Recession Proofing Your Sales Funnel: The Benefits of Awareness Advertising in 2023
Dive into the ways that awareness advertising can recession-proof your sales funnel and get insights on how to use it effectively.
A recession may seem like the time to cut back on advertising, but it’s actually the perfect opportunity to increase your visibility and come out even stronger.
In fact, study after study has shown that cutting back on advertising during a recession actually hurts your brand, sales funnel and bottom line in the long run.
If you want to stay top-of-mind during a recession, you can’t afford to go dark. Brands that cut back on their ad spend during a recession put themselves at risk of losing customers and market share, as the data clearly shows.
- McGraw-Hill Research looked at 600 companies from 1980 to 1985 and showed that those that maintained or increased their advertising spend during the 1981 recession had sales that were 256% higher than those that didn’t by 1985.
- In 2008, Millward Brown shared evidence that 60% of the brands that went ‘dark’ during an economic downturn saw a significant decrease in brand use and brand image.
- More recently, Kantar Group estimates that brands who went dark to save costs in the early part of 2020 will see a 39% reduction in brand awareness and delay recovery.
If you want to ride out a recession and emerge on top, you can’t afford to skip awareness advertising — a type of advertising designed to make a brand or product more familiar to consumers at the top of the sales and marketing funnel.
Don’t let a recession make your brand fade into the background. Keep reading to learn the benefits of awareness advertising during a recession, along with tips and best practices for adapting your marketing strategy to tough economic times.
Highlights:
- Historical data shows that advertising during a recession can give businesses a competitive edge and lead to success when the economy rebounds.
- During a recession, sales cycles become longer, and awareness advertising can help businesses connect with potential customers earlier in the buying process, create a larger pool of prospects, and increase brand recognition and reputation to build trust and loyalty.
- By understanding your target audience, telling stories that connect, and being authentic and transparent, you can create campaigns that resonate with your audience, build trust, and help your business succeed in difficult economic times.
Why Awareness Advertising is Key to the Recession-Proof Sales Funnel
During tough economic times, sales cycles tend to become longer as customers become more careful in deciding what and when to buy.
Your customers spend more time in the consideration phase, conducting more research, comparing products more closely, and taking longer to decide on a purchase during an economic downturn.
In other words, the sprint becomes a marathon — and your business has to keep prospects engaged and interested throughout the process.
But in some ways, a longer sales cycle is a blessing in disguise. It gives you more opportunities to connect with customers and demonstrate the value of your product or service.
One of the best ways to keep a longer funnel flowing during a recession (without increasing ad spend) is to reallocate more budget to awareness advertising aimed at the top of the funnel (TOFU).
Awareness advertising is designed to create a lasting impression that keeps your brand, products or services front and center. These ads are typically aimed at a broader audience to attract potential customers who may not yet be familiar with your brand.
By casting a wider net and reaching more people earlier in the sales cycle, you can create a larger pool of prospects to warm up and convert into customers over time. Awareness ads help you connect with potential customers earlier in the buying process so that, once those prospects are ready to make a purchase decision, they are more likely to turn to your brand over others since you have already established a relationship with them.
In addition, awareness advertising can help businesses to build brand recognition and reputation, increasing consumer trust and loyalty.
By allocating more of your advertising towards TOFU awareness-based campaigns, you lay the groundwork for a more effective sales funnel that helps warm prospects and close more sales — even in the midst of a recession or other economic challenges.
Awareness Advertising vs. Other Types of Advertising
The primary objective of awareness advertising is to enhance brand recognition and promote customer engagement, in contrast to direct response advertising, product advertising, and promotional advertising, which serve different goals.
- Direct response advertising: Direct response advertising is designed to elicit a specific response from the consumer, such as making a purchase, filling out a form, or calling a phone number. Unlike awareness advertising, which is focused on building brand recognition, direct response advertising is intended to drive immediate sales or leads.
- Product advertising: Product advertising is focused on promoting a specific product or service. While awareness advertising can be used to support a particular product or service, its primary goal is to build brand recognition and customer engagement. Product advertising, on the other hand, is designed to showcase the benefits and features of a particular product or service to potential customers.
- Promotional advertising: Promotional advertising is focused on promoting a specific deal or offer, such as a discount or free trial. While awareness advertising can be used to support promotional advertising, its primary goal is to build long-term brand recognition and customer engagement.
In general, awareness advertising is most effective when used in conjunction with other types of advertising. By building strong brand recognition and customer engagement, businesses can position themselves for long-term success and increase their chances of success with other types of advertising.
Does It Work? Case Studies on Advertising During a Recession Say Yes
The numbers don’t lie – history shows that advertising during a recession can be a game-changer for businesses looking to gain a competitive edge.
In fact, some of the most successful companies in history have continued to advertise during tough economic times and emerged even stronger once the recession ended.
Take the recent public health crisis. When COVID-19 forced people to stop traveling, VRBO and Airbnb responded in very different ways. While Airbnb scaled back its advertising, VRBO saw an opening and increased its spending to $90.8 million in advertising from January to February 2021. The strategy paid off, with VRBO seeing a 61% recovery in bookings while Airbnb’s bookings dipped by 15%.
In a sea of struggling travel businesses, VRBO found a way to come out on top – by investing in advertising when others held back.
Another well-known example comes from the recession of 1990, in the responses of three fast food giants: McDonald’s, Pizza Hut, and Taco Bell. When times were tough, McDonald’s cut its advertising budget, while the smaller competitors Pizza Hut and Taco Bell strengthened theirs. As a result:
- Pizza Hut increased sales by 61%.
- Taco Bell increased sales by 40%.
- McDonald’s sales decreased by 28%.
Want to grab a bigger slice of the market during a recession? Follow Pizza Hut and Taco Bell’s lead and ramp up your advertising efforts, while the competition holds back.
Then there’s Amazon. Even during the Great Recession, Amazon continued to innovate with new products despite the slumping economy, most notably with the new Kindle products – supported by millions spent on advertising. When the rest of the economy hit its nadir, Amazon’s sales rose by 28%.
When the going gets tough, the tough get innovative. Amazon proved this during the Great Recession by continuing to invest in new products and advertising, and reaping the rewards with a surge in sales.
These are just a few of the countless examples demonstrating that companies that invest in advertising during a recession can come out ahead when the economy rebounds.
By keeping their brand top-of-mind for consumers and continuing to offer value and promotions, these companies were able to maintain or increase their market share and build customer loyalty.
Awareness advertising during a recession can pay off in spades, as the historical data demonstrates.
Benefits of Awareness Advertising During a Recession
When times get tough, businesses need to get creative to maintain or grow their market share. That’s where awareness advertising comes in.
Here are a few reasons why awareness advertising can be a powerful tool for businesses during a recession:
- It strengthens brand recognition: Awareness advertising can help businesses build strong brand recognition, keeping them top-of-mind throughout a longer sales cycle so that customers remember the brand when they’re finally ready to buy.
- It increases customer engagement: By communicating with customers through advertising, businesses can create a stronger connection with customers, showing them that they are still here, still providing value, and still committed to serving their needs.
- It leverages lower competition: When other businesses are tightening their belts and cutting back on their advertising spend, there is a unique opportunity for companies to take advantage of awareness advertising and gain an edge over their competitors.
By building brand recognition, increasing customer engagement, and positioning for long-term success, businesses can emerge from a recession as stronger players in their respective industries.
1. Strengthen Brand Recognition
One of the most important benefits of awareness advertising during a recession is its ability to build and strengthen brand recognition.
During tough economic times, many consumers cut back on their spending, making it more challenging for businesses to compete.
However, by keeping their brand top-of-mind through awareness advertising, businesses can increase their chances of being chosen over their competitors when consumers do decide to make a purchase.
In addition to helping businesses stand out in a crowded marketplace, building brand recognition through awareness advertising can also lead to increased customer loyalty.
When consumers have a positive association with a brand, they are more likely to choose that brand over others, even when there are cheaper or more convenient options available. In a crowded market, positive brand associations are worth their weight in gold.
As well as building brand recognition, awareness advertising can help businesses establish themselves as thought leaders. Awareness ads provide businesses with the chance to show customers that they are knowledgeable and experienced in their fields. It’s not enough to be good at what you do – you also need to show it. By doing so, your business can build trust and authority which pays off in the long run.
The ability to keep your brand at the top of people’s minds and establish yourself as an industry leader will provide your business with a position to emerge from a recession as a strong player.
2. Increase Customer Engagement
In a time of financial uncertainty, customers need more than just a sales pitch.
Many consumers feel nervous about their finances during a recession, so they’re more cautious about their spending. In this environment, it’s important for businesses to find ways to engage with their customers and demonstrate the value they can provide. This is where awareness advertising comes in.
By sharing stories and experiences that resonate with their target audience, businesses can create a sense of community and belonging that can keep customers coming back. For example, a restaurant might use awareness advertising to showcase its commitment to using locally sourced ingredients, or a clothing brand might use awareness advertising to highlight its commitment to sustainability.
Through awareness advertising, your business can show customers that you are still here, still providing value, and still dedicated to serving them, even in the toughest of times. In a world of faceless corporations, that kind of connection and authenticity makes a world of difference.
3. Leverage Lower Competition
As businesses cut back on their advertising and marketing spend during a recession, competition for customer attention goes down as well. This can be a valuable opportunity for you to take advantage of awareness advertising and gain a stronger foothold in your industry.
- With fewer businesses vying for ad space and airtime, advertising costs may be lower during a recession. This can be especially beneficial for small businesses that may be operating on a tighter budget — more bang for their buck.
- With less competition for ad space and airtime, businesses may be able to increase their ad exposure and get their message in front of more people. This can be especially valuable for businesses that are looking to build brand recognition and increase customer engagement.
