Measuring how well your campaign is performing is essential to the success of your lead generation campaign. Adopting lead scoring tactics will help in identifying the nature of the leads that are coming to buy your products or services. Potential factors that are included in determining the score of the leads are demographics and behavior of the people or the individuals looking at your business. You’ll determine how much of a “fit” the potential client is with your brand. This information is effective in understanding the qualifying criteria for the leads you will want your team to spend their valuable time on. You may want your rookies or new hires to spend their time working the lower scored leads and leave the high scored leads to your superstars. You can score leads from cold to warm to hot. Rookies work the colder leads while senior team members get the hot leads -- because the higher the score of the lead, the higher the chance that lead is going to convert itself into a sale. You’ll also use analytics tools to determine click-through rates (CTR), conversion rates, cost per customer and more to measure the success of your campaign.

Once you measure the performance of your campaign, you will want to optimize based on the results. You’ll see what’s working and what’s not working and make any necessary changes to help your campaign perform better. Optimization is a constant in your lead generation efforts -- some tactics that once worked well will no longer work, and you’ll need to stay vigilant in optimizing your campaigns for optimal performance. This helps ensure you’re not wasting precious time and resources.

Digital Marketing Now is my way of informing my fellow Digital Marketers, Entrepreneurs and Small Business owners about the trends and news about Digital Marketing they need to focus on. My team and I curate Digital Marketing content on a daily basis, so this is a good way of sharing quick bites. I also realize from doing a Clubhouse appearance that many of my connections have no interest in joining the very exclusive app. These episodes will run 4-7 mins long. I'll be testing going live at different times of the day in the coming weeks. All episodes will be uploaded to the Dadpreneur Podcast as "Bonus" episodes.

In this episode I'll discuss Apple IOS14 update. Beginning this week Apple will force app developers to ask users for permission to track Apple customers across the web. Tracking is currently on by default.

Facebook's is the biggest App Developer who's been complaining about this for months. They say if Facebook can't track users, advertisers won't be able to use the IDFA to match your purchase with the ad you clicked on. So what? What did Advertisers do prior to 2012? Apple's move is great for consumers.

How Do You Qualify Leads?

A prospect is someone who has the potential to become a customer. If your team is not able to qualify a lead, meaning determine if they are a true prospective buyer of your product or service, then your team members may be wasting their time on a customer who does not even want to make a purchase. That is the reason why lead scoring helps sales representatives to only talk to people who are interested in buying your products. To qualify your leads, you must determine if they are in the market for your particular product or service, if they can make the purchase (i.e. can pay for it and is authorized to do so), and if they plan to do so in the determined time period.

Firstly, get to know who your buyer is. You’ve created your buyer personas -- determine where this lead falls within those personas. Ensure they’re part of your target audience. Next, examine what actions the leads are taking on your website. Are they looking at products in your ecommerce store, attending your webinars, looking at your blog posts? This will help you identify the interests of your lead, which helps you understand if they’re a qualified lead. When using social media channels, utilize the marketing analytics given for each social media platform to understand the traffic that is coming for your services. This will help you to understand the interests, needs, and problems of every lead that is clicking your ad, landing page or website. The end goal of the business should be to convert these leads into marketable sales that can benefit the company and the marketing team as a whole. 

 

How Do You Nurture Leads?

The next step in your lead generation and management  process is to nurture your leads. Lead nurturing is the process of creating relationships with the leads at the early life stages of the marketing funnel, and also through each stage that a lead passes through until becoming a customer. Lead nurturing campaigns are run to maintain relationships with the customers from their initial contact with your business through the time they become a customer. Through delivering content that addresses the concerns of your customers and responds to their interests, you will effectively introduce solutions to their problems and pave the way to delivering options that contribute to long-term consumer partnerships and revenue. You may choose to use a marketing automation program to help you efficiently nurture leads. 57% of vendors regard lead nurturing to be one of the content management program's most critical components. While growing a company, it's important to use automated tools to cultivate the leads and ensure that you reach your customers throughout every stage of the purchasing process. Studies show that businesses make 50% more revenue at a reduced expense of 33% when they focus on lead nurturing. This implies that the ROI is much higher if the company concentrates on nurturing, which is why lead nurturing is extremely important as part of your online lead generation plan. The time needed for the lead to be nurtured is well worth it, due to the high ROI.

Once a lead enters your system, your sales team has to manage the information it has gathered from the lead. You should track where the leads are converting - TOFU (top of the funnel), MOFU (middle of the funnel), or BOFU (bottom of the funnel). TOFU buyers are among the widest audience you’ll have --these buyers are just recently aware of a problem they’re seeking a solution for, are beginning their research and hence, they’re the least likely to convert. MOFU buyers are your target audience - they may already know about your product or service, your brand and may even already be a lead. BOFU buyers are in the decision-making stage. These are your most valuable leads, and ideally you’d have already established a relationship with them through the other stages in their customer journey. While determining your nurturing practices, you’ll also need to consider th

If you don’t already know, there’s a difference between web design and web development. Both function differently, and both should typically be done separately and treated as individual parts of your website design process. While I don’t believe in unicorns or the infamous “jack of all trades,” I do believe that you can find a good designer AND a good developer, who may or may not be on the same team, who will work well together on your project. Combine those two parts with great content and you’re all set for the website you need to help your business succeed. The cohesiveness between all three parts is vital to the overall functionality and style of your website — one really can’t exist without the other.

Design vs. Development

Once you’ve identified who you’re targeting with your marketing, you should create specific content that will attract those audiences. At this point in the lead cycle, businesses should have figured out why their audience wants or needs their products/services (remember, you need to address the specific problem a customer may be looking to solve), and can position themselves as the ideal problem-solvers. Landing pages that link back to your website are a fantastic tool for selling your business in an easy-to-follow format, allowing customers to understand what your specialties are and how those specialties can help them. 

During this vital step in your funnel you’ll need to build your landing page, write the copy, and add images and videos. Your landing page needs to be secure, so add trust factors such as reviews, and make sure the page is secure with an SSL certificate. Don’t forget to add your phone number to the header of the page, and the privacy policy and terms of use to the footer of the page. Create a form with as few fields as possible -- these should always include first name, last name, email and phone number. Also be sure to add a TCPA (Telephone Consumer Protection Act) notice on the page.

10 Elements All Landing Pages Should Contain

❶ - create a compelling headline about your product or service offering❷ - don’t add any menu buttons to the header❸ - add a specific Call-To-Action to the header and/or the sign up buttons❹ - test out different colors, shapes and names for your “Sign-Up” button❺ - keep the form short, add validation to the fields and auto fill for city/zip code❻ - make sure you add a customized message and test the form to verify you’re getting the inquiries sent to your inbox or CRM❼ – add an SSL certificate❽ - add T&C’s as well as the TCPA notice to the bottom of the form that is specific to the nature of your business❾ - add a testimonial or 2 to the bottom of the page❿ - I prefer not to have any Social Media links on the page, but if you do, add them to the footer. Any and all kinds of links on a landing page will only drive the visitors away from the landing page.

To build effective content, you’ll need to create a content marketing strategy. Content marketing helps the buyers at every stage throughout the marketing funnel. If you create a strategy, it helps keep messaging consistent with your business’s core values and mission, and allows you to creatively distribute those messages. This strategy should extend to your landing pages, where many potential customers will experience your content for the first time.Before your landing page goes live, it’s critical to test with multiple calls-to-action. This step is not to be missed - it can change the way your entire campaign functions. Ensure that you do not create links to external pages -- no social media links or buttons unless you're an eCommerce brand.

 

It’s important to note that a fundamental part of using these tools is to track where the leads are coming from (using website analytics) in order to effectively generate the content that your customers are searching for. Keep this in mind for each step in your lead generation campaign creation. Many times you’ll find that businesses place their premium offers beside a lead capturing form on a landing page customers find through social media. The form can have an attractive offer such as free estimates, eBooks, a free webinar series, or other resources. These offers help in gaining traffic and converting leads to sales. The lead generation forms can help in generating leads and gather the data and information about a customer that can be used in the future to contact potential clients with new product info, updates, newsletters and more -- all to secure more effective sales.Use tracking tokens along with marketable emails and the social media campaigns and this will lead you to know about the behavior and interaction of individuals with the content that you are putting up.

 

Creat

Whether you're starting your journey as an entrepreneur or you're an experienced entrepreneur it's important to recognize your strengths and weaknesses. Did you know there are 31.7 million Small Businesses in the US? That's 99.9% of all businesses. Collectively they employee 60.6 million people in the US (roughly 47% of the US workforce).

If you decide to become an entrepreneur you'll want to decide what kind of business you'll operate.

Aha! New idea for a product or service

Solve a problem and improve lives

Buy an existing business or franchise

Entrepreneur Assessments

Keap Entrepreneur Quiz

29 Entrepreneur Quizzes

 

Types of Entrepreneurs

Micro

Dreamer

Real Deal/Leader

Main Street/Manager

All Talk (don't be this entrepreneur)

Creator/Artist

2nd Stage/Experienced

Social Change Maker

Traits of Entrepreneurs

Focused

Confident

Humble

Adventurous

Decisive

Resilient

Optimistic

Diligent

Courageous

Consistent

Starting Businesses under $5k

Dropshipping Service: Printify, Handshake, etc

Subscription & Membership Services

On-Demand Printing: Shopify

Upwork: Design, Development, Writing, Translation, etc

Website Flipping: Sedo, Flippa, etc

Catering or Food Truck

Virtual Assistant

Personal Shopper

Tutoring: tutor.com

Career or Life Coaching

Direct Marketing: Amway, Herba Life, etc.

Email Marketing: Mailchimp, Constant Contact, etc.

Coding: Iron Hack 

Sell Stock Photos: Shutterstock, Envato, etc.

Virtual Fitness & Dance

College Prep

Event Planning

Airbnb

Uber

Lyft

Door Dash

Real Estate

Home Improvement

There are many more opportunities you can find online and offline. This is a short list to give you something to think about. My recommendation is you go talk to people working in the same industry.

Data Sources

SBA

Small Biz Trends

Resources

Get a Mentor

Attend Conferences & Network

SBA

SBDC

Ted Talk

Gust

Understanding how to manage your leads is as important as it is to generate new leads itself. Inbound marketing is all about focusing on internal marketing tactics such as content marketing, social media marketing, blog posts, video content, search engine optimization and more all meant to draw in customers and promote interest in your products and services. No matter what your business is providing to the customers, you will generate the best sales results with strategic inbound marketing tactics. Management of leads bridges the gap between generating the leads and closing the sales. This is a customer relationship management strategy that involves identifying what the potential customer is interested in,educating them about your product or service, and maintaining an open line of   communication that ideally ends in a sale. It is essential that businesses follow an organized lead management process that can accompany the lead generation strategies. Performing this task can improve the results that are coming from leads and also it will ultimately contribute towards more sales. Many businesses learn how to generate leads but do not manage those leads correctly, which then causes a loss of sale. So, what should a business do to correctly generate, and then manage, quality leads? Follow these 5 steps to create an effective lead generation funnel.

Step 1

Identify Your Target Audience

This step is the first and arguably the most crucial one. This step identifies who your ideal potential buyers are. Who do you want to sell your products and services to? This is when you should sit down with your leadership team to identify these customers. Your marketing team should understand who these buyers are and what are the personas that they are presenting. This will better help you understand what a potential customer wants and needs.The persona that is associated with each client or customer can be carved out by the  demographics, behavior and motivation.

 

Demographics & Psychographics are a way to break down your target audience into subcategories. Some questions you should think about are: Where do your ideal customers reside? What is the age, gender, income level or education level of your customer? These are some basic demographic categories. You can also break these down into very specific categories, such as the industry they work in, marital status, what types of foods theyeat, hobbies, and more. Tackling all these questions proves to be a big advantage for generating leads that will result in sales, helping in the growth rate of the business.

Customer Behavior is another important aspect to consider in the process of identifying your audience. Although this can seem extremely difficult to identify, it’s equally important as any other persona building identifier. You’ll want to understand how your ideal customer behaves. Do they shop online or in store? Do they like to be the first to try a new trend? Do they share their favorites with friends and family? And you also need to know how your current customers interact with your business. How did they find your business? By blogs or written articles about your services? Or by searching for your company or business on the internet? These things are important to understand for a healthy client and customer relationship.The next important thing is the customer’s motivation . Normally, people don’t want to just buy products or services. They are looking to solve a problem. What can your business offer these customers? How can you position your company to help its clients? You need to know a customer’s why in order to correctly help solve and/or fix these problems. Using these key identifiers to build your buyer personas is a MUST in your marketing strategy. Understanding your customers can have a huge impact on the sales you secure from the leads you’ve generated.

 

 

Step 2: Optimize Your Website & Landing Pages (and your forms too) - Live on April 12th

Step 3: Determine th

Happy Friday! In today's episode we'll discuss what a business plan should look like in 2021. A question I often get from people looking to launch their own company is "what do I think about the business plan?"

 

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to listen to 7 start ups pitch their concepts to a group of investors at Remote Demo Day. It's hosted by Jason Calacanis from the Syndicate. One really caught my eye. The name is Fork Farms -

they're an agricultural tech start  up on a mission to get fresh food production schools and communities. These start ups had 3 mins to do their elevator pitch. Most of them had between 15-20 slides. It's a lot like Shark Tank!

If you're a startup looking for an accelerator, you can apply here.

 

So here's the deal,  you don't need a 20-30 page plan that no one will read in order to start your business. You can use the 1 page Business Model Canvas to visualize and connect all the business puzzle pieces. Maybe create a 10-15 page deck from presentations. But if you're not going to raise capital then a Business Model Canvas will do.

 

Here's what the BMC does? it describes the companies and it's product's value proposition, infrastructure, customers, and finances, etc. The template contains 9 "building blocks" see above. In my main business, we pay close attention to the 2 Customer blocks, Segments which are the Channels your customers will fall into and the relationships. It's also helpful to use the Value Proposition Canvas from Strategyzer to expand on the topic of customers.

 

That element should address three critical steps on a customers relationship: How the business will get new customers how the business will keep customers purchasing or using its services and how the business will grow its revenue from its current customers.

 

Types of relationships include Self Serve (like DIY), VIP, Membership, Communities = think about the Customer Journey, Customer Experience and if your Customer Service is doing it's best.

Business Model Canvas

Gust.com

Strategyzer

Lean Stack

----more----

Questions an entrepreneur needs to answer when creating a business plan.

About yourself

Ask yourself what's your super power?

What are your weaknesses?

Is it time to upskill?

How much experience do you have in the industry you're going into?

What does your personal financial situation look like?

Do you have contacts in the industry?

About the Product or Service

What's your product or service?

What about production? Supply chain?

Do you need a patent?

What's your pricing strategy?

Who are your competitors (secret shop them)

Are you B2B, B2C, D2C, Gov.?

About Operations

Legal - Do you need a lawyer for contracts and incorporating the business? Try my friend Steven Stark on UpCounsel

Decide whether you'll rent/lease a space VS virtual office

Financing/Accounting - ask friends and your banker to refer you to a Small Business CPA or one that specializes in Startups

Use Bench for Bookkeeping 

Quickbooks/Intuit for the software (BOA Payroll)

Use Stripe for payments

Line of Credit, credit cards, loans, SBA, VC's & Angels.

Branding

If you're on a tight budget for getting a logo and other assets you can use Spotify's free tools like: Logomaker, Business Name Generator, Domain name lookup, QR code, Terms of use, Privacy Policy & Image Resizer

Branding - hire a branding and design agency like SackLunch 

Alternatively you can use 99 Designs

Create a good story (check out my good friends Dan Grech at BizHack and Shlomi Ron at VSI)

Do a Design Thinking exercise- Take a look at https://www.ideo.org/

Web & Technology

Design and Develop a Website - Wordpress, Wix, Square Space, Shopify, etc.

Technology (hosting, email, cloud for docs, contracts)

Customer Service Support (consider a Chat or support ticket system on your website)

Marketing & Sales

Decide on a Marketing Strategy (perhaps take a class at BizHack)

Learn with mini lessons from Google - Primer from Google 

Decide on your goals and objectives. Are you

In marketing your business, performing keyword research is a crucial step. The goal here is not to make you a Keyword Research expert, but rather help you understand the role keywords play in your performance. This includes the keywords you use on your website, on social media and across the web. Your products and services are at the core of your keyword strategy.

Consumers will not be able to find your website if they are not using the keywords you have identified and used in your copy. Ensuring that your website includes the words your consumers are most likely to use when looking for your products or services helps to drive traffic to your site. No matter what products or services your business offers, you need a website that is built upon the right keywords. These three steps will help you do the research and analysis to build the best possible online lead generation campaign.

 

Step 1 - Brainstorm

First step is to sit with your team and have a brainstorming session. At this point in your Lead Generation campaign you should have already accessed your Website Analytics. Whether you're using Google Analytics or a 3rd party tool like SEM Rush you'll want to review current and past keyword performance. Then, think about and talk through which keywords consumers will use when searching for your business. If your website is in English, be sure that those keywords are in English as well. Don’t forget to include informal words and slang words for your product or service as well. For example, a business offering landscaping may also use “lawn”, “yard” or “landscaper” as keywords. To get the best results in increasing traffic to your website, we suggest using keyword expressions, which are strings of two to three words. Keyword expressions for a landscaping company would include “lawn care”, “yard maintenance” and “home landscaping.”

Step 2 - Analyze

Employ an online service such as Google Ads or Bing to perform an analysis of whether or not users are actually using your chosen keywords. Paid search is another option to consider. If consumers are searching for “lawn mowing services,” your business might not be recognized by the search engine algorithm. Conducting a detailed search of which keywords and keyword expressions are used in connection with your product or service will help to ensure traffic is directed to your site.

Step 3 - Optimize

Lastly, test out your keyword performance. This helps you determine how many searches actually lead to conversions. You may want to consider displaying banner ads, trying targeted ad campaigns or using PPC (pay per click) to get additional leads. Once you see which keywords work and which don’t perform, you can optimizefor best performance.

If you're not a seasoned Social Media Manager or Digital Marketer it can feel like you should be spending time and money on every Social Media Network. The truth is you may not need to be on more than a few on a consistent basis. Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with setting up a profile or business page across the countless Social Media Networks, but there are disadvantages too. For one thing, if there's no one in your company who can check the status of your account or profile on a regular basis you may end up missing messages from would be buyers.

A better strategy is to determine where your audience spends their time. Then do your research by comparing your competitor's content and ads. You could also conduct a survey from your current and past clients asking them what Social Media Network they spend time on.

 

Here's an overview of the most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2021, ranked by number of active users according to Statista.

Facebook 2.7 billion

Youtube 2.3 billion

Instagram 1.2 billion

LinkedIn 800 million

Tik Tok 700 million

Snapchat 500 million

Pinterest 450 million

Reditt 430 million

Twitter 353 million

Quora 300 million

 

Key takeaways from their Datareportal Global Overview report published on 27th January 2021 are:

More than half of the world now uses social media

4.66 billion people around the world now use the internet, of those users,  316 million new users have come online within the last 12 months

5.22 billion unique mobile users

 

LinkedIn Stats

General LinkedIn Stats

In Q1 of 2021, LinkedIn revenue increased 23 percent year-over-year (LinkedIn)

In 2020, LinkedIn made $181 billion in revenue. (LinkedIn)

LinkedIn has more than 740 million active users. (LinkedIn)

In Q3 of 2020, the amount of content shared on LinkedIn increased by 50 percent. (LinkedIn)

Marketing Solutions is growing 40 percent year-over-year in Q4 2020. (LinkedIn)

Nearly 40 million people searched for jobs on LinkedIn each week in Q4 2020 (LinkedIn)

In 2020, LinkedIn was voted the most trusted network. (Business Insider)

LinkedIn Demographics

57% of global LinkedIn users are male. (DataReportal)

While 44% of those between 25 to 30 and 37% of those aged 30 to 49 say they use LinkedIn. (Pew Research Center)

49% of internet users who make more than $75,000 annually use LinkedIn while only 26% of those in the $30,000 to $74,999 range use the platform. (Pew Research Center)

51% of internet users with a college degree or higher use LinkedIn. (Pew Research Center)

Four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions at their companies. (LinkedIn)

174 million U.S. Workers have LinkedIn profiles. (LinkedIn)

30% of LinkedIn users live in urban areas. (Hootsuite)

Marketing Tactics and Lead Generation

LinkedIn is the most popular platform of B2B marketers, followed by Twitter. (Content Marketing Institute)

As of January 2020, 663.3 million users have been reached by LinkedIn Ads. (We Are Social)

Data shows that the most engaging LinkedIn posts are published on Wednesdays between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and noon, Thursday at 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., and Friday at 9 a.m. (Sprout Social)

LinkedIn's lead conversion rates are 3X higher than other major ad platforms, including Google Ads. (LinkedIn)

Roughly 15% of marketers are creating content for LinkedIn. (HubSpot)

Only 10% of marketers say they're investing in LinkedIn. (HubSpot)

In a study of over 5,000 businesses, HubSpot found that traffic from LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74%, almost three times or 277% higher than both Twitter (.69%) and Facebook (.77%). (HubSpot) 

Sources

Hootsuite, Facebook, Google

eMarketer: https://www.emarketer.com/content/linkedin-to-grow-faster-than-expected

Hubspot: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/linkedin-stats

Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/272014/global-social-networks-ranked-by-number-of-users/

Pew: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/

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