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Is It Time To Walk Away From Your Startup Idea? 15 Ways To Decide

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Sourced from Forbes.

Starting a new business can come with doubt and uncertainty. But what happens when that doubt has less to do with nerves and more to do with your gut warning you of potential failure? At a certain point, it may be prudent to walk away from your startup and pursue a different path.

So how do you know when you’ve reached that point? Below, a panel of Forbes Coaches Council members each shared one way an entrepreneur can understand whether they should let their startup idea go or keep at it until they see success.

1. Test Your Doubts Against The Data

Emotional decisions, both in personal and business lives, tend to have debatable outcomes at best. A better way is to formulate those doubts into tangible hypotheses that can be proven or disproved. Then it is rather simple: Consult with peers, collect and analyze data or do both. The end result is rather straightforward: Either the concern is legit or it is not. – Kamyar Shah, World Consulting Group

2. Define Your Direction And Goals

An entrepreneur’s most powerful asset is their mindset. As you define direction and goals, use the BEE acronym to guide change. Belief: What belief do you need or desire in that learning or goal? Effort: Change takes effort and practice. Effortless: Trust the process and it will become effortless! – Dr. Denise Trudeau-Poskas, Blue Egg Leadership

3. Listen To Your Inner Voice And Write It Down

Concerns for entrepreneurs come at the oddest times, such as in the car, at 4 a.m., during a workout or in a meeting. When I am listening to that inner voice, I try to quickly write down the thoughts that may include doubts, concerns or ideas as they come out. I listen to the voice. I can then distill what makes sense and what doesn’t. Track these doubts, examine, share and then take action. – John M. O’Connor, Career Pro Inc.

4. Pay Attention To The ‘Dip’

One book I hand out to nearly all my clients is The Dip by Seth Godin. He talks about the low point where so many entrepreneurs tend to doubt their ideas because they can’t see the progress they are making, but they are so close to a breakthrough. It helps them see that they aren’t alone and, 99% of the time, following through on their strategy will get them where they want to go. – Racheal Cook, Racheal Cook MBA

5. Ask Yourself If It Feels OK To Walk Away

Your body will know the answer. If you feel in your body that you are considering the option to walk away and it doesn’t feel good, then you know that you have to keep pursuing the idea. The idea or the “how” of the idea may have to shift, but the fact that you want to be an entrepreneur didn’t. Listen to the small voice. Also have sounding boards you can talk to who will help you to talk it through. – Monica Thakrar, MTI

6. Run A Competitive Analysis

Entrepreneurs are successful because of passion, intuition and grit. This is also the formula for failure if they don’t have data to inform solid decisions. Market research is invaluable to identify the market opportunity. If you are able to add competitive analysis to the research, you can validate your decision to stay and how to redirect and refine your efforts. – Maureen Metcalf, Innovative Leadership Institute

7. Consider The Impact

It is not uncommon for people to feel doubt. The problem develops when we turn down opportunities based on that doubt. Consider the worst-case scenario if something goes wrong. Will that be the end of the world or just a great learning experience? If a startup is making you unhappy and having an impact on your health, it is time to walk away. – Dr. Diane Hamilton, Tonerra

8. Decide If You’re Willing To Ask For Help

Being an entrepreneur is really hard. Aside from exhausting hours, the constant pull from every direction and doubts, there can be a lack of knowledge and experience. If you’re not willing to ask for help, listen to others or invest in coaching; it may be a sign that you’re just not ready to go it on your own. This means you’re not yet where you need to be (personally) to succeed in this moment. – Miranda VonFricken, Miranda VonFricken Mastermind Coaching

9. Analyze Your Sales Numbers

In business, numbers never lie. If sales are nonexistent, that justifies switching gears. If sales are slow, that’s an indication to increase marketing or niche down the target market and ideal client profile. Either way, sales numbers provide an indication regarding the best course of action. Analyze the best and worst selling products and services to find out why they are or are not selling. – Lori A. Manns, Quality Media Consultant Group LLC

10. Run Tests And Share The Results With Customers

Test your ideas in a scientific and methodical manner in order to see whether your hypothesis can prove to be validated. Here’s what that means. First, ask a question and do background research. Next, construct a hypothesis and test it by doing an experiment. Analyze the data and draw a conclusion. Share your results with your customers to see what to do next. – Brian M Harman, PhD, MBA, Business Management Hallmark

11. Make Sure Your Head Is In The Game And You’re Not ‘BOB-ing’

There are ventures that just aren’t meant to be, but more frequently an entrepreneur struggles simply because they’re caught in “business owner belief” (BOB). An entrepreneurial mindset is hungry, driven, passionate and excited to start each day. A BOB mindset has a lot of, “I shouldn’t have to” around learning to sell, market, get help or move beyond belief the product or service is enough. – Laura DeCarlo, Career Directors International

12. Talk It Out With Colleagues

All successful entrepreneurs have someone they share their thoughts with. If your gut is telling you something, it is your subconscious trying to share a thought. Don’t ignore it; discuss it with a colleague and, through the process of discussion, you will identify the root cause of your concern. Now you can make decisions and decide whether you need a course correction on your path to success. – Mark Savinson, Strategy to Revenue

13. Look For The Small Wins

Believe me, I have been there! Doubt happens. What’s kept me driven and motivated as a solopreneur is taking a look at the small wins. Did you land a paying client? Did you get amazing feedback or testimonials from clients? Did you get responses from folks you networked with, thus planting the seeds for future business? Celebrate this momentum and remember why you’re doing this in the first place. – Joyel Crawford, Crawford Leadership Strategies, LLC.

