Factors That Influence Consumer Purchasing Decisions

What Are Marketing Qualified Leads And Why Do They Matter?

How are you handling your marketing qualified leads (MQLs)? Once you have a lead at the top of the sales funnel, you can’t just stop marketing and hope that initial lead turns into a sales-qualified lead (SQL). You need to keep your eye on that in-between stage where your MQLs are. You should nurture and engage with them while they are in this stage.

marketing qualified leads sales qualified leads blocks

What is a Marketing Qualified Lead?

A Marketing Qualified Lead (MQL) is a type of lead in which the potential customer will engage with your brand which you have provided to them through your marketing efforts.

Don’t Forget the Lead in the Middle

Prospects, also known as contacts and leads, are the consumers at the top of your sales funnel. They have an initial interest in your product or service and might provide an email address or first name, in exchange for a report or other premium offer. However, they are only at the browsing stage and are definitely not ready to make a purchase yet.

At the bottom of your sales funnel are your sales qualified leads, also known as SQLs. These leads are ready to make a purchase. This stage is when your sales people need to be in contact with them, ready to provide additional information and incentives to finalize the sale.

There is plenty of room between the prospect and the SQL. This stage of transition between browsing and making a purchase is where the marketing qualified lead (MQL) sits.

An MQL has moved beyond the browsing stage and is seriously evaluating whether your product or service meets certain criteria. The are looking for detailed information, like customer testimonials and product specifications, to aid them in making the best decision. MQLs are looking at your competition as well, assessing how you measure up. They are getting third-party opinions and reading product reviews to choose the option that best suits their needs. This is when your marketing needs to shift. Nurture your MQLs by following up with them regularly. Tailor content like whitepapers and case studies to them. This tailored content should show your MQLs how and why your product or service is best for them. MQLs need detailed information about your products and services. They also need to know how you differ from the competition. Having a strong brand identity can help set you apart. This information will help the MQL move towards the decision-making point.

Read More: How to nurture leads with email marketing

How Can You Tell if a Lead is Marketing Qualified?

To tell when a lead is moving from the prospect stage towards the MQL stage, you need to gather pertinent data from the lead and monitor his/her activity on your website. Then, compare this information to past sales opportunities to determine what direction the prospect is moving towards. Ideally, they are moving towards becoming an SQL.

  • Demographic data from the lead, such as location, industry, and business size, makes a difference. Also, how much money do they want to spend? Is your product or service within their budget needs? If it is, the lead is more likely to become an MQL.
  • What types of actions are they taking on your website? Frequent visits combined with downloading whitepapers, requesting demos, or other interactions with content is a good sign that the lead will become an MQL.
  • How similar are they to your past sales opportunities that have already transitioned from leads into MQLs? Similarities can help you predict the likelihood of the lead becoming an MQL. If your typical customers are established companies with a large budget, a start-up with a limited budget may not be a good fit. However, that doesn’t mean the start-up won’t make a purchase, it just means that it is less likely to happen.

marketing qualified leads notebook

The exact definition of what an MQL means to your company is something only you can define. But, no matter how you define MQLs, you cannot forget them in your marketing process. Forgetting them means less SQLs, which means less final sales. And that defeats the purpose of marketing in the first place. The next step is learning how to engage marketing qualified leads until they move to being an SQL.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

What’s Trending in Marketing For February 2024

Welcome to our February 2024 edition of “What’s Trending,” where we bring you the most relevant marketing trends and insights. Stay informed and ahead of the game with our collection of marketing trends and reports for the start of the 2024 year.

2024’s Super Bowl

One of the nations traditions is sitting with loved ones and watching the yearly super bowl game. For this year, after a nerve wrecking game for both teams in the super bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs won against the San Francisco 49ers. The intensity of the competition, marked by strategic plays and jaw-dropping moments, truly embodied the spirit of the Super Bowl, leaving the score a very close one to a 25-22. With the amazing half time shows provided from the artists, Usher, Alicia Keys, H.E.R. and more, we can’t forget about the amazing super bowl commercials that everyone waited for. With it being $7 million for a 30-second commercial, some of these brands gave these 30 seconds their all. If you’ve missed any of these commercials and are interested in watching them, click here.

