Now is the time when, among tons of other business and personal decisions (do I just take a room at the local fitness center?), we must decide on the best strategies and tools to generate leads and grow our businesses in the New Year.
And by best of course we mean: what is the cheapest, fastest and most successful way to keep new leads coming in to meet our sales and revenue goals?
Hum, cheapest and fastest and most successful… How happy are you with traditional direct (postal) mail programs, email newsletters and traditional web site lead generation results? Maybe these types of programs are working for you and you can stay on the same path for 08. If not, you may need to invest more time to find marketing tools that work for you.
If you are ready to try something new, and invest time on your marketing, here my top 5 recommendations for a new small business marketing and lead generation program.
1. Increase the number of two-way conversations you have with prospects and customers. Okay, this is a thinly-veiled attempt to talk you into blogging for your business. I think one of my favorite company bloggers CB Whittemore her blog Flooring the Consumer here says it best, “”I blog to get the word out about topics that matter to our industry and marketplace as quickly as possible to demonstrate that our brand is paying attention to the issues that matter; to digitally capture reference materials and ideas that add value to our customers; to better appreciate how social media works [and figure out how to apply it elsewhere].”
Use your company blog to talk about how to solve problems using your products and services. Share your knowledge and expertise. Establish yourself and your company as a thought leader.
The two way conversation comes in when visitors to your blog post their opinions and ask you questions. There’s not a direct mail piece anywhere that does that. If your competition is not blogging–get started today! Also, search engines love blogs. They are updated frequently.
2. Make it easier for buyers to find you on the Internet. Get your company’s content out there. Publish news releases that explain how customers solve problems using your products/services often. Write and publish lots of them. Be sure to use the same keywords in each news release that your customers use when describing their problem. Add additional how-to information and turn your news releases into expert articles. Find Web sites that publish free articles and publish them there.
3. Build and launch a word of mouth marketing program. Identify your raving fan customers (evangelists) and ask them how to make it easier for them to spread the word about your company. Customers are talking about your company. Word of mouth is a cost-effective marketing method. If you enlist your evangelist fans to help extend your marketing programs, you could save time and expense. Countless surveys show that buyers trust “someone like me” when making choices. Make sure the raving fans of your company have a forum to spread the word about how your products help improve their jobs and their lives.
4. Increase the number of the right people on your own prospect list. The best list any business can have for any marketing purpose is the one you build yourself. Dust off the old contacts database and purge out contacts that do not fit. Make sure to add in all new contacts.
5. Create a social media marketing strategy. Ask 12 of your most loyal customers what type of web site interaction they would like to have with your company. Would they like a message board? A blog? What are their favorite social media sites (online communities) that they rely on when they need information in your market space, to solve a problem or make a decision? Is it Facebook? LinkedIn? If so, make sure your company is represented on those sites with good quality content.
Social media marketing and these other recommendation are just new methods to accomplish an old business goal: establishing and nourishing customer relationships. They all take what it has always taken to be successful in business. Time.
Here’s to a successful New Marketing Year. Cheers!
Cynthia, I’m honored to be included in your list of top tips to grow one’s business in 2008! Thank you. I particularly like tips #2 and #5. Very powerful to actually ASK your constituents what they want. Again, thanks and Happy 2008!
What if you combined your suggestion #3 with #5?
That’s what YouGottaCall.com offers to small businesses – a patent pending approach for rewarding word of mouth referrals within a social network.
We entered beta this week!