14. Review Your Business Data With A Financial Advisor

Financial data is a critical flag to startup success or failure. Consistent review and discussion of key business data with a financial advisor provides entrepreneurs information to better understand their business status and supports key decision making. Being financially responsible will help to keep you from poor decision making, financial mismanagement and developing a sound exit strategy. – Lori Harris, Harris Whitesell Consulting

15. Trust Your Intuition, Not Your Instinct

A “gut feeling” is instinct based on past experiences. It’s not the right gauge in business as you are in the present creating your future. The only way to know if it’s time to walk away from a startup is by listening to your own intuition. Only you can decipher if your business is aligned with your values, beliefs and purpose. You will feel aligned if it’s heart-driven and will know to keep at it. – Whitney Mullings, Whitney Mullings

Sourced from Forbes.

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Google Is Making It Harder to Tell the Difference Between Ads and Search Results

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By Jason Aten.

Two changes to how Google displays search results will likely have a real impact on your business.

Most of us think of Google as the place to go and get answers to just about everything. In fact, 90 percent of all search queries use Google, accounting for almost half of all internet traffic. If you’re an entrepreneur or marketer, you know that Google’s primary business is selling targeted advertising along with every one of those searches. In fact, Google is the largest advertising platform in the world.

The intersection of those two realities just got a little clearer, while the distinction became less so with a few recent changes made by Google. Here’s what changed recently, as well as what it means to your business.

Ads Versus Organic Results

Google Ads are extremely effective, because advertisers are able to target ads to the keywords people search for. People depend on Google to give them the highest-quality results for their questions, which is why appearing at the top of a search results page is so valuable to marketers and content creators.

For a long time, it was obvious that there was a difference between results that appear organically–ranked highly on the basis of their relevance and quality–and those that appeared prominently because they are paid ads. Over time, however, Google has made the distinction less clear.

The latest example blurs the line almost completely by adding a “fav” icon to the organic results, and including the link above the result, both of which make them look far closer to the ads above.

While it isn’t clear what result this is likely to have for individual businesses, the motivation seems clear: Increase click-through on ads. Since the majority of visitors click on the top three or four search results, making the paid and organic results look as similar to each other as possible is going to lead to more clicks on the paid results since they appear at the top.

That matters if your business depends on appearing at the top of search results, and might mean that it’s time to evaluate whether your content and search engine marketing strategy still make sense after these changes.

Snippets and Search Results

Another change, which could easily have an even larger impact on marketers, is that Google now says that when a site captures a snippet for a given search query, that site won’t also appear in the normal search results. The snippet is one of the most valuable positions in a search result page (SERP), and is the most prominent result. For example, in the SERP below, the snippet includes the list from the article about the best iPhone apps.

In the past, that article would also have appeared in the search results below. Now, the snippet is considered a position in the results. Google’s Search Liaison Twitter account explained the change:

That seems logical, but it also has a real impact on websites that currently have the snippet for a given search term, and will now have less presence in the SERP. As with the first change, this can have a real effect on the amount of traffic your website gets if your primary strategy has been organic search.

Sometimes it might be easy to forget that ultimately, while Google’s mission might be to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful,” it’s a business.

Businesses exist to make money, and Google is very good at making money. As it gets even better at it, it isn’t always clear where the line is between making information useful and using information to make money. That’s a good reminder for businesses that have made organic search a major part of their marketing plan. If that’s you, it might be time to consider how these changes will affect your strategy. Because, make no mistake, they absolutely do.

Feature Image Credit: Getty Images

By Jason Aten

Sourced from Inc.

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Challenge Accepted: The Top 5 Obstacles B2B Marketers Face

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By Shannon Prager

Business-to-business marketers are responsible for raising awareness, generating leads to drive revenue and differentiating their organization from its competitors. A B2B marketer faces a different set of challenges with each campaign. If these challenges are not combatted, they can significantly lower the business’s efficiency and revenue.

As the president of a marketing agency, here are the top challenges I’ve observed B2B marketers are facing today and how you and your team can combat them:

1. Generating Quality Leads 

In today’s digital era, many platforms exist to publish and promote marketing content. The digital space is so cluttered with content, consumers no longer have to seek out information. Push notifications, geo-targeting, customized ads and messages, and site pop-ups deliver tailored content to every user.

B2B marketers can struggle to create enough demand for their content. Because of the plethora of content syndication opportunities available today, B2B marketers often lack understanding of which channel is right for their message.

An effective way to address this problem is doing research on the type of content your target audience actually wants — such as video, blogs, etc. — about the topics that are keeping them up at night. Creating high-quality content that provides the reader with value will gain their trust, and they will come back for more.

2. Knowing The Right Target Audience 

Strong marketing strategies should satisfy the needs of customers at every level of the customer journey. You must know your audience and what they care about in order to reach them. But, there’s a lot that goes into a B2B buyer’s decision-making process, such as how their company does business and their personal preferences. This can make it challenging to determine your target audience.

Studying your customers’ buying process enables you to segment your buyers by their pains and their needs, so you can deliver a more personalized experience when communicating and marketing to them.

3. Proving ROI

Return on investment attribution remains one of the most common challenges facing many B2B marketers. In order for a marketer to comprehend the effectiveness of each piece of content, each campaign and the overall strategy, a marketer must be able to attribute a relatively accurate amount of revenue to them.

