The world can be a little disconnected sometimes. With automation contributing to our daily lives from checking out groceries at a Supermarket to working without the need for face-to-face conversations, human interaction is decreasing. Never mind, the pandemic tearing us further apart. It’s said that human interaction can contribute to our overall happiness so it’s no surprise when we start to crave it, and it’s no surprise that marketers are turning to personalization to supercharge lead generation.

Dana Lindahl, the founder of Legendary Podcasts and Legendary Leadgen, is a big fan of outbound marketing... when you do it right. To do it right Dana advocates for personalization as the much-needed solution in lead generation today. As a growing legend in helping businesses reach their audience with high-quality podcasts, Dana’s experience in lead generation has qualified him to grow their audience with value-based targeting and a hyper-personal approach.

As podcasts center on a relationship-based ecosystem, it is key that the initial outreach is personalized, targeted, and researched. Although this may require more manual labor than our 21st-century lifestyle is used to, it has the potential to provide the best results. Keep doing the hard things until the hard things become easy.

No one likes to miss out on untapped potential. With social media growing and becoming a living and complex universe in itself, some brands could use some help to scale and grow in this digital world. Corrie Jones the co-founder and CEO of Untapped discusses her own business growth and touches on growth strategies for all.

Creating innovative technologies, solutions and services can often get business owners lost in selling their own ideas. Sales and marketing teams dedicate their careers to being successful in influencing a buyer’s decision, supporting the buying journey, increasing growth, and generating quality clients. However, we have the opportunity to move away from giving the customer what we think they want, to using customer conversations and insights to drive product development and messaging.

Supporting companies to increase customer conversations to generate more meaningful experiences is Mary Brodie. Mary is the founder of Gearmark. The team and consultants at Gearmark help create memorable digital experiences made for people - not just profits. That’s what we have to remember: people are behind these purchases and decisions.

We’re more likely to remember a meaningful experience rather than the unique qualities of a company or product. There is more to purchasing and interacting with a company than simply completing a transaction. Building better conversations and crafting meaningful and memorable experiences grows trust and long-term loyalty making your brand and business a success.

In order to provide the best service, you should step into your customer’s shoes. Understand the source of the problem and think about how your product or service will solve their problem or improve it. If your customer succeeds, you will. In the decision stage, customers have a profound understanding of specific offerings and need to decide on the one that best meets their needs. So how can you influence them at key-decision stages in their customer journey? When consumers reach a decision at the moment of purchase, the marketer’s work has just begun: the postpurchase experience shapes their opinion, so the customer journey never ends. In this competitive and complex world, a successful loyalty program can keep customers invested, engaged, active, and likely to return. A loyalty revenue expert, Craig Kinnersley, joined us today to discuss his expertise and offer his advice in the loyalty and marketing worlds. Craig is the founder and CEO of NicheMoves, an advisory business that works with CEOs and CMOs to re-invent, re-imagine and re-invigorate loyalty programs. As a renowned loyalty marketing innovator, strategy consultant, and technology pioneer you’ll want to have a listen.

Businesses are moving away from giving the customer what they think they want to use consumer data to drive product development and messaging. This audience-based and value-driven strategy focuses on making a genuine connection with the customer beyond interest in a product or service. Rather than selling or developing a product or service you think customers want you can leverage audience data and start to understand that your audience is your most valuable asset. Moving towards sharing knowledge and insights to add value to their audience, is Managing Director of Kaizen, Jeremy McDonald. Kaizen is a digital marketing agency that delivers compelling digital experiences that engage audiences and grow businesses. By shifting their focus to audience-based and value-driven marketing Jeremy addresses the ‘why’ of their business and is determined to add value to a prospect's journey. From influencer marketing to paid social, Kaizen aims to deliver bespoke strategies that suit their clients’ needs. Kaizen is a Japanese term meaning ‘continuous improvement’ and the team naturally embodies this in everything that they do. Jeremy offers us insights into marketing with his expertise and years of both personal and business growth.

