Archives for March 2017

10 Underrated Ways to Generate Leads on Your Website

March 30, 2017 by Dai Carillo Leave a Comment

Lead Generation Tips — Photo credit: Tax Credits via Foter.com / CC BY

Simple but powerful.

We often hear this phrase to describe something that may not be grand in appearance, mode, or fashion but makes a strong impact just the same.

Similarly, when it comes to lead generation, many newbie (even experienced) digital marketers overlook the simplest and most effective ways to generate leads through their website.

In this article, we identify what these are and give you pointers on how to best execute them.

Blog Subscription and Email Marketing

Through blog subscriptions and email marketing, you can continuously nurture your leads until they are ready to buy your product. Here are some tips to keep in mind:

Provide great content, or to be more specific, provide relevant, updated content that offers solutions and answers to your target audience’s questions and problems.
Make the blog subscription form available on every blog page and even on your home page.
Make sure you include good keywords that complement your content so that search engines will index your site’s pages each time users search for those keywords or terms.
Send a short email to your list of leads, informing them about current blog posts on your site that might be of particular interest to them.

BONUS TIP: Respond to questions on Quora using your Quora profile, and link the discussion on the said platform to relevant posts on your site.

Content Offers

Content is always a valuable marketing tool, and you can’t go wrong with offering your leads access to e-books, free consultations, product trials, podcasts, webinars, or online discussions in exchange of their contact details. Make sure to associate them with the right content or page on your site.

DID YOU KNOW? Podcasts represent roughly 2% of the total time that Americans spend on audio-based media, giving TV and music platforms some good competition when it comes to attracting leads and potential customers.

Pop-ups, Footers, Headers

These underrated tools should be used in conjunction with #2. It pays to make them as unobtrusive as possible so that you won’t annoy the visitors to your site. To make the most out of these, make them attractive enough to increase your opt-in rates and at the same time, offer the courtesy of easy exit for visitors who may not be very willing to sign up for your offer.
Use these page elements to ask potential customers for their emails in exchange for an exciting offer such as a free gift, but make sure not to overdo it.

Contests

If you are a business to consumer or B2C Company, well-planned and well-executed contests can give you leads and increase brand awareness, eventually translating into sales.

You could promote a contest on social sites then lead them back to your site without shelling out millions of money. Instead, you could offer gift cards for your brand’s products or an actual product as a giveaway.

Must Do: Use a like-gate or email-gate approach so that you could have access to your followers’ profile.

Chat

Adding a live chat feature on your site can increase your conversion rates more easily because of the immediate, real-time response that prospects get from your site, whether their concerns pertain to your customer service policies or marketing initiatives.

You can easily add a chat service on your site especially since a host of third-party service providers allows for the integration of this service into company websites. Some provider even offer chat support so you can have a real person available to answer the queries of site visitors 24/7.

Caveat: If you will use chatbots or programs that interact with online users through a chat interface, be careful not to overuse customized, pesky messages for your lead-generation campaigns.

6. Contact Page

This is supposed to be basic, but a lot of websites tend to miss the importance of having complete contact points with potential customers.

Aside from having a contact form, make sure to include your office contact number and office email. You’ll never know when your contact form will have issues.

Make sure that your generic email is also connected or redirected to the personal emails of some of the employees, so no one will ever forget to check the new messages.

7. Social Sharing

There’s no doubt that social media is the go-to platform for today’s highly mobile people. So, turn your readers into brand evangelists by making sure that your content is shareable on social including your content offers.

Don’t forget to add share-on-social buttons on your posts as well. The goal is to have their friends follow you, who can become your next lead.

BONUS TIPS: Make sure to leverage specific sites like LinkedIn, which is touted as the best platform among social sites for lead generation. You could also tweet your promotions as often as possible to reach roughly 12% of Twitter users who, according to a study, are likely to convert with promoted tweets.

Trust Seals, Partnerships, Awards

Some seals, certifications, memberships, or partnerships cost a lot of money. Make sure that the seal that you add really raises the credibility of your site/product/service.

How to achieve credibility?

Choose those that come with a guarantee as to what consumers will get from purchasing your offers such as quality assurance or lowest price guarantee.
Partner with well-known brands to encourage or impress your leads.
Proudly name and share your awards as a badge on your homepage.