B2B organizations often find it difficult to prove ROI because of the multiple points of contact a marketer must make before a business purchases their product or service. B2B purchasing decisions often involve interacting with a number of professionals within a company in a variety of ways, so the sales cycle is much longer and more complex. Tracking the revenue that these interactions generate can be extremely time-consuming and convoluted, as the purchase process is not linear and the financial benefits of the marketing effort are often not reaped until long after their execution.

I advise organizations to tackle this issue by facilitating two-way communication between your company’s marketing and sales teams, in addition to implementing reporting tools into your regular analysis.

4. Optimizing Your Website 

A B2B company’s website is a marketing asset that is working all day, every day, to generate traffic and convert prospects into customers. Keeping your site functional, fast and user-friendly is essential for any B2B business.

This is an umbrella issue that encompasses a variety of challenges, including:

• Optimizing SEO;

• Producing strong messaging that speaks to the pains of your buyers;

• Engaging website users with your content;

• Designing pages in an easy-to-read, yet appealing style.

It takes different skill sets to effectively manage all these types of projects, so having strong marketing partners is important to ensure you can get the right skill for the right role.

5. Strategic Marketing Planning

To plan or not to plan? While it takes time, I firmly believe that to effectively market to your customers, you must know them inside and out and plan accordingly.

Ask yourself the following questions about your customers:

• How do your customers form their plans?

• How do they evaluate solutions?

• Where else do they search for information to educate and later purchase?

• Where do they get recommendations and purchasing advice?

I believe by conducting buyer persona research, you can overcome the common challenge of marketing to the wrong consumer or marketing with the wrong message at the wrong time. Customers’ answers to these questions can inform email marketing, social media, outreach to influencers and more.

So, you have some or all of these challenges. Now what?

From creating a personalized website experience to generating quality leads, marketers face a different set of challenges. A seasoned team of marketing strategists can help you identify and overcome the marketing challenges your B2B is facing. Whether it is an in-house marketer at your organization or employing a marketing agency to fill your unique gaps, surround yourself with those who are professionals in the space so you can get the results you need.

Feature  Image Credit: Getty

By Shannon Prager

Shannon Prager is President of Leadit Marketing, a marketing and demand gen agency focused on B2B tech and professional services companies. Read Shannon Prager’s full executive profile here.

Sourced from Forbes

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The Product-Market Fit Code: Why many companies fail to crack and what startups need to learn

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By Nilesh Maurya

  • While there could be many reasons built around why products fail, there have been products that have crossed these boundaries and had so many wrong ingredients in their failure sometimes becomes inevitable.

  • While these product failures do leave behind a lot of lessons to learn, it’s in the hands of managers to educate and engage with all the teams early on.

By Nilesh Maurya

Nilesh Maurya is Director-Investment Banking at Omega Capital Consultants.

Sourced form CNBC TV18

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Three Social Media Marketing Trends To Watch In 2020

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By Stephanie Wells.

With the new year here, it’s time for marketers to solidify their strategies for more productive, effective results. The marketing landscape is constantly changing and evolving, and if businesses don’t keep up, they’ll see a drop in conversions and revenue.

For social media, this is especially true. Users continue to interact in different ways and use social platforms to engage with brands they do business with. In 2019, 79% of the U.S. population had a social networking profile.

Imagine a business that doesn’t know the first thing about how to use social media to engage their customers. You may have a large following, but if you don’t utilize your platform, you won’t see positive results.

It’s important to keep up with the upcoming social media marketing trends so you and your team create a strategy that’s effective and fruitful. Here are a few trends to watch in 2020 that you can apply to your social media marketing strategy.

Building Online Communities

What keeps users coming back on social media time and time again? When you get tired of the memes, acquaintances’ life updates and baby photos, what entices people to continue using social platforms in their leisure time?

Social media provides a stable platform of connectivity between people who otherwise wouldn’t coexist as easily. People lead busy lives, and even those you’re close to can become estranged when there’s so much going on. Perhaps a more significant reason people continue using social media is to be part of a bigger community where they feel valued, respected and loved.

In 2020, social media marketers should put more emphasis on building online communities to grow their customer base. There will be more focus on responding to users, cultivating conversations and building authentic brand-consumer relationships. All of these elements will encourage repeat customers and increased engagement.

Humanizing Your Brand

Brands are constantly fighting to grab their audience’s attention and persuade them to look their way. There are so many marketing messages pushed on consumers day in and day out that it takes extra effort to reel them in. How can you intrigue your customers when you have so many competitive forces standing in your way? You humanize your brand.

In the upcoming year, marketers will put more focus on adding human elements to their social marketing messages. There’s no room for robotic, traditional advertising that makes it difficult to produce results. If you want to connect with consumers, then you need to humanize your brand and create relationships beyond your products and services.

Brands are already leveraging the use of memes, slang and pop culture to relate to their customers and build long-lasting customer relationships. I predict this trend will continue to rise in the new year as consumers demand more personalization from the businesses they invest in.

Social Purchasing

Marketers aim to please their customers and provide them with smooth experiences. This includes sharpening website design, improving navigation and offering superior customer support. It also means providing additional convenience wherever possible so businesses have a higher chance of converting customers and generating sales.

That’s why I expect purchasing through social media to continue to grow as a trend for the upcoming year. Companies already bombard users with ad after ad based on their previous searches. Users are used to seeing products they want when they log into social media. More businesses will use this to their advantage by enabling shopping directly through social platforms.

Providing convenience is one of the key ways to drive sales and persuade users to click through. If your brand offers a positive user experience (UX) for customers, you’re sure to see an increase in conversions and engagement.

