Mittelstand lässt Daten-Gold liegen - Small and medium-sized companies leave data gold

Mittelstand lässt Daten-Gold liegen - Small and medium-sized companies leave data gold

   April 18, 2018       prabhakardalvi

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Note : Any blog OR content suggestion you have , please mail me on prabhakara.dalvi@gmail.com

Daten sind das Gold des 21. Jahrhunderts. Deutsche Mittelständler allerdings lassen dieses Gold größtenteils liegen. Das zeigt eine in Frankfurt veröffentlichte neue Studie.

Großkonzerne wie Google, Amazon, Facebook und Co. können ein einstimmiges Lied singen. Es trägt den Titel: Daten sind das Gold des 21. Jahrhunderts. Deutschen Mittelständlern dagegen fällt es bislang schwer, in den Chor einzustimmen. Das zeigt eine Studie, die die Commerzbank unter Schirmherrschaft des Bundesverbandes Groß- und Außenhandel durchgeführt hat.

Banker: Mittelstand könnte Anschluss verlieren

Zum einen nämlich stellen fast alle befragten Unternehmen fest, dass das Thema Big Data, also das massenhafte Sammeln und Auswerten von Daten, immens wichtig ist - und in Zukunft noch an Bedeutung gewinnen wird. Auf der anderen Seite ist es aber nur ein Bruchteil von unter zehn Prozent der Unternehmen, die Daten systematisch erfassen, analysieren und Nutzen daraus ziehen.

Das Potenzial macht der Präsident des Bundesverbandes Groß- und Außenhandel, Holger Bingmann, an einem Beispiel deutlich: "Amazon hatte beispielsweise Gelb als Modefarbe ausrufen können. Dazu hat der Online-Händler einfach sein Wissen über die Kaufgewohnheiten und Vorlieben seiner Kunden genutzt und konnte dann zu einer solchen Schlussfolgerung kommen."

Demgegenüber scheuen sich deutsche mittelständische Unternehmen offenbar, Daten systematisch in ihre Geschäftsprozesse einzubinden. Die Zurückhaltung hat mehrere Gründe: Datenschutzprobleme, Fachkräftemangel oder auch eine zu geringe Bereitschaft von Führungskräften im Unternehmen, sich auf die neuen digitalen Datenabenteuer einzulassen. "Viele Unternehmen haben kein Erkenntnisproblem, sondern insbesondere auf Grund von internen Strukturen sind sie noch nicht bereit für das riesige Potenzial von Big Data", kommentierte Michael Reuther die Studie. Er ist im Vorstand der Commerzbank zuständig für das Firmenkundengeschäft. Es brauche einen Weckruf, damit der Mittelstand international beim Thema Datennutzung nicht den Anschluss verliere.

Fachkräftemange als Hindernis

Befragt hat die Commerzbank für die Studie gut 2.000 Unternehmen aus dem deutschen Mittelstand ab einer Größe von 2,5 Millionen Euro Umsatz pro Jahr. Mehr als die Hälfte der Manager in den Unternehmen gab an, mit Besorgnis auf die Monopolstellung der großen US-Technologieriesen zu schauen. Ein Drittel sagte, von den Vorreitern der digitalen Welt Anregungen und Impulse zu kriegen. Ein Beispiel für einen solchen Impuls: Wenn ein Markisenhersteller beispielsweise Daten über die elektronische Steuerung des Sonnenschutzes sammelt, verfügt er über eine ganze Menge Daten. In diesem Fall sehr präzise regionale Daten über den Stand der Sonneneinstrahlung. Er muss sie nur erheben, sichern - und dann zu nutzen wissen.

Ideen in die Tat umzusetzen allerdings - das könnte an einem weiteren Knackpunkt scheitern, den die Studie offen gelegt hat: Dem Fachkräftemangel. Um das Daten-Gold in unternehmerischen Erfolg umzumünzen, braucht es gut ausgebildete Daten-Analysten und IT-Spezialisten. "Dazu fehlen uns in Deutschland in ausreichender Zahl Fachleute und entsprechende Ausbildungs- und Studiengänge", meint Holger Bingmann. 40 Prozent der befragten Unternehmen geben an, wegen Mangel an qualifiziertem Personal sich dem Thema Big Data nur zögerlich anzunehmen.

Unternehmen können Nischen besetzen

Eine weitere Hürde in den Unternehmen ist die Angst vor Cyberangriffen. Fast 40 Prozent der Unternehmen geben an, schon mindestens einmal Opfer von Betrugsversuchen in der digitalen Welt geworden zu sein. Dazu zählen direkte Hackerangriffe ebenso, wie Schaden in der Firmeneigenen IT durch eingeschleuste Viren oder Trojaner. Die Sorge aber vor Hackerangriffen - bei denen meist die wertvollen Daten das Ziel der Angreifer sind - ist mit fast 80 Prozent am weitesten verbreitet.

Barrieren abbauen und sich dem Thema annehmen, um nicht den Anschluss zu verlieren, lautet einer der Folgerungen aus den Ergebnissen der Studie. "Natürlich haben Unternehmen wie Amazon einen uneinholbaren Vorsprung", sagt Bingmann. "Aber es gibt viele Nischen, die deutsche Unternehmen erfolgreich besetzen könnten. Dazu brauchen wir etwas Mut und Phantasie."

xing-news.com

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Social Commerce Trends – What we expect in 2015

Social Commerce Trends – What we expect in 2015

   May 28, 2015       prabhakardalvi

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Social Media Platform for Start-up Business

After Social media revolution make tweets, fb promotion, we don’t found any progress in sales charts. We have analytic but hard to track impact of social channels on people who regular or rare use of social media. We have knowledge, with social media we build awareness, consideration of company products or services. 

