twitter for Business.
Marketers are also interested on how to measure the effectiveness of social media, how to converting activities to sales and to learn the best social media tactics.
Do you have position your business for an open and authentic communication with your audience in blogs and social media yet?
All successful businesses have one thing in common, they have great marketing and they care about their customers and restaurants are no exemption.
For a restaurant to get new guests the audience needs to know that you exist and what you have to offer. So you need to get found!
When you operate or just start a restaurant it can make sense to use Groupon for the first six months to help boost your reach so more people learn about your restaurant. But when the first six month are over you need to have a holistic strategy prepared to attract new guests to your restaurant and keep the actual coming back.
But what if you do not have the time and the experience in house to do so? And which strategy should you use, which one brings the big bang for your marketing buck?
Inbound marketing has been the most successful Internet marketing strategies in recent years.
Many businesses from different industries are using inbound marketing since about ten years as it is highly productive for their business. This article will give you a few examples why restaurant businesses should outsource their marketing and advantages in doing so.
Inbound marketing has been the successful and cheapest marketing trends in online world now. Inbound marketing generated leads have a proven 62% lesser Cost per Lead (CPL) and an up to 55% higher conversion rate! It simply outperforms any other way of marketing like TV, Radio, Print Media, Mass mail, Trade shows, Pay per click, Cold calling, etc.
All major brands and thousands of small and mid size businesses have switched to these powerful marketing strategies. Inbound marketing needs expertise, dedication and commitment and companies can benefit by hiring a professional inbound marketing agency. It is beneficial for companies to outsource their marketing in order to concentrate more on their business and leave their marketing strategies for the experts in the field.
Infographic: Dining and Restaurant Reservation Trends
Advantages of Outsourcing Marketing for Restaurant
Restaurant business is popular though its wide opprotunites it offers. Hundreds of success stories show and prove how money can be made by operating a good restaurant. Chains like Burger Kind, KFC prove this. Also celebrities have discovered the restaurant business as a profitable way to make extra revenue.
With increasing competition, regular restaurants have also started their business online and taking reservations and orders. With many competitors creeping up, it is very much important for the restaurant owners to get themselves updated with the latest marketing trends online to stay out of the crowd.
1. Get found online through inbound marketing
Main requirement of restaurant industry is the word of mouth marketing and getting new customers. So it is important for the businesses in restaurant industry to concentrate on their competence and outsource the marketing it for the inbound marketing experts to lead new guests to their restaurant.
Main advantage of inbound marketing is to get found online at the start to the customers. By hiring marketing experts who use the latest social media marketing and analytical tools for analysis, companies need not worry about the fast changing marketing trends and strategies.
2. Marketing Experts help you in Social Media and Content Marketing
Social Media and content marketing through blogging have increased in popularity as consumers are increasingly looking online for reputable sources to spend their money. Content marketing is increasingly used by companies to get new customers to their business.
If we take an example, companies that blog get 55% more visitors to their business website. So it is very much important to use these types of marketing strategies to gain new customers for your restaurant as well.
Another important strategy that has been successful is the social media branding for business and being active in social media. It is very much important to update your social media profiles regularly as search engines have started indexing your business social media content. This brings more prominence for your business in search engine marketing.
Not only search engines, your customers are also very much interested with the latest news, promotions and deals that are updated in your blog and social media.
To get potential leads and increase their prominence in market place, it is therefore useful to hire the marketing experts to do this job for restaurant industry.
3. Less Marketing Budgets and risk free business marketing strategy
Inbound marketing is the cheapest marketing strategy in the long term. It is easy to outsource your marketing by hiring an inbound marketing agency and build prominence on the web for your restaurant business.
By using various effective and creative marketing, inbound marketing agencies help to stay ahead of your competitors and get found online easily to potential customers.
Not only do the inbound marketing agencies help to do your marketing, they also help you to minimize your budgets on the long term.
Summary of what you get by executing a professional marketing strategy?
A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget B. Stand out of your competition C. Generate a massive amount of leads D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates E. Increase your customers and sales
These are some of examples on how you can benefit by outsourcing your restaurants marketing to a professional inbound marketing agency. Start your inbound marketing today and stay ahead of your competitors
When it comes to led generation than “nothing beats the inbound marketing strategy”!
Inbound marketing builds you trust before the sale. Means your audience learn about your business and your products before they are looking to buy from you and without pushing them.
This increases your chance they select your company when they are ready to purchase.
Studies from the past five years revealed that a seriously executed inbound marketing strategy results in up to 62% lower cost per lead an in an up to 55% higher lead conversion rate.
Inbound marketingconsists of content creation, content distribution, content marketing, Social Media communication, Lead generation, Lead Nurturing, Lead Conversion, and Closed-Loop Analysis to refine and improve the activities.
Companies who execute an inbound marketing seriously build trust, their brand and are recognized as a reputable source on the web. They get found on the web when future customers are looking, instead of pushing them with dump old fashioned sales pitches.
Infographic: The Inbound Marketing Multiplier
What do you get by executing a professional marketing strategy?
A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget.
B. Stand out of your competition.
C. Generate a massive amount of leads.
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.
E. Increase your customers and sales.
BRANDfog found out that consumers and employees regard company leaders who engage on social media platforms positively.
Social media is a great way to showcase a C level executive’s personality and to offer a more personal insight view. C level executives have great opportunities to show personality to attract the right buyer persona and to get in touch with the right new future customer when this one is looking out for products and services.
Five reasons for C level executive’s to engage:
1. CEO participation in social media leads to improved brand image
2. CEO participation in social media leads to better communication
3. CEO activity on social networks influences employees’ faith in their company
4. Employees trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media
5. Buyers are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media
Financial services firm ING Direct Canada is known for its tweeting CEO, Peter Aceto.
Aceto says that using social media helps him gauge how employees and consumers view the company and its products:
“We saw it as a competitive advantage for us,” Aceto said. “There was no science. There was no ROI. We just needed to get going, start to build a community and learn about how we can use it.”
C level executives have the great opportunity to become real “Trust Agents of their Brand” with very less effort and the rewards can be huge!
If C level executives are not willing to listen and to communicate in social media their audience will turn to their competition which is willing, for sure. When brands are not willing to listen and to learn it simply shows that they do not care about their buyers. And why should their buyers than care to spend their money with them?
Infographic: How Executives Are Using Social Media
Click the graphic to enlarge
Marketing takeaway for C level executives:
Start in social media with a Twitter account and begin your communication. It is not time consuming as a blog and video and can be managed from your blackberry on the fly. As simple as that!
The inBlurbs Inbound Internet Marketing blog covers all of
inbound marketing - SEO, Blogging, Social Media, Landing
Pages, Lead Generation and Analytics.
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The value o social media marketing has been discussed and questioned often in the past. This is mostly because to measure social media marketing results have been a though thing.