If you want to boost your social media marketing efforts for the upcoming year, then it’s crucial to pay attention to the trends. You can expect a bigger emphasis on building authentic relationships, social purchasing and humanization to bring audiences and businesses together.

Feature Image Credit: Getty

By Stephanie Wells

Steph is the founder of Formidable Forms, a drag + drop form builder for WordPress that empowers freelancers to create form-based solutions.

Sourced from Forbes

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Smartly.io Research Finds Half of 2020 Marketing Budgets Will be Allocated to Social Media Ads

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Sourced from yahoo! finance

Marketers expect to invest heavily in social automation technology to streamline inefficiencies

Smartly.io, the leading social media advertising automation platform for creative and performance marketers, today announced new research outlining how retail marketers plan to spend their advertising budgets in 2020. Commissioned by Smartly.io and conducted by WBR Insights, the research arm of the eTail event series, the survey results indicate that social media advertising will be a primary focus for retail brands hoping to reach consumers where they are most active.

Smartly.io’s research revealed that 52 percent of retail marketers will spend more on social advertising than they did in 2019. Further, 50 percent of retail advertisers are planning to spend at least half of their annual marketing budget on social media advertising. With eMarketer estimating that U.S. digital ad spend would reach $129 billion by the end of 2019, Smartly.io’s data indicates that retail marketers plan to allocate nearly $65 billion to social media ads in the decade’s first year. When compared to 2019, 96 percent of respondents plan to bump up their spending on Facebook this year, while Twitter (56 percent) and Instagram (22 percent) also see healthy increases.

In terms of where retail marketers currently advertise, Twitter (75 percent) and Instagram (59 percent) fare well, but Facebook is far and away their favorite social advertising platform, with 96 percent adoption. In fact, 36 percent reported that Facebook is the platform they dedicate the most spend toward, and 41 percent say it also gives them the best return on ad spend (ROAS).

“The past decade put social advertising on the map for most retail marketers, and our findings indicate that it will only continue to grow in 2020,” said Robert Rothschild, VP and global head of marketing at Smartly.io. “Retail marketers recognize the value that social media ads bring to their campaigns, and they are focused on understanding which levers to pull to generate even more engagement and revenue. Capturing the attention of today’s consumer demands that advertisers tell stories that seamlessly blend with the organic content that their audience already consumes. Investing in visual storytelling enables retail marketers to connect with consumers on an emotional and highly relevant level. Shifting spend to story ads, diversifying across social networks like Pinterest, bridging the gap between performance and creative teams, and investing in technology to scale creative and deliver incrementality in ad performance are ideal solutions that will allow teams to work faster and smarter in the year to come.”

Although marketers see a positive return on their dollar, many admit that the process is often still too manual and inefficient to easily manage. Survey results showed that 83 percent feel that there is room for improvement when it comes to automating parts of their ad creation and deployment, and 66 percent do not use any automation technology. To reduce these inefficiencies, 39 percent of retail marketing teams indicated that they will invest in more robust social advertising tools in 2020.

Additional findings from the study include:

  • 29 percent of retail marketers noted Instagram is the social network where they spend the most on social ads
  • Nearly half (48 percent) feel their performance marketing and creative teams do not collaborate effectively in all stages of the marketing process
  • 61 percent say that their creative production and ad delivery involves manual processes that are often time-consuming
  • 47 percent of retail marketers plan to increase their use of dynamic ads on social media
  • 39 percent predict they will manage social advertising in-house
  • 35 percent feel that their KPIs will change from how they were measured in 2019

Download the complete Smartly.io research report on our website. Smartly.io recently raised €200 million in funding in December 2019 to support future growth of the company. Visit Smartly.io’s website to learn more about its capabilities, and follow Smartly.io on Twitter for the latest updates on company announcements.

About the Study
In November of 2019, Smartly.io partnered with WBR Insights and eTail to survey 100 U.S. retail marketing decision-makers to understand their plans for social media advertising in 2020. Respondents spanned roles in brand marketing, eCommerce and sales, creative and design, product and performance marketing, and digital advertising, and gave their answers via phone call. All respondents were age 18+ and located in the U.S., and represented retail brands generating over $200 million in total annual revenue in sectors like apparel, home furnishing, hardware, electronics and appliances, specialty retail, sporting goods, department stores, entertainment and hospitality, supermarkets, and toys.

About Smartly.io
Powering beautifully effective ads, Smartly.io automates every step of social advertising to unlock greater performance and creativity. We combine creative production and ad buying automation with outstanding customer service to help 600+ brands scale their results – not headcount – on Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest. We are a fast-growing community of 350+ Smartlies with 16 offices around the world, managing over €2.5B in ad spend and growing rapidly and profitably. Visit smartly.io to learn more.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200123005090/en/

Sourced from yahoo! finance

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Lead Generation vs Demand Generation: What is the Difference?

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Lead generation vs demand generation, what is the difference?

I’m sure you’ve heard these terms used regularly, but even though they sound alike, there are some important differences to be aware of.

Unfortunately, marketers often use these terms interchangeably, and it can confuse those looking to learn more about digital marketing and the online world.

To clear things up, let’s take a look at the key differences between lead generation and demand generation.

What is lead generation?

Lead generation is the method of using different content types and various marketing tactics to attract users and collect their contact details. The information you gather enables you to nurture users into qualified leads. These leads are people who have willingly shown interest in your offerings and are ready to buy from you.

