Time To Reevaluate The Tools, Technologies, And Practices To Market Your Business

One great aspect that comes with the changing of the seasons to spring is there is more daylight – giving one the impression there is more time in the day. While you know that isn’t true, in our busy and chaotic lives, anytime you can feel that you have extra time can be energizing. Perhaps that is why many use spring to clean.

Just as many may use spring as their excuse to clean, it is always a good idea to periodically reevaluate the tools, technologies, and practices to market your business. See what is working and what is not. Doing so enables you to take advantage of newer methodologies and technologies that can prove to be more effective. With the proliferation of new tools available, there are plenty of budget-friendly as well as efficient means to gathering and distributing content, capturing and measuring leads, running email campaigns and measuring ROI.

“Take a risk and keep testing, because what works today won’t work tomorrow, but what worked yesterday may work again.”-- Amrita Sahasrabudhe

With Google changing their algorithm for mobile search, now is the time to ensure your website and content will not only display correctly but that your site is usable via mobile. Make sure your fonts are large enough to view whatever the mobile screen size, your buttons are not too close together and links are easy to click. Your content should load quickly – plan for slower Internet connection speeds like G3, as Google will penalize you for slow load speed.

In addition to reevaluating the tools you are using, it’s also a great time to consider what other media you can integrate into your current marketing plan that would benefit your business. For instance, 57% of marketers are now using video. Video is a great way to demonstrate the use of your product, provide trainings, or tie your product into a historic or pop-culture event. While it is difficult and really not necessary to have a presence on every social site available, if your target audience is now spending time on Twitter and you aren’t active, now may be the time to establish your presence. On the other hand, if your efforts on a social site are not producing results, it may be time to refocus your energy elsewhere.

Take a fresh look at your content. When creating new content, are you taking advantage of the multitude of ways to present that content? A video can be transcribed and turned into a blog. A blog can be broken into a number of tweets and posts. Stills from the video can be posted on Instagram. You can even turn the content into an offer to attract and gain more leads. With the effort it takes to create new content, leverage that content to reach and engage. 

And finally, measurement. What aren’t you actively measuring that you should be? Many evaluate the numbers of visitors and new leads from the latest campaign. What about correlation? At what point are visitors converting into leads, how about leads converting into customers? Having a deeper understanding as to the conversion point can help your marketing and sales teams be more successful in reaching out to a prospect at just the right point in the buyer’s journey.

“It’s much easier to double your business by doubling your conversion rate than by doubling your traffic.” -- Jeff Eisenberg

Just as you plan the development of your content with strategies, tactics, and distribution, it is also important to periodically reevaluate the tools, technologies, and practices to market your business. See what new automation tools are available, learn about the latest algorithm updates from Google, discover new technologies to incorporate into your content marketing plans, evaluation the effectiveness of your content distribution efforts and make sure you are getting the meaningful information from your data. Incorporate an evaluation into your marketing plan and consider this one way to continually improve your marketing operations, which improves your content marketing effectiveness and improves your overall business.  

Help Prospects Solve Their Problem With Content

Whether you sell a product or offer services, helping a prospect get through the consideration stage and into the decision making stage is one that requires patience and time.

In the Awareness Stage, prospects are still trying to identify their problem or issue. Taking advantage of information that is readily available, they are able to pinpoint the problem or issue they are experiencing. Information available at this stage tends to be more educational, not promotional as companies are using this as a first step to connect with a potential customer. Having a presence with insightful information where and when the prospect is ready is key.

90% of business buyers say when they are ready to buy, they’ll find you. – DemandGen Report

In the Consideration Stage, prospects are now researching, gathering information regarding available options to solving their problem. You have an opportunity to strengthen your relationship - solve their problem with content. Essentially, provide information regarding the benefits of available solutions. Caution has to be taken – do not focus on features, or present your content in a pushy, BUY NOW manner. That will likely turn them off. Instead, the purpose of content in the consideration stage is to help guide prospects through this process and build trust.

According to Pardot’s State of Demand Generation report, 70% of buyers return to Google at least 2-3 times during the course of their research, diving even deeper into each company’s specific offerings to see how they can address their particular pain points.

One way to guide prospects is to use metrics. Take a look at the information you have available. What emails have they responded to? What offers have they downloaded? Take advantage of this data to help fine tune your reach to help convert this prospect into a customer.

“Instead of one-way interruption, Web marketing is about delivering useful content at just the precise moment that a buyer needs it.” – David Meerman Scott

Content is your way to connect with prospects and build trust. Make sure your content is addresses what they are most interested in. Create content that addresses the problem and provides a correlation with benefits. This provides your prospect with the justification they may need to help make the purchase.

Content that is helpful at this stage of the process includes:

1. Comparison White Paper
2. Testimonials
3. Product or Service Webinar
4. Case Studies
5. eBook (5 Steps to solving this problem)

“To be successful and grow your business and revenues, you must match the way you market your products with the way your prospects learn about and shop for your products.” – Brian Halligan

Create a variety of offers and make them available where your prospects are spending their time. Many will not respond to your emails, and unless you have a crystal ball, it is difficult to predict when they are ready to respond. By promoting your offers through other social channels, you will increase the likelihood a prospect will see it at the time it is most relevant to them, when they are ready.

One last piece of content that is also a good to have available provides pricing and ROI details about your product or service. This piece will be useful as prospects may start to narrow their alternatives and will need details to help move them along the purchasing process.

It isn’t easy to attract visitors, convert them into a lead and eventually into a customer. Rather than bombard potential buyers with features and BUY ME promotions, provide insightful and benefits-oriented information WHERE they are shopping for WHEN they are ready for the details. Make them aware that you are there ready to help them every step along the way. Make a connection, and build trust.