Social networking sites understand this trend and are making changes to make it even easier to purchase directly from within their platform.

Social commerce for interaction:- 

Someone post on facebook or twitter, running shoes for promotional purpose. We wait for like on fb post & after this we looking for someone clicks on link who represent our website. Some description, some hastag command useful for promotional & sales.

This tech use for sharing of content but in present use for improve sale in short period. In this tech we share link through Affiliate or Advocate style to improve clicks with specific design ads.

Above all this start-up but we want customer review for specific brands or products.

Snapchat Commerce

Another platform making strides with social commerce is Snapchat. Snapchat partnered with Square to deliver a transfer system it’s calling SquareCash. With this system, users can register their debit cards and then transfer and receive money — which is being called Snapchash — to and from their friends on Snapchat. While it’s currently a free service, Snapchat plans are to allow its users to buy products from its platform.

Facebook Commerce

This summer, Facebook shared a mobile screen of what its “Buy” button is going to look like. A suggested post will show up in your newsfeed with a product or service and an image of that product or service, which you can buy right then and there by simply clicking the “Buy” button in the post. I imagine Facebook will be rolling this out in 2015 after they figure out the payment and privacy details.

Twitter Commerce

Twitter is one platform that’s been rolling out its social commerce plans. In the early part of 2014, Twitter partnered with Stripe, a company providing all the back-end payment processing for Twitter. Twitter, and other social networks, haven’t wanted to store users’ credit card details, so Stripe is taking on the challenge. You can view and buy a product directly within your Twitter feed by simply clicking a “Buy” button that will appear alongside an image of the item that’s for sale. Twitter’s head of commerce Nathan Hubbard told The Verge in an interview, “Anything with a perishable component, temporal nature, or limited supply, is going to thrive on Twitter. Given the speed at which word can spread across our network, it feels like an opportunity to create a new kind of sales.”

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Inbound Marketing with Facebook Ad improve your Market

Inbound Marketing with Facebook Ad improve your Market

   October 16, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Facebook logo Español: Logotipo de Facebook Français : Logo de Facebook Tiếng Việt: Logo Facebook (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Inbound Marketing with Facebook Ad improve your Market

Retargeting Helps Accelerate Exposure - Facebook 

In the world of online marketing, exposure is everything. If a tree falls in the woods and no one is around, did it actually happen? If you write a blog post and get zero traffic to that page, what’s the point?

Retargeting allows you to speak directly to the people who have already had a touch point with your brand – this is powerful stuff!

Whether it’s through Facebook’s retargeting platform, or through a third-party retargeting source like AdRoll, making a move to get started here after you have some relevant traffic flowing to your site is a great idea.

Another wonderful option is Facebook’s Custom Audience targeting. Let’s pretend you have a list of users subscribed to your blog, or perhaps a list of people who have downloaded a piece of gated content from your website. You are missing a HUGE opportunity if you don’t use upload those emails into a Custom Audience list on Facebook. They’ve already indicated interest in your content by downloading or subscribing, and if you’re bidding on a CPC basis for these ads, it should be a no-brainer.

The omni-present ‘they’ say that it take approximately seven touch points to make a sale; why not automate a few?

Provide Value to the Right People at the Right Time

The first thing we have to do here is define the right people. For the most part, every business in every industry will be targeting different personas. When all is said and done, sending the right message to the right person at the right time is the key to a successful marketing campaign.

You can take the deep dive into Facebook analytics reporting, or even Google Analytics, to help identify with whom your message is resonating.

This is huge because it allows you to not only craft and optimize the messaging in your Facebook campaigns, but the messaging in your marketing campaign across all mediums.

I wrote a post a while back about getting more out of conferences with Facebook ads, and I feel like that approach is definitely a product of the findings you generate through data you collect running these campaigns. You will be able to better define who your consumer is and put that information into play during your outreach at conferences.

Headline Testing and Audience Data Extraction

The value of data is going to be different for each person. If you make a lot of data-driven decisions in your company, the value can be tremendous. Regardless of how often you reference your web data, it is undeniably helpful to the growth of your company and execution of future initiatives.

In the world of content marketing, bad headlines are any contributor’s kryptonite. Fortunately, setting up headline tests with Facebook ads is super-easy to do. Simply make two ads that run at the same time, with the only variable at play being the headline, and voila – data!

This is incredibly important if you are planning on launching a new gated piece that will be responsible for a number of future downloads. A solid headline can make or break the success of your published content, so use Facebook ads as a great way to test the waters. You can collect a ton of valuable data with a budget of less than $20.

You can also use ad data to determine which content is getting picked up the most by your target audience. If a certain topic is generating a higher click-through rate, or a higher download rate in some cases, make more! With any A/B testing, it’s important to keep as many variables constant as possible, so in this case you would simply be testing different offerings among the same audience.

If you really want to take it to the next level, combine your Facebook data with Google Analytics data to gain awesome insight on geographic location, browsing patterns, and even device preferences to make informed decisions with your content moving forward.

For instance, if you notice that most of your content is being picked up on mobile devices, optimize your content to look amazing for those devices, and reap the benefits of increased readership, subscriptions, and leads.

There has been a great divide between paid advertising and inbound marketing, when in reality you are only shooting yourself in the foot by not leveraging both sides to make your overall digital marketing strategy more effective.

Facebook ads are a great tool for enhanced reach and research, and finding ways to make your inbound campaigns work harmoniously with your Facebook ad strategy should be a top priority.

