Innovative Marketing Ideas

In conversations with business owners, I am often asked how we can help them find new customers. Should they buy contact information, send direct mail or hire telemarketing services? While these can all be relevant ways to create awareness about your products and services, they are all based on you reaching out to the many in the hope of finding the few.

Let customers find you

Todays buyers and consumers are increasingly going online to do research before making a purchase decision. They use online search to find information and educate themselves about the products and services available. 

Most of us will use online search to find information and review one or more company website to learn more about their products and services. As a marketer or business owner, your challenge is to make sure your company is included in customers online research process.

1. Can customers find you?

Will customers find your company when searching online on Google, Bing or Yahoo? While some might search for your company or product name, majority of customers are likely to search for more generic terms like accounting services or laptop reviews. By making sure your company is listed in the search results you can improve your chances that new customers learn about your products and services. To learn more about how search engine work, see this video from Google.

If you want to learn how your website ranks on popular search engines, we offer a free Search Engine Optimization report. Click here to get your free SEO report.

2. Is your website helping your customer

When a visitor comes to your company website for the first time an initial impression will be formed very quickly. A good impression will drastically increase your chances of that visitor staying on your site. This include both the visual and functional aspect of the website. Because most visitors only spend a few seconds before deciding to explore further or to leave your website, it is important that both website content and design help deliver a positive experience.

Optimize your website to help your customers through their buying process. Because B2B buyers often go through a lengthy decision making process, your customers are likely to return to your website at different stages. Website content should be designed to help your customer through each stage of their decision making process.

3. Turn web traffic into leads

While a good search engine ranking and high number of website visitors are great, they are only valuable if you can convert them into new customer wins. This means that you need to convert anonymous website visitors into known contacts or leads.

First step is to convert an anonymous visitor into a known contact. This can be achieved using various types of marketing promotions and registration forms. It might include giving away a research report or free sample of your product through an online registration form. The objective is to start building a relationship with the contact, by offering valuable content, that can assist the customer through their decision making process. By using the online registration form, you can request for the customers permission to continue the dialog through other channels like email or telephone.

Once you capture new leads, a continued interaction is important to stay top of mind. Include leads in drip campaigns and monitor how leads interact with your campaigns and website. By monitoring campaign interaction, you can better identify hot leads and target your messaging more accurately. This way, you can target your campaigns based on where the customer is in their buying process and gradually turn online leads into sales ready leads.