As we transition to more online purchases, businesses have to adapt to their customer's buying journey. How can we influence a buying decision when we don’t have the opportunity to directly engage with buyers? Customers are more likely to purchase from a website that has customer reviews than a website that doesn’t. Reviews give potential customers more confidence in their purchasing decisions, reduce page abandonment and doubts, leading to a higher conversion rate. Supporting and encouraging customer reviews is ResellerRatings a leading user-generated content platform. With their Ratings and Reviews platform, and syndication network companies can acquire new leads, increase customer conversions, and reduce page abandonment. The head of marketing Christina Kay is proud and humbled by the success of ResellerRatings, as they are a pioneer in the industry. Prospects can be successfully influenced during their buying journey if we produce content that is suitable and appropriate to the stage of the journey they are in. During the Consideration stage, the consumer is at the height of their research, comparing and weighing which solutions or products offer the most value. It’s an opportunity to provide content that is honest, accurate, authentic, and value-adding. Reviews and ratings offer the perfect content and influence.

The way people are buying is rapidly changing. From the already growing online-purchasing space to the shift to full digital experiences, owing to the global pandemic, many businesses have had to adapt their perspective on the buying journey. Buyers are doing more independent online research than before, making the research cycle shorter and more efficient.  So to change along with this developing customer journey we must ensure high-quality audiences are targeted and supported through the sales funnel.

Clearbit is a B2B Data Company focused on providing clients with the right data about their customers at the right time to create high-quality audiences and increase conversions throughout the sales funnel. The head of sales, Cameron McCormick, highlighted the benefits of their solutions and dived into the details of one of their most exciting products Clearbit Advertising.

Clearbit Advertising offers high-level targeting on Facebook to drive high-quality audiences and conversions with 100+ B2B targeting filters. Clearbit’s team is focused on solving a lead-to-quality-lead conversion problem. When acquiring new clients they work hard to truly understand customers’ pain points and ensure clients’ audiences are aligned with their data research and findings.

Modern marketing comes with many opportunities to reach an audience. Social media is now an essential business growth tool for audience reach. As businesses understand the complexities of the buying journey we can leverage the digital world to support multiple touchpoints in the awareness stage. Even as we become inherently digital and leave behind traditional forms of marketing, there is still no greater tool than word-of-mouth.

Finding ways to turn people into ambassadors can be an effective way of helping to expand your reach and bring in new customers; however, relying on customers to do the work for you is not a sustainable solution. Employee advocacy is an evergreen channel for marketing. They can become loyal brand ambassadors and spread the word to their followers to build trust and social proof.

Jonathan Baldock, an advisor at Social Horse Power, expands on the power of employee advocacy and the potential reach and success it can bring for growing businesses. Social Horse Power’s platform is a fast and easy way to create a successful employee advocacy program. By empowering your employees with impactful content and stories, they become thought leaders. They can now amplify the voice and brand of your company.

Peter Drucker states that; “there is only one valid definition of business purpose: to create a customer” Creating a customer comes down to how you communicate your vision and values to the appropriate customers in your market. Therefore messaging plays a crucial role in the development of a great company. With SaaS businesses expanding there is a new challenge of highlighting your value and purpose in impactful messaging while remaining unique in the market; standing out from your competition. As the director of product marketing at Armorblox, Abhishek Iyer opens up about the challenge of speaking the customer’s language while highlighting their unique position in the market. Armorblox helps organizations communicate securely over email. Their platform understands the content and context of communications to protect the human layer against targeted attacks and data loss. I assume we all use email in our day to day business communication. However, as technology intelligence improves we’re equally more exposed to its dangers. Armorblox helps to stop email targeted attacks, protect sensitive data, reduce phishing response times, and much more. Listen in to hear how Abhishek has worked to grow the business and encourage customer generation with a focus on their unique market position and messaging.

To support momentum in your buying journey and provide a customer experience that helps your customers discover the ROI in your offering, you need to track your Time to Value as a key metric. In our digital world consumers are influenced by and demand instant gratification. You don’t want to leave space for a competitor to prove their worth before you. The sooner you can show your clients value, the more likely they are to convert and be returning customers. Our guest today, co-founder of Vyper, Jack Paxton has observed the successes and failures of increasing conversions. Trying different content, pop-ups, and calls to action, Jack has resolved to simplicity. With a straight-to-the-point strategy and buying cycle, customers realize the value quickly. Coupled with a simple website and a clear value proposition Jack has prioritized a simple onboarding process too. By analyzing the customer experience and trialing different triggers, designs, and messages Jack has been able to encourage growth and ensure customers realize the value. By tracking and measuring he can better understand their sales cycle, know when customers will see the value of their solution, and forecast any changes needed to improve their sales funnel or marketing strategies.