What other ways are you using Facebook ads to leverage your inbound strategy?

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Facebook made $200 billion with Mobile Advertising

Facebook made $200 billion with Mobile Advertising

   September 10, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Facebook logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

With special reports, Facebook market value increases with position 22^nd largest corporation. Mobile advertising boosts revenue of Facebook with all devices.

Founder of Facebook wealth has increased by $34.5 billion with stake & stock raised by 81% in last 12 months.

With mobile marketing, every product & services take speed booking, launching, delivered like snapdeals, flip-kart, jabong etc. In Advertising on Facebook charge minimum $10 but for, it’s questionable….

Facebook makes display ads, banner advertising with condition of your search in box or you have already seen pages on a different subject. Mostly small business giving first preferences to Ad-words for budget start from 500 to onward, but Facebook charge $10, LinkedIn as per region-target size etc.

LinkedIn is business network but Facebook it a personal chatting center, founder earn from shopping, business, promote a post.

Promote a post:

On a Facebook, when you post they ask you want promote this? With advertising power. It’s true!

Congrats Mark Zuckerberg 

Refer : DNA

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Why Twitter Will beat Facebook in Future Digital Market

Why Twitter Will beat Facebook in Future Digital Market

   August 20, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Now, those who are still Facebook addicts and find it impossible to unplug from your "FB" network of friends, fans and likes, not to fear. There will always be a Facebook-like app out there that connects people, it's just that it may have a different name with different features.

Still, here are six reasons Twitter will have more staying power than Facebook:

• Twitter is a news source. We can follow news outlets and more importantly newsmakers on Twitter and get up to date, quick information. We are seeing this more and more in politics and sports where the person of interest is "broadcasting" the information they want disseminated. They determine when they want the public to "get the news." In many cases, it's unfiltered and spoken directly to that person's following. They can and sometimes do, respond directly to questions. Can Facebook be used as a news source? Absolutely, but it's predominantly a neighborhood for people to connect and share. Even more interesting is the way that media have started to quote people's Twitter posts - as if it's a quote in the paper or a soundbite for television.
• News media members have embraced Twitter. A while ago, I wrote this piece on how media members can now create and demonstrate value to their employers by creating their own personal fan base. Television news organizations have relied on things like "Q" ratings to see how "likable" their viewers find their talent. Anchors and reporters were usually not privy to that information. Today, if you want to see how well watched a news personality is, check their fans. Check their TweetReach. Consequently, savvy "social media" members are actively engaging their followers through insight, inside information and live updates on Twitter. Best of all, many are also talking to people through Twitter. Yes, they can do this on Facebook as well, but real time engagement isn't as effective as it is on Twitter.
• Engage with "famous" people on Twitter. Let's face it, famous people have Facebook Fan pages, but mostly it's one way communication. Typically, there's not much chance you're going to engage with a famous person on their Facebook page. I believe there are many reasons for this, but one may be due to the "public" nature of the wall and how information is posted. In my experience, it's easier to receive a comment back from a famous person on Twitter than on Facebook. One reason for this may be that it's simple to reply a 140 character (or less) message to someone on Twitter than on Facebook.
• Twitter is easier to use on a mobile device. Don't get me wrong, it's pretty simple to post stuff on Facebook from your mobile device, but Twitter is crazy simple. It's a matter of opening your app and posting a thought, picture or video. It's actually easier than texting. There are no "notifications" that you have new messages, no waiting for pages to open, it's quick and easy.
• It's easier to avoid annoying people on Twitter. Let's face it, we all have a handful of people that drive us nutty on Facebook. So, rather than "unfriend" them, we either put up with their inane, boring, self-serving posts or we "hide" them. My gosh, you'd hate to insult one of your Facebook "friends!" On Twitter, it's real simple. If someone bugs you - don't follow them. Honestly, how often do you comb through your Twitter followers to see who is following you? There is a personal "distance" that is built in to Twitter. A polite separation can get closer if you'd like, but generally speaking, it's not nearly as intimate as the Facebook connection.
• Commercialization will kill the Facebook experience. Marketers will ruin Facebook for a large number of people. Facebook was cool when it was like the band you liked that no one else had heard about. As soon as the band makes it big, they aren't nearly as cool. Facebook has already become that for a lot of people and now that it has become so household, marketers have found ways to tap into that audience. We can learn about our audience and find out what they like and dislike and then go sell to them. Sorry, but what about just hanging out and re-connecting with friends? It's like being at a restaurant and having someone come by every few minutes to sell you something that aligns with their demo. Ok, gasp marketing friends, but I think somewhere deep down we all know this is true.

Like I said, I'm no prognosticator and my disclaimer is that I've been wrong a million times before and that some of these points are generalizations. That said, it's just my opinion, I'd love to hear yours.

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B, Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Tips For Promoting Your Business Page On Facebook - Prabhakar

Tips For Promoting Your Business Page On Facebook - Prabhakar

   July 14, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Tips For Promoting Your Business Page On Facebook – B2B Marketing And Sales Tip 

Written by Ellie Mirman, blogger at the HubSpot Internet Marketing Blog and Inbound Marketer at Internet Marketing company HubSpot.

So you’ve got a Facebook Business Page… Now what? Building a Business Page is one of the best ways to increase your presence and engage more potential customers on Facebook, but it’s more than just clicking “Create Page”. As you venture out into the social media world, here are a few tips to help you promote your Page and reach more of the 100 million Facebook users.

Create a Facebook Business Page worth becoming a fan of.

To quote David Meerman Scott, nobody cares about your products and services (except you). People care about how you can help them solve their problems. To extend that thought to Facebook, don’t use your Facebook Page to talk about your products all the time. People aren’t interested. Instead, create some interesting, useful content that people want to receive. This could be blog posts, whitepapers, or simply discussions.

Take advantage of the viral nature of Facebook.

Facebook provides great opportunities for viral marketing. Facebook creates a “News Feed” of your friends’ activities on Facebook, like posting photos, changing statuses, or becoming fans of a Page. What this means is that every time someone interacts with your Page in some way, that action is published across all of their friends’ News Feeds, giving you exposure to that person’s entire network. The best way to take advantage of this is to engage your users and give them more opportunities to interact with your Page, for example, by fostering discussions, inviting them to events, allowing them to post links. Leveraging the power of the News Feed is a critical part of establishing your presence on Facebook and building a fan base for spreading your messages.

Don’t forget to draw on your network.

All promotion does not need to take place within Facebook. Feel free to email your opt-in e-mail list, blog about your Page, and post a link to your Page on your company website. The best people to help you build up your fan base for your Business Page on Facebook are those people already subscribed to your blog or engaged with you in some way.

Optimize your Page for Facebook – and public – search.

Another way to get found and build your fan base is through Facebook’s search. Facebook – like all other search engines (Facebook was noted the most used people search engine) – has an undisclosed algorithm that ranks search results in a way that aims to return relevant and useful results to the searcher. The best think you can do to show up higher in these search results is to build a large following of your existing fans, because entities with a larger network tend to show up higher in search results. Also note that Facebook Business Pages are public and indexable by search engines. This potentially gives you exposure to those searching in broader search engines like Google. To make the most of this, start lots of engaging discussion threads on your Page, so that if someone is searching in Google on that very topic, they can stumble upon your Facebook Page and discussion thread.

Get an extra push with Facebook Ads.

If you want to give your Business Page an extra push at the beginning, you can also buy some advertising slots. Note that Facebook ads are much less effective than the viral marketing options on Facebook, and the click through rate for Facebook ads is notoriously low. Facebook advertisements show up on the sidebar as users browse through their friends’ profiles, groups, and so on. When you set up your ad, be sure to include “social ads” – these draw on a users’ network to see who in their network has already engaged with your Page and shows, for example, “Jim Smith is a fan of Company ABC” next to your ad, potentially improving your click through rate. Also, make sure that you give viewers a relevant reason to click on your ad by inviting them to connect with industry peers or offering a free whitepaper, for example. Also in this vein, note that you can target your ads by age, gender, interests, geography, and other factors, to reach users who may be more interested in your Business Page.

Bonus Tip: Measure your results.

Once you’ve built up your Facebook Page it’s good to measure what you’re actually getting out of your social media program. Some metrics you may want to measure are:  number of fans, page views, and unique users. Facebook’s “Insights” provide some of these metrics, including demographic data. You’ll also want to track actions beyond your Facebook Page, namely, website traffic, leads, and sales that come from Facebook. Hopefully some of these tips will help you get your Facebook Business Page off the ground and build it into a valuable channel for reaching your potential customers.

All this said, social media, including Facebook, is by no means static. It is constantly changing and we, as marketers, are constantly learning the right way to leverage these channels for marketing. If you want to see what we at HubSpot have done, you can become a fan of our Page at http://facebook.hubspot.com. And, if you’re looking to network with other marketers on Facebook, you may be interested in the Facebook Pro Marketers group, a group for marketers passionate about marketing. Perhaps there we can continue discussing ideas for marketing on Facebook.

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B., Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Social Customer Service Metrics improve your business

Social Customer Service Metrics improve your business

   July 01, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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What I love most about getting to focus the majority of my work on social customer service is that there are actually ways to measure that you're making a difference to the bottom line. First let's distinguish between two type of numbers.social customer service

Vanity metrics. Numbers that look good on a chart when they're trending upward but really don't prove a lot on their own (followers, likes, members, comments,  retweets, etc.)

Value metrics. Numbers that may use vanity metrics as part of larger formula and produce a measure that shows you're moving the needle on something your VP cares about. Think decreasing transaction costs,  increasing agent efficiency or increasing NPS.

I know all of you who are currently only reporting on vanity metrics are now are now standing up and yelling, "Damn straight, we want value metrics!" Here are a few ideas:

Transaction costs. This is a pretty straightforward formula. What you're really figuring out is the cost of servicing a customer viaTwitter vs. telephone.

Determine the cost of a call.

Determine the cost of a tweet.

Determine what % of Twitter transactions would have been painful enough to warrant the customer actually calling? (I wouldn't presume every tweet would have been a call).

Derive your "estimated" cost savings per month.

Then do the same for Facebook, and generate the average transaction of servicing over social media.

Finally, get someone credible in the organization to reality-check your calculation.

Agent efficiency. This formula can range from simple to complex, depending on how air-tight you want to make your story. Some standard call centre metrics are fine to start off with. Time to Respond (TTR) and mean time to resolve (MTTR) will work. Take a look at what these metrics look like for you traditional channels  vs. social over a period of time and I think you'll be pleasantly surprised. Social is designed to be the fastest service channel on the planet. Oh right, if you aren't piping your serviceable issues from social media into a case management tool that can report on these metrics, it will be much harder to do this.

 Customer satisfaction. So now you've proved that you can service customers faster AND cheaper, but are customers happy with the service? Let's find out. Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a pretty standard CSAT metric these days. My experience tells me that when you start to measure this you'll be hated by the rest of the call centre managers because your score for social will be so much higher. The way I'll describe it is just for Twitter and is a little manual but I think it's a good place to start and get a bit of a baseline. Here's how it works.

Each week, grab a certain number of Twitter handles from customers that you serviced within the last week. The more the better; not everyone will respond.

DM them and ask the NPS question in a fun way. "How did we do? On a scale of 1-10 would you recommend our service to your pals?"

Throw all the responses into a spreadsheet and calculate your Twitter NPS. Do the Snoopy dance.

Book a meeting with the VP to let him or her know how much higher the call centre NPS is now that you've averaged your score into it.

Some of the more robust listening tools try to calculate NPS using their sentiment engine but it never hurts to ask people directly too.

So there you have it, a few ways to measure the actual value of your social customer service in a way in which your VP will take you seriously instead of staring at your report and asking, "What's a retweet?" -  3 Social Customer Service Metrics that will Make You a Rock Star

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Dalvi Prabhakar B., Founder & Digital Manager (SEO,SEM,SMO) }}

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Qualified B2B Leads with Inbound Marketing, Blogs and Social Media, How

Qualified B2B Leads with Inbound Marketing, Blogs and Social Media, How

   June 25, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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A business without the right leads is very much like a car without an engine; no matter what kind of fuel you put into it, it’s not going anywhere fast. However, generating leads isn’t easy and trying to acquire leads in the B2B space makes it all that much more difficult.

Before you can start to acquire business leads and turn them into customers, you’ll need to come up with an effective, brand-consistent strategy.

B2B Lead Generation: Where to Start?

Effective B2B lead generation strategies begin with drilling down into exactly the types of leads that are most likely to convert into paying customers. That means filtering out prospects based on your resources and goals, and narrowing your attack.

With a broadsword-strategy, you can swing around indiscriminately and grab leads from all over. Casting a wide net may yield you some worthwhile leads, but you'll also pull in a ton of junk leads, too. And to top that off, your results will be ineffective if your lead gen campaign is being measured on a CPA/CPL basis.

With CPL or CPA as your metric, a lead is only as valuable as the prospect, that prospect is only as valuable as the customer it becomes, and that customer is only as valuable as the revenue they bring to the bottom line, so if you can’t find the qualified leads—the leads that are most likely to ultimately convert into something profitable—then you’re just wasting  money.

Instead, drop the sword and pick up the scalpel for B2B leads. Start by asking: Who are our customers? What are their common interests? Are our prospects mostly online or off? If that information is available, then your approach can be tightly focused to define your objective and point you directly to your prospects.

 Once you've defined what  an unqualified prospect is and identified your targets, let’s get into how you'll capture your prospects' attention.

Here are six lead generating ideas and approaches that allow you hone your B2B strategy (and actually work):

1. Bring Your Leads Inbound

Traditionally, marketing has been classified as outbound marketing -- television commercials, print advertisements, internet banners, email mailing lists, and good old fashion cold-calling. These outbound lead generating techniques cast a very wide net that typically connects with hundreds of thousands, or even millions of prospects.

Outbound marketing tends to use the broadsword approach.

LEADS Outbound-leads-cost-on-average

I’m not saying that outbound marketing doesn’t work; it does, otherwise we wouldn't even bother talking about it. However, it not as effective as inbound marketing. Not only are the leads less qualified, but outbound is also more expensive. In fact, outbound leads cost on average 61% more than inbound ones.

Inbound marketing, when done well, meets your customers where they want to be. Inbound markerting focuses on creating quality content that aligns with what your customers are most interested in so they're drawn towards your offers because they want to learn more.

And because the offers are relevant, the leads that are generated are more eager and willing to become paying customers. When prospects feel as though your company is an expert in the industry, or has something worthwhile to offer, they see you as someone who wants to help, rather than a salesman that just wants to make a sale.

2. Generate Better Relationships with CRM

Sometimes generating leads is about keeping track of all of the pertinent data surrounding those leads. Customers need to know that they have a relationship with you and if you’re constantly losing track of their information or their info isn't updated, then it sends out a clear message to your prospective leads that you don’t really care about them.

Investing in a proper customer relationship management (CRM) system will allow you to gather, store, analyze, and track the most important data that can help you personalize the customer experience. And CRM doesn’t stop there.

CRM helps generate and convert leads by sifting through massive amounts of raw prospect data to locate the most promising prospects. After sorting through all that data, a good CRM can also be used to gain meaningful customer insight. With this business intelligence in hand, you can quickly and inexpensively disseminate relevant information to a wider range of specific, potential customers.

If you have the budget for a broadsword swing, ensure you are coupling it with a CRM. With access to a lead management tool, you can both control the range of your swing, while still benefitting from the accuracy of the scalpel—in other words, it’s the best of both worlds.

3. Solve Problems and Share Ideas on Your Blog

At the heart of inbound lead generation is the humble blog. If your business scoffs at or doesn't allot dedicated resources to your company blog, yet are trying to obtain quality leads, then understand that blogging has the potential to drive a significant amount of prospects into your sales funnel.

5 Secrets to Building Your Sales PipelineDid you know that 23% of total Internet usage time is devoted to social networks or blogs, which means that a large chunk of users are obtaining information and knowldge via blogs. A company blog allows you to not only draw inbound traffic to your site and your business by offering useful and interesting content, while providing solutions, but it can also give your organization added credibility within your industry.

A blog connects to customers and prospects in a less corporate manner. The company blog allows you to stretch beyond the landing pages of your core website; expanding your content past product features, business speak, and the boring FAQ page.  

If your company is a leader in its industry, your blog can be the bullhorn for your company's evangelists and leaders to share their unique perspectives and opinions on specific topics you could never espouse on the pricing page.

And at the end of each blog post? An offer, newsletter signup, or form that allows the reader to learn more if their interest has been piqued.

4. Make It Easy With Visual Content

Blog posts are wonderful and they absolutely work as a method for generating leads. However, they don’t work for everyone.There are those who are less interested in investing the time and effort into digesting a few hundred words worth of advice.

Thankfully, there are other ways of reaching these individuals. Human beings are very visual animals and what we see (as in images and videos) is actually processed 60,000 times faster than what we read. So, incorporating a visual element into your content is a sure-fire way to increase the draw of your inbound strategy.

Informative, useful, and shareable infographics are amazingly popular right now, and are more accessible and less time-consuming than videos. Of course, that’s not to say that a quality “infotaining” video posted to YouTube (with a link back to your site, of course) can’t also quickly pay for itself in increased interest and traffic.

If you can create something that ends up going viral, you’ll find that it’s well worth your time.

5. Yes, Social Media Can Generate B2B Leads

Social media has become a legitimate lead generation channel with ad formats having matured beyond just engagement metrics. With Twitter cards, Facebook’s objective-based advertising, and LinkedIn's sponsored ads, social ads have come a long way in cementing a spot in revenue-based lead generation campaigns.

Facebook offers a variety of ad products to generate leads from targeted advertising, events, tabs, or organic posts. 

Twitter’s Lead Generation Cards are a two-click solution to social lead generation. Twitter Cards are displayed as promoted tweets would, but when someone clicks on the image, the card expands to reveal an offer or sign-up form that is auto-populated with the user’s name, email address, and Twitter handle. In early testing of tweets with images, visual tweets showed an 55% increase in leads as opposed to normal 140-character text-only tweets. 

LEADS Outbound-leads-cost-on-average (1)

Don't forget about LinkedIn when looking at social media as a way to increase B2B leads. Despite being demoted to the "other social network" category, LinkedIn may prove to be the best social media network to acquire leads via social media. 

LinkedIn certainly lags behind Twitter and Facebook in recognition and users, but because LinkedIn is a professional social network, users aren't turned off by business-related marketing on their feed. The mindset and expectations of the user is entirely different when compared to consumer-focused networks and that's a good thing when it comes to B2B leads.

With product offerings such as Lead Collection, direct ads, and sponsored updates, LinkedIn has shown that their ad products can be 277% more effective at generating leads than Facebook or Twitter, according to a study by Wishpond.

6. New Ideas That Will Generate Real Value

As you might have gathered by now, a successful lead-generating strategy isn’t just about building a great product that offers value. A good lead generation strategy consistently puts out content and offers that provide real value to the prospective lead.

It takes patience, too, for prospects may not be prospects today, but with nurturing, optimizing and guidance, they can ultimately become paying customers.

The secret here is to continually build unique, quality content that has real value to prospects that you want to connect to. And if the prospect isn't ready to sign up yet, continuing to build and share that quality content over time will give you an edge over less-patient competitors.

Quality Leads Are Built Over Time 

There are quicker and dirtier lead generation techniques that can be used to bring in potential customers right now, but in the long run, these won’t be as profitable as those leads that you draw in through the targeted and steady process of effective inbound marketing and lead nurturing.

With your lead generation, keep these six techniques (and the various points and principles they represent) in mind. That said, the lead generation methods and tactics you put forth are not nearly as important as how well you target your potential customers. The better focused your lead gen campaign is to your prospects, the likelier they'll find relevant content they want, and that will yield higher odds that they'll convert into paying customers.

However you end up generating leads, be it through direct mail marketing, telemarketing, email, social media, or any other technique, the more clearly you can identify and pursue your ideal client, the sharper your razor-edged focus is, the more successful your strategy — and ultimately your business — will be. 

{{ The Guest Post Blogger organization was not involved in the creation of this content. - Prabhakar Dalva, Founder }}

Related articles

• How Sales Can Use Inbound Marketing, Blogs and Social to Create B2B Leads

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Good Content to Increase Engagement for Covert Business

Good Content to Increase Engagement for Covert Business

   June 11, 2014       prabhakardalvi

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Good Content to Increase Engagement for Covert Business

Engagement is the end game for content marketing. Getting people interested in and involved with your product is half the battle in making a sale. When your customers know that they can look to you for stellar insights and advice about the industry, you’ve succeeded. But achieving this goal is not easy. It takes a lot of time investment to create the high-quality content you’ll need.

Below are Some tips on how to use content to increase your audience’s engagement.

• Create Gated Content 
• Run a Live Q&A Based On of a Controversial Piece of Content  
• Include Calls to Action at the Bottom of Content 
• Ask Questions at the End of Blog Posts to Increase Comments
• Be Consistent at Something

Create Gated Content for SE ( Search engine )

“Gated content” refers to information or whole sections of your web site that are only available to people who agree to provide something in return. Gated content creation can be tricky to execute, but when used well, it’s a great way to not only pump up engagement but also to generate leads. For marketing purposes, that “something” is usually contact information, such as:

1. Geographic location
2. Name
3. Email address
4. Phone number
5. Company information

Gated content may also require payment for information, such as whitepapers or exclusive video, but generally speaking it’s just another rung on the sales funnel.

Not every company is comfortable with using gated content. Some are wary of alienating potential customers who are not ready to establish contact, or sending them to competitors who do not have gates. It’s best to reserve gated content for premium information; be sure to leave product descriptions and blogs free to navigate for any visitor.

For instance, a site such as Gate to Garage, which sells a wide variety of furnishings and décor, would not benefit from walling off its product listings to visitors. But it might consider requiring potential customers to submit an email address for future contact if they want to see a how-to video or white paper.

One thing to keep in mind, don’t gate all your content. Leave blog posts and info graphics as free material for everyone. That free material will drive traffic to your site and then special gated content can be used to increase engagement and build an email database.

Run a Live Q&A Based On of a Controversial Piece of Content  

Live chats have a colorful history on the internet. They’re one of the earliest ways that companies engaged with their customers, dating back well before the age of social media. Though they’ve evolved over time, they still remain a great way for businesses to gauge opinions about not only their products but also their industry. The smartest way to draw people in is to play off a piece of content that’s gotten a lot of attention.

This type of content will inspire strong opinions on both sides, which will draw people into the conversation. Be sure to promote the Q&A beforehand, but don’t just rely on live questions to fuel the discussion. Solicit questions and topics beforehand via social media, and keep things open-ended so that you can engage as many people on as many aspects of the issue as possible. If you’re doing the chat on Twitter or Facebook, look over your analytic beforehand to decide what the best time is to hold the conversation.

Last year Paper.li, an online content curation service, sponsored a live Twitter chat to promote awareness for bloggers, who make up the hottest area of its community. The success of the Q&A surprised even the company’s community manager, who personally heard from more than 200 people after the chat via email and on Twitter asking for help and offering their input. The chat also reached people in other countries, a bonus Paper.li hadn't expected.

Include Calls to Action at the Bottom of Content 

Sometimes when you become engaged in a great piece of content, whether it’s a whitepaper, a blog post or a podcast, you’ll forget how you stumbled upon it and your true purpose for looking into the subject. Don’t let that happen to your potential customers. While you don’t need to hammer them over and over with sales pitches, you do need to gently remind them as they reach the end of their time with your content that there’s something they need to do. That may mean registering for something, buying a product or filling out a form.

Whatever it is, make sure your call to action is clear and concise so that you don’t lose your fish from the hook. On the blog for Writers Relief, an author submission service, posts end with reminders that the site can help make writing dreams come true and a link to their submission page, a succinct but effective call to action.

Ask Questions at the End of Blog Posts to Increase Comments

This sounds like an obvious way to increase engagement, but a surprising number of sites do not try to interact with their readers this way. They’re missing out on a huge opportunity. Once you've finished discussing the topic at hand, ask your readers what they think. Many blogs put a daily question at the bottom of a blog post in bold, training readers to look for these queries and answer them, thereby increasing engagement.

Don’t just get people to comment, though. Interact with them in the comments section and see how you can further engage them. For instance, the Gawker network of web sites have perfected this approach. Writers interact with readers, exchanging ideas — okay, and often insults — in such a way that the comments sections themselves have become must-reads.

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The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson

The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson

   April 22, 2014       Unknown

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The Mean Boss that Made Me a Kind One - Naomi Simson, Career Curveballs

I like to think that I have been in charge of my own life, that I am in the driving seat rather than in the back seat along for a scenic ride – observing but not participating. But I confess that if it were not for other people’s actions, I would not be doing what I’m doing. I wrote about this particular curveball some months ago in "Can You Fire Your Boss?"

A career can be a series of Sliding Door moments: one door closes, another one opens, and often we are not quite sure which door is next. One thing is for sure there have been plenty of curveballs flung at me. I think my workday is going to go in one direction – and then before I know it I am off in another direction. Ultimately these sliding doors did lead to me start my own business.

In the early 1990s I worked in the aviation industry during the deregulation of the industry in Australia. I was proud and excited to get this job for such a prestigious iconic Australian brand, I called all my friends – there was no Facebook in those days – sharing the great news. I was jump-for-joy happy. It took me four hours to work out what to wear for my first day, wanting to make a good impression.

Yet within six months I lied about where I worked, and before the year was out I knew that this was not a long-term career company for me. It was the curveballs that made me realize this.

My role was as marketing manager for the loyalty club program and I was then asked to join the launch team on the first points-based frequency program to ever exist in Australia. It was a big deal back then; we thought it might even make front-page news. I was putting every ounce of effort I had into doing great work, even though I had to do two jobs at the same time. My workload had more than doubled, my salary stayed the same.

Month after month I toiled endless hours to get the program launched. My immediate colleagues saw my contribution. But my superiors had no idea of the work involved in getting the launch right whilst keeping the marketing effort for my original role in full flight.

After many months waiting to be acknowledged and see my salary reviewed, I finally got up the courage to go upstairs to the general manager's office:

“I’m enjoying the work, but my role has doubled. I have now been managing the two roles for more than six months. In what time frame would a salary review be undertaken?” I asked.

“Who do you think you are to come into my office and ask for a pay rise?” he retorted. “How do I know what value you add to this business?”

I left his office trying to hold back the tears, feeling not only diminished, but also angry and hurt. I was indignant – How could he not know my contribution?

Was it management’s job to notice what I did? Was it my peers? Or was it mine to speak up and share what I achieved? In hindsight of course it is a mixture of all these things. One thing I knew is I never would allow this to happen again.

Finally, my direct manager negotiated a salary review of my role. The outcome was a $5 per week pay rise. This was as insulting as the lack of recognition for my work. The general manager received my resignation the next day. Door closed!

Within weeks I joined Apple as a marketing manager. Door opened. And the rest, as they say, is history.

What I do know is this curveball galvanized what I believe about work places:

• I believe that everyone deserves to have a great day at work.
• I believe that if people know what they are there to do, if someone notices and they go home feeling like a winner, then they are likely to play full out.
• I believe that appreciation is the simplest and most effective way of valuing the contribution made by an individual.
• I believe that what gets noticed gets repeated.