Lead generation ideas include:

  • Gated content
  • Coupon codes
  • Webinars
  • Special offers
  • Etc.

It means that the lead generator will create a fence or gate around your content, which will entice readers to give you their contact information before they can gain access to the material. After that, you can use the data you collect to reach out to your subscribers, nurture them with more useful articles, and finally, with your offers.

Why does your business need lead generation?

Lead generation is essential to your business because it delivers your sales team interested prospects (leads) that are ready and willing to discuss buying your products or services.

A lead is someone who shows interest in your brand’s products or services by voluntarily submitting their contact details, such as an email address or other vital information. The lead will, from that point onward, be receiving communication from the business in various forms, including email newsletters with marketing offers.

Without leads, a business cannot survive.

Lead generation tactics

Research reveals that over 60% of marketers say that their top marketing challenges are how to generate traffic and leads. That is, according to HubSpot’s State of Inbound Marketing Report.

Generating Traffic and Leads for lead generation vs demand generation

Nonetheless, several marketing tactics can help you boost your lead generation efforts. Here are some of the most effective lead tactics you can use to generate more leads.

1. Create highly-quality content frequently

In every digital marketing toolbox, content is a crucial instrument for attracting visitors to your website or a product page. It is not just any content but in-depth materials that provide value to your target market. Thus, creating quality materials will help increase your reach and produce more leads.

2. Use gated content

When used correctly, gated content can significantly generate more leads and increase your conversion rates. According to Optinmonster, the Trading Strategy Guide used gated content to increase email signups by 11,000 in a month. It shows you the effectiveness of gated content.

Use gated content to generate leads for lead generation vs demand generation

3. Personalize your brand’s point of consumer contact

Personalization has become more prominent because it awakens human feelings and helps in drawing users’ attention to your brand, product, or services. For instance, in a survey by Salesforce, about the “State of the connected customer,” they found that more than 55% of buyers are willing to give personal information in return for personalized overtures.

Personalize Your Brand's Point of Consumer Contact for lead generation vs demand generation

Furthermore, 50% of respondents will give you their contact data for a personalized shopping experience.

4. Optimize your landing pages

It is common to see multiple marketing offers on a single landing page. That is a digital marketing mistake you should avoid at all costs. Why? Research indicates that landing pages with multiple offers produce 266% fewer leads than landing pages with a single offer.

Therefore, concentrate on single offer landing pages. Create more landing pages with a focus on a unique offering for each page. That is because the study also shows that sites with 30 landing pages generate 7x more leads than those with 10 landing pages.

As a result, optimize your landing pages with clear messages that will move visitors to give you their contact details.

Other lead gen strategies include:

Now that we have an idea of what lead generation is, and the why and how-to generate leads, let us define “demand generation” as well.

What is demand generation?

Demand generation is a business process that focuses on various marketing undertakings. These marketing efforts help to increase brand awareness and demand for the product or the services you offer. Demand gen is a thorough marketing application and sales proposal that takes place throughout the funnel when there is a demand for your products or services.

A viable demand generation approach comprises AIDA – an acronym for Awareness, Interest, Desire, and Action. Marketers are using this approach extensively to explain the subsequent stages from when a potential customer became aware of a brand, to when they make a purchase.

Why is demand generation important?

Demand generation is essential because its purpose is to arouse your target market and prospective customers’ interests in your business. This marketing process is responsible for all touchpoints in the customer’s journey. That is from being an unknown consumer to a qualified and happy client.

This method is about creating opportunities for demand and the overall growth of your business. You can create such opportunities by advertising your products or services on different marketing channels. Also, ramping up your brand with useful content materials.

Fundamentals of demand generation

Since demand gen programs are touchpoints throughout the conversion and sales cycles, you can segment the applications into five controllable sections.

This step is essential if you want to create a sustainable marketing strategy that will help you to generate demand for your brand and products or services.

Therefore, here they are the five fundamentals of demand gen:

1. Target-setting and planning

Generating more demand for your services or products and ultimately growing your income is the primary goal of initiating this program. Hence, to reach your objectives, you need to set targets and plan strategies that will help you accomplish your goals.

The planning stage is your roadmap to success. It should include marketing objectives and sales tactics that will harness every touchpoint through the conversion funnel. This approach will enable sales and marketing teams to work in a united front.

In consequence, you should define the outcome and KPIs of your campaign to understand whether your planning will meet your result.

2. Brand awareness

Increasing the awareness of your brand involves getting in front of your target market with your brand message. In this way, you educate your audience about your business, product, or services. Thus, it will enable you to increase your chances of being remembered at the purchasing phase.

For example, Jeff Bullas partnered with the Instagram tool “HashtagsforLikes,” a platform where you can find the best hashtags that’ll increase your Instagram reach and grow your followers fast.

Grow Organic Followers for lead generation vs demand generation

So to increase awareness and generate demand for the tool, Jeff puts it in front of his target market via social media sites, including Twitter and other marketing channels.

You can use Jeff’s example as inspiration for your brand. Nonetheless, generating awareness for your business is primarily the first step in applying demand generation strategies. This activity will continue from the initial stage of the funnel to when a consumer makes a purchase.

Therefore, the best way to make it work for you is to know your targets:

  • Who are they?
  • What are their goals?
  • What interests them the most?
  • Where are they hanging out?
  • Why are they interested in your business?

To find the answers, you should create buyer personas. Your buyer persona will help you to understand and serve your target market better.

3. Inbound marketing

In today’s digital marketing space, consumers are more informed than they used to be. As a result, users will research your brand, products, or services before making a buying decision.

