Social media

Showing posts with label Social media. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Social media. Show all posts

Thursday 21 May 2015

Twitter Has Become A Major Source Of Information Affect Your Digital Marketing Strategy



Twitter Has Become A Major Source Of Information Affect Your Digital Marketing Strategy

The newly announced partnership between Google and Twitter will see social media marketing come of age as Google will now include real time Tweets in their search results pages. The partnership will replicate the real time placement of tweets on Bing searches that already takes place – the major difference being that Google is the world’s top search engine.

From a marketing perspective, the new deal will see business’s tweets, including those sent out as part of a marketing campaign, subject to those all-important Google algorithms. This could lead to more time being spent developing effective social media strategies that will use high quality content and keywords.

Friday 15 May 2015

Rise & Rise in Importance of Social media in GEO Internet World


Social media may not ever have the same return on investment (ROI) as search, but it is growing more & more in relevance, especially from a customer satisfaction and brand perception manageable point of view.


My marketer view for Social networking Business:-
Loyal customer are best for new products - so connect on some social platforms like FB, Twitee, etc.,.  The social engagement of your happiest customer is also visible to their friends for viral typology.

Monday 6 April 2015

Bosses, Social Media, Jobs - Can't Get Even When Staffers Gripe


NEW YORK — Bosses can get mad when staffers vent on social media about their jobs, but they may not be able to get even.

When one of Bert Martinez' employees posted gripes about her job and the boss on Facebook last year, the publicist consulted his lawyer, who said the staffer couldn't be fired.

"The first lesson I learned is, employees are allowed to vent," says Martinez, owner of Bert Martinez Communications in Phoenix. "If they're saying, hey, it's hard working here and I find this environment unpleasant, you can't fire them for that."

The employee quit a week after Martinez learned about the post.

The government protects workers' rights to say what they want about where they work, even if it's in a vitriolic and insulting tweet or post. It's illegal for an employee to be fired for a post about working conditions, whether it's pay, hours, assignments, difficult supervisors, dress code, or any other issue. So employers shouldn't try to restrict workers' freedom of speech or retaliate if there's a post they don't like.

It's an issue that companies of all sizes have to deal with, but it's often more challenging for smaller companies because they typically don't have large human resources departments or lawyers on staff to advise them.

WHAT'S PROTECTED

Workers who complain about employers on social media can't be fired if they're involved in what's called concerted activity, or joining with fellow staffers to improve working conditions, according to the National Labor Relations Board, the government agency responsible for upholding workers' rights.

"The NLRB is effectively taking the position that commentary about working conditions on social media is completely protected," says Henry Perlowski, an employment law attorney with Arnall Golden Gregory in Atlanta.

A 2014 NLRB decision shows how broadly the agency views employees' rights to make such critical posts, Perlowski says. The NLRB said a restaurant illegally fired two workers for taking part in a Facebook discussion of problems in how income tax was withheld from paychecks. The discussion mentioned a meeting about the issue. One employee was fired for a comment that contained an expletive describing one owner, and the other was dismissed for "liking" a post.

Because the posts were related to working conditions, and the employees were discussing concerted activity, or jointly seeking a resolution of their problems, the posts were protected. The NLRB reversed the firings.

Owners also can't resort to other disciplinary measures, Perlowski says. That rules out suspensions, reprimands, pay cuts and promotion denials.

... AND WHAT'S NOT

The NLRB will uphold firings based on posts that damage a company, disparage its products or services or reveal trade secrets or financial information, says Paula Lopez, an employment law attorney with Allyn & Fortuna in New York. But there can be gray area, for example, when a post is critical of a company's or services but is also related to working conditions.

Posts encouraging insubordination aren't protected, Lopez says, citing a 2014 case that upheld an employers' decision not to rehire workers who had posted plans to show up at the job and not do work.

Employees can also be fired for posting information about clients or customers. And if their posts are racist, homophobic, sexist or discriminate against a religion, companies should fire workers rather than be seen as tolerating or condoning the employees' views.

The NLRB has also said griping or insults by one employee and that have no connection to working conditions are not protected. For example, one that ridicules the way the boss looks, dresses or speaks.