CTAs and Landing Pages

Create and test CTAs and landing pages. Make sure your CTAs are clear and that your landing pages describe what was exactly promised.

Ideally, each landing page on your site should be limited to a single CTA banner not to confuse your readers or visitors.

How to test CTAs: One way is to employ the squint test. This is where you step back from your computer and look at your CTA on the screen with your eyes partially closed. The idea is that the most important focus, element, or text should not be distorted so that it is easily and clearly seen by the person viewing it.

10. SEO

Your audience has to find you first when they make a search on Google before you can convert them. To increase your chances of being found, you could try the following:

Use keywords (e.g. URL keywords and news keywords) well, but avoid overstuffing your content with them.
Subscribe to SEO plugins to help you optimize and analyze your content’s functionality.
Mimic your keywords in your blog images by describing the photo used with the same set of keywords.
Be generous with internal links on your posts.
Choose your tags carefully by using the best umbrella term to cover all others falling under that same category.

Bottom Line: Your website can be a potent, convenient, and cost-effective tool, so it makes perfect sense that you maximize your lead generation strategies with these best practices and test each one of them.

As you determine the most ideal for your brand, be consistent and relentless in implementing them. All these can be mighty helpful in increasing your site traffic, sourcing for leads, and eventually, converting sales leads.

Guest Post by: Dianne Carillo

Dianne Carillo is the Marketing Communications and Brand Manager at PureB2B, a lead generation company that helps accelerate on business solutions and technology sales processes.

Dianne loves reading, and especially knowledgeable in both sales and lead generation techniques and trends.

Who’s Baby Is It?

March 23, 2017 by Mike McRitchie Leave a Comment

Baby Consulting Productivity Email — Photo via Foter.com

Photo via Foter.com

I was listening to a podcast the other day and the interviewee was talking about consulting and an interesting conceptual framework that just made sense to me.

The story went like this.

Imagine you have a baby. And I’m your babysitter.

Is the baby my baby? Or your baby?

Of course it’s yours.

Now imagine I’m babysitting your baby and your baby gets sick. And I have to take it to the doctor.

Is it my baby or your baby?

It’s still your baby.

Just because I’m taking care of your baby doesn’t mean the baby is mine. It is still yours.

The same concept applies to a consultant.

If you’re helping a sick business turn itself around. The CEO and management team are still in charge of the results of that company.

It is theirs.

Just because the consultant is helping with advice, direction, and maybe helping out in specific areas, that doesn’t make it the consultant’s company.

The consultant is still just the consultant.

The key point the consultant on the podcast was making is he gets the CEO involved and makes sure the buck stops with the CEO.

Any issues that need to be resolved, the CEO owns. Not the consultant. The consultant is just an adviser to help the CEO.

The issue was when CEO’s wash their hands of things and don’t support the consultant. Then blame the consultant when the results don’t come.

They’ve basically thrown the baby out with the bathwater. They’ve assumed they can hand off responsibility for their business to the consultant.

It just doesn’t work that way.

And so it is whether you’re a CEO or an employee at a lower level on the food chain.

You need to own your shit. But they need own theirs too.

Don’t let them dump their responsibilities on you and then blame you for not delivering.

This is often easier said than done with managers and coworkers often dropping their issues on your plate.

You can’t always avoid taking on their troubles. But often you can help without just adding it to your workload.

Here’s some questions to ask.

“How would you approach it?”

Rather than solving their problem for them, get them into the habit of solving their own problem first. Or at least pre-thinking several solutions and then getting your opinion on the final direction or option they are thinking is right.

By helping them think better, they’ll grow their skills and not need you to make as many decisions for them. This is especially important for new managers as they often are great doers but struggle with getting things done through others.

“What do you need from me and when do you need it?”

Being specific on the ask when someone needs your help is important too. How many times have you had something dropped in your lap only to deliver what you thought was needed or was working on it when the originator of the task shoots you a nastygram email about you dropping the ball.

What happened is you thought they wanted something else or that it wasn’t as urgent as they thought it was.

A communication disconnect.

Don’t let that happen. Ask a few follow up questions. And also that way you’ll know in advance what you’re getting yourself into and if it isn’t an appropriate use of your time you can address it then.

“Do I need to get these emails?”

Email is a Hell people often get mired in. Asking yourself if you need to be included on an email is often critical to cutting down incoming email messages and reclaiming your time to focus on more important tasks.