That is where inbound marketing comes in. Inbound marketing is part of the overall demand generation strategy that handles the high-volume acquisition of targeted leads. It is a lead nurturing tactic that nurtures web visitors through every stage of the funnel into qualified customers.

With inbound marketing, you can establish bonds with eventual customers by frequently offering users helpful information that adds value. It will assist in making your products and services relevant to the reader.

To make the best of inbound marketing, use the following marketing platforms:

*Important* If you fail to nurture your website visitors, they will hang-out with your competitors. So help them define their problems and how to fix them with helpful content. In that way, you will build a loyal community around your business.

Other fundamentals of demand gen incude:

  • Client Retention
  • Testing and Analysis
  • Sales Enablement
  • Lead Scoring

Demand generation is not a one size fits all approach. It is a continuous process that is always evolving. Consequently, you should keep reviewing your tactics and make adjustments regularly.

Effective demand generation strategies

Demand generation strategies are helpful at every stage of the buyer journey. Demand generation enables you to create a positive impact and address all touchpoints before consumers enter the funnel to customer loyalty and retention.

Plus, the strategies involve multiple marketing and sales processes. These approaches will ensure that your marketing tactics are relevant to your target audience throughout the entire funnel.

Several marketing tactics will help you generate demand for your brand, products, or services. However, we will discuss only a few actionable steps.

1. Develop a free product

One of the best strategies for increasing demand for your brand is to develop free helpful products that applaud your brand. And the best product you can produce is one that solves your audience’s needs.

Develop Free handful products for lead generation vs demand generation

In consequence, do a bit of research to understand the struggle of potential buyers. After that, create a resource that addresses the issues and provide it for free. Jeff Bullas did that by creating a Free E-book containing over 100 tips and tricks to grow your organic web traffic for free.

The more value you provide to your audience for free, the more demand for your products or services you will generate. That is because your audience will become brand ambassadors. So when users signup for the tools, you can then nurture them through the funnel until they qualify as paying customers.

2. Create quality blog content regularly

Blogging is an excellent way to generate demand for your business. Although some content marketers choose to create and publish thin blogs that do not address the significant issues of their readers, blogging is still a fantastic tool for demand generation.

Blog post writing is not about creating lame content and expecting it to shine. You need to create persuasive blogs with strong conclusion paragraphs that will leave lasting impressions on the reader.

You can make the best of your blog by frequently publishing quality blog content. This type of blog will add value to the reader and drive more Google search traffic.

For instance, my blog post about the “Top 12 Most Profitable Freelance Writing Niches” has generated more demand for my freelance writing services, and also driven organic traffic to my site.

Top publications and websites have syndicated the post, giving it more exposure. Plus, yesterday, the new Marketing Director at Zest.is, Netanel Baruch, invited me through Twitter DM to contribute a guest post on the Zest blog. Why would he ask me when there are millions of other bloggers out there?

create quality blog content regularly for lead generation vs demand generation

The answer is simple. Netanel read my article and was impressed with the quality of the content. That is the power of creating informative blog posts.

However, besides the tips mentioned above, there are other demand generation strategies you can apply to generate more demand for your brand. These include:

  • Optimize your email marketing campaigns
  • Utilize video content marketing
  • Partner with influencers in your industry
  • Make the most of social media marketing
  • Analyze your marketing performance
  • Use display remarketing
  • Marketing automation
  • Guest posting, and so forth.

Wrapping up the differences between lead generation vs demand generation

At this point, I’m assuming that you already know the difference between these two marketing programs. However, for emphasis, the distinction is that lead generation is a subset of demand generation – a process of collecting web visitors data which you can use to nurture prospects and qualify them into customers.

Lead gen strategies typically imply the use of gated content and other types of lead magnets on landing pages to attract leads. On the other hand, demand generation is an excellent method of creating demand for your brand, products, or services.

Demand generation involves the use of inbound and content marketing in various ways that is far broader than lead gen tactics to generate a need for your services.

Are we missing something? Please, tell us in the comments!

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Sourced from Jeff Bullas

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Human-Centered Design And Customer-Centric Marketing Must Fuse In 2020

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By Andy Budiman.

Andy Budiman (feature image), chief product officer at Detexian write that in 2020, human-centred design must fuse with customer-centric marketing. Here’s why …

We all know how it usually goes. Someone comes up with a clever idea. They toil over it for months or years, working on prototype after prototype until they perfect the design and function. When they get to a product that delivers on its promise and can sell, it’s turned over to marketing who look at it and say, “who will buy this and how can we make it appeal?”

By this time, it’s too late to do anything to make it more palatable to the customer.

Steve Jobs understood this. Almost four decades ago he led the team that created the first Apple Mac, Jobs recognised that a product had to be more than functional. It had to appeal to the people who would you use it and create an emotional – almost visceral – connection to them.

While Apple doesn’t follow a conventional approach, what it understood, perhaps before many other companies, was that great design isn’t a feature that’s added to the specification when a product is designed. It’s embedded in every decision about every function.

Human-centered design, which is also called user-centered design, puts the needs of people into every decision made about a product’s development and evolution. And perhaps the best equipped people in a business to do that are marketers. They are keenly aware of what customers want and they understand their existing customers preferences. That goes beyond a functional perspective but into the emotional connections people feel with the products they use.

Think about a frustrating app on your computer or smartphone. Recently, I purchased an app for creating simple databases. The app had two sides, one for my computer and another for my smartphone. However, I discovered after spending my money that the two applications, while similar, didn’t behave the way I expected and that led to frustration.