And that is why I preach what I practice and work to support other businesses on their 'best employer' journeys. It is all about RED (Recognize Every Day) and without the curveball of having a mean, nasty, small-minded general manager as a boss 25 years ago, perhaps I would not have created such a successful business.

This post is part of a series in which LinkedIn Influencers share how they turned setbacks into success.

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Online Marketing and Effective Ways To Market Your Own Business Venture Online

Online Marketing and Effective Ways To Market Your Own Business Venture Online

   May 14, 2013       Unknown

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English: Red Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Effective Methods to Market Your Business Online Through Pinterest 

Pinterest is just one of the many excellent social media websites that would do a great job in advertising your company. However large or small their companies may be, a lot of them are making use of Pinterest in order to achieve a higher traffic count and then increase their sales. As a user, you are able to ?pin? your product photos and caption it with important information in order to expand the exposure of your products as well as increasing its enthusiasm for it. As well know, women shop more than men, and Pinterest?s users are basically 83% of them. And like any other marketing strategy, the social media method would require you to design your website in a way that would really help you reach the maximum quota of clients that you are hoping to have. Aside from that, you would also need to make use of the best tactics you could think of in order to make a lot of sales. These tips will definitely help you start your marketing strategy.

Make your photos as creative as possible. The more beautiful your photos are, the more enticed your customers will get. There are a lot of competition to compare your photos with, so you really need to stand out. You are more likely getting visited if you have a lot of pins.




if you market your products, make sure that you give all specific features and descriptions of it. Let your clients know exactly of the products you are offering and organize them as much as possible either by kind, class, or theme. You will most definitely want to let people know how better your products are compared to others. People can easily click your price tag to find the link to your site and product. This is a great way of advertising. By creating a good design, you will also be providing customers with easy navigation.




Improve sales through discounts.

Any kind of back links to your sites will definitely give you more traffic for the ranking. It is always nice to come to a site ad have a reason to go back. And a Pinterest discount is 
Pinterest markets services. Use creative photos that represent the services that you offer. For instance, if you do interior decorating, then show off the best arrangement you?ve done. If the services you offer are professional, use a scene that flatter well with the service you do. A photo with a very good description to go with it will surely increase your exposure to millions of people within social media networking.

Pinterest even allow you to put a price tag on your photo that would link to your site. The photos with price tags will then appear in Pinterest?s home page at the gift section area. Pean example of that.

Link yourself to other business communities. Always keep interacting with your customers and let them leave feedbacks. Pinterest would always keep you updated with the latest style and trend, which keeps you in touch with the world.

fellow businessmen, but will also furnish your skills in marketing. By using the tips here, you will surely achieve great success.
Pinterest is not only fun, but also a creative way of promoting your business. It is a way of connecting millions of people though their interests by linking them to a lot of website that could provide them that. It will not only create relationships with fellow businessmen, but will also furnish your skills in marketing. By using the tips here, you will surely achieve great success.

Read More

Online Marketing and Effective Ways To Market Your Own Business Venture Online

Online Marketing and Effective Ways To Market Your Own Business Venture Online

   May 14, 2013       Unknown

---

English: Red Pinterest logo (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Effective Methods to Market Your Business Online Through Pinterest 

Pinterest is just one of the many excellent social media websites that would do a great job in advertising your company. However large or small their companies may be, a lot of them are making use of Pinterest in order to achieve a higher traffic count and then increase their sales. As a user, you are able to ?pin? your product photos and caption it with important information in order to expand the exposure of your products as well as increasing its enthusiasm for it. As well know, women shop more than men, and Pinterest?s users are basically 83% of them. And like any other marketing strategy, the social media method would require you to design your website in a way that would really help you reach the maximum quota of clients that you are hoping to have. Aside from that, you would also need to make use of the best tactics you could think of in order to make a lot of sales. These tips will definitely help you start your marketing strategy.

Make your photos as creative as possible. The more beautiful your photos are, the more enticed your customers will get. There are a lot of competition to compare your photos with, so you really need to stand out. You are more likely getting visited if you have a lot of pins.




if you market your products, make sure that you give all specific features and descriptions of it. Let your clients know exactly of the products you are offering and organize them as much as possible either by kind, class, or theme. You will most definitely want to let people know how better your products are compared to others. People can easily click your price tag to find the link to your site and product. This is a great way of advertising. By creating a good design, you will also be providing customers with easy navigation.




Improve sales through discounts.

Any kind of back links to your sites will definitely give you more traffic for the ranking. It is always nice to come to a site ad have a reason to go back. And a Pinterest discount is 
Pinterest markets services. Use creative photos that represent the services that you offer. For instance, if you do interior decorating, then show off the best arrangement you?ve done. If the services you offer are professional, use a scene that flatter well with the service you do. A photo with a very good description to go with it will surely increase your exposure to millions of people within social media networking.

Pinterest even allow you to put a price tag on your photo that would link to your site. The photos with price tags will then appear in Pinterest?s home page at the gift section area. Pean example of that.

Link yourself to other business communities. Always keep interacting with your customers and let them leave feedbacks. Pinterest would always keep you updated with the latest style and trend, which keeps you in touch with the world.

fellow businessmen, but will also furnish your skills in marketing. By using the tips here, you will surely achieve great success.
Pinterest is not only fun, but also a creative way of promoting your business. It is a way of connecting millions of people though their interests by linking them to a lot of website that could provide them that. It will not only create relationships with fellow businessmen, but will also furnish your skills in marketing. By using the tips here, you will surely achieve great success.

Read More