Emails tend to be something that ever expands. The only way to reduce it is to take an active role. Yes, you can create autoforward rules to move them to a folder you won’t see. But that doesn’t really address the problem.

Go through your inbox and note down which email subjects don’t really need your involvement or awareness. Then email the originator and tell them you don’t need to be included on future emails of that specific type.

Doing this once a quarter is like spring cleaning for your office life. It is amazing how good it feels to chop 100 messages a day down to 50.

So who’s baby is it? Make sure you know.

Looking for other ways to get more done in a day? Check out these 74 productivity tips to get more from your day.

Tax Day Is Almost Here…Why Overpay? [Income Tax Strategies]

March 16, 2017 by Mike McRitchie 2 Comments

Photo credit: 401(K) 2013 via Foter.com / CC BY-SA

Tax Season is in full swing.

Are you prepared?

Or are you pulling out your hair trying to find where you left that shoebox of receipts?

Want to make sure you’re not missing anything? Start with the source. The IRS has a one-stop shop for managing your business taxes. Check out this guide.

[PDF]Publication 334, Tax Guide for Small Business – IRS.gov

Okay, so you’ve taken all the usual deductions. But maybe there are others you’re missing. Here’s some sources to pick up some unusual deductions that you might not have thought of.

Not So Obvious Small Business Tax Deductions You Could Be Missing

Top 20 Tax Deductions for Small Business

Top 10 Tax Deductions You’re NOT Taking

Now this time of year may not be the time to start your tax planning. Decisions you make throughout the year often have much more impact than end of year, last-minute actions. But as you prepare for next year there might be a few ideas that uncover actions you did take that you might have forgotten. Here’s some tips to deliver a better tax plan for next year and possibly capture more tax savings now as well.

Capture It!

If you didn’t track it or save records, you may be leaving a lot of money on the table. That is where credit cards (or debit cards with similar features) can help you out. Throughout the year capturing those expenses and categorizing them, so you can find them at year end, will ensure you don’t miss anything.

It doesn’t matter as much which system you use. Just use something that you’ll follow through with to ensure the data is at your fingertips when tax time rolls around.

For those of you who are just starting out with a side hustle, you can use personal finance sites like Mint to track and categorize your transactions and easily sync with your credit card and bank accounts. So you get all your expenses in one place. Making both budgeting and tax season a little simpler. And when tax time rolls around just export those transactions. Each year I export my transactions as a .csv file and then group and filter those transactions by category…making capturing all those tax deductions a simple process.

Have a more established business? Using QuickBooks to track your business financials? Like Mint, you can similarly get to the key tax transactions that helps you avoid missing any key expenses you could be deducting.

Get A Second Set Of Eyes On It

People who are starting a new business and have recently come from an employee environment often don’t think like seasoned entrepreneurs do about taxes. Many times something you enjoy that you might have just spent money on as a hobby or for fun might have a business use. Whether that is attending business related seminars, or business travel, or everyday items that are used in your business.

People get so used to not having things deductible, they often unknowingly leave quite a bit of money on the table.

Not aware of what some of those items are? Check with an accountant or use some of the resources in tax software. I’ve used TurboTax for years and find that its prompts often make it easier to avoid missing something. However, if you have really complicated taxes then it might make sense to have a tax professional review them.

Bonus Points

So you identified all your deductions. But after doing your taxes you find you are still going to owe some money to the IRS. What to do?

You are in an age where a virtual cornucopia of opportunity surrounds you. This is the era of the side hustle. So short a few dollars Or a lot?

Take the bull by the horns and go after some last minute income so you’re not left short.

Drive for Uber or Lyft. Do some part time consulting in an area you have expertise. Tutor someone. Help a friend out who owns a business and needs extra weekend help to knock out some extra jobs that they can’t accomplish on their own. Buy and resell products on eBay or Amazon.

Opportunities abound. So don’t let tax time get you down.

7 Handy Branding Tips For Entrepreneurs

March 9, 2017 by Guest Post Leave a Comment

Photo credit: StockMonkeys.com via Foter.com / CC BY

7 Handy Branding Tips For Entrepreneurs

Establishing a new brand to the point where it becomes even relatively well-known is hard work. It takes time, effort, consistency and planning. If you’re just starting out, don’t make the mistake of putting all your concentration into stuff like sales targets, market research and logistics, thinking you’ll figure out how to build your brand later on. You should be thinking about your branding story and strategy, as well as ways to boost brand awareness, right from the start. Here are 7 essential and handy branding tips every entrepreneur can benefit from:

Choose a memorable name

A name can make or break a new business, no matter how great the concept. Your brand begins with, and should be summed up by, its name. Choose something memorable, catchy and totally in tune with your brand’s core values. (Ensure you know what those values are before you begin.) Be unique. Research name ideas to avoid potential legal trouble. Make sure matching URLs are available. If you’re a little stuck, don’t be afraid to reach out to others for their ideas and opinions. Consider getting hundreds of name suggestions submitted by professionals for as little as $200 by running a Squadhelp naming contest.

Come up with an effective slogan

Just like a name, a slogan (or tagline) should never be an afterthought when kick-starting your brand. A slogan should be emotive and short – aim for five words or less. Your slogan could convey your brand’s attitude – think Nike, and “Just do it”, or it could describe what you do, e.g. Nokia’s “Connecting people”. Remember, the shorter your slogan, the easier it is for consumers to recall and retain. Aim for precision and punch when coming up with a slogan. Squadhelp helps small business owners to choose great slogans. Run a contest, and get hundreds of professionals submissions within 24 hours.

Don’t forget an effective logo

Not only should your logo be an appropriate visual reflection of your brand, it must be truly original in design, and, just like your brand name and slogan, it should be as memorable and uncomplicated as possible. Squadhelp can help with logo design, too.

Build an effective online presence

We live in a “social” world and you must engage with it. Right from the start, devote some time and attention to building profiles on the social networks most appropriate to your brand. These could include LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Don’t wait until your business reaches a certain stage before starting to build an online platform from which you can engage with current and potential customers. Post regularly, and be relevant. Let the personality of your brand shine through. Remember to build an email list. Ideally, aid brand awareness by providing information and insights consumers in your sector will find useful, either on your own blog, or by utilizing guest blogging posts.

Don’t try to be everything to everyone

We all know you can’t please everyone, all of the time. Keep this in mind as you work to develop your brand. If you try to appeal to everyone on the planet, you’re bound to end up with a watered-down, boring brand personality. Don’t be afraid to be yourself. Look to be the best brand you can be to a specific audience of target consumers.

Get leverage via other brands

Connecting with other brands is a great way to help build brand awareness. Leveraging yourself off of other, stronger brands gives you credibility via your association with that brand, helping to build your brand equity. Think event sponsorship, brand ambassadors, or endorsements from clients who are themselves more well-known and trusted as brands than you are.

Get creative

You may think building your brand will end up costing a ton of money in advertising or agency fees. And it can. But you can also get creative and come up with less costly, and often more effective ways to spread the good news of your brand all by yourself. You could set up a referral program for instance, that gives existing customers a perk in exchange for referring a friend. You could host an informative podcast. You might want to wrap your vehicle with ads. Or consider running a competition on social media.

Dan Taylor is responsible for content marketing and branding at Squadhelp.com, a crowdsourcing platform that lets companies host competitions to find a name and logo. He writes about topics related to startup naming, branding and entrepreneurship.

Employee-preneurship – Taking the Side Hustle Concept to your Day Job

March 2, 2017 by Mike McRitchie Leave a Comment

Photo credit: brighter than sunshine via Foter.com / CC BY-NC

Our world is in a state of turmoil.

Change is the new normal.

Jobs are not secure.

But the educational system, government and big media keep selling kids a lie that you get a college degree and you’ll get a good job.

They sell this cool concept. And everyone of them (educational system, government, and media) support this big lie.

And so like lemmings, kids are churned through overpriced college indoctrination systems. And when they get out – whether with a college degree or without one – they’re given a blank slate to figure out the rest of their career and life with.

That really sucks.

And does it really make sense?

To spend tens, and in some cases hundreds, of thousands of dollars. Get deep into debt. And come out the other side with no job (or one that pays the same as they could have gotten had they taken the four to six years of college and done something else with it).

So that where you are today.

You have a job.

You may have developed a career. And like most people you are finding your paycheck shrinks year after year.

You may get regular raises (2-4% per year) or not (not every business gives annual raises).

You may have been subject to layoffs or reorganizations where you’re now doing the work of two or three people.