Influencer Marketing and TikTok Shop

Influencer marketing is still one of the top ways for brands to find a way to advertise their products to consumers. TikTok, one of the most famous platforms all around the globe, is not only for Gen Z’s anymore. TikTok creators of all ages, and brands have transformed into a way of marketing and advertising. By sending consistent PR packages to all the creators with higher reaching views, it allows the product to sell more, and the brand to be known. To make the consumers experience even easier, TikTok created something new called “TikTok shop.” This TikTok shop is a way for consumers to easily be able to access a link on the advertisement video they watch, and it’ll immediately direct them to purchase the product from TikTok, instead of having to go on another app and search for the brand and products. This has made it a lot more sufficient and easier for the consumer to make their purchase, as well as the attention is draws to the brand. So, it’s kind of a very clever kill two birds with one stone situation. Read more here.

CarMax’s New Ad Campaign

CarMax started this year off strong with their new ad campaign. Something different, new, and innovative. They took a different approach to empower their car advertisements. Taking the clever approach of keeping in mind the new advertisement trends going around in 2024, CarMax made sure to use those trends sufficiently. Some of these trends include, transparency in consumer experience, empowering car buyers, and most importantly humor in advertising. Read more about these trends here.

 

Click here to learn about 2024’s website colors to enhance your website!

 

BuildX Conference – Women in Construction 2024

The Madison Area Builders Association, Milwaukee Metropolitan Builders Association, and NARI of Madison are collaborating to organize the BuildX conference, a one-day event focused on empowering women in the construction industry. The session will explore fundamental principles of social media marketing, emphasizing the importance of understanding target demographics, creating compelling content, and building authentic connections with followers. Attendees will gain actionable insights and practical tips to enhance their social media presence, drive engagement, and increase leads. The presentation aims to equip both seasoned marketers and those new to social media for sales with the knowledge and tools to succeed in the competitive digital landscape. Read more here.

Empowering and Transforming Digital Marketing With AI

AI is transforming digital marketing by providing personalized experiences and offering cost-effective solutions. With this new innovative technology, the evolvement of digital marketing in the industry is becoming empowered. To explore with us AI’s impact on digital marketing which includes new tailored content, predictive analysis, automated customer service, enhanced lead generation, and a lot more, click here to read.

Six Cost Effective Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Brand

It is very common for new businesses to steer away from marketing tactics because they think it’s very costly. However, there are plenty cost-effective marketing strategies that will help with your businesses success. A few of these strategies include blogging, mailing lists, online marketing sites, calls to action, press releases, videos, and more. To learn more about these cost effective marketing strategies to help grow your brand further, click here.

If you have missed the top 5 marketing trends for this new year, don’t worry, here’s a summary. With the new Apple vision pro, that brings up many questions about virtual reality in marketing. VR in marketing is turning into a way of saving yourself a trip to go check new furniture for your home, when you can just have a walk through the place through the virtual reality. It is making things more efficient for everyone especially since the reality of our world is digital. Want to learn about more marketing trends you might’ve missed? Click here.

The Best Brands on TikTok

As we have already established, TikTok is becoming the new platform for social media marketing. Brands and businesses have realized that, and are moving their focus on TikTok. A few brands are killing it with their marketing strategies and advertisements on the platform, and here are a few examples to help you take away a few important things from them. Chipotle, The Washington Post, Duolingo, and more, have all found ways to reach the right audience with their tactics. To see what these brands did, click here.

If you’re looking for new b2b marketing trends for the new year, look no more. With everyone finding way to AI in marketing, b2b marketing has found one too. AI helps making b2b digital marketing more efficient and effective. Google came out with several new AI features for Google Ads. To learn more about other platforms helping b2b marketing with AI, click here. 

advertising agency

4 Tips For Creating a Successful Visual Identity

Your visual identity is different than your brand identity. But your visual identity, however, does play a part in helping to create your overall brand identity. The visual branding elements help to create the specific feeling and experience you’re trying to invoke from your brand. This includes everything from your logo to the images you use, the font of your text, the colors of your website, and more. The following are a few tips to help you create an effective visual identity:

4 Tips For Creating a Successful Visual Identity

1. Keep Your Audience In Mindattraction marketing

The focus of your visuals should be to engage your audience and to connect with them. If you’re representing a funeral service, then a loud logo with bright colors is probably not going to do a good job of connecting with your audience. To ensure that the visual content you use is in line with who your audience is, make sure that you create your buyer personas first before you begin implementing a strategy for creating a visual identity.