I contacted the developer over social media who told me what I wanted could be done but it was “too hard”. Some further research revealed that many other customers had the same problem. That’s a sure sign that the creator of the app didn’t take a human-centred approach to the design. It’s not that what they created was ugly; they just didn’t consider the different personas and use-cases. It meant an obvious requirement for many users was missed. Development was led in a vacuum without thinking about the needs of different users.

Marketing is about ensuring a product or service is represented to audiences in a way that resonates. And the best way to get a product to resonate with your target market is by engaging people who know your customers from the outset. For a product to succeed it must be one people enjoy using. And that goes way beyond pure functionality.

Over the last decade, we’ve seen user-centered design completely turn industries such as transportation and accommodation on their heads. Instead of design decisions being made with the business’ interest at the centre, the needs of users became the focus. It’s why companies like Pepsi Co have a chief design officer. When he joined the company, he took then CEO Indra Nooyi to Milan to see how design could impact a brand, opening her eyes to a world where design decisions completely change how people think about brands and products.

Instead of handing a product over to marketing to “sell”, why not engage marketing at the start of the process? They’re the people most likely to understand the audience you are designing and developing the product for and it’s highly likely they will see beyond the developer’s vision and bring a different and valuable perspective. Engineers, developers, programmers and designers need the input of the marketing team from the outset because true cross-disciplined collaboration leads to innovation, new solutions and represents greater diversity of thinking.

While many products appeal to specific technical audiences, being able to design a product so that people can connect to it at an emotional level means you can bring non-technical decision-makers on your journey. This opens new sales channels and highlights that you are thinking about how people will use a product.

You could design a SaaS security product that tells you when something isn’t compliant with your policies. Or you could design a product that tells you when your risk profile changes or gives you a dashboard with meaningful information when something is amiss like we’ve done at Detexian.

By putting people at the centre of design decisions you can create meaningful products and services that are more than a collection of moving parts. You can create tools that give people positive experiences.

By Andy Budiman.

Sourced from B&T

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How to Write an Ecommerce Business Plan [Examples & Template]

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By Kayla Carmicheal.

You know the feeling of having a great idea, a brilliant view of how it’ll work, but no idea of where to begin to execute it?

If you have a promising idea for an online ecommerce business, that’s great. But it’s important to know how you’ll transform your idea into reality. That’s what business plans are for.

Download Now: Free Business Plan Template

An ecommerce business plan is especially important, with an increasing number of shoppers conducting their business online. It’s estimated this number has reached 1.92 billion. Having an ecommerce business plan keeps you organized and is useful when seeking investors who need to understand your company.

So, let’s dive into some examples of ecommerce business plans and what goes into writing one using our free template.

Ecommerce Business Plan Examples

1. Maple Ecommerce Plan

This sample plan, provided on LinkedIn, is for a fictional company called Maple, an online store that sells exclusive Apple products. Maple’s sample plan is great because it provides easy-to-follow charts and graphics while highlighting the most important information. For example, their market analysis included a SWOT plan for the business.

SWOT analysis in an ecommerce plan

Image Source

Outlining the strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities of Maple in this format is easy for potential investors to follow. Notating each value with a letter keeps the format consistent, which is carried throughout the plan. For businesses that find their information is best presented in graphics, Maple is a good plan to follow.

2. Nature’s Candy Ecommerce Plan

Nature’s Candy is an online retailer that provides nutritional supplements. Their business plan is available online and is helpful in seeing how businesses go from planning to execution. Below is a preview of their plan, in the financial forecasting section.

Ecommerce business plan example

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This example shows who will be on payroll in a yearly view giving investors an idea of how their investment will work in the long-term. Planning ahead also shows stakeholders dedication to starting up your business.

3. NoHassleIsReturn Ecommerce Plan

Fictional company NoHassleIsReturn’s sample ecommerce plan is an expansive, detailed version of how ecommerce would translate to a completely online store. The company itself is structured to offer a way to make returning items bought from an online store a simple process, and the steps to do that are featured below.

NoHassleIsReturn example

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Having a sequence of processes like this is useful if your company is a niche idea. Investors and stakeholders need to have an idea of how your business will be new and unique for the market.

Even though writing out a business plan seems like a painstaking process, we have a step-by-step guide to help. This will keep you organized and keep you on track when structuring your business.

How to Write an E-Commerce Business Plan

HubSpot’s template provides clear steps to structuring one for your ecommerce business. Throughout this section, I’ll use the example of a photography company specializing in online photo editing.

How to Write an E-commerce Business Plan

  1. Give an executive summary.
  2. List and describe your business.
  3. Conduct a market analysis.
  4. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

1. Give an executive summary.

An executive summary is a one-to-two page overview of your business. The purpose of an executive summary is to let stakeholders know what the business plan will contain. HubSpot’s free template offers some tips on how to write one as I’ve done below:

Executive summary example

It’s important to provide an executive summary so that an investor or executive, who doesn’t have the time to read your full plan, can quickly see the most important highlights about your business.

2. List and describe your business.

This is the section that needs the most detail because it highlights what you’re selling. To begin, provide an overview of your product or service. For instance, a photography company would probably list their photo packages arranged by price and services, like I did below:

Company description example

HubSpot’s template also provides direction on how to describe the purpose of your company and break down values. It also advises businesses to include team structure, if applicable. Below that, you should go into detail about your product and service lines.