- With lower advertising costs and increased ad exposure, businesses may be able to achieve a better return on investment (ROI) with their awareness advertising efforts during a recession.
By taking advantage of lower advertising costs, increased ad exposure, and improved ROI, your business can position itself for long-term success and emerge from a recession stronger.
Don’t wait for the storm to pass – make your move now. Use awareness advertising to seize the opportunities that a recession presents and come out on top, stronger and more successful than ever.
Strategies for Effective Awareness Advertising During a Recession
In a time of economic uncertainty, your advertising needs to work harder than ever.
So, how do you create an awareness advertising campaign that will stand out and make an impact during a recession?
- Know your audience better than anyone: To create an effective awareness advertising campaign, it’s essential to understand your target audience. Who are they? What are their needs and pain points? What motivates them to make a purchase? By understanding your target audience, you can create messaging and content that resonates with them and helps build a sense of familiarity and trust.
- Tell stories that connect on a deeper level: To create a strong connection with your target audience, it’s important to use storytelling and emotional appeals in your advertising campaigns. By sharing stories and experiences that resonate with your target audience, you can create a sense of community and belonging that can keep customers coming back.
- Be real and transparent: During a recession, it’s more important than ever to be authentic and transparent in your advertising campaigns. Be honest about the challenges that your business is facing, and communicate with your target audience in a way that shows that you care about their needs and are committed to serving them.
Use these tips to create campaigns that resonate with your audience, build trust, and help you weather the storm.
1. Know Your Audience Better than Anyone
When the economy is down, it’s imperative to understand how the spending behavior of your target audience may change. Harvard Business Review identifies four general segments that illustrate how consumers behaviour changes during a recession:
- The slam-on-the-brakes segment is the most vulnerable and suffers the greatest financial losses. These consumers reduce all types of spending by eliminating, postponing, decreasing, or substituting purchases. While lower-income consumers are usually part of this segment, higher-income consumers may also join it, particularly if their health or income deteriorates.
- Pained-but-patient consumers are resilient and optimistic about the long term, but less confident about the prospects for economic recovery in the short term. They economize in all areas, but less aggressively than slam-on-the-brakes consumers. This segment includes the majority of households unaffected by unemployment, representing a wide range of income levels. As the economic news worsens, more pained-but-patient consumers migrate to the slam-on-the-brakes segment.
- Comfortably well-off consumers feel confident about their ability to weather the economic storm. They spend at levels close to pre-recession, but tend to be more selective (and less conspicuous) about their purchases. This segment primarily consists of people in the top 5% income bracket, as well as those who feel secure about the stability of their finances. This group includes retirees, as well as investors who had low-risk investments.
- The live-for-today segment continues as usual and remains unconcerned about saving. These consumers respond to the recession mainly by delaying major purchases. They are typically urban and younger, more likely to rent than to own, and prefer spending on experiences rather than possessions (except for consumer electronics). They are unlikely to change their spending habits unless they become unemployed.
By understanding the impact of a recession on different consumer segments, businesses can create awareness advertising campaigns that resonate with their target audience and enhance brand recognition.
It’s also crucial to understand where your product or service falls on a scale from ‘essentials’ to ‘expendables’.
- Essentials are necessary for survival or seen as essential to well-being, and consumers are likely to continue buying these items even during tough economic times.
- Treats are indulgences that consumers may still splurge on occasionally, even if they cut back their spending in this category during a recession.
- Postponables are needed or desired items whose purchase can be delayed until the consumer’s financial situation improves.
- Expendables are perceived as unnecessary or unjustifiable, and consumers are likely to cut back their spending in this category during a recession, potentially eliminating these purchases altogether.
While basic levels of food, shelter, and clothing are essentials for all consumers, transportation and medical care are also often seen as essential. However, the assignment of specific goods and services to each category is unique to each consumer.
During a recession, consumers typically reevaluate their spending priorities. Products and services, such as dining out, travel, arts and entertainment, new clothing, automobiles, appliances, and consumer electronics, can quickly shift from essentials to treats, postponables, or expendables.
As consumer priorities change, they may eliminate purchases in some categories, such as household services, moving them from essentials to expendables. Consumers may also substitute purchases in one category for purchases in another, such as dining out (a treat) for cooking at home (an essential).
In a recession, consumers become more price-sensitive and less brand-loyal. They may seek out their favorite products and brands at reduced prices or settle for less-preferred alternatives. For instance, they may choose cheaper private-label products or switch from organic to non-organic foods.
2. Tell Stories that Connect on a Deeper Level
During a recession, businesses can build trust and emotional connections with their target audience by using storytelling and emotional appeals in their advertising campaigns.
Storytelling can create a sense of community, empathy and inspiration by weaving a narrative that resonates with the audience’s experiences. Emotional appeals can tap into the emotions that the target audience is feeling, whether it be fear, uncertainty or hope, to show that the business understands their struggles and is there to help them.
However, it’s important to be authentic and avoid exploiting emotions for the sake of sales. Messages should be positive, uplifting and empowering, reinforcing an emotional connection with the brand.
Worried consumers, including those in the comfortably well-off and live-for-today segments, often seek comfort in familiar and trusted brands during a recession. To build trust with their audience during tough times, businesses need to communicate reassuring messages that reinforce an emotional connection with the brand and show empathy.
3. Be Real and Transparent
During a recession, consumers are looking for brands that they can trust. When businesses are honest and genuine in their advertising, consumers are more likely to believe in the brand and feel that they have their best interests in mind.
Transparency is another crucial factor in building trust with your audience during a recession. Businesses need to be open and honest about their practices, including pricing, product quality, and any potential issues that may arise. This can help to establish trust with consumers and show that the business is committed to being transparent and upfront.
Being authentic and transparent can also help businesses to differentiate themselves from their competitors. By showcasing unique values and practices, businesses can stand out and appeal to consumers who are looking for something different.
While authenticity and transparency can help businesses to stand out during a recession, it’s essential to ensure that these qualities are genuine, rather than just a marketing tactic. Consumers can easily detect when a brand is being insincere, which can harm the brand’s reputation.
By prioritizing authenticity and transparency, businesses can build trust and foster long-term relationships with their customers. However, businesses should be careful to ensure that these qualities are ingrained in their values, rather than just a superficial marketing strategy.
Awareness Advertising: Your Key to Resilient Sales Funnel in a Recession
When the economy takes a hit, your sales funnel can take a hit, too. But with awareness advertising, you can keep the leads coming in and the sales rolling.
Navigating a recession as a marketer or business owner can be challenging. While it may be tempting to cut back on expenses, including your marketing budget, during tough economic times, this decision could have long-term consequences.
But we want to encourage you to stay the course and continue investing in your business, even in the face of a recession. The truth is that advertising during a recession can make a significant difference in your business’s ability to weather the storm
Instead of reducing your marketing efforts, consider investing in targeted and strategic campaigns that can help your brand stand out and build loyalty with your audience.
We understand that these are challenging times, and want to assure you that you’re not alone in this struggle. Our team of experienced marketers can help you develop a comprehensive and effective marketing strategy that will allow you to stand out from your competitors and connect with your target audience.
Whether you need help with awareness advertising, lead generation, or closing more sales, we’re here to help you achieve your marketing goals.
Geo-Targeting Blueprint: Discover How to Get More Leads, Sales, and Revenue with Location-Based Marketing
Whether you’re a small business looking to expand your reach or a large corporation looking to maximize your digital marketing ROI, geo-targeting can revolutionize the way you reach and engage with your target audience.
The power of geo-targeting is that it lets you reach the right audience in the right place at exactly the right time.
And with these tips and success strategies, your business can start using geo-targeting to generate more leads, sales, and revenue.
Get ready to take your marketing game to the next level with our tips and best practices as we dive deep into the world of geo-targeting to explore how it works, why it matters, and how you can make it work for you!
Contents:
- What is Geo-Targeting?
- How Does Geo-Targeting Work?
- Geo-Fencing vs. Geo-Targeting
- Why Geo-Targeting Matters for Your Business
- Creative Ways to Use Geo-Targeting to Drive Leads, Sales and Revenue
- How to Use Geo-Targeting on Facebook, Google Ads & More
- Facebook and Instagram
- Google Ads
- Geo-Targeting Done Right: Proven Tips and Strategies for Success
- Maximize Your Marketing Results with the Power of Geo-Targeting
What is Geo-Targeting?
Have you ever wondered why the advertisements you see online or on your social media feed are specifically tailored to your location?
That’s the magic of geo-targeting.
Geo-targeting in digital marketing is the practice of delivering personalized content or advertising to people based on their geographical location, with the goal of maximizing your marketing messaging’s relevance and impact in specific locations.
It works by using location data such as IP addresses, GPS coordinates, and other technologies to pinpoint a user’s location. The next section of this article will go over these geo-targeting methods in depth.
With geo-targeting, you can tailor your offers, information, and advertisements to specific geographic areas such as cities, regions, or countries. If you want to get really specific, you can even target a single zip code or postal code.
You can also use geo-targeting to exclude geographical locations that are unlikely to produce results or are not relevant to your campaign. In fact, excluding certain locations can be just as valuable as including others.
Bottom line: geo-targeting helps you deliver more relevant and effective marketing campaigns across a wide range of digital marketing channels — including PPC advertising, social media marketing, and email marketing.
How Does Geo-Targeting Work?
Geo-targeting works by using location data to pinpoint a person’s geographical location, then delivering personalized content or advertising to them based on their location…or, if you exclude that location, blocking people there from seeing your content or advertising.
There are several ways to gather location data, including:
- IP Address Targeting: Determining a person’s general geographic location based on their IP address. This is the most common geo-targeting method in PPC advertising.
- GPS Targeting: Using GPS technology to track a person’s exact location through their smartphone or other GPS-enabled device. This method is usually used for in-app advertisements or location-based services.
- Radius Targeting: Setting a geographic radius around a specific location, such as a store or business, and delivering targeted content or advertising to people within that radius. Great for hyper-local advertising, such as targeting conference attendees, university students, or employees at a specific business.
- Wi-Fi and Bluetooth Targeting: Using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth signals to triangulate a person’s location based on their proximity to nearby hotspots or beacons. Many businesses take advantage of this method to deliver in-store advertising or to track foot traffic.
- Location-Based Keyword Targeting: Targeting people who are searching for specific keywords related to a specific location, such as “pizza delivery near me.” These are a cornerstone of both Google Ads and SEO to reach users who are actively searching for local products and services.
- Contextual Targeting: Estimating a person’s location or interests based on contextual data collected from a website or app. It’s often used in programmatic advertising to deliver relevant ads based on individual users’ interests and proximity to said interests.
Once location data has been gathered, platforms like Google Ads and Facebook can use it to deliver personalized content or advertising to your prospective customers based on their geographic location.
For example, your business could use geo-targeting to show different advertisements to users in different cities or regions, or to promote location-specific promotions or offers.
The possibilities with geo-targeting are endless. If you want help getting started or taking your geo-targeted marketing to the next level, our experts are here to help!
Geo-Fencing vs. Geo-Targeting
Geo-fencing and geo-targeting are two related but distinct marketing techniques that use location data to target specific audiences.
Geo-fencing is a type of location-based marketing based on setting up a virtual boundary around a specific geographic location. When someone enters or leaves this boundary or “fence”, it triggers an action such as delivering a targeted message or showing a specific advertisement on their device.
Geo-targeting, on the other hand, refers to the practice of delivering personalized content or advertising to users based on their physical location. This can be done through IP address, GPS, or other location-determining technologies. Geo-targeting allows marketers to reach customers in specific geographic areas, such as cities, regions, or countries.
In short, geo-fencing is a more specific form of location-based marketing that involves a small virtual “fence”, while geo-targeting is a broader approach that uses various kinds of location data to personalize content or advertising.
The Power of Location: Why Geo-Targeting Matters for Your Business
With geo-targeting, marketers can deliver more relevant and personalized content based on the physical location of their target audience.
The use of geo-targeting in digital marketing is advantageous for a number of reasons, including the following:
- Increased Relevance: Geo-targeting allows you to deliver content or advertising that is specific to a prospective customer’s location, making it more relevant to their interests and needs. This leads to higher engagement and conversions, since prospects are more likely to respond positively to content that is relevant to them.
- Better Targeting: By targeting prospective customers based on their physical location, you can ensure that your messages reach the right audience at the right time. For example, you can use geo-targeting to show different advertisements to users in different cities or regions, or to display location-specific promotions or offers.
- Improved ROI: Geo-targeting can help you achieve better ROI by delivering higher click-through rates, conversions, and customer engagement, which ultimately drives better results and a better return on your digital marketing investment.
- Hide Ads from Competitors: Say you want to keep your competitors from stealing your offers or marketing messages. You can use geo-targeting to hide ads from competitors by excluding specific geographic locations where the competitor operates or has a strong presence, or by adjusting the targeting criteria to only show the ad to users who are not within a certain radius of the competitor’s location.
- Responsiveness: Geo-targeting allows you to run short-lived but highly relevant campaigns, such as offers specific to the people attending an industry conference or trade show. Or, if you’re a roofing contractor, you can display ads related to roof repair in a town that just experienced bad weather. Taking dynamic advertising to the next level!
No matter what size your business is or what you do, geo-targeting can revolutionize the way you share and engage with your content!
Creative Ways to Use Geo-Targeting to Drive Leads, Sales and Revenue
With geo-targeting, businesses like yours can reach the right audience, at the right time, with the right message, resulting in higher engagement and conversion rates.
Here are just a few of the various ways that geo-targeting can be used to boost your digital marketing revenue, including targeting specific locations, matching local currencies, delivering real-time offers, and more!
- Geo-target offers and information: Use geo-targeting to deliver location-specific information, promotions, and offers to current and prospective customers. This enables you to generate more business in a particular region without having to make the same offer to everyone, or market different offers for franchises in different locations.
- Match local currencies: With geo-targeting, your e-commerce website can display prices and other information in the customers’ local currency based on their location automatically. This happens so often nowadays that we barely notice it, but geo-targeting makes it possible!
- A/B test based on location: Geo-targeting allows you to deliver different versions of an ad and/or website to people based on their location, making it possible to test different designs and layouts and see what’s most effective in different regions.
- Steal customers from competitors: With geo-targeting, you can deliver targeted ads to people who are near a competitor’s store or office to entice their customers away. Say you’re browsing Instagram while stuck in a long line at Disney, and see an ad for Universal promising shorter wait times — that’s geo-targeting!
- Use lookback data to get granular: The ‘lookback window‘ is the period during which a person can see or click on an ad and it will be recorded as a conversion. Using look-back data and geo-targeting together, you can analyze where a user was at the time they converted and uncover location trends that help you deliver more relevant and engaging content.
- Market across channels: Using geo-targeting, you can deliver targeted ads and content to different platforms and devices based on the user’s location. A local restaurant, for instance, could use geo-targeting to promote walk-in specials to mobile device users nearby, and take-out specials to desktop users further away.
And that’s only the beginning. There are virtually no limits to the applications for geo-targeting. In that sense, it’s as valuable for the most local of local businesses as it is for huge multinationals!
To learn how geo-targeting can work for you, get in touch with our experts for a quick consultation.
How to Use Geo-Targeting on Facebook, Google Ads & More
Knowing how to utilize geo-targeting on each platform will make a huge difference in maximizing your digital marketing efforts and ROI.
Below, we’ll explore the various platforms that offer geo-targeting options, including Facebook, Google Ads, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Facebook and Instagram Location Targeting
Facebook and Instagram offer location targeting options for advertisers on the Meta Ads Manager platform, which allow you to reach people based on their current location, hometown, or recent location history. Advertisers can target users by country, state, city, postal code, or a specific address, and can also choose to target people who have recently been in a specific location.
To use Facebook or Instagram location targeting:
- Select a campaign objective for your ad set in Ads Manager.
- Select your audience source in the Audience section.
- Click on Locations and follow the prompts to choose your locations based on:
- Location status: target customers living in a location and/or recently in a location, or traveling in a location
- Enter a location: target customers in specific countries, states, provinces, cities, congressional districts (in the United States), or ZIP or postal codes
- Browse locations: choose from suggested countries or regions
- Location radius: target customers in a smaller, relevant area within a larger geographic area
Google Ads Location Targeting
Google Ads offers location targeting options, which allow you to show your ads to users in specific geographic locations. You can target by country, region, city, postal code, or a specific address, and can also target users based on their device’s location or by using a radius around a specific location.
To use Google Ads location targeting:
- Go to the Settings tab in your campaign.
- Select Locations and specify the geographic locations you want to target based on:
- Countries: target customers in an entire country, or multiple countries
- Areas within a country: target customers in specific cities, regions, or ZIP/postal codes
- Radius around a location: target customers within a certain distance from your business
To exclude people in specific geographical locations from seeing your ads:
- Go to the Settings tab in your campaign.
- Select Locations.
- There are two ways to select locations to exclude:
- In the search box, type the area you want to exclude and click Exclude.
- Click Advanced search, and check the box next to Add locations in bulk. In the box, paste up to 1000 locations to exclude. Add locations from one country at a time.
Twitter Geo-targeting
Twitter allows you to target their ads based on the location of the user by countries, regions, metros, cities, or postal codes. You can also target users based on their device’s location.
To use Twitter geo-targeting:
- Go to the Targeting section of your ad campaign.
- Scroll down to Demographics.
- Within the Locations section, input the locations you want to target.
Radius targeting (showing ads to customers within a certain distance of a specific address) is currently only available to ad accounts in the United States or Japan.
LinkedIn Geo-targeting
LinkedIn allows you to target users by country, state, city, postal code, or a specific address, and can also target users who have recently been in a specific location.
To use LinkedIn geo-targeting:
- Create a LinkedIn new audience in Campaign Manager.
- Customize your target audience’s location(s) following these steps:
- Choose either a Recent or permanent location or Permanent location from the Locations dropdown.
- In the search field, type the location name you want to include in your targeting audience and select the desired locations.
- Add more locations by clicking the X at the end of the location search field to clear the field.
- Remove selected locations from your target audience by clicking the X next to the location name.
- Click Exclude and select the regions and/or countries you want to exclude from your campaign.
Geo-Targeting Done Right: Proven Tips and Strategies for Success
Geo-targeting is a powerful tool for digital marketers, but you have to deploy it strategically with purpose to maximize your results.
Your geo-targeting efforts are more effective and drive better results when you incorporate the following key considerations and best practices.
- Be precise in defining your location. To achieve the best results with geo-targeting, you need to reach people who want your product or service, are able to pay for it, and in the case of a local business, are close enough to travel. Additionally, areas that are too small will strictly limit your potential conversions, while areas that are too large will waste ad dollars on irrelevant audiences. You need to strike a balance between making sure your ad spend is being used effectively and reaching a large, relevant audience.
- Exclude irrelevant locations. As well as targeting specific locations, it’s also important to exclude locations that are unlikely to generate conversions. Your ad spend will be more effective and you’ll avoid wasting money on ineffective campaigns.
- Use tools like Google Trends to gain insight into your customers’ regional preferences. Identifying how their interests and habits differ on a regional basis will help you hone in on messaging and imagery that boosts your geo-targeting efforts.
