September 2020 - Stevens & Tate Marketing

Reason To Hire A Digital Marketing Agency 2

The Difference Between Lead Generation vs Demand Generation

September 18, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Inbound Marketing, Lead Generation, Marketing Strategy /by Nicole Wagner

When it comes to building your audience and increasing your sales, there are two strategies that are vital to your success: demand generation and lead generation. However, there are a lot of misconceptions about both. For instance, many people confuse one for the other. Some people think that demand generation is part of lead generation, while others think that lead generation is a part of demand generation. In reality, they are two different strategies that are critical to your ability to convert more customers.

Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation

The question for many is, “what is the difference between demand generation vs. lead generation?” Think of them as steps that must be taken to eventually close a sale. The first thing that you must do is to generate demand. Once you have achieved demand, you must then capture leads. The following is a more thorough breakdown of demand generation vs. lead generation:

Demand Generation – Demand generation is a strategy that includes numerous marketing tactics aimed at building awareness. Another misconception many have about demand generation is that it’s only about increasing brand awareness. However, it’s also about educating your audience about their needs and how your brand can solve them. As such, you’re also building brand authority during this stage. The ultimate goal of a demand generation strategy is to put your audience into the position to be converted into leads.
Lead Generation – Lead generation is the strategy of converting visitors to leads by capturing their personal information, such as their name and email address. It’s through the generation of leads that you will be able to nurture your leads through the sales funnel and eventually close the sale. When it comes down to it, lead generation is the act of taking advantage of the demand you’ve generated to collect contact information. Using that contact information, you can then engage leads directly.

Implementing A Demand Generation Strategy

Since demand generation consists of generating brand awareness as well as educating your audience, there are many tactics you can use. The following are just a few examples of demand generation that you can use:

Blogging – A blog allows you to regularly publish content to your website that is educational and informative. Blog content can also help people become aware of your business, if you promote it properly. For instance, by earning backlinks, optimizing it for SEO, and sharing it on social media.
SEO – Optimizing your website and all of its content for SEO, helps increase your presence on Google’s search engine. As a result, you can attract more organic traffic to your site.
Paid Advertising – Paid advertising, whether on Google or on social channels, can help expose your brand to specific segments of your target audience.

One thing to keep in mind when creating a demand generation strategy is to know who your audience is. Your demand generation efforts won’t have much of an impact if you’re targeting the wrong audience. Because of this, it’s critical that you develop your buyer personas.

Like this article ? Also read A Brief Guide to Sales Lead Generation

Implementing A Lead Generation Strategy

If you have a constructive demand generation strategy, you should be in an excellent position to capture your leads. At this point, your audience should not only know who you are, but they should be interested in your brand due to the influence that you showcase. However, the majority of them won’t be quite ready to take the leap, which is why you need a lead generation strategy. Such a strategy involves providing something of value in return for their contact information.

With that in mind, the following are a few examples of value that businesses commonly offer to drive lead generation:

Gated content – Offering more in-depth content in the form of ebooks, whitepapers, and more, is an excellent incentive for providing you with their personal information. Businesses include links to gated content in the CTAs of their free-to-read blog content. Doing so allows them to capitalize on the authority they’ve just built.
Email newsletter – For anyone who is reading your blog on a regular basis, a periodic email newsletter filled with relevant and unique content is a great incentive to convert to a lead. Not to mention that they will have to provide their email to receive email content.
Free trials – Interested audience members are more likely to convert if you give them a free sample of your service. Offering a free trial in return for their personal information is generally accepted as a more than fair trade.
Webinars – Webinars are live stream of presentations, such as panel discussions, lectures, or interviews. They can run for a longer period of time and tend to dive in topics in great detail. Not to mention that viewers can often engage during the webinar by asking questions. Webinars are a great way to generate leads because you can acquire viewers to register in order to get access.

Understanding The Difference Between Demand Generation vs. Lead Generation Is Critical

To achieve success, you need to focus on both demand generation and lead generation. However, not understanding the difference can make it difficult to meet your goals. Not to mention, it will be difficult to monitor on how your marketing efforts are performing.

Covid-19 Social Media Tips For Businesses

September 15, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Directors, Social Media /by Nicole Wagner

COVID-19 has resulted in an uncertain situation that nobody has experience with. As such, many companies are stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out how to proceed. Some businesses are even cutting back on their marketing budgets due to a decrease in sales. In fact, marketing your business is more critical than it’s ever been. It’s your marketing strategy that will help get your business through the pandemic and allow it to emerge on the other side — whenever that may be. One particular marketing strategy you should focus on is social media. However, your success depends on how effective your social media strategy is during this time. Here are a few Covid-19 social media tips for businesses to continue to reach a broader audience and to build stronger relationships to set yourself up for future success.

It would be understandable to assume that social media usage is up at this point in time. Unemployment is sky-high and a significant amount of people who are still employed are now working remotely. With that in mind, you would think that more people would be on social media in search of connection than ever before. While there is a 70 percent increase in social media app usage, engagement rates have actually gone down. The following are a few potential reasons for this:

People are using social differently – People are more isolated than they’ve ever been, especially in areas with stay-at-home orders or if they’re under quarantine. As a result, they are on social media a lot. They’re just not engaging with brands. This is because they’re using social to connect to their friends and family, not necessarily to do research into products and services.
Businesses aren’t leveraging social correctly – Sporadically posting content on your social channels without any kind of plan won’t do you any good. There needs to be a reason behind your social media actions. Simply trying to engage followers for the sake of engaging them won’t help you or them. In order to see results, you need to establish goals, which requires you to create a social media strategy.