3. Conduct a market analysis.

For the market analysis, provide the operational climate of the industry you’re in. To illustrate, at this step, the photography company would need to analyze their position in a world of rival companies like Adobe or online services like Canva. Below, I’ve done a quick competitor analysis, available in the template:

Competitor analysis example

Using directions in the template as a guide, I was able to come up with more selling points of the company and how it stands out from competitors.

Filling out the market analysis section of the business plan assists with providing the framework of future campaigns. You are able to define your target market and ideal customer. Refer to my example below for how to structure this analysis in your ecommerce plan.

Market analysis example

A good market analysis includes your target audience, projections of your company’s goals, and a breakdown of the competition’s goals and weaknesses for a counterpoint of how your business improves upon those weaknesses.

For a complete guide on how to create a market analysis, we have one here.

4. Outline legal notes and financial considerations.

In the next two sections of your business plan, describe legal and financial structures. The photography company should provide detail on the legal considerations like online safety rules and e-commerce regulations. Further, the costs of the company.

Financial costs example

Listing legality and every cost needed to start e-commerce is crucial information for investors and stakeholders. In this section, it’s important to be honest and thorough in order to give partners a realistic idea of how to contribute.

Follow these steps and create a strong foundation for your eCommerce business. An extra tip to keep in mind? Provide a table of contents and appendix. These few additions will boost the professional look of your business plan and make it presentation-friendly. For more information about e-commerce, check out our ultimate guide.

By Kayla Carmicheal

Sourced from HubSpot

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How to Build a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy for 2020

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I’ve already explained why I predict 2020 will be the year of the customer. The traditional, tried-and-true marketing methods of getting people to know about your brand and buy your products are no longer as effective as they once were. Successful marketing strategies in 2020 and beyond will focus on creating great customer experiences and building relationships with your audience.

This shift has already been happening for a while, but not all businesses have fully embraced this new way of thinking about marketing. We’re now at the start of the New Year, and it’s a great time to be thinking ahead and making strategic decisions for your business that will bring positive returns.

If your business is not yet putting your customers at the heart of your marketing strategy, now is the time to make the change. And if you think your strategy is already customer-driven, it may well be worth reviewing the process anyway. Many businesses claim that they have their customers’ best interests at heart, but their marketing strategy says something different.

Quick Takeaways

  • Concentrate on providing great customer experiences, and most of the hard work of marketing is done for you.
  • Rather than creating products first and seeking out customers later, think about your customers first and use their needs to help you develop products they actually want.
  • Knowing and understanding your customers is critical to the success of this strategy. Collect data from several different channels and sources to build up a clear picture of who exactly your target market is.
  • Customer-first marketing goes beyond the responsibilities of the marketing team. Everyone in the company must understand how to provide great customer service and experiences.

What Is a Customer-Driven Marketing Strategy?

Let’s start by going back to basics: what exactly is a customer-driven marketing strategy?

Rather than thinking about your business or your products and how you’re going to market them, you start by thinking about your customers: Who are they? What makes them tick? How can you help solve their problems?

By shifting the focus away from your brand and onto the customer, you ensure you’re meeting their needs. Over time this builds strong customer relationships and builds brand loyalty as you’re demonstrating that you’re working to create better solutions for them and not simply trying to make money out of them.

Image source: https://medium.com/@sandboxcommerce/product-driven-lead-generation-and-sales-driven-product-development-e6588807e584

So this approach means thinking about your customers and their needs before you do anything else. In fact, you’ll soon realize that this strategy goes way beyond marketing. When you consider your customers’ challenges, motivations, and desires first, it affects the entire way you run your business. A customer-driven strategy means you’ll be creating products and services that your customers actually want and need rather than what you think they want.

1. Identify Your Target Market

You can’t serve your customers if you don’t really know who they are, so the first and most crucial step of building your marketing strategy is to define your market and segment it so you can target each group more effectively.

Depending on your brand and business, you may be targeting one small market segment or several segments with varying needs and characteristics. You might have a good idea of who your customer base is already, but don’t make assumptions. It’s important to carry out thorough market research from a number of sources, including web and social analytics, studying competitors, your own customer databases, and customer surveys in order to build up a true picture of the demographics and needs of each market.

Once you have the data, creating a customer avatar or buyer persona for each target market is the next step. This is a text and visual summary of the average “ideal” customer you’re targeting in each market segment. This can really help you to create marketing materials that resonate with your audience as you have a detailed image in mind of who you’re trying to reach with your marketing messages.

Image source: https://neilpatel.com/blog/create-reinforce-buyer-personas/

2. Create Solutions for Your Customers’ Needs

Your initial customer research should inform you about what your customers actually want. You can then use this market intelligence to develop products and services to meet their needs. This approach is of course the opposite to what many businesses do, which is deciding on their products and services first and then seeking out customers to buy them!

With a customer-first strategy, advertising and traditional marketing methods are no longer needed because you don’t have to hunt out your customers ­­– they’re already right there telling you what you want. As long as you really listen to what they have to say, the hard work is done.

3. Use Customer Feedback to Improve Your Offering

Tools such as live chat and online feedback forums can be a valuable way to communicate with your customers.

Using customer feedback and requests will not only help you to create better products and services in the future, but demonstrating to your customers that you’re listening to their opinion and that it actually matters is a powerful way to build trust and loyalty.

Because customer communication is such a vital part of a customer-driven marketing strategy, your customer service team becomes integral to your overall marketing plan. Ensuring that every person in the company who interacts with customers in any way offers an excellent customer experience brings benefits to both sides. The customer gets the help they need and enjoys positