Autospeak-Straight Talk contains articles covering digital and social media marketing social communities and events marketing
How to Increase Your LinkedIn Engagement by 386% [Infographic]
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(Posted on Dec 22, 2013 at 11:50AM )
LinkedIn may not seem as sexy as Twitter or Facebook, but with over 259,000,000 users and 2,100,000 groups, it’s a social channel that you can’t ignore.
Sure, you won’t generate as much traffic from LinkedIn as you will from other social sites, but it’s audience tends to be businesses, which means each LinkedIn visitor is going to be worth more money.
So, how can you leverage LinkedIn? Well, you probably already know that posting on the weekdays during the mornings helps. But did you know that if you do 20 posts a month, you’d reach 60% of your audience?
Courtesy of: Quick Sprout
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LinkedIn may not seem as sexy as Twitter or Facebook, but with over 259,000,000 users and 2,100,000 groups, it’s a social channel that you can’t ignore.
Sure, you won’t generate as much traffic from LinkedIn as you will from other social sites, but it’s audience tends to be businesses, which means each LinkedIn visitor is going to be worth more money.
So, how can you leverage LinkedIn? Well, you probably already know that posting on the weekdays during the mornings helps. But did you know that if you do 20 posts a month, you’d reach 60% of your audience?
If you want to maximize your LinkedIn engagement, just follow the steps in the infographic below.
Sure, you won’t generate as much traffic from LinkedIn as you will from other social sites, but it’s audience tends to be businesses, which means each LinkedIn visitor is going to be worth more money.
So, how can you leverage LinkedIn? Well, you probably already know that posting on the weekdays during the mornings helps. But did you know that if you do 20 posts a month, you’d reach 60% of your audience?
If you want to maximize your LinkedIn engagement, just follow the steps in the infographic below.
Click here to view an enlarged version of this infographic.
Conclusion If you aren’t leveraging LinkedIn yet, hopefully the infographic above changes your mind. And if that doesn’t, consider that the highest quality of leads that I generate for NeilPatel.com tend to come from LinkedIn ads.
Three simple ways in which you can get more traffic from LinkedIn are:
by Neil Patel
Conclusion If you aren’t leveraging LinkedIn yet, hopefully the infographic above changes your mind. And if that doesn’t, consider that the highest quality of leads that I generate for NeilPatel.com tend to come from LinkedIn ads.
Three simple ways in which you can get more traffic from LinkedIn are:
- When you post images, you’ll notice that you get 98% more comments.
- If you link to your YouTube videos from LinkedIn, on average, you’ll generate 75% more shares.
- Keep in mind that 60% of your connections on LinkedIn are interested in industry updates, while only 43% are interested in news and products from your company.
by Neil Patel
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A Business Owner's Guide To Better Lead Generation in 3 Steps
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(Posted on Aug 19, 2013 at 05:46PM )
The way your buyer's purchase and your competitors are going to market is changing rapidly and fundamentally. Many business owners are finding their tried and trusted lead generation techniques and tactics are failing to yield sufficient results.But knowing you need to change and knowing how to change and specifically how MUCH to change sits at the heart of the challenge.
Understanding the buyer's journey lies at the centre of good lead generation practices. Marketers should allow the journey their buyers go on...
- from uninterested and unaware in their products or services,Â
- to defining their problems and their need,
- to expressing interest in your solutions,
- to purchasing and becoming a loyal customer
Funnel maths - Measuring Your Lead Generation EffectivenessTraditionally, one of the major issues business owners face is not being able to measure the financial return on their marketing investments. There was no way to gauge the real impact on revenue of say, print advertising or direct mail. Even knowing some data, such as email open rates isn't sufficient to understand the dollar return on that particular marketing investment.
However, a new era is upon us. An era where “Smart Marketersâ€, armed with the right tools, have the ability to calculate real marketing ROI. We refer to this as "knowing your funnel maths.â€
Say you have 1000 visitors to your website in a given month (ie the top of the funnel). You target those visitors and turn them into leads by providing content that best suits their needs. Of those initial 1000 visitors, 50 of them become leads and enter your lead nururing campiagn (middle of the funnel). Of these 50 leads, 8Â of them become sales ready leads, of which 2 of them become customers (bottom of the funnel.) The two delas are worth $5000Â in new revenue to your business.
Smart lead generation is knowing the "leakage rate" of each stage in their funnel(how many propects you lose along the way) knowing the lag time from first engagement with prospects to the time they become a loyal customer. Armed with this valuable information, together with their current and planned revenue goals and average selling price,organisations can model their lead generation funnel accordingly.
Why is this important? Because it means business owners and their marketers now know the velocity they need to run their funnel to meet their revenue goals.
They know how many visitors and contacts they need at the top of the funnel in order to drive revenue at the bottom of the funnel. Now that's smart!
Employ a digital, inbound marketing methodologyEmploying a lead generation strategy using digital or inbound marketing strategy saves business owners time and money. On average an inbound lead is 62% cheaper than an outbound generated lead.
Good inbound marketing attracts buyers to your site via carefully selected tactics that highlight the problems and challenges your buyers are facing in their business. Nurturing those leads using relevant targeted messages further deepens the engagement.
Now, instead of your sales team caught up cold calling or email spamming, they can establish and develop a credible and trustworthy relationship with buyers who are educated and motivated.
But perhaps the single biggest benefit of an inbound marketing approach is the ability to measure your lead generation funnel at every step of the process and then adapt your approach and retest to evaluate the success of the change. This incremental, iterative, adaptive approach yields much better and faster returns.
Use content to nurture your leadsNow we now know that people commence online searches and visit websites for a solution to a problem. What’s the most effective way to engage? Provide content such as an eBook, current industry trends or a more technical whitepaper. Nurture your lead through their buying process. If your prospect is “sitting on the fence†provide more relevant information such as product demonstrations, free trials and video testimonials to enhance your reliability whilst educating and informing buyers too.
According to Hubspot here's how your offer types change as the buying process progresses.
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Posted by Joe Fell
By focusing on these three key elements:
Posted by Joe Fell
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- Your funnel maths
- Inbound marketing
- Content that speaks to buyers
Posted by Joe Fell
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What Is Google Plus And Why Should I Join Another Social Platform?
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(Posted on Aug 12, 2013 at 04:11PM )
In the web industry, we need to spend a lot of time researching and keeping up with the constant change in order to provide relevant and sound advice to our customers.Our customers are typically small to medium businesses who often don’t have the time to engage on any social media, but one of the questions I’m being increasingly asked is what is Google Plus?
We’ve all seen the gradual change within Google towards better quality content being a key search factor, along with the growing influence of social media on search, but to put it bluntly, Google Plus has the potential to permanently change the search landscape.
If you and your business aren't actively engaged on Google Plus, you are placing your business at risk!
A study by SearchMetrics earlier this year (you will need to register to download thestudy) showed that social signals such as “Likes†etc correlated very closely to search rankings, and that Google +1s more so than Facebook and Twitter. Correlation isn’t necessarily causation, but recent comments by Matt Cutts and a Google blogannouncing “in depth†articles show that Google Plus participation is going to be vital to gain and maintain rankings.
So, what is Google Plus and how do I use it?
If I had to summarise my thoughts on Google Plus, it would be that I came for the SEO benefits, but stayed for the huge amount of valuable and relevant of information that is shared, the standard of discussion and the willingness of most members to help out and contribute.
Google Plus is different to other social media, in my experience it is less prone to bad behaviour, and experienced members give freely of their time. Discussion topics can we wide ranging, I've been caught up in discussions on music, poetry, westies (as in dogs, via one of the very many "communities"), as well as my core interests of web design, digital marketing and social media.
While I’ve had a Google Plus profile for quite some time I’ve only been actively engaging for the last few months. So instead of me trying to explain it all, I’ll link to some excellent articles by Martin Shirvington, an outstanding authority on Google Plus amongst many other things and someone who will engage with you and help you make the most of this platform. (Make sure your first connection on G+ is Martin)
“If you think Google Plus is just another social site, you are in for a big surprise. What has been created is, put simply, a phenomenal tool for human communication, and much more. But it takes you to experience it, embrace it and ‘get it’ before this realisation really comes.â€- Martin ShirvingtonÂ
Martin Shervington
Marketing, Psychology & Google+ InsightsWhat is Google Plus? A Complete User Guide. (Videos and Blog)
Article resources (including additional videos)
- The Ultimate Guide to Google Plus Posts
- The Ultimate Guide to Google Circles
- The Ultimate Guide to Google Hangouts
- Complete Guide to Google Plus Pages for Brands and Businesses
- Complete Guide to Google Plus Communities
- Complete Guide to Google Local
- How to use Google Plus with Google Adwords
- Complete Guide to your YouTube Channel
- Google Authorship and Social SEO
- Search Engine Optimization (SEO), using Google Plus
BY CHRIS SUTTON
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In the past, writing skills for B2B marketers weren't as important as being able to source lists and batch send a heavilyproduct-oriented email, hoping someone will open the email and maybe even read it!But it's not so easy these days.
Your buyers are sick of interruption-style marketing tactics, so B2B marketers are switching to content marketing tactics in order to cut through the noise and engage successfully with the target audience.
Content marketing entails drawing buyers to you so they happily part with their details in exchange for information they actually value and want - and that rarely involves talking about your product or service.
So you have to develop your writing skills to be a successful B2B marketer in this day and age. Here are some of the different things you will need to be able to write:
1. Website Copy Because you're most familiar with the buyer personas that you're selling to, you will probably be given the task of writing copy for the entire website - and beyond. This is no easy feat.
Write with SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) in mind Although Google is asking for an emphasis on content and user experience, keywords are still important, because it's what your buyers are searching. You must know how to write for:
- On-site SEO. To make sure your website is easily found, you'll have to think of attractive metadata and meta descriptions. You'll also have to decide on phrases for headings, alt text, and internal links. Then there's the job of writing the actual copy.
- Off-site SEO. Besides guest blogs, off-site SEO is all about social media. These include everything from status updates to personal and company bios.
Build Landing Pages & Calls to Action (CTAs) These are really important, because CTAs entice buyers to visit your landing page, and landing pages entice buyers to convert into contacts. For this reason A/B testing would be a good idea on both to test the language and design you have used.
If you're not sure what kind of copy would be most successful, put up variations and see which one does best when you have a good data set. Your marketing automation software should be able to do this easily.
It's also important to consider how you will structure your forms on these pages. While you must add enough fields to make it easy for yourself to segment your contacts later on, if you're too demanding you will scare people away. You want to have contacts to market to in the first place!
Use Paid Ads Using Google AdWords for PPC or remarketing campaigns can work really well - if you're offering the right thing, in the right way. Remember, people are completely sick of being sold to, so don't be too pushy. Consider what stage of they funnel they're in, and match your offer accordingly.
For example, link to a piece of content if they're still educating themselves. But if they're lower down the funnel and already looking for a solution like yours, that's when you link to a demo, trail or product/services page so they can find out more.
2. High Value Content Buyers don't need to talk to a salesperson until they're ready to buy. When they're doing research, they're making those early buying decisions themselves. Use your high value content to be seen as a trusted source of information when they're in that key stage of their journey.
Write Smart Blog Posts I do not mean press releases about your product, or new hire, or what award you have recently won. None of those blogs will be of any value to your buyer. Resist the urge to talk about yourself and give them some valuable tips that will make their lives easier. Prove to them that you know all about the problems they're facing, and you are happy to share some tips on how they can solve these problems.
Which brings us to our next point.
Develop "Chunky" Content Each blog should have a CTA at the end which serves as a way of converting your blog reader into a contact. But again it has to be of high value to them, aligning with your blog topic. Most of the time, it's something like an eBook, a research report, or a webinar. It can be anything, as long as it's worth it to your buyer. Put yourself in your buyers shoes - what are they looking to get out of the blog? Use an offer that best suits that purpose.
Invest In Case Studies The old school case study still has a place in content marketing - as long as it's written with an inbound twist. This means that you focus more on the experience of the person you're interviewing. How did they feel at the time? What pushed them to realise they had a problem? How did they go about their search? Write as if you're telling a story. You are trying to demonstrate to other potential buyers that you understand their world and have solved their problems before. These work particualrly well at the consideration stage, once your target buyer are past the awareness stage of their buying journey.
3. Emails Writing non-salesy emails can be tricky if you've never done it before - especially if you're sending it to people who don't know who you are yet. It's imperative that you have a strong incentive for them to open, read, and click through your email.
The basic structure should go like this:
- Introduce yourself. Answer the question: Who are you?Â
- State your offer. Answer the reason: Why are you emailing me?
- Reinforce your offer. Answer the question: Why should I care?
- Provide instructions. Answer the question: What should I do next?
Here are three awesome blog posts for further reading:
- 4 Steps to Writing B2B Promos That Actually Work (MarketingProfs)
- 11 Smart Tips for Brilliant Writing (CopyBlogger)
- Copywriting: How to improve headlines on landing pages and blog posts (MarketingSherpa)
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