WHAT TO DO

—Companies should have a written social media policy spelling out what employees can post. It should be specific, with examples of what's acceptable.

— Review the policy with a lawyer or HR specialist to be sure it wouldn't violate federal, state or local laws.

—If a staffer has made a negative post about the company, get advice from an employment law attorney or human resources provider before taking disciplinary action.

_____

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

Friday 21 November 2014

Effective ways of Lead Generation through Content Marketing


Content marketing plays an important role in Lead Generation. In today’s world B2B buyers have changed a lot. B2B buyers have lot of information available online at their fingertips.

So most likely B2B buyers prefer getting product/service information online rather than approaching a person. So as it is always said that every coin has two sides, on one side it provides an excellent opportunity for marketing team but on other side it can also lead to information overload where many brands, products and services get lost.

Now what’s the right way to do it? It’s time to get more relevant and precise. We have to change the concept of one-size-fits-all mentality and should realize that every time we need to customize our content for every buyer at different levels.

Monday 15 September 2014

Difference in Inbound and Outbound Team To Incoming Lead – See it


Difference in Inbound and outbound team for Lead – see it

Inbound lead come from web form through social, SEO, paid campaign etc. this lead we give to Outbound Team for closure, they are truly close or loose. Let’s discuss...

Suppose inbound lead coming through the web form via social, direct traffic etc. 

Sales Teams have already lots of jobs OR responsibilities like:

  1. Tele-Calling to CMO, CEO, Marketing person for set a meeting for  VP from Data collected by MR.
  2. Make a follow-up email to the targeted Executive person
  3. Sale person or BDM just follow a list by Or gather by  MR and VR
  4. such as inbound lead qualification, outbound prospecting, closing, or account management

Inbound leads mean visitors find us from a search engine, social brands of our products, directly enter our web address etc., this is unique visitor – leads – because we don’t call via sales person, don’t follow-up. Don’t make dare to give this inbound lead to sales executive. They treat like as a normal data, don’t give importance in result we lose it.

Why I suggest you, 
  1. They answer OR they just follow – why we follow this Inbound Leads ( This is not tele-verified, customized ) 
  2. Salespeople had many responsibilities like closers close, prospector’s prospect, etc.  Focus your salespeople to allow them to become experts in own field -- @ inbound qualification, closing, prospecting etc.
  3. The Success rate for this  Leads to closure means Business ROI – 40%



Are you ready for creating Two teams – 

One for Inbound leads – to bear word like “verification, calling, and leading convert to Business ROI”

Another, its daily basis calling from picking database from the Company.

A. Inbound Lead marketing leads coming through the website via sources like marketing campaign, emailing, search engine marketing, or organic word-of-mouth.

B. Outbound marketing is part of cold call & gather meeting for a VP to closure leads. Sales people continuously make a call & they have targeted for monthly leads for commission in some firms. So don’t dare to do this. You loss precious client or promoters.
Best of luck

(This post refer by Pamela Vaughan, hub spot)

Wednesday 20 August 2014

Why Twitter Will beat Facebook in Future Digital Market


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) }}

Tuesday 19 August 2014

How does Retargeting Campaign work


What is retargeting?
Generally 2% of shoppers convert on the first visit to an online store. Retargeting brings back the other 98%. Retargeting works by keeping track of people who visit your site and displaying your retargeting ads to them as they visit other sites online.
How does Retargeting Campaign work
How does Retargeting Campaign work - Adroll

How does retargeting work?
Technically all that is necessary is to place a JavaScript tag in the footer of your website. This code creates a list of people that visit your site by placing anonymous retargeting "cookies" in their browser. This list allows AdRoll (or other retargeting vendors) to display retargeting ads to your potential customers as they visit other sites. Since AdRoll works with the largest ad exchanges, we can retarget your customers just about anywhere they might go online.

Why is retargeting so effective
Retargeting generates greater online sales by keeping your brand front and center and bringing "window shoppers" back when they're ready to buy. Every time your customer sees your retargeting ads, your brand gains traction and more recognition. The high click-through rates and increased conversions that are typical with retargeting campaigns underscore the value of good branding and repeated exposure.

Retargeting Best Practices
Retargeting is most effective if you segment your visitors (eg, people who looked at shoes vs pants) and tailor the retargeting ads shown to each group, or not retarget them at all (eg, people who converted.)
ANSWERS TO MARKETING AUTOMATION FAQS FOR MARKETERS
WHY DO YOU NEED CONTACT DATABASES SOLUTIONS AND SERVICES?
The best performing retargeting creative has a clear call-to-action and promotes an offer.

Different products warrant different retargeting time windows. Eg, people shopping for travel should be retargeted immediately; people shopping for luxury goods should be retargeted later.

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

Monday 18 August 2014

Twitter experimental changes how favorites work angers users


Twitter is experimenting with a new feature that is downright blasphemous to experienced users. Some users are seeing a few tweets in their timelines that have merely been favorited by accounts they follow. Other tweets are showing from accounts that your friends follow. That's a massive change: Twitter has fundamentally only shown tweets and retweets posted by accounts you personally follow (as well as advertisements) in timelines to date.

The experiment is particularly concerning for some because the favorite has always been rather mysterious. Despite its name, many do not use the favorite in the same way as a Facebook "Like." Some use it as a simple acknowledgment of receiving a tweet or as a way of saying "thanks." It can also be a simple way of saying that you found something funny. Others use it as a type of bookmarking system.

Don't you dare mess with my timeline

Favorites have also been pseudo-private; while you can view a list of favorited tweets from an account's profile page or on a tweet's detail page, typically only the "favoriter" and the "favoritee" ever know about it. If Twitter starts surfacing favorited tweets in timelines, they've suddenly become far more public. The change — and the backlash — is somewhat similar to Facebook's attempts to share just about everything "friends" did with Open Graph. The company has largely given up on those efforts.

It's not impossible to see how this experiment could be beneficial for those who haven't carefully curated a list of accounts to follow. Seeing what other people favorite could help new users see how people use the service. It could also reveal some of the excellent back-and-forth conversations that are easily missed unless you follow many accounts that interact with each other often.

Let's face it: favs are pretty arcane

Even if you are up in arms about the experiment, it seems unlikely that the feature will see a wide rollout in its current form. It's currently unclear how many users are seeing the experiment in their timelines right now. I noticed the feature late last month in my own account, and a quick search of Twitter shows some others have as well. The experiment gained attention earlier today when The Next Web published a story on it.

Twitter has not yet responded to requests for comment, but in a generic blog post on its site about such tests, the company notes that it "experiment[s] with features that may never be released to everyone who uses Twitter." The company adds that the "they help us decide what not to do –– which is important as we work to keep Twitter simple while improving the user experience."

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

Monday 14 July 2014

Learn How To Maximize Lead Generation - Market Leader


Learn How To Maximize Lead Generation - Reachforce


Anyone with a blog can call themselves a thought leader – but how do you find the real deal?


If you’re lucky, you meet Ruth P. Stevens (her incredibly impressive bio is at the end of the article).  And if you’re extra lucky, she agrees to an interview drawn from her new book “Maximizing Lead Generation.”


What are the biggest challenges for marketer to generate the number of leads they need currently? Budget? Technique? Lack of alignment?

Lead Generation Best Practices defined


Learn the key framework from Ruth Stevens to create a lead process and generate more qualified B to B leads.
My view is that the biggest challenge is process.  This is not necessarily the most exciting part of lead generation, but it’s where the most leverage lies.  The company that puts a solid process in place, and executes consistently, is the one that wins.  The most important process areas to focus on are lead qualification and lead nurturing, although most marketers focus on inquiry generation.

What are the best performing lead sources currently? (eg Website organic, website PPC, retargeting ads, Iinkedin sponsored posts, etc).

You’re going to kill me, but the truthful answer is: It depends.  There are just too many variables involved.  So marketers should test all of these, as well as traditional media like telephone and postal mail.

But, I would also add to the list your own website (beyond search), which, if done correctly, can be a source of your cheapest and best leads.

What B2B marketers need to do is add an offer, a call to action and a dedicated landing page to the website, to motivate visitors to leave behind their contact information, for ongoing communications.  Plus, add IP address identification software, to “de-anonymize” the visit, and then consider an outbound call to the visiting company, to discuss their needs.

What activities are falsely classified as lead generation and how does this impact marketing?

To me, the big offender is list vendors, who present their products as “lead lists.”  This is ridiculous, and perpetuates the myth that contact names are leads.

How important is awareness to driving ultimate downstream lead generation or supplier preference?

Awareness is very helpful, of course.  The problem with awareness as a marketing goal is that it’s hard to measure.  I prefer to focus on response-oriented communications, where you generate not only awareness, but also action.  As the great copywriter Bob Bly notes, “In B-to-B, all marketing is direct marketing.”

What new lead generation tactics have you heard of that are gaining traction / performing well; and what previously high performing tactics are on the wane?

Direct mail is undervalued today by lead generation marketers. It is still extremely effective, when used properly.  Part of the reason is the abundance of well-targeted prospecting lists.

Another reason is that business people still read their mail, and their physical inboxes are a whole lot less cluttered than their email inboxes.

What’s the easiest way to waste a significant part of your lead generation budget?
Two glaring points:

  • By not systematically qualifying and nurturing inquiries.
  • By exhibiting at a trade show without a well-considered data capture and inquiry follow-up plan (and training booth staff to engage with passers-by).
  • What percentage of B2B companies these days have true alignment between sales and marketing? Is the percentage growing or stagnant?
I don’t have a number.  In my observation, the best alignment potential comes from the top, when the heads of sales and marketing like, trust and respect each other.

What are the most important factors to rapidly move marketing leads to sales ready prospects – and how much elapsed time / marketing touches are needed to get those leads really ready?

There are no shortcuts, really, because you are dependent on what’s happening at the prospect’s end, and you have limited influence there.  But 45% of inquirers eventually buy in the category.  So a company without a process for lead qualification and nurturing is going to lose that sale to the competition.  I know I sound like a broken record by now, but this is where I see companies fall down on the job.  It’s often the basic blocking and tackling that is missing.

You noted that social channels are delivering less than 5% of leads from all social channels. Will any technique or technology push social out of the 5% box?

Social can be put to good use in lead generation, but its best applications are misunderstood today.  Like PR, social cannot be viewed as a scalable, reliable media channel for lead generation.  You can’t build a quota-fulfilling revenue plan on it.

What you can do is:

Add an irresistibly titled content offer to social media messages, linked to a dedicated landing page where you capture contact information, and then nurture that relationship until it is ready to hand to a sales rep.

Use social media touches as part of your ongoing lead generation and nurturing programs.

If you are just starting to re-build your B2B lead program, what are the first 3 critical steps?

Plan your process, from inquiry-generating campaigns, to lead management, to results analysis and reporting. Invest in data management and hygiene.

Communicate the value of a lead to everyone in your company. This is a real point of opportunity.   The value of a lead can be explained in two ways:

  • The cost per lead, meaning the investment the company makes in generating a lead.
  • The revenue value of a lead, meaning the average order size of a closed lead.  If everyone in the firm is aware of these numbers, they are more likely to treat the lead with the respect it deserves.


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

Thursday 3 July 2014

Metrics for E-commerce Retailer with Content Marketing


Online retail marketers spend a significant amount of time and money attracting visitors to their stores, converting these visitors to customers and retaining them as customers over time. Content marketing helps at each stage of the marketing funnel.

Right at the top of the funnel, content marketing in the form of blogging, visuals, videos, guides, articles and media engagement all work to drive relevant traffic through to a store as well as kick off brand awareness. When visitors start to browse through products in your store, content marketing in the form of product videos, quality reviews (user generated content), FAQs, product description and images come to play with converting traffic to sales. Finally, customer loyalty efforts geared to generating more repeat customers are largely fueled by an email marketing strategy that imperatively connects with your brands overarching content marketing strategy.

It is vital to measure the effectiveness of these measures as a guide to future efforts. 

The word “metrics” is on everyone’s lips in the content marketing world, as metrics are a gauge on the effectiveness of marketing spend. There is, however, a slew of different metrics available to marketers. Which ones merit scrutiny?

1. Returning visitors

This is an important metric from a content marketing viewpoint because visitors who return to your site directly — who aren’t funnelled there by other marketing channels — are a guide to how useful people found content from your site the last time they came.  In other words, it’s a measure of how good your content is!

The quality of your content matters because it increases the “stickiness” of your site, and because it increases the likelihood of turning visitors into customers. Furthermore, high quality content that delivers return visitors is one of the means by which you can build relationships with your “top 1 percent” customers.

Ideally, what you want is your top 1 percent customers returning often, rather than many “bottom 90 percent” customers returning once or twice. That’s about targeted content and fragmented phased-out content that stimulates audience suspense similar to TV sitcoms.

2. Pages per visit

The average number of pages a visitor looks at during a browsing session. This figure provides some indication of site engagement in broad terms. If visitors read only one page, it indicates they aren’t finding the site very useful. If they stay and read 10 pages, they’re obviously seeing value in what your site has to offer. In e-commerce, this is a vital metric because visitors are most likely “window-shopping” on your site. The longer a visitor spends on your site, the more engaged they are and more likely they are to buying.

A vital part of this is bounce rate – how many visitors simply bounce right off the site after viewing only one page? Factors known to increase bounce rate include page load times, as well as a poor connection between content marketing and site content. If your content marketing attracts visitors who are basically uninterested in what you do, they’ll bounce. This is worth looking at in isolation as well as part of the whole picture provided by pages per visit metrics.

3. Time on site

Time on site indicates the amount of time a visitor spent doing anything at all on your site. As such, it indicates interest, engagement and likely purchase. As a general indicator of site performance, this is key. It’s also important because more engaged customers are usually better customers. Comparatively high time on site is an indicator of commitment to your brand – a feature of the “top 1 percent” customer. You can break down the time on site figures to see which people are spending more time with you, allowing you to optimize your content for the customers who make the biggest difference to your company.

4. Increased traffic

Increased traffic is the basic aim of content marketers. From social media to your blog to your sales pages, good content marketing should increase your traffic.

For e-commerce, more people coming in through the door means more sales and more revenue. Again though, it’s wise to differentiate between more traffic and more useful traffic. More visitors who display lower secondary conversion, lower pages per visit and so on, are not necessarily what you should be looking for. Boosting traffic should be seen as a way to increase the number of potential top 1 percent and top 10 percent customers coming to your e-commerce store. That’s about targeted content.

Engagement Metrics

5. Sharing content

How much of your content gets shared across social networks? That’s a key metric for content marketers in any sphere: it’s a measurement of how many people think your material is good enough to show their friends or pass on to professional contacts. It also feeds into your social marketing strategy: knowing which channels your content is shared on lets you know which channels to concentrate on, and which to optimize your content for.

From an e-commerce standpoint, sharing content is another indicator of the engagement of your top 1 percent customers. Higher engagement from this group is disproportionately rewarding in terms of sales and per-sale revenue. called “comments per post,” and it measures the number of times visitors post responses, feedback, reviews or any other form of commentary. This is a key metric for content marketing because it’s a measurement of engagement. This can provide insight into the topics that customers want to engage with.

Specifically for e-commerce, a reviews section provides an important guide for future customers. Customers and prospective customers take reviews extremely seriously, and they make a major difference to sales. From personal experience buying running shoes online, I value reviews from customers in specialist running online stores against reviews from behemoths such as Amazon or eBay because my inclination is that specialist store customers would be more discerning and knowledgeable. Online retailers should create a stimulating experience that encourages reviews and user-generated content in general — there is so much value to be had here.

7. Time

Most social media management tools offer metrics that let you find out what time of day and which days your posts see the most engagement. Obviously, you’d expect different demographics to have different engagement profiles – if you sell products aimed at middle-aged fishermen you’d expect to see a lot less action at 2 a.m. than if you sold concert tickets to youth-oriented events, for instance. Checking out when your audience is active lets you build your posting schedule around those times. You can take that information and measure it against your conversions at your store.

Suppose you get the most social media engagement at 9 a.m. on Thursdays, and most of your sales are at 9:30 on Thursdays. A link that fast seems unlikely to be causal. But what about secondary conversions? A spike in social engagement, followed by a spike in traffic, followed by a spike in sign-ups, all suggests that your social and other content marketing is working extremely effectively.

Business Metrics

8. Conversion rate

In online retail, sales are primary conversion metrics. Drawing a direct link between content that you create at each stage of the marketing funnel and your sales can be tricky, but multi-attribution modeling helps establish a link to sales conversions more easily. Also consider measuring “secondary conversions” such as email list subscriptions, buyer guide downloads and any form of engagement that requires commitment on the part of the visitor. Growing an email list is a vital conversion metric to measure.

It is a vital metric because it indicates a wider spread of visitors who might not be buying yet, but they’re interested enough to download material, to sign up or to otherwise indicate their interest. Additionally, higher engagement is a characteristic of the top 1 percent of your customers – the ones who actually contribute the most to your success.

9. Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value is a measure of how much a customer is worth to your company overall, across the time of their association with your company. The average customer is going to make around two purchases throughout their association with you. The top 1 percent of your customers will, measured across their CLV, be worth around 30 times more than the average – reason enough to concentrate on these high-value customers.

Analyzing customer lifetime value lets you see whether you’re getting the customers you want. It’s actually more efficient to appeal strongly to a smaller number of customers than to appeal weakly to a larger number of less engaged, less interested customers who will, ultimately, spend far less with you. If you’re appealing to high value customers, your content marketing strategy is working!

10. Revenue

Finally, what it’s all about. Revenue is the most important metric, for obvious reasons: you can’t pay your employees with click-through, or make a house payment with secondary conversions. But how do we look at revenue from a content marketing perspective?

One way is to track purchases through the whole process, and see what content they viewed prior to the purchase decision. If a visitor viewed three pieces of content on your website and then made a €90 purchase, each piece of content is worth €30, right? Sort of. But that’s too simplistic for such a complex picture. It doesn’t take into account social marketing, or repeat customers – in their case, you’d need to factor in the content they looked at last time too. Use purchase value/pieces of content viewed as a rule of thumb, but remember how vague it is. It will give you an average at best.

Another way of looking at revenue is to measure conversion value. It’s a broader approach that looks at all the costs involved against the sales value and it usually means looking at the mass of sales.

Conclusion

The most useful metric for tracking success overall is customer lifetime value measured against the aggregate cost of customer acquisition. Customer acquisition costs include all marketing costs, not just content marketing. But content marketing costs will be significantly reduced per customer if those customers have high lifetime value, because high lifetime value customers are interested in more of your content, so less of it “misses.”

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

Backlink Profile Monitoring with Majestic SEO


Are you monitoring your back-link profile?

It is no secret Google have become very aggressive when it comes to links and link building strategies: highly optimized anchor text links have suddenly become toxic as they are unnatural. So perhaps branding is the way to go and people are thinking twice before placing questionable links on their money sites.

While link building is still an essential part of your SEO strategy, there is another aspect you need to consider as an everyday part of your optimization efforts: Monitoring your backlink profile.

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Backlink profile monitoring should be an integral part of your ongoing SEO activities. You need to know who is linking out to you, and if there are any suspicious activities, in order to react in real time and avoid a disruptive, (or devastating), penalty.

How you can use Majestic SEO to monitor your backlink profile?

Majestic SEO offers 2 different ways to monitor your backlink profile:

Via a Tracking Report. The link tracking report from Majestic SEO offers a view of Trust Flow, Citation Flow, and other link quality characteristics such as external backlinks, referring IPs, referring domains, and referring subnets: link quality characteristics of any URL or website over time, updated on a daily basis. This report is useful in 2 ways:

It allows you to follow the link quality of a URL and see if there is any correlation between a change in a URLs position and whether the change was caused by an increase in good (or bad) links. These flow metrics start calculating many link iterations away from the URL you are tracking – meaning there does not have to be a change to the pages that physically link to you, for there to be a change in the page’s fortunes on the web.

It offers an overview on the rate of growth of your Inbound Links (IBLs). The daily report offered by the tracking report offers strategic insights on a day-to-day basis which you can use to understand what is happening:

  • There has been a spike in new IBLs, where are they coming from?
  • Are they related in any way to a viral activity performed by the Social media Team?
  • Was a link picked up and passed along on Twitter?
  • Did the R&D team publish a white paper?
  • Was a newsletter published offering a download?
  • If the answer to any of these questions was YES, then you are safe and should be ready to bet those links are all legitimate.


But what if the answers to all these questions was NO – nobody did anything of the sort; there were no Social Media initiatives, no newsletters, none of your content went viral – then where are these links coming from?

Spikes in the IBL profile should be looked at with suspicion – they could be coming from a site which has nothing to do with us and could have dropped a run of site link in their navigation bar or footer… this deserves your immediate attention. 

In this case we can see there is a certain trend in backlink profile, then a sudden significant growth over a few days; (in this case the IBLs shot up from just under 12.000 to 24.000). These links were found to be coming all from the same site, a very big portal with thousands of pages that had placed a link in the sidebar.

In very competitive markets competitors can organize a negative link building campaign to discredit you by adding thousands of low quality links, and then by doing so, impacting your trust flow, and boosting your citation flow. The tracking report will keep you up to date and in a matter of days you will be informed of the presence of these undesired and hostile links.

Tracking reports offer top level numbers and information but not the actual links; (they can be found in the Site Explorer under the New tab):

Inbound Links Discovery with Majestic SEO

You can see the spike noted in the previous screenshot taken from the tracking report. By hovering over the dates Majestic will reveal total number of backlinks identified and date of discovery; (which is not necessarily the date of creation).

Inbound Link Analysis using Search Explorer by Majestic SEO

Clicking on the date will retrieve the links and allow a detailed analysis. If the links are legitimate you keep them, if they are not your only option is to disavow them: by doing so you are telling Google you have nothing to do with that inbound linking activity and are taking appropriate action to distance yourself from them; (and by doing so renouncing to any link equity coming from them). The disavow will feed into your link profile and these links will be removed from your link graph. In this way you are preventing any retaliation on behalf of Google when the day of reckoning will come … prevention is better than curing.

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

Tuesday 1 July 2014

Social Customer Service Metrics improve your business


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) }}

Make smooth and fastest Distributor Network, How


Increasingly distributors are replacing direct salesforces in industrial marketing. They cost less, they absolve the manufacturer from the burdens of credit control and they provide a wide geographical spread of stocking points. But in appointing distributors the manufacturer loses control of the sharp end where the sale takes place. How can the principal identify weaknesses in a distribution network and what can be done about them?

The first indication of a weak distributor could be a fall in his sales performance. The manufacturer has the advantage of being able to compare the sales of each distributor and plot all their performances over time. A weak distributor can be spotted as one whose sales performance is out shone by others.Sharpening The Distributor Network

Of course relative sales performance may not tell the whole story. Distributors live in a competitive environment and some may suffer exceptional competition from other firms in their area. Nevertheless the warning bells will be sounded, and the principal will be able to discuss the problem with the distributor in good time.

World of Industrial Distribution changing with B2B Revolutions
Using Distributors with Time and Stratergy - Prabhakar
Qualified B2B Leads with Inbound Marketing, Blogs and Social Media, How
A second indicator of a weak distributor could be the growth of complaints which find their way back to the principal from customers. The nature of the complaints could be significant. Are they concerned with lack of stock, difficulty in obtaining sales service, poor back up, high prices, etc? The complaints can be logged and become an important discussion point for resolving with the distributor.

A third means of assessing the strengths and weaknesses of distributors is to pose as a customer. The Market Research Society sanctions mystery shopping as long as it is carried out within its code of conduct. The depth of investigation which can be undertaken as a supposed buyer can vary from the odd simple telephone call to a nationwide programme of organised visits.

Certainly the principal should telephone distributors from time to time to see how they react to a general enquiry. Things to look for are the speed and efficiency with which the telephone is answered and the ability of the receptionist to direct the call to someone who can handle it. However, if a larger study is to be undertaken, it must be coordinated and carried out in a professional and unbiased way. It will therefore require the services of a team of interviewers who can measure the response of the distributor at each stage of the buying process. The important things to look out for are italicised below.

Reception. This is most important since it is the first contact with the potential buyer. It is an area which tends to be handled badly, with inefficient receptionists who garble the name of the company and show conspicuous indifference to satisfying what may be an enquiry from a customer.

The sales person's initial approach. The prospective buyer is eventually routed to a sales person who should attempt to establish needs. In a recent mystery shop we carried out, the interviewers were told to enter the distributors and record the way in which they were approached by sales people. In one instance it became clear that even after three-quarters of an hour, the sales staff were not going to turn the conversation to business. The potential buyer might be there still if he hadn't finally taken the initiative and stated the nature of his enquiry.

Describing the product. Sales people are most at home when they can describe their products to a customer. However, it is not unusual for them to concentrate on product features at the expense of customer benefits.

Handling the competition. In most markets a customer can be expected to shop around. It is revealing, therefore, in mystery shop to ask the sales person to justify the company’s products. In a commercial vehicle dealer study where interviewers posed as potential buyers, one salesman was so flummoxed by the question, "Why should I buy your vehicle rather than a competitor's?" that he confessed he could not think of an answer!

Getting hold of the product. When a customer decides on the product, quite probably it will be wanted straightaway. Availability is therefore important. If the distributor does not have products in stock or cannot get hold of them quickly, the sale may be lost.

Providing a demonstration. Just as distributors' sales staff can give an acceptable description of their products, so too they are quite good at demonstrations. In the case of office equipment distributors, a demonstration is nearly always part of the standard sales routine. However, in the vehicle research referred to earlier, one-third of the distributors had to be prompted to offer a demonstration.

Offering discounts. Distributors frequently conflict with their principals about the high price of the products they sell. Yet in a recent survey on office equipment a quarter of all distributors offered a discount without being asked. A further half made the same offer after being asked. It seemed that distributors were all too eager to use price as the main sales weapon.

Following up the sale. Once the potential customer has left the distributor's premises, it is important that the enquiry is followed up either personally or in writing with a quotation. In the vehicle dealer study only a half of the "customers" were sent a written quotation even though all had asked for one.

Mystery shopping can expose weaknesses in the many stages of the distributors' selling procedure. It may be a valuable lesson for the principal to extend the research to include some distributors outside the company's network.

Making Correcting Weaknesses for Best ROI

The golden rule for helping a distributor improve its operation is "explain and train". Before raising criticisms of the distributor's business, however, the principal should attempt to understand the nuances of each locality. There may well be causes which are temporary or peculiar to a distributor, and these must be taken into account in any recommended changes.

A common weakness among distributors' sales staff is their failure to discover a customer's needs and relate the benefits of products to them. The sales person may fail to probe to find what the customer wants; may concentrate only on selling what the company has to offer. It may be thought easier to sell on price rather than push the benefits. The sales person needs training but this may not be within the facility of a small distributor. The principal should therefore assume the responsibility for both the sales product training and showing how to approach and convert prospects.

The principal may wish to manipulate the performance of the distributors' sales people by offering them sales incentives. Distributors have mixed views on principals' incentives. On the one hand they provide a boost to the sales staff's salary and so allow the distributor to recruit a higher class of personnel. On the other the distributor who allows a principal to make a payment to sales staff must concede a loss of control.

The installation of systems and procedures at dealers can help eliminate some of the weaknesses. For example, if it is important that a follow up takes place after the initial sales call or demonstration, it would not be difficult to set up a system which reminds the sales of this next step.

Systems can be devised for every part of the sales sequence. For example, a rule could be made that the telephone is answered before it rings more than three times; another might ensure that a customer is not kept waiting for more than five minutes in the showroom. Restrictions could be placed on the offering of discounts.

Of course all procedures and rules need policing if they are to be continuously observed. Further, it must be recognized that within a small distributor, overt bureaucracy is unacceptable and often unnecessary. So any procedures suggested to the distributors should be simple. They should be sold-in as ways of helping the distributor improve performance. A heavy hand is unlikely to work.

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

Wednesday 25 June 2014

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


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 }}