- For search ad campaigns, include regional terms in your keyword lists even if you are geo-targeting. Your campaign will have a higher chance of success if you reach a more relevant audience.
- If possible, include your target location’s name in your ad. You can improve your campaign’s relevancy and impact by including the name of your target location in your ad, helping you connect with local customers and build brand awareness in the target area.
- Add location extensions and call extensions to local ads. Location extensions and call extensions can be incredibly valuable in local ads, since they provide your customers with important information like your address and phone number instantly. The easier people can reach you, the more likely they are to convert.
- Test, monitor, optimize, repeat! As with any campaign you launch, geo-targeting campaigns should be monitored to identify what’s working and what’s not so you can adjust to achieve better results.
You can explore and leverage so much more when it comes to geo-targeting, but the above are good tips for beginners.
Maximize Your Marketing Results with the Power of Geo-Targeting
By tailoring your marketing campaigns based on location, you can boost your ROI and improve your overall marketing performance.
The geo-targeting methods, tips, and best practices shared in this article will help you get the most out of your geo-targeting efforts, but there is always more you can optimize. When you’re ready to take your digital marketing to the next level, contact us today.
Holiday Marketing Campaigns: 7 Best Ideas to Boost Your Sales Over Christmas
There’s a million holiday marketing campaign ideas out there. But what actually works?
If you sell anything online, you probably know the struggles of marketing in the chaotic holiday season.
You’re swamped with work, half your team’s on vacation (or sick), and the sheer competition for consumer attention is absolutely off the charts.
But success doesn’t depend on a Christmas miracle. Or a fortune’s worth of ad spending.
Stats and experience show that you can do a lot to boost your holiday sales if you use the right kind of data, make proactive moves, and apply some basic (but powerful) marketing psychology.
In this article, we’ll give you 7 of our best holiday marketing campaign ideas ‒ plus 3 essential tips to make sure you rock them.
- Leverage the Christmas Time Crunch
- Win Hearts & Minds With a Holiday Video
- Share the Love with Your Loyal Customers
- Ring In the Season with Holiday SEO Blog Content
- Conquer the Wish List with Price-Specific Landing Pages
- Make Gift-Giving Easy with Gift Card Promotions
- Embrace Holiday Themes Across Your Digital Presence
1. Leverage the Christmas Time Crunch
FOMO is your friend.
As soon as November rolls around, people start stressing about holiday shopping. And it’s not just about gifts, but everything else you need for the perfect holiday: festive decorations, holiday meal prep, plane tickets to Grandma’s, and more.
Time is of the essence, and everyone knows the best stuff is in short supply.
So, you can make fear of missing out (FOMO) and scarcity powerful allies in your holiday marketing campaign.
Now, urgency isn’t something you can just throw around without thinking. The modern consumer is pretty wise to vague statements like “limited time offer” or “while supplies last.”
You need to translate that urgency into something concrete and effective, like:
- Deadline for guaranteed delivery in time for Christmas. Consumers expect lightning-fast shipping these days, but they know things slow down over the holidays. Consider using it as a strength by putting pressure on people to make a purchase by a specific date. It has a very powerful effect.
- Countdown timer until Christmas or another big milestone. Adding a countdown timer to your landing page can boost revenue by as much as 9%. Over the holidays, countdown timers are extra effective since everyone already has “X days until Christmas” in their minds.
- Inventory warnings. “While supplies last” is vague, but it really works if you can give a specific number. This is a very effective strategy used by Amazon to move products in short supply.
It’s not just a holiday marketing trick. You’re giving your customers one last chance to purchase that perfect gift before it’s gone, and they’ll thank you for it. It’s just that a positive side effect of this is that conversions increase as well!
2. Win Hearts & Minds With a Holiday Marketing Video
A 30-second video says a million words.
As a rule, people are more likely to say ‘yes’ to requests from people they already know and like.
We’re all less likely to turn down a request if it’s from a friend or neighbor.
The same goes for you and your loyal customers. People who know and like you are automatically more likely to take advantage of any future offer you make to them.
Since the holidays are such an emotional time of the year, this is the perfect time to cultivate positive brand recognition and relationships that ultimately lead to more revenue.
And there’s no better way to do that than with a holiday video.
You don’t even have to make it long, expensive, or highly choreographed. Simply showing the faces behind your business and being relatable makes a big impact on people.
Basically, all you have to say is, “We’re so excited about the holidays, too, and we wish all of you who celebrate a Merry Christmas. Thank you for being part of our business.”
3. Share the Love with Your Loyal Customers
A little love goes a long way.
Reciprocity is a powerful thing. It is natural to feel obligated to repay someone when you give them something. It’s why free samples remain one of the most effective marketing tactics of all time.
And what better time to give something away than during the peak gift-giving season?
The holidays are a great time to shower your loyal customers with discounts, freebies, and giveaway contests to make them feel extra special.
Especially if you can tie in some urgency and a warm message of gratitude, too.
Leading up to December 25, many brands offer holiday-themed “12 Days of Giveaways” or “12 Days of Discounts” which successfully combine the seasonal spirit with persuasive deadlines.
Plus, you have plenty of options for spreading the word about these promotions:
- Email: You can reach your existing customers and followers through multi-touch email campaigns in the lead up to the holidays.
- Social media: Great for reaching loyal followers and catching the attention of new ones. You just need to make sure you follow Facebook, Instagram, and other platforms’ guidelines if you’re hosting a holiday marketing giveaway, since they can be quite prickly about the rules.
- Remarketing ads: Retargeting helps you re-engage bounced buyers to boost your holiday marketing ROI, and further build relationships with those who have already purchased.
It’s the holidays, after all, and there’s no better time of year to get something for free!
4. Ring In the Season with Holiday SEO Blog Content
Any businesses with a seasonal niche can benefit greatly from blogging.
For example, if you sell Christmas-themed decorations or clothing, a well-optimized SEO blog post will see traffic spike around the winter holidays year after year after year.
But what if your company doesn’t have a seasonal niche?
Putting out holiday-themed blog content is still a great way to increase traffic, sales, and revenue for businesses with no holiday-specific products.
Consider what kind of content people are looking for during the holidays and incorporate it into your holiday marketing ideas! For example:
- Gift ideas for specific customer segments/demographics: like 10 Winning Gift Ideas for Dad, or the Best Office Secret Santa Ideas Under $25.
- Holiday Buying Guides for specific product categories: like High-End Cookware Holiday Buying Guide, or the Holiday Gift Guide to Pens & Journals.
- Gift ideas that solve a specific problem: like the 10 Most Practical Busy Mom Gifts, or Impressive Gifts for a Father-In-Law You Just Met.
Topics like these will attract people who are actually interested in what you sell, and they don’t require you to bend over backwards to fit the holiday theme. It’s just a matter of describing the products that you already have available, with a festive bow tied around it.
Start publishing this year, and by next December, you’ll have plenty of content on your site that will get your visitors excited for the holidays again. Next year, just update your holiday SEO blog content (and your holiday marketing campaign as a whole) with new products or trends. You’re good to go!
5. Conquer the Wish List with Price-Specific Landing Pages
Speaking of gift guides…if you sell online, here’s another way to reach eager holiday shoppers:
A landing page that highlights products within a specific budget range to appeal to gift shoppers.
For example, a landing page featuring “Gift Ideas Under $50” or “Stocking Stuffers.”
These pages make it easy for people to find what they’re looking for, which means more conversions for you. They’re especially a huge hit with last-minute shoppers or Secret Santa participants who don’t have much else to go on.
But this holiday marketing campaign strategy doesn’t only benefit sales of your cheaper products ‒ because a lot of people value not underspending on certain people in their lives.
People shopping for significant others or close friends or relatives might be drawn to a page featuring only more expensive items (even your most expensive items).
All you need to do once you’ve created the pages is get the word out, which is easy to do by:
- Email campaigns with ultra-specific and attractive subject lines are designed to catch the attention of shoppers in a certain price range in search of ideas
- Organic social media posts that encourage your loyal fans and followers to share your posts with their networks for free
- Social media ads, especially when combined with a sense of urgency…save big on your last-minute shopping with these awesome products for under $50!
The price point is the decisive factor for many people when they are shopping online, and this tactic makes them feel like they are getting an exclusive deal just for them!
6. Make Gift-Giving Easy with Gift Card Promotions
For people who are struggling to find the perfect present, gift cards save the day.
But just because you’ve got gift cards, that doesn’t mean shoppers know about them. It will be up to you to spread the word.
Don’t let the holidays pass you by without promoting your gift cards to your target audience. Once the shipping deadline for the holidays has passed, shift your digital advertising efforts to digital or physical gift cards.
Gift cards are also great to include in holiday giveaways and promotions. Providing a free gift card for those who make a minimum purchase, or to the first few purchasers, can be the tipping point that gets people to choose you over your competitors.
7. Embrace Holiday Marketing Themes Across Your Digital Presence
Picture yourself walking downtown on a mid-December afternoon, when the stores are all crowded and Christmas is in the air.
You’re mulling over which of two stores to visit for a must-have gift item. One store is decked with garlands and wreaths, playing holiday music, and scented with gingerbread cookies; the other is sterile, dark, and overall a bit uninviting.
Obviously, most people would go for store number one. The festive ambiance gets them in the mood to shop.
And there is more to it than just warm feelings ‒ we associate holiday designs with holiday savings. You know there’s a deal to be had and you want to learn more.
Why not apply this same idea to your digital presence?
It’s easy, inexpensive, and effective to incorporate holiday-themed graphics, colors, and messages into your website, landing pages, emails, and social media accounts.
It has the same positive impact of putting up Christmas decor, without the hassle of climbing ladders or untangling lights.
3 Tips For a Successful Holiday Marketing Campaign
You can make your holiday campaign as simple or as complex as you like. Regardless of the approach you choose, these tips will help you make your campaign a success!
1. Review Previous Holiday Marketing Campaigns
Don’t let the Ghost of Christmas Campaigns Past come back to haunt you.
Even if your previous campaigns aren’t as relevant now, you can still learn a few things from them. Past performance helps you better understand your audience and what works (and doesn’t work) for them.
Don’t just focus on your performance stats, look at your customer data too. Have you seen a significant change in your customer base? Knowing your customers will help you create holiday messages that will hit home.
2. Get Ahead of the Holidays
Customers can hardly stand the wait; so please, reader, don’t be late!
We’ve got bad news for all the procrastinators out there: most people plan to finish their Christmas shopping before December even starts.
In fact, 58% of shoppers plan to be done their Christmas shopping in November. You’re losing out on tons of potential sales if your holiday marketing campaign isn’t in full swing before December.
By planning ahead, this will allow you more time to focus on other aspects of your business like customer service and inventory when the season is actually in full swing.
3. Put Customer Service First
He knows if you’ve been bad or good. So do your customers.
89% of people have switched to a competitor after experiencing a poor customer experience.
And up to 95% will spread the word about that negative experience with other people.
So no matter how awesome your holiday marketing campaign is, if you don’t back it up with rockstar customer service, you can’t call it a success.
If your customers have any questions or problems, your customer service team needs to be ready to help. If you ship products, you need to make sure they’ll arrive on time.
About your website. Is it able to handle the number of people shopping at once? If there are any technical issues, do you have a team on the ground to deal with them?
Given the mad rush this time of year, it’s not always easy for companies to handle customer’s complaints and requests with the efficiency and dedication they deserve. However, you cannot afford to ignore it.
The answer may be outsourcing your holiday marketing campaign to a professional digital marketing agency.
Outsourcing your holiday marketing campaign will give you more time to focus on customer service and get back control of your business while still reaping the benefits of being active online.
Marketing Your Way to a Merry Christmas
Marketing is an important part of any business, especially around the holidays. It’s a chance to create a lasting impression and to remind your customers what your brand stands for.
We can help you put together a great holiday marketing campaign that will get you in front of your potential buyers and support your sales goals. Get in touch with our digital marketing experts to learn more about our services here at TrafficSoda.
Who To Trust With Your PPC Management: In-House vs. Agency Marketing
In-house vs. agency marketing: which is the savviest approach to your PPC ad management?
If the circumstances are right, there is a solid business case for both in-house and agency marketing.
Choosing the right approach for your business will have a huge impact ‒ whether that means in-house, agency, or some strategic hybrid. There are many factors to consider and making the wrong choice can be very costly.
Read on for a detailed breakdown of the real pros and cons of partnering with a marketing agency vs. in-house PPC management, starting with the one big mistake you can’t afford.
Here’s the Biggest Misconception: What Does In-House vs. Agency Marketing Really Cost?
To begin, there is a major misconception about in-house vs. agency marketing that many companies fall victim to:
The cost of keeping their PPC advertising in-house vs. agency marketing solutions.
Cost is often the deciding factor for companies on the question of when to hire a marketing agency for pay-per-click (PPC) advertising.
And many business owners believe that hiring a marketing agency to do your PPC is inherently more expensive than doing it in-house.
But in reality, for numerous reasons, doing PPC management in-house is often far more expensive than outsourcing it to a capable agency.
- Maintaining a successful PPC advertising campaign requires experience and skill. Adding just one intermediate PPC manager to your staff will cost roughly $86,000 in salary, insurance, and benefits alone.
- That means that having a small internal marketing department of three or four employees will easily run you upward of $200,000 per year.
- Compare that to the cost of outsourcing your PPC management to an agency, which ranges from $20,000 to $200,000 per year depending on your needs ‒ and which gets you an experienced team managing and creating your PPC ads.
Plus, as with any employee, hiring an in-house PPC manager will cost more than just what you pay in salary, benefits, and insurance. There’s also:
- Recruitment costs. To find the right candidate, you have to set aside a budget that covers the costs of ads, networking events, and recruitment staff.
- Training and onboarding costs. Even the best new employees take time to adapt and reach full productivity.
- Equipment and software costs. An in-house marketing team will need software tools for analytics, ad creation, and more in order to do their jobs.
- Management costs. Spending time and resources managing and maintaining that person’s employment, from payroll to ensuring they produce quality work.
PPC advertising is an integral part of your lead generation strategy. It should be managed with the same care and attention as any other key part of your business.
If you are not able to dedicate the resources to this area, then it is almost always better to outsource your PPC management to a professional agency instead. Full stop.
Beyond Costs: Doing PPC In-House vs. Agency Marketing
Let’s put costs aside for a moment and look at other factors to consider when deciding whether to hire an agency or manage your PPC campaigns in-house.
When it comes to in-house vs. agency marketing, the TrafficSoda team has experience on both sides of the coin:
- We’re a digital marketing agency, and PPC management is something we handle for a number of clients across North America.
- However, there are times when we tell prospective clients that they would be better off handling their own PPC management, or outsourcing only a small part of it.
- And as a company that does most of our own marketing in-house, we are fully aware of the advantages and challenges involved.
In the following sections, we will examine the differences between working with an agency and hiring your own PPC team to help you decide the best choice for your business.
3 Benefits of a Professional PPC Management Agency
Marketing agencies that provide PPC management services are invaluable partners for small and medium-size businesses that want to increase traffic, leads, and sales online – but don’t want to spend $200,000/year or more on an internal marketing department.
1. Agency Expertise Gives You More Value
The best agencies give you access to a level of skill and expertise at a cost that is otherwise out of reach for most small and medium-sized businesses.
Many agencies give you access to team members specializing in many areas so you can take advantage of multiple marketing channels: Google Ads management, eCommerce PPC management, and more.
The benefits of agency experience include:
- Confidence in decision-making. Giving up some control can be scary, but a trusted digital marketing agency will give you the confidence that they have your best interest in mind with their ideas and execution.
- Advanced technology. Most agencies have an expert knowledge of the technologies they work with. They know the best ways to employ these technologies to reach their desired goals. You will gain access to advanced tools and bespoke services to suit your needs and requirements.
- New opportunities. The creative potential when you work with an agency is virtually limitless since you get an entire team of specialists with a wide range of skill sets who can be quickly called on depending on the project needs.
Agencies are experts in their field, they know how to create the best PPC strategy for your business.
2. You Can Ramp Up Advertising FAST (and Scale Back Just as Quickly)
Scalability is one of the biggest benefits of outsourcing your PPC management to an agency. Whether you want to boost your advertising during busy seasons or get more business in slower times, an agency can help.
In-house teams are limited in both resources and team members. Agencies have access to a larger number of team members with different skill sets that makes scaling seamless on your end.
Among the benefits of ramping up and scaling back quickly are:
- Outpace competitors. A quick response to changes in your market gives you an advantage over your competitors by targeting specific needs or segments of your audience.
- Get to market faster. Have a new business or product line? Hire an agency instead of building your own team until you have the time and resources to do so.
- Always on point. If you ever need to stop your ads or change your messaging quickly, an agency can handle it. There is no need to mobilize your internal resources. Remember how many businesses had to shut down or switch to curbside service early in 2020? Our team at TrafficSoda immediately jumped into action to ensure our clients’ advertising complied.
3. Your Agency’s Success Is Measured By YOUR Outcomes
Reputable agencies go out of their way to make sure that they deliver the best results for you and, in return, get more business opportunities with future potential clients.
You and your agency partners both know what’s on the line if they don’t deliver results. So, agencies work tirelessly to deliver.
There are many benefits to you from this dynamic, including:
- Fuel your growth. A good agency knows that they must deliver results and work hard for your business. You can trust an agency partner to deliver what you need to grow, whether it’s traffic, leads, or sales.
- Know what you’re paying for. In order to prove their results, a professional PPC management agency will meticulously track the performance of your ads and provide you with detailed reports. You see exactly what you’re paying for, so you’re confident you’re making the right choice.
- Constant improvement. Agencies are constantly evolving to stay competitive in the industry. With clients demanding more and better results, agencies have to find ways to keep up with that. It’s hard to maintain that kind of momentum in an internal team.
Marketing agencies are more than just a business that helps you with your marketing needs. They have the skillset to help you grow with your business with qualified resources, analytics and data, and insights.
3 Benefits of an In-House Marketing Team
For some businesses, building an in-house team to handle PPC advertising just makes sense. Internal PPC managers give you a greater level of control and a more focused approach.
1. Your In-House Team Knows Your Brand Inside and Out
You have a brand at the core of your marketing strategy, and your internal team knows it best. An in-house team is already immersed in and understands your company’s culture.
Your in-house team will already have more immediate and intimate knowledge of your brand and company culture, while it will take time for an agency to understand you. A PPC campaign aimed solely at branding rather than lead or sales generation may be better handled by an in-house team.
However, in the same way as your internal team takes time to get to know your brand, a good and professional PPC management agency will take time to get to know your brand as well.
2. Your Marketers Are Just Down the Hall
Because you’re all under one roof, having an in-house marketing team will save you from ever playing phone-tag with your marketers. It will be easier for your marketing team to coordinate with you and with other departments, allowing for greater collaboration and communication.
Since agencies aren’t next door, and you have to contact them by phone or email, it is essential that you find an agency that is responsive to your needs.
3. Your Team Works Only For You
Since digital marketing agencies have many clients, you might feel at times that you aren’t at the top of their priority list.
Your in-house marketing team focuses 100% on your business, not on other clients.
That said, it’s a mistake to assume that just because your team has singular focus means they’ll definitely achieve the results you need. You can still benefit from an agency’s experience even if they work with multiple clients.