2. Create A Logo That Supports Your Brand’s Core

The logo you create to represent your brand needs to represent its identity, its mission, and its business. You might have a really cool logo, but if it doesn’t do any of those things, then it’s a useless visual and a poor representation of your company. Take, for example, Amazon. Their logo is very simple–it’s just the letters “amazon.com.” However, there’s an orange arrow underneath pointing from the letter “A” to the letter “Z.” It visually shows that they have everything from A to Z on their site.

3. Make Sure Your Visuals Are Consistent

To create a strong and sucessful visual identity, your visuals need to be consistent throughout. For example, if you use yellows and blues in your logo, it’s going to be confusing if your website’s design elements focus mostly on shades of red. It may look good, but consumers won’t be able to tie these visual elements to your brand because they are too different from one another. This goes for other elements as well, such as text. If you are using different fonts throughout your website, it will weaken your visual identity. Pick one or two fonts that best represents your brand and stick with them.

4. Make Sure Your Visuals Are High Quality

It doesn’t matter how thought out your visuals are, how relevant they are to your audience, and how consistent they are if they aren’t of high quality. Poor quality images or visual content of low aesthetic value will leave a negative impression on your audience. If your visuals aren’t aesthetically pleasing, consumers are likely going to assume your products and/or services aren’t of much higher quality either.

These are a few tips that should help you create a visual identity that properly represents your brand and that connects with your target audience. A strong visual identity will help you to create a stronger brand identity, which will only help to increase your brand awareness and trust.

25 Website Must Haves
brand awareness

Six Cost Effective Marketing Strategies To Grow Your Brand

Most companies, from business start-ups to established brands, recognize the importance of marketing. However, some may stray away from marketing tactics because they view them as costly. In reality, many cost-effective marketing strategies require little investment. Here are six of them:

Six Cost Effective Marketing Strategies

1. Blogging

Blogging is among the simplest yet most effective ways you can market. Google’s ranking mechanisms highly rate blogs that are frequently updated with relevant, quality content. According to HubSpot, there is a positive correlation between blogging frequency and visitor traffic. If you can manage I6 or more blog posts a month, you will get you 3.5 times more traffic as compared to blogs that publish 0-4 times in a month. Blogging is inexpensive because you can have your own staff create the content, and hire freelancers if you need extra help.

Read About: How Businesses Can Use a Blog To Strengthen Their Online Marketing Efforts

2. Mailing lists

Mailing lists are also an effective and inexpensive way to generate leads. Email lists can be used to remarket to customers you have already interacted with, as well as market to new contacts. Target your audience effectively by mailing content that offers solutions to the problems they may be facing. Remember to regularly update your contact lists.

3. Online marketing sites

Today, online platforms such as social media and websites are a crucial part of marketing. Depending on your business, different sites can be more effective than others. A site like Yelp allows you to create a profile for visibility and reviews, while TripAdvisor does the same for hotels, restaurants, etc. Mogul is a marketing site specifically designed for female business owners. A safe marketing strategy is to start by using less expensive websites, and then expand to others once you learn the ropes.

4. Calls to action

Once you know what kind of content your target audience is looking for, use calls to action to generate leads and position your company as the solution to their problems. Call To Action Phrases are so important. You can Create CTAs through HubSpot and use action words like “contact us”, “subscribe”, and “download” to get potential clients to click on your CTAs.

5. Press releases

It may take time to obtain the right press contacts, but once you do, press releases can be powerful marketing tools. Press releases are a cheap and reliable way to update your target audience on your successes with clients, and can be written by staff members or clients. Press releases can also be used to announce awards/accolades you have received, launch new products, announce company changes, launch promotions, etc. Overall, press releases will improve your image in the eyes of potential clients.