Like this article? Also read 8 Tips on Social Media Best Practices For Your Business

Despite a lack of social media engagement, you should not ignore the opportunity to use social as a marketing tool. Social media can be a very effective way to reach your audience and to build stronger relationships throughout the pandemic. With that in mind, the following are a few social media tips for businesses:

1. Provide Useful Content

If you want your audience to engage, you need to provide them with something of value. What are they looking for? Odds are, they’re not looking for advertisements. Create content that you know will be useful to them. If your current content marketing strategy is stale or isn’t having the impact you desire, consider trying new things. For instance, begin creating video content to post to your social channels.

2. Don’t Avoid The Topic, But Don’t Be Too Opportunistic

Providing useful content on COVID-19 can help your audience. People are desperate for all kinds of information related to the pandemic, whether it’s concerning their personal health or their financial health. As such, don’t just pretend like nothing’s happening. Address the topic. However, it’s important that you don’t come across as opportunistic. For instance, you may not want to begin selling masks with your logo on it. It will come across as if you’re taking advantage of the pandemic.

The world has never been like this before, which means it’s impossible to predict what’s going to happen. Because of this, you need to keep an eye on both marketing trends as well as social media trends in general. For instance, people have begun to depend more heavily on e-commerce, even if they don’t have stay-at-home orders in their area. If you offer e-commerce, then informing your audience (especially offline customers) and encouraging them to use it via social media is a good idea.

4. Listen To Your Audience

Your audience’s wants, needs, desires, and fears may be changing during this time. Be sure to listen to what they have to say. You can do this by using various social media listening tools to track conversations about your brand, your industry, and the pandemic in general.

5. Invest In Influencer Marketing

Despite the fact that social media engagement is down, influencer marketing is as strong as ever. Influencers have a deep connection with their audience, which means that they are an excellent way to reach them. In fact, influencers may be a better option than traditional marketing tactics at the moment, such as TV commercials or radio ads, to name a few.

Use these social media tips for businesses to continue to reach a broader audience and to build stronger relationships. By using social media during COVID-19 effectively, you can set yourself up for future success.

How Marketing Helps Critical Manufacturers During Covid-19

September 7, 2020/in Articles, Blog, Directors /by wpsuperadmin

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all businesses, both big and small, in some way. For most businesses, the impact has unfortunately been negative. This is especially true for manufacturers. It’s estimated that around 89 percent of all manufacturing companies have been negatively impacted by the pandemic. However, there are things that you can do to maintain your business despite COVID-19. For instance, effectively marketing your manufacturing brand can not only help get you through the pandemic, but it can also set you up for future success.

Why is Digital Marketing for Manufacturers so Important?

This isn’t the first time we have experienced a serious economic depression. The Great Depression hurt businesses throughout the country almost a century ago. What we learned from that depression is that companies that survived or even thrived didn’t wait for public demand for their products or services to increase. They advertised their brand aggressively and paid attention to consumer behavior.

Digital Marketing

A significant number of people are working from home. Many of your prospects and existing clients may not even be working. Whether they’re working or not, you can still reach them via digital marketing. In fact, digital marketing may be more effective than ever since your audience has more time on their hands to engage. As such, you have the opportunity to build stronger relationships that can pay off in the future.

Current Trends

Paying attention to trends within your industry can help you capitalize on them. For instance, local sourcing has increased and people are shopping online more frequently during the pandemic. As far as manufacturing goes, there has been an increased demand for steel, packaging, plastic bags, hand sanitizers, and more. Many manufacturing brands have temporarily switched over to the production of these in-demand items to keep their businesses afloat. Those companies that do this need to be able to market the fact that they are doing this.

Tips For Marketing Your Manufacturing Company During COVID-19

It’s critical that you stay up to date with current trends and that you embrace digital marketing during the pandemic. With that in mind, the following are a few tips to effectively market your manufacturing company during COVID-19:

Host Webinars – Because webinars are on the longer side and are initially streamed live, you don’t always get the biggest audience. Now that everyone has time on their hands, you’re likely going to have more viewers tuning in to watch any webinars that you host. Webinars are a great way to showcase brand authority, educate viewers, and generate leads. You can also record them and publish them later as new video content.
Engage On Social Media – Because people are on lockdown and often self-isolating, they are going to spend more time on social media. People are desperate for social connections during these difficult times. This means that there are more opportunities for you to engage with followers on social media in a meaningful way. As a result, you’ll build stronger relationships and boost your brand’s reputation and awareness.
Upload Speciality Presentations – Now is the time to nurture prospects as well as continue nurturing existing customers. Specialty presentations can be incredibly effective at boosting your credibility and your brand authority.
Implement Marketing Automation – If business has slowed down, then you’ll want to ensure that your marketing efforts are as cost-effective as possible. Marketing automation tools can help you automate repetitive tasks, thereby saving you time and money. Not to mention that automation can help improve your reach and engagement, thereby resulting in a potentially higher ROI.

COVID-19 Resources For Manufacturers

As a manufacturer, odds are you need all the help you can get during the pandemic. We understand this, which is why we would like to share the following resources that can help your brand continue to prosper despite economic uncertainty:

Digital Health Check – Now is an excellent time to identify how your digital marketing efforts are performing and how cost-effective they are. Perform a Digital Health Check for a free report on your digital marketing practices.
Defense Production Act – Find out what you need to know about the Defense Production Act and how it can affect your manufacturing business.
Free Digital Marketing Tools – Consider using these free marketing tools to help enhance your existing digital marketing efforts.

Embrace Digital Marketing for Manufacturing Companies Today

One of the biggest mistakes that you can make during the pandemic is to wait for things to get back to normal. You need to be proactive, which means that you should follow current trends and use digital marketing for manufacturing companies to increase your reach. Not only can this help you stay afloat during the pandemic, but it can also help you foster future success.