When to Use an Agency and In-House PPC Advertising
While PPC advertising can generate significant business revenue, it requires a substantial investment of money and time.
Agencies, on the other hand, are more cost-effective, tend to produce better results, and offer the convenience of not having to manage PPC campaigns yourself.
We have outlined a few common business cases for both to help you better understand how they can benefit your business.
When to Hire a Marketing Agency for PPC Management
PPC advertising is a complex process that involves many strategies and tools.
You should hire an agency to do your PPC management if:
- You want a team with the most experienced people in the industry with specialized skills, and don’t want to build out a minimum $200,000/year PPC department.
- You want to be able to scale quickly, pause or pivot when required, without having to muster resources in-house.
- You value results and accountability. When your agency partner fails to deliver results, you won’t have a working relationship for long, so incentives are aligned and there’s a sense of urgency.
You can save time and money by having a PPC agency handle everything for you, and you will receive the quality of results only experienced and specialized teams can deliver.
When to Keep PPC Management In-House
In certain cases, it may be more efficient for the company to handle its PPC internally.
You may do better doing PPC advertising in-house if:
- You need local expertise. In a unique market, you might not want your ad campaigns managed by a third party who doesn’t understand local market conditions.
- You are a startup with venture funding. Startups that receive venture capital are usually expected to use that capital to expand their own internal teams, and you’ll have the means to acquire top talent.
- You work in a very obscure market. Some markets require unique marketing channels that are impossible to scale linearly. PPC aimed at government contracts or seasonal cycles, for example, may be better handled by in-house experts.
Keep in mind that this may not be an all or nothing decision. You can also use a digital marketing agency and an in-house team together, bringing some aspects of PPC advertising in-house or outsourcing others.
Drive More Traffic and Revenue with PPC Advertising
While both in-house and agency marketing have their advantages, most companies are far better off with one or the other. When choosing which method is best for your company, take the time to carefully weigh your options.
Our PPC advertising experts know how it’s done, and we have the track record to prove it.
Start with a FREE consultation and see how we get you results.
When & How to Outsource Your Inbound Lead Generation in 2023
If you want to grow your business, you need leads. Period.
But finding qualified prospects and nurturing the relationship isn’t easy.
Inbound lead generation takes serious time and effort. Not every business has the resources to do it right ‒ or at all, in the case of some small businesses.
Wouldn’t it be great if someone else handled it all for you?
Outsourcing your inbound lead generation lets you build your lead pipeline quickly and efficiently.
In our experience, businesses with small in-house marketing departments tend to benefit the most from working with a lead generation agency ‒ but there are times when larger businesses with a full marketing team can benefit greatly from working with an agency as well.
In this blog, we will look at whether outsourcing lead generation is right for your business (including why it’s not always the best choice) and what you need to do in order to get the best results.
1. Outsourcing Your Inbound Lead Generation: What You Need to Know
There are two types of lead generation: inbound and outbound. Inbound lead generation is about getting prospective customers to contact you, while outbound is reaching out to potential leads yourself.
Here, we’re talking about inbound lead generation.
The goal of inbound lead generation is to find and nurture qualified leads so you can convert them into sales once they’re ready to buy.
We already mentioned how outsourcing your lead generation saves you time. Instead of burning all your time hunting for new prospects to pitch, you can hire a lead generation agency to bring qualified leads right to you ‒ so all you need to do is close the sale and start the work.
You instantly free up hours of time to devote to other tasks that will help your business grow.
But time savings aren’t the only reason to partner with a lead generation agency.
a) Get an Entire Expert Team for the Cost of 1-2 Employees
A basic lead generation campaign typically includes:
- Digital Advertising
- Technical set-up
- Copywriting
- Targeting and research
- Landing Page
- Webmaster
- Web developer
- Copywriting
- Email
- Email marketing expert
- Copywriting
- Marketing asset
- Technical integrations, as needed
- Web team
Other things to consider are:
- Organic social media posts
- SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
- Public relations, like press releases
- Influencer marketing
It’s rare to find someone who is proficient in all those things in-house; which is one of the biggest reasons hiring a lead generation agency can be useful.
For the price of one or two employees, you get the skills and knowledge of a complete team of lead generation professionals.
And that’s not all…
b) Gain Valuable New Perspectives on Your Business and Market
Here’s what we’ve noticed working on hundreds of campaigns for companies across North America:
Many in-house marketers know their business a little too well.
The longer you spend working in-house, the harder it gets to think like a customer. And it’s really tough to write compelling copy and campaigns when you’re stuck inside of that box.
Outsourcing your lead generation to an agency lets you avoid this pitfall entirely.
Best of all…
c) Reduce Costs and Increase Profits
Hiring an agency to do lead generation for you can actually save you money in the long run.
When you outsource, you don’t have to spend time training and managing anyone or buying all the essential tools they’ll need to do the job right.
Outsourcing the work can help your budget go farther and be more cost effective, driving a higher return on investment without all the legwork.
Your internal sales team can even work alongside an agency for faster ramp-up and increased lead efficiency, putting your business growth goals in reach!
2. When Outsourcing Inbound Lead Generation is Worth the Investment
From our experience as a digital marketing agency focused on acquisition marketing, there are three factors that contribute to a successful lead generation outsourcing relationship:
- You’ve developed your brand with an in-house marketing person/team.
- You’ve set clear lead generation goals for the near future.
- You know what a quality lead is to you, and you have a process for defining them.
Generally, outsourcing your lead generation to a digital marketing agency works well when your business has a small in-house marketing team, or even a single marketing person.
This team should have already established brand guidelines that can be used alongside more targeted lead generation campaigns. Generating leads while you’re still nailing down your brand is more challenging and less efficient.
A small, busy marketing team cannot handle lead generation on top of all their other duties (see the list above), and hiring and training someone in-house specifically for lead generation work is an expensive and time-consuming investment.
A lead generation agency fills that gap more cost-effectively.
Hiring an agency that specializes in lead generation is also the best option if your business is looking for a quick turnaround. What might take an in-house team months to implement can be handled by outsourced digital marketing professionals in just a few weeks.
That said, it’s important that you have SMART goals in mind for your lead generation before you hit the launch button. You shouldn’t be making it up as you go along, or drastically changing course in the thick of it. Effective lead generation starts with clearly defined objectives.
Finally, it’s important to make sure your process for qualifying leads is set in stone before hiring a lead generation agency. This process is crucial to setting up lead generation campaigns that will bring in qualified leads rather than low-quality ones.
3. When NOT to Outsource Your Inbound Lead Generation
In our experience, businesses with small in-house marketing departments tend to benefit the most from working with a lead generation agency.
Full-time marketing teams may not need support all the time or as consistently as smaller teams, but can often benefit greatly from partnering with an agency on an as-needed basis. If you need extra help with a lead generation campaign in-house, or need training, consultation, or feedback, a lead generation agency can be your best friend.
There are also cases when fully outsourcing lead generation might be a good idea for larger companies. If you’re launching a new product or expanding to a new market, for example, you benefit greatly from hiring a lead generation agency who has experience in that market.
Another situation where outsourcing your lead generation may not be the best option is if you just don’t have the budget for it yet. A good lead generation campaign can be expensive, and an ineffective campaign can cost you more than none at all.
If your business is still in its infancy, consider starting small with an email campaign, building your community through social media or ads linking to your website as a first step.
Should You Leave Your Inbound Lead Generation to the Experts?
Outsourcing lead generation can be a great investment for your business. It saves you time from training or hiring your own team, produces better results, and gives you more flexibility as your business scales and adapts to a changing marketplace.
You should hold off on hiring a lead generation agency if you’re still working on branding, goals, and a process for qualifying leads. And if you have the resources and time to invest a portion of your in-house digital marketing team to lead generation, you should!
To learn more about lead generation and talk to a digital marketing professional, contact our team here at TrafficSoda. We’ll help you find the perfect balance between outsourcing lead generation and in-house lead generation for your business.
Why Landing Pages Outperform Your Website for Ads
You’ve worked hard to get visitors to your website. Now, you need to convert them into leads.
One of the best ways to do this is with a landing page: a dedicated web page customized for a specific marketing or advertising campaign.
Sounds simple enough, right? But even today, many businesses are still sending traffic to their home page instead of landing pages. Either they’re too worried about the investment to design an effective landing page or are (more likely) just too busy to do it right.
But with a little help you can learn what to look for in an effective landing page and know why your company cannot afford to ignore them when it comes to lead generation.
What’s the Difference Between a Landing Page and the Rest of My Website?
A landing page is a standalone web page specifically created for a marketing or advertising campaign.
It’s where a visitor ‘lands’ after they click on a link, like in an email, a search ad from Google and Bing, or a social post from YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and other platforms.
Now, you might be wondering “why do I need a landing page when I have a perfectly functioning website already?”
Why not just send people to your Home page, your Contact Us page, or one of your product/service pages?
Here’s why:
- Most of the pages on your website offer general information about your business. You’re the focus, not your customers. And these pages are all linked together, with a menu that lets people jump around unfocused and unmotivated.
- On the other hand, landing pages are solely dedicated to getting people to take action on one specific offer. It’s all about generating leads or sales. No links, no distractions. Just a single, simple offer.
That singular focus makes landing pages extremely effective when converting leads ‒ and research backs this up. Studies prove that landing pages with just one call to action will get you more conversions than pages with two or more.
And not only does a landing page get you more leads than a home page, but it also:
- delivers a higher ROI and gives you valuable information about your prospects.
- generates leads that you can segment, nurture, or distribute to your sales team with ease.
- lets you track the marketing performance of your offers and how visitors become leads over time.
To put it simply, sending people to a landing page instead of your home page is one of the most effective ways to increase sales, leads, and revenue from all your digital advertising and email campaigns. A successful landing page asks prospects to take a single action, whether it’s making a purchase or signing up for a quote, consultation, or lead magnet.
10 Critical Elements of an Effective Landing Page
So now that you know why your business should use landing pages, what should you do to create a high converting and effective one?
Below are some of the most critical elements of a landing page that every business should be incorporating.
- Don’t Underestimate the Power of a Great Headline
Your headline is the first thing people will read when they land on your landing page. It should sum up exactly what you’re offering and how people will benefit in a few words. - Write Concise and Compelling Copy
Tell a concise yet compelling story that makes an irresistible offer and nudges people to convert. Focus on the reader, not on yourself. Use short sentences and paragraphs. - Use Strategic and Natural Keywords
Using commonly searched keywords throughout your landing page (in the headers, body text, and page title) will help to optimize the page for Google search and ads relevancy. Avoid the temptation to keyword stuff. - Embrace a Mobile First Mindset
Over half of all website traffic is now from mobile devices. Make sure your landing page loads quickly, is responsive and looks good on mobile, tablet and desktop devices. - Seal the Exits and Hide Navigation
By hiding the top and side navigation, you reduce distractions, minimize friction, and lower bounce rates on your landing page. This means more visitors stay, stay longer and convert more often. - Use a Lead Capture Mechanism
A landing page isn’t complete without a lead capture mechanism, such as a form. In general, a shorter form will generate more conversions, but from leads of lower quality. Inversely, a longer form will generate fewer conversions, but from leads of higher quality. - Add Some Social Proof
Fear of missing out is a powerful tool to use when building social proof behind your landing pages. Testimonials and reviews add credibility to your product or service. This demonstrates that customers trust you and that business is in demand. - Help Explain It with Images
Using images that relate to the copy on the landing page allows people to visualize what it is that you are trying to say about your business, products, and services. If a picture is worth a thousand words, an image is surely worth a few hundred characters of copy. - Don’t Forget the Thank-you Page
After the visitor has put their information into the lead capture mechanism a thank-you page should pop up to confirm with the visitor that their information was received properly. If the page includes a specific deal, the visitor should receive a message that guides them to their next steps and prepares them to be contacted by the business. - Follow-Up with an Email Autoresponder
Many thank-you pages are accompanied by email autoresponders. These emails offer more information on what’s next for the visitor after converting on the landing page. Email autoresponders serve as a type of ‘receipt’ for the lead capture mechanism to confirm opt-in consent with the visitor. It also acts as a prompt for your sales team to check-in with your new lead.
Get More Leads at a Lower Cost with Landing Pages
Setting up landing pages is time well spent, and the results from conversion to leads will be all the proof that you need.
Guiding your website visitors to focus on your current business offer will steer them towards action and turn them into customers.
If you’d like to learn more about landing pages and how they can benefit your business, or if you’d like advice from an industry professional about the next steps reach out to us to chat.
From Awareness to Action: How to Capture and Create Demand
There’s a universal truth that persists no matter how good your product or service is, or how much you spend on marketing:
Sometimes, your perfect customer isn’t ready to buy right now.
- Some of your prospects just don’t know you yet.
- Others know you, but aren’t sure they’re ready to trust you.
- Still others are trying to choose between you and your competitor.
- And some people aren’t even aware that they need what you offer at all.
When someone doesn’t know you and doesn’t trust you, the likelihood of them clicking on your ad that says “Buy Now!” is very low (but not impossible).
On the other hand, someone who is ready to buy will respond better to an ad that says “Buy Now!” than a weaker offer like “Click Here to Learn More.”
Both of these kinds of potential customers can be a goldmine of traffic, leads, and sales if you have a strong understanding of customer problem awareness.
Think of customer problem awareness as a “journey” customers take, starting from the point where they aren’t aware they have a problem to the point where they decide your product fits their needs.
If you know where someone is on their problem awareness journey, you can deliver the right message at the right time to create and then capture their demand.
Let’s talk about how and when to capture or create demand based on your customer’s level of problem awareness.
Understanding Demand Creation vs. Demand Capture
Without demand, there can be no sale. Yet demand alone doesn’t translate into sales.
Customers have to know what you can do for them and trust that you’ll deliver.
You need both demand creation and demand capture as part of your marketing mix.
What is Demand Creation?
Demand creation, also called demand generation, is marketing that aims to stimulate demand for a certain product or service in the market.
Creating demand is the first step in the marketing funnel. It involves building awareness, positioning relevance, supporting validation, and more.
The most effective form of demand creation taps into your target audience’s existing interests to build trust with them, while positioning yourself (your product or service) as the answer to their wants and needs.
Once you’ve generated demand for your offer, you can move on to step two: converting that demand into a sale.
What is Demand Capture?
Demand capture is marketing that aims to take the demand for your product or service and convert it into real sales or leads.
Demand capture happens further down your marketing funnel than demand creation, focusing on the part of your audience that already knows they want what you offer. The only thing left to do is give them that final push to convert!
Leveraging 5 Levels of Customer Awareness to Create & Capture Demand
In general, the less knowledgeable a customer is, the lower their demand for your product or service. After all, how can they want something they don’t know exists; how can they yearn to fill a need they haven’t realized yet?
For any business, it is important to balance both demand creation and capture in order to grow. To figure out that balance, you need to know where your customers are right now and ask, “What does my prospect already know?” about their problem and your solution?
To answer those questions you need to understand where your target audience is on the customer problem awareness scale.
In his groundbreaking book Breakthrough Advertising, Eugene Schwartz emphasized the importance of customer problem awareness and identified five different levels. They are:
- Unaware
These people don’t even know they have a problem, let alone one you can solve for them! Of course, this doesn’t mean their lives are perfect ‒ they just don’t realize it can be better. You have to open their eyes. - Problem Aware
There’s a problem, and they know it, but they may not fully grasp it yet and definitely don’t know the solution(s). You can help them make that connection. - Solution Aware
Now, you’re getting somewhere. These people already know products or services like yours, so they’re open to learning about what makes yours better. - Product Aware
Finally, at this stage, people are familiar with your product or service. But they probably know your competitors’, too. Now, you need to persuade them to make the right choice. - Most Aware
This is where you want people to be: a loyal customer who’s fully aware of what you have to offer, and can be guided towards repeat or new purchases.
Where your target audience falls in this scale will dictate:
- What kind of information you need to give them;
- How you should speak with them; and
- What offer will produce the best results.
Knowing your customer’s problem awareness level is crucial in determining which type of promotion will be most effective for different segments of your target audience.
When to Use Demand Capture vs. Demand Creation
For customers with less problem awareness, you want to entertain, educate, and inspire trust in your business through content like:
- Blog posts
- Social media updates
- Graphics
- Podcasts
- Webinars
You have to build trust with your prospects before they’ll be receptive to your offer, especially if your solution or business is brand new, unique, or has never been advertised to them before. Launching right into your products or services without making a connection makes people feel like you don’t care about them (so why should they care about you?).
Demonstrate that you understand their problem and experience their pain through relevant, relatable copy and content.
Near the bottom of your funnel, where customers have greater problem awareness, you want to seal the deal and capture demand with higher-commitment content like:
- Product demos
- Free trials
- Free consultations
- Product details and spec sheets
At this stage, you can ask customers for some contact information in return, which gives you a chance to start that sales conversation.
Bridging the Gap Between Demand Creation and Capture
Rather than dividing customer problem awareness into five neatly-separated shelves, think of it as a spectrum. Many people exist somewhere between two levels. You can’t focus all your attention on one level.
If you concentrate solely on capturing demand, you leave out scores of potential customers who just haven’t been acquainted with you yet.
On the other hand, if you raise awareness without taking steps to capture demand, you’re leaving money on the table.
Plus, as more governments crack down on online data collection and privacy, it’s becoming harder to pinpoint the people in your audience that are actually ready to buy. This makes it more important than ever to layer in both demand creation and capture.
Focusing too much on buyers who are at one point of your sales funnel will mean you miss out on buyers who are coming in at other points.
The ideal marketing funnel is built around generating demand and then capturing it. These two elements are essential for generating more traffic, sales, and leads, especially as new privacy regulations make traditional lead generation more challenging.
TrafficSoda can help you audit your existing marketing materials and develop a strategy to close those content gaps. If you’d like help getting started, reach out for your free strategy proposal now.
What Is Data-Driven Lead Generation?
A recent survey shows that up to 30% of a typical company’s revenue is generated through marketing.
Yet turning leads into sales remains one of the single most difficult parts of getting your business to grow.
Fact is, most leads who enter your marketing funnel – even many so-called qualified leads – do not end up buying your product or service.
This, right here, is a massive bottleneck for many companies trying to climb the leader.
And all too often, these struggling companies think this can all be fixed with a bigger marketing budget – without setting a useful strategy in place.
The #1 Mistake You’re Making In Marketing Right Now
Leads don’t pay the bills…conversions do.
But whether it’s hitting the “Buy” button, making the phone call, or lining up to check-out, most of your prospective customers just aren’t taking that final step.
You might feel so close to making the sale. Like something somewhere is missing, and all your customers need is one final “push” towards conversion.
This is where many, many companies make a big mistake.
Instead of taking a forensic look at their broken marketing funnel and analyzing where, exactly, their leads are dropping off…
These companies pull out their credit card and expand the campaign, as-is, to an even wider audience.
They fall prey to the all-too-common misconception that you should be marketing your service or product to as many people as you can.
However, this “scattershot” marketing approach won’t bear any fruit if 99% of the people coming across your product or service aren’t buying!
Sure – you’ll be reaching more potential customers overall. It stands to reason that your conversions should increase accordingly.
But that doesn’t actually solve the problem you had in the first place: that too small a portion of your leads were actually buying.
Your conversion rate is still low. You’re still spending too much money per lead.
Put simply, you’re not getting your money’s worth.
What You Should Do Instead: Quality Over Quantity
This is exactly where data driven lead generation is so important.
Rather than focusing on reaching more people, this methodology helps focusing on the right kind of people. Your target market.
Data-driven lead generation focuses on leveraging sales and marketing data to focus on the quality of leads over quantity. This is an extremely important concept.
Data-driven lead generation doesn’t necessarily focus on getting as many leads as possible. Rather, it integrates sales into the mix and focuses on pushing the leads to actually buy a product.
This approach can further amplify the success of any marketing strategy, and constant iterations can serve to work out that strategy’s pains and shortcomings.
Lead Generation & Data Analytics
In order to build the right models for your business that can provide you with the most usable data, it is crucial to gather accurate, relevant marketing and sales data.
This data can then help generate insights and prove or disprove your hypothesis of whether a specific strategy could work.
With data analytics, you can focus on understanding the different attributes of your target market and develop detailed insights – the kind that you can use to produce powerful marketing messages.
Furthermore, this can allow you to find connections between different attributes and data sets that aren’t possible through traditional biased thinking.
For this to happen, you need reliable data which can help drive your analysis.
Good Data Is Unbiased Data
Here’s the real beauty of data driven lead generation:
Data is always unbiased.
The pre-set notions and theories that are followed in “traditional” marketing (some of which are literally over a hundred years old!) are not always relevant in this ever-changing technological environment of ours.
It is important to get unbiased data to help drive analysis and to get results.
Having unbiased data will help you generate those high-quality leads that have a significant chance of turning into a sale.
In order to find reliable, unbiased data, you have to develop an understanding of who you’re targeting and identify the best acquisition channels to collect the most valid data. These can include techniques such as tracking anonymous users visiting your website, gathering feedback from your customers, monitoring trends of loyal customers or using social logins to access a prospect’s profile.
Often, your company’s history is its biggest asset. Using historic behaviour and historic data from older clients can help narrow down your target market and really allow you to focus on generating quality leads. In order to narrow your target market, you need DATA!
Here are some of the key metrics to focus on in your quest to building a data driven strategy:
- How much of your revenue comes from marketing channels such as email, social, PPC, and others?
- How many leads are you generating in a specific time period?
- How many customers actually buy a product or book a service from your website?
- To date, how much actual revenue has your marketing strategy generated (and how does this compare to what you forecasted?)
- How much money have you generated from each lead source?
- How many leads have become opportunities for each of your marketing channels?
Start Putting Data To Work For You Now
To be honest, this only really begins to scratch the surface of what data-driven lead generation strategy can do for your business…but it’s a solid place to start.
And the very best time to start is now.
With all the uncertainty in the world right now, no business can afford to take a “scattershot” approach to its marketing budget.
This is the time to stand out or stand back and get left behind.
Reach out to us when you’re ready to start turning more leads into paying customers.
Understanding Your Target Audience: Challenges and Pain Points
Connecting to your target audience is a daunting task. But what if I told you it didn’t have to be?
Like any relationship, forging a genuine, meaningful connection with your buyers takes time and effort. But once you do, you will begin to reap the rewards: you’ll be able to promote yourself to an appreciative audience that is clamoring to do business.
So, how do you get there?
First, you must understand the type of pain points your audience aligns themselves with.
Pain points are the specific issues your audience faces that your products or services can solve. Identifying these pain points – and speaking to them in your marketing – is key to bringing new customers into the fold.
Traditionally, there are four different types of pain points:
- Financial Pain Points: Your audience is trying to find a way to save money, as they are currently unsatisfied by how much money is entering or leaving their pockets.
- Productivity Pain Points: Your audience is looking to save time, or rather, to use their time more effectively.
- Process Pain Points: Your audience is in search of a more effective way to solve their problems.
- Support Pain Points: Your audience currently lacks support they need during their customer journey.
Once you identify which pain points resonate with your audience, you can better position your business to appeal to their wants and needs.
Finding Your Audience’s Pain Points
Now that you know what you’re looking for, you can start doing a little investigating.
Depending on the time and resources at hand, there are several ways to go about understanding your audience’s pain points.
Customer interviews are invaluable. Nothing beats talking to your audience one-on-one. But if you’re short on time, or don’t have access to real customers, a good place to start is with customer testimonials and reviews (on Google, Facebook, HomeStars, etc.)
As much as it’s nice to relish in complimentary customer reviews, it’s important to view the negative comments as well. This way, you can identify areas of improvement. If your customers have provided reasoning behind why they are dissatisfied, you’ve found a pain point!
After you’ve reflected on reviews of your product or service, it’s time to turn to your competitors. What are they offering their customers that you are not? What pain points are they addressing?
Look at their reviews, along with their website copy. Doing a Google search will also prompt their ads to pop up, which is a good opportunity to look at how they are appealing to their customers.
Addressing Pain Points
So, you’ve found your pain points. Now you must tailor your copy to suit the needs of your audience. Target your audience based on their pain points, and you will start to build a connection between them and your product or service.
- Financial: Highlight the money your customers will save by switching to your product/service.
- Productivity: Emphasize that by switching to your product/service, customers will also be saving time and their frustrations through user-friendly technology.
- Processes: Discuss how your product/service is the most effective, reliable, and convenient way to solve their issue.
- Support: Be present in every stage of the customer journey by helping your customers, both new and secured. Use inclusive language and emphasize that they are more than just a customer to you.
Add to Your Copy
Now that you know how to address pain points, we have a few extra tips for you to incorporate into your marketing copy to help prospects realize how great your business is.
In this case, qualitative data is much more valuable compared to quantitative. Each customer has an individualized experience, meaning they all have their own different pain points. One customer is not going to share the exact same problem as another, though it can be categorized into larger ideas like the ones discussed above.
At the end of the day, your audience is not going to remember the number of customers served or percentage of satisfaction – they are going to remember the stories behind customer success.
This can easily be found through use of customer testimonials, as it gives prospects confidence to continue their customer journey with you. By seeing displays of trust between your business and customers, prospects will expect to have a similar experience, one where they are supported.
Make a Lasting Connection To Your Audience
Building a connection with your audience is vital to the growth and survival of your business. By no means is it an easy task, but the effort you put into this relationship will pay off in time. Now that you understand how to find your audience pain points and address them, you can get started on nurturing a relationship with your customers.
When in doubt, just ask yourself: what do my customers need and how will I provide it for them? Reach out to us to start connecting to your audience and attracting qualified leads now.
What Are Realistic Goals for Your Lead Generation Campaign?
Let’s get right into it. The key word I want you to focus on from the title of this blog is realistic.
Of course you want your business to grow. That’s a given. And a strategic, focused lead generation campaign is the most consistent, reliable way to get new customers through the door.
But “skyrocket my business” isn’t exactly a specific, measurable goal. You need to dig deeper.
Goals give your company something to work towards, but reaching for something unrealistic will knock you off the path to success.
Once you’ve done the research and crunched the numbers, you’ll land on that perfectly balanced goal. From there, your lead generation will improve drastically.
This notion is a universal truth for all businesses. Having a clearly defined objective gives you the focus to achieve what you’re aiming for.
Why Are Realistic Goals Integral to Your Success?
First and foremost, studies show that – out of 3,000-plus marketers – there is a 376% likelier chance for success for those who set goals.
Giving yourself realistic benchmarks lets you plan and budget time and money around those expectations.
You won’t over-commit and experience a catastrophic outcome that sinks you financially. Plus, you invested a reasonable amount of time that hasn’t taken away from the rest of your business.
Whereas an unrealistic goal might act as a financial sinkhole that takes your focus off what brought you to the dance: providing quality services.
Metrics That Will Help You Set Realistic Goals
It’s tricky to improve upon what you can’t measure.
However, what you’re measuring should provide valuable insights that help you generate more leads.
What are some examples of meaningful metrics for lead generation?
- Marketing Qualified Leads: leads that have shown interest in your services but aren’t ready to make a purchase. These individuals have performed an action such as filling out a contact form or clicking on an ad.If you nurture an MQL, they’ll be likelier to convert into a customer or client.
- Conversions Through the Sales Funnel: tracks how leads travel the marketing funnel towards being a customer. If customers are moving down this path successfully, it’s an indication that your methods are working.
- Sales Qualified Leads (SQL): a metric that becomes meaningful deep into the buyer’s journey. A wealth of SQLs means that you’ve performed well in cultivating relationships with MQLs and keeping them interested in your services.
4 Critical Factors to Weigh In Setting Realistic Goals
1. Average Deal Size
- Smaller transactions make it more challenging to get a decent return on your investment.
- If your focus is on smaller deals, you’ll have to convert at a high volume.
- Your deal size dictates the preferred size of your prospect or lead database. If you have a more significantly sized deal size, you don’t need to work with as many leads.
2. Average Sales Cycle
- Knowing how long it takes to convert a lead into a buyer gives you a clearer picture of your potential return on investment (ROI). Plus, it helps you grasp the various steps in your pipeline.
- You must adjust accordingly to these timeframes for the most realistic projections of your ROI.
3. Complexity of Sale
- You need to consider how complicated your message is and how many people will be involved in crafting your goals.
- These factors often dictate the number of call attempts and the number of contacts per account for callers.
- Complex sales bring in more value per deal and often justify a lower response and conversion rates because of the money being brought in.
4. Quality of Data
- If you’re receiving quality data about leads, you’ll be spending your time trying to convert people who are more likely to purchase your products.
Defining and achieving your lead goals could mean exciting things for you and your company: higher profit margins, faster growth, and freedom to try new things. Reach out to us to learn how to start generating more leads online now.