Also Read: The Ultimate Guide to Creating a Press Release

6. Videos

By 2024, it is estimated that video traffic will drive 82% of of IP traffic this year. Video production can be outsourced to qualified creators with high quality equipment, or you can develop them in-house at a lower cost. Video marketing is well worth the price because videos will increase your brand’s visibility, help you retain existing customers, and engage your target market while driving lead generation.

With these cost-effective marketing strategies, you can attract and convert your target audience without breaking the bank. Employing these tactics should increase your revenue in the long run, so the sooner you get started, the better. We wish you the best of luck!

MAXIMIZING YOUR MARKETING BUDGET

The Importance of Package Design – How it Affects Your Brand Story

Creating a strong brand identity requires good storytelling in order to establish your brand as unique and relevant as well as to make it more engaging for your target audience. We’ve gone over the ins and outs of brand storytelling before, but what we haven’t touched on yet is how your package design affects your brand story and the role it plays in telling that story.

Why packaging design is important?

The Importance of Packaging Design to Your Brand

When it comes to the visual identity of your brand, consistency matters, from your website design and your social media pages to your storefront sign and your business cards. Consistency is what helps to strengthen your brand identity. As such, it’s important that consumers can recognize your brand from the packaging of your products. If the packaging is consistent with your brand, people who are already familiar with your brand will identify it right away. This makes it easier to stand out from the crowd.

Keep in mind that it works the other way as well – those who purchase your product will become familiar with your brand as a result and be able to identify your brand when they see it elsewhere — as long as there is consistency with your branding efforts.

7 Package Design Tips for Creating a Strong Brand

Brand Storytelling Using Your Package Design

Using visual elements of your brand in your package design is important, but there’s more to it than just that. What your product’s packaging ends up looking like on the shelf can tell consumers a lot about your product. For example:

Targeting your audience

When designing the visual elements of brand packaging design, you should take into consideration your target audience. For example, packaging for kid products often uses large, bold typography and a colorful style, while products targeting career-oriented adults may use more elegant typography in a more minimal design.

Conveying an experience

The package design should reflect the experience of your product. For example, an eco-friendly product should probably be packaged using sustainable materials to help build trust in your product. If you’re selling a luxury product, then you should use high-end materials and not cheap packaging. If one of the benefits of your product is convenience, then the package should be easy to use.

Creating an aesthetically pleasing design

Consumers tend to judge books by their covers. When they see that a brand has put effort into creating a visually pleasing package, they will assume that this is reflective of the brand’s effort to create a high-quality product. The real challenge is not only creating a visually pleasing design but one that is unique amongst competing products as well.

Brand packaging design has a huge impact on your brand identity and vice versa. It should help spread awareness of your brand and promise to deliver on your unique value proposition. It should also target your audience and it should speak to the personality of your brand. Your package design shouldn’t just leave a good first impression, it should leave a lasting impression.

Download Our White Paper Guide To Learn How To Perfect Buyer Personas For Your Business

Digital Marketing for Manufacturers

7 Reasons Why Digital Marketing for Manufacturers is Critical to Success

Manufacturers often use traditional marketing to advertise their services and find new customers. Whether it’s TV commercials, direct mail, or even cold calls, traditional marketing can still be effective. However, it’s crucial that you also adopt a digital marketing for Manufacturers Company.

7 Reasons Why Digital Marketing for Manufacturers is Important

The following are seven reasons why digital marketing for manufacturers is so essential:

1. Generate New Leads Over The Long-Term

Digital marketing allows manufacturers to generate new leads over the long term. While traditional marketing efforts help you garner immediate attention, they won’t generate new leads consistently over time. For example, TV commercials won’t have a lasting impact on lead generation. Once they stop running, they’ll stop reaching an audience.

Digital marketing strategies, such as content marketing and search engine optimization (SEO), can help put your business in the position to be found online for years to come.

2. Reach Your Target Audience With Greater Success

One of the limitations of traditional marketing is that you don’t have much control over who your audience is. With digital marketing, you can specifically target your audience in various ways. For example, you can segment your target audience to reach specific types of leads. You can also optimize your content for SEO or using targeted advertising (such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads).