You want to know how to get ahead in this chaotic world we live in. But how?

Well maybe you’re not cut out for starting your own business. You don’t want the unpredictability of a business where if you don’t sell you don’t eat.

And maybe the Uber lifestyle isn’t for you. You’re not quite ready to spend another 10-20 hours a week developing a side hustle business.

You’re an employee and want to stay one. So you can have more of a personal life than running a full time business or freelance gig would offer.

So does that mean you’re destined to working day in and day out in the company coal mine with no hope of getting ahead and having a better life and more options and opportunities for you and your family?

NOOOOO!

There is another way.

A way for you to survive and thrive within the system.

No, you’re not likely to get “hit the lottery” strike it rich kind of results.

But you can find fun, fulfillment, and moving yourself into the top tier of employees in your job category.

And trust me, the joy and sense of control over your destiny that comes with that is worth the effort.

And if you do find your company hits hard times, when employee layoffs happen you’ll find yourself at the top of the “must keep” mental checklist management is using to make tough decisions.

And if you do want to make your own move and find a new organization to support you, the relationships you’ve developed, the results you’ve created, and the confidence and skill you’ve gained will help you rise to the top of any competitive interview situation.

So how do you do it?

Employee-preneurship.

Let’s walk through the steps together.

Step 1: Be someone they can count on.

It all starts with being a reliable and effective contributor to the company. You can’t be viewed in a positive light if you don’t consistently deliver when asked.

Whether you’re working project work or just doing the daily work that needs to get done.

If you don’t get it done it falls on someone else’s plate. Or their work gets backlogged by yours. Not a good situation to be in if you’re trying to boost your personal brand with your coworkers and boss.

So get it done. Do it on time.

Step 2: Share your struggles and your results.

Everyone likes to commiserate. Misery loves company. And struggling against a common enemy (a frustrating client, an employee you don’t like, an annoying boss, an underperforming vendor) binds people together like superglue.

But like superglue, you must use it sparingly.

Being seen as a Negative Nelly won’t get you ahead and will keep you buried in the world of the under-performers.

You need the second part of this which is share your results.

If you want to get ahead it isn’t enough just to do the work well and assume you’ll get noticed. True people often do notice and you will get opportunities that way.

But you can add rocket fuel to the situation if you do effectively communicate your successes. And sharing some of the secret sauce of how you did it can go a long way towards building your personal brand.

Don’t do it in a bragging kind of way.

Just segue into it as conversations naturally turn to where you can drop in a comment or tell a story.

Step 3: Give away the credit.

Nothing will undermine your future success more than taking public credit for something that someone else created. If you’re a manager, when you have great results from your team, compliment or call out one of the team members who made something happen that was critical for the success of the venture.

People remember and support those who can get their ego out of the way and build up others. As you get into management you realize that all major successes come through others.

My biggest role typically is that of amateur therapist and cheerleader.

As you get bigger and bigger roles or projects to contribute to you’ll find your influence increases and your stature in the company become larger as others support your grand visions.

Step 4: Volunteer.

If you’re expecting to get paid to do the next job up before you get it, you’ll find you’ll never get there.

People hate risk.

And managers are no different.

Put yourself in their shoes.

Would you promote someone who never has shown they have the skills to deliver in the role?

Or would you promote the person who has already done all the elements of the role?

It’s a no-brainer, right?

So why would you think your situation is any different?

If they can’t see you being successful in the role then you’re not likely to get there. You’ll be passed over for that promotion year after year. And then you’ll find yourself discouraged and doing even less to justify you’re right for the job.

And if there are special projects coming up? Situations that create visibility that you just won’t get in your day-to-day job. Will you be offered them if you’re not showing you can handle them?

Probably not.

It starts with you.

Begin with small opportunities. They’re all around you.

Whether it is helping a coworker with something.

Contributing your expertise, knowledge or energy.

Maybe it is offering to work a few hours of overtime or work over the weekend to help deliver some critical commitment to a client.

And as you get your results-oriented muscles moving it will start coming easier.

And you’ll start seeing more opportunities to contribute.

And others will bring you increasingly challenging opportunities to make a difference.

And you’ll find you’re enjoying coming to work more.

And your annual reviews will start to look better.

And raises and bonuses and promotions will start to happen more frequently.

As you find yourself growing into a full-fledged “Employee-preneur”.

So go take the first step…