3. Digital Marketing Is Cost-Effective digital marketing

The marketing landscape is constantly changing, making it difficult to know how to budget effectively. While traditional marketing efforts like TV ads or billboards can reach many people at one time, they are also expensive. Digital marketing is more cost-effective because you can target a specific audience and spend less on each impression.

Additionally, digital marketing tactics, such as blogging or SEO optimization, will continue to have a long-term impact. As a result, they will provide a greater return on investment (ROI) over the long run. For example, email marketing has an average ROI of $42 for every $1 spent.

4. It’s Easier To Track And Adjust Digital Marketing Efforts

One of the biggest marketing challenges is knowing if your strategies are working. You can use various analytics tools to monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) with digital marketing. This makes it easier to track the performance of your marketing efforts to determine what channels work and what tactics need to be adjusted.

5. Establish Your Business As A Brand Authority

Digital marketing for manufacturers is beneficial for increasing brand authority. One of the best ways to establish yourself as an authority is by regularly publishing content on subjects related to manufacturing services. Such content can include everything from blog posts to white papers.

As you build up your library of content, Google may recognize you as an authority on the subject.  As a result, people searching for manufacturers online will be more likely to find your company. The reputation you build due to that brand authority will increase brand trust, making it easier to close sales. It will also help you stand out from your competition.

6. Nurture Your Leads In A Pressure-Free Environment

When you create compelling content and invest in SEO, you’ll generate leads without putting pressure on potential customers. Outbound marketing (which includes a lot of traditional marketing strategies) is considered “interruption” marketing. This is because you’re forcing your message on an audience without their permission.

Inbound marketing (including many digital marketing efforts) allows you to attract leads and nurture them without engaging with them right away. Inbound is known as “permission” marketing because your leads are viewing your marketing materials on their own accord. They will engage with you when they are ready.

By not having to pressure your leads into sales, you can spend time building trust, which is more likely to result in a long-term relationship.

Also Read: Inbound VS Outbound Marketing: What’s Better for You?

7. Build Relationships With Existing Customers build relationships

Digital marketing is more effective in building relationships with existing customers. For example, you can use email marketing to keep in touch, whether by sending your customers personalized email content or sending them cross-selling or up-selling opportunities. The ability to stay in touch and continue nurturing existing customers helps build long-term relationships, resulting in steady sales.

If you’re running a manufacturing business, you should strongly consider implementing digital marketing into your overall marketing strategy. Although traditional marketing may still suit you well, there are advantages to digital marketing that traditional marketing can’t offer. In this day and age, to be successful as a manufacturer, your marketing strategy should consist of a mix of traditional and digital marketing efforts.

30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips
professional web design1

The Importance Of Having A Professional Web Design Service For Your Business

It doesn’t matter how big or small your company is, you need a website. If you don’t have a website, you’re without a doubt going to lose out on a lot of potential customers. This is because simply having a website is one of the most effective ways to generate awareness of your business. However, just having a website isn’t enough. You will want to have a professionally designed website to ensure that it’s technically sound, visually appealing, and user-friendly. While you might consider building your website yourself in order to save money, the following are a few reasons why it’s worth investing in a professional web design:

Importance of Professional Website Design Service For Your Business

1. Build A Unique Website

Building a website from the ground up is something few companies have the resources to do, which means that they end up using basic website templates. A professional website design service will be able to customize your website by tailoring it to your specific needs. As a result, you will be able to provide a unique website experience to your visitors that will help your business stand out. Additionally, they will be able to create a consistent aesthetic that accurately reflects your brand, thereby helping to strengthen your branding efforts.

Website Redesign Checklist
New call-to-action

2. Prevent Technical Issues

Professional web design services know what they are doing. They have massive amounts of experience and technical expertise. As such, when they develop websites, they ensure that there are no technical issues that will cause your website to crash or to function poorly. Even minor technical issues, such as slow loading times, can hurt your marketing efforts significantly. A technically sound website reflects positively on your brand as well. Additionally, a professional service can monitor your website for potential issues and address them before they have a big effect on your visitors.

3. Ensure Site Securityprofessional web design 2

Website security is incredibly important. If you’re taking personal information from your visitors, such as their names and email addresses, then you have a responsibility to ensure that this data is secure. If you have an e-commerce page through which customers are providing their credit card information, then this is even more critical. A professional web design service will keep your website secure using all of the latest website security tools and practices, including HTTPS protocol.

4. Optimize Website For SEO

Optimizing your website for SEO (search engine optimization) involves a lot more than just throwing a few keywords in your content. A good website developer understands this and will build a site architecture that supports strong SEO. For example, they will build a site map that makes it easy for Google to crawl through your pages and to index them. Without an effective site map, search engines may miss pages when crawling through your website, which means that they won’t be ranked on their SERP (search engine results page). Additionally, proper keyword use in URLs, effective internal linking, and a lack of technical issues all contribute to good SEO.

Similar Article: 6 Web Design Principals to Increase Conversions

5. Update Your Website

New technology is continually emerging, especially when it comes to websites. A brand new website can become outdated within just a year. A professional web design service can keep your website updated and implement new features that can improve the website experience over time. For example, it wasn’t that long ago that chatbots were first developed and now it’s not uncommon for a website to have one. Trying to add new features to your website on your own can be quite difficult and can cause issues with other parts of your site, which is why it’s best to let a professional do it for you.

6. Save Time

The amount of time that it takes to create a website cannot be overstated. Whether you’re building a website to completion or implementing a growth-driven design, it’s going to require a significant amount of time to do. Not to mention that the website will need to be regularly monitored and updated as well. By letting a professional web design service take care of your website, you will be able to focus your time on growing your core business.

7. Save Money

Many companies attempt to build their websites on their own because they think that they can save money this way; however, they’re more likely to lose money in the long run. Website design requires a lot of different skillsets, which means that you would have to take on more employees. Since running a website is a long-term strategy, these employees would have to be permanent. It’s more affordable to outsource to a professional web design service.

Ultimately, your website is a reflection of your business. If it’s of poor quality or appears unprofessional, potential customers will second guess the quality of your products or services. With that in mind, it’s worth investing in a professional web design.

25 Website Must Haves
lead nurturing

Lead Nurturing During the Buyer’s Journey

Using Lead Nurturing During the Consideration Stage Of The Buyer’s Journey

The consideration stage of your buyer’s journey begins a pivotal series of events for your buyer and your brand. Once your buyer has been made aware of their problem, searched through your content, and become a lead, their true “shopping” experience begins. This is where delivering solutions in an authoritative way will start to differentiate your brand from competitors offering similar products and services.

That differentiation starts with a shift in your marketing towards your potential buyers in the form of lead nurturing: granular, tailored messages focused on the information you’ve gathered through them during the awareness stage. Email marketing and marketing automation are the primary avenues for marketing to your buyers at this point.

What is Lead Nurturing?

Lead Nurturing is a process in marketing and sales to cultivate relationships with potential customers over time. It is providing relevant information to leads at various stages of the buying journey to guide them towards making a purchase decision.

Drip Emails

Drip emails deliver content to your prospective buyers over time. With time being virtually the only factor affecting how and when messages are sent. While customizing in the sense of what content is delivered, it offers very little in the control you have of the content against the information you’ve gathered about you lead over their buying journey.

Drip emails certainly have a place early in the consideration stage for offering further education, keeping your brand present and in front of your potential buyers. They can also be very broad campaigns announcing new products, brand updates, and showcasing the highlights of your company. Drip email marketing and lead generation, however, have a mutual independency on one another for a successful marketing campaign.

Lead Nurturing Campaigns

The goal of lead nurturing as part of your buyer’s consideration process is to deliver the right information at critical points in their journey through your content. The beauty of marketing automation is that you can build the campaigns tailored to your buyer personas and design those automation steps to deliver perfectly timed content.

Through marketing automation, lead generation collects data about your buyer’s behavior and helps guide them through the buying process. The actions your buyers take on your website will trigger certain actions on behalf of your lead nurturing campaign. Attending a webinar, downloading a certain piece of content, or visiting a page a certain number of times can trigger an email.

While drip emails can be effective at points during the consideration stage and certainly keep your brand at the front of your audiences, lead nurturing campaigns are a “smarter” way to go. Lead nurturing is smart in the sense that it leverages the information your inbound marketing software collects about your leads and uses it to tailor the right content to your leads.

Drive Website Conversions Throughout the Buyer’s Journey

Re-marketing

As you probably know, marketing doesn’t necessarily always go according to plan. Sometimes a marketing qualified lead (MQL) who has already dug deep into your content, fallen into a workflow, and even triggered actions based on your lead nurturing campaigns goes cold. This is where some clever re-marketing coupled with lead nurturing can rejuvenate those once-promising leads.

Re-marketing is a multifaceted and very versatile way to bring leads back into your lead nurturing campaigns. We say multifaceted, because various avenues can be used to reinvigorate your buyer’s interest including paid social media promotions, smart CTAs, and smart lists as part of your lead nurturing. While re-marketing may seem like a last resort in your buyer’s journey it’s actually an integral part of how you keep your brand relevant to prospective buyers especially those who may have slipped through the cracks.

Core Difference Between Buyer Journey vs. Customer Journey

The Marriage of Sales and Marketing

No matter what degree of marketing your brand engages in, marketing without sales will not meet the results your company is seeking: ROI. In the inbound world, we call this “smarketing”, and it’s that partnership between your sales force and marketing department that ultimately tips a buyer in your direction. As we have moved down the funnel, hopefully you’ve seen how vital integrating sales with your marketing practices truly is.

Both the consideration stage and decision making stage of your buyer’s journey rely on that smarketing relationship and the symbiosis therein helps make that transition from a simple lead to a sales qualified lead more fluid. In our next article, we’ll discuss how the personal touch from your sales team can help your sales qualified leads turn into actual sales.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

real estate marketing

Six Types Of Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas For Homebuilders

There is a good reason why YouTube has become the second biggest search engine – digital video is the new home of action for marketers. Through real estate video marketing tips, homebuilders and other real estate professionals have discovered an easy way to engage with the audience and increase conversion rates online. You can use videos for every marketing effort for your property, from neighborhood guides to virtual tours.

As a homebuilder, there are several types of videos you can use in your real estate video marketing strategy. Here are some few essential ones you should consider.

6 Real Estate Video Marketing Ideas For Homebuilders

Listing videos

Listing videos have become the go-to videos in real estate marketing. Showing off all the properties that you are selling in an engaging video is a great way to impress new leads that are just learning about your offers. Additionally, you will grab the attention of prospects in the middle of your sales funnel who are considering picking a unit from you. Fortunately, recent technology has enabled the creation of videos that showcase the units without embedding slideshows in the sidebar.

Interview videos

Buyers who have purchased from you in the past, sales teams that have sold your units, and other professionals in the real estate arena can make suitable candidates for your interview videos. The key to making highly effective interview videos is to ensure that all your interviewees provide information that is relevant to your target audience.

Live question and answer sessions

You can hold periodic Q&A sessions with your followers on social media, as well as prospects from your email marketing lists. They can send their questions through online chats, and you can answer them through live sessions. You can also use past webinars as bait to attract more people to register for your live sessions.

Home buyer advice videos

You can also have short videos where you explain different ways that homebuyers can save when purchasing their next home. Some ideas for video topics include ways to determine a good mortgage provider, how to researching a neighborhood, and how to get the best deals. You can intertwine your message, or ways you offer solutions to buyers as a homebuilder, with your sales promotion

Special offer videos

Special offers are used as a means of getting people to take action, such as register for your email marketing or free consultation on a number of home buying issues. Incentives that special offer videos may include are a chance to buy a home at a discounted offer or an additional fixture for the winning home buyer. Also, be sure to include a call-to-action in your videos to generate leads.

Neighborhood videos

Every buyer is concerned with the neighborhood’s access to amenities, infrastructure, and security among, other things. As a result, neighborhood videos provide a preview of these factors by visually taking the audience around the neighborhood.

New construction model video tours

It is helpful to show your potential clients model video tours of the units being built. The model tours show the floor plans, expected roofing, and other fixtures that will be in the home. The potential client will not have to leave his or her desk to obtain detailed information about the house being constructed.

Virtual house tours

Virtual house tours are simulations of a house that showcase the features, spaces, and fittings of the house. It is much like having an open house on the Internet. Potential clients are able to go through every detail of the house like they are moving from room to room. Virtual tours makes it easy for you to reach as many people as possible and create a high engagement with prospects without requiring them to come view the house.

Real estate video marketing is the new medium through which to capture leads and engage customers. You should strongly consider having video marketing as part your marketing plan.

Ready to learn more about real estate marketing? Check out this article here.

Inbound marketing will help you grow your business by attracting website visitors, converting them into leads and closing leads into customers

Organic Growth Business1

7 Organic Growth Business Strategies You Should Adopt

Every company’s goal is to succeed and in order to succeed, it has to grow. A business that doesn’t grow won’t succeed in the long run. There are two ways that your business can grow: organically and inorganically. Inorganic growth is driven by capital; for example, via a merger or acquisition. Organic growth is driven by the resources your company already has, such as your experience, relationships, knowledge, visibility, reputation, and more. For example, expanding the amount of business you do with existing customers or obtaining new customers are forms of organic growth.

As you can imagine, organic growth is essential to your company, especially if you’re in the starting stages of your business. However, there is no right path to achieve organic growth. In fact, you can follow more than one path to achieve organic growth. With that in mind, the following are a few organic business growth strategies that you should consider adopting:

7 Organic Growth Business Strategies

1. Define Your Company’s Niche

When you define a niche, it will make it easier to meet the needs of a specific audience. Not to mention, your competition will be a lot smaller. Cornering that niche can help you increase your market share and drive growth to the point where you can expand your products and services beyond that niche when the time comes.

2. Establish Your Unique Value Proposition

MAXIMIZING YOUR MARKETING BUDGET

Whether or not you’ve defined a niche, you need to have a unique value proposition. This is what will help you stand out from your competitors. Without a unique value proposition, your products or services will seem generic and customers will be more likely to choose similar products and services from competitors who do have a unique value proposition. When you have a unique value proposition, your market share will most likely begin growing at a steady pace as a result of being able to offer something your competition can’t offer.

3. Don’t Ignore Existing Customers

Your existing customers are an invaluable source of organic growth. Many businesses make the mistake of focusing too much on obtaining new customers to the detriment of keeping their old customers. Don’t just assume that because they are customers that they will continue to purchase your products and services. You need to continue to foster the customer relationships you’ve built. Doing so will help reduce customer churn and build trust and loyalty. This will help to ensure that they not only continue doing business with you, but that they expand the amount of business that they do with you over time.

Enjoy Article: Micro Moments: A New Consumer Behavior in Marketing

4. Focus More On Relationships Than Sales

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is to focus on the sale. Focusing on a sale is a short-term view. Instead, focus on building a relationship with your prospects so that once they do make the purchase, you have a relationship in place that you can continue to foster throughout the future. If you focus too much on the sale, you may also lose prospects due to the fact that you were focused too much on your business instead of their needs.

5. Optimize Your Website For SEO Organic Growth Business2

SEO (search engine optimization) is an inbound marketing strategy that will help drive long-term organic growth. When your website is properly optimized for SEO, your pages will be more likely to be indexed by Google and ranked highly (as long as the quality of the content is good). As a result, your pages will appear higher up on Google’s SERP (search engine results page). People who search for the terms you’ve used as keywords when optimizing your website will see your website displayed.

Keeping your site properly optimized will, as a direct result, help to drive organic growth over time. Proper SEO requires a technically sound website, positive social signals, high-quality backlinks, and the use of relevant and competitive keywords, to name a few ranking factors.

6. Develop A Content Marketing Strategy

Your SEO strategy won’t do you much good with content to optimize. Additionally, Google’s ranking factors are all meant to help identify the quality of a webpage’s content. As such, your content marketing strategy needs to revolve around regularly producing high-quality content that’s relevant to your audience and that’s properly optimized for SEO. Part of your content marketing strategy should also focus on the promotion of new content.

7. Establish SMART Goals

You will want to monitor organic growth so that you can make adjustments that help to enable and enhance it. To do this, you will need to establish SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely) goals to help you monitor and analyze your marketing and sales efforts.

These are 7 organic business growth strategies that you should consider adopting. By implementing these organic growth strategies, you will help to drive the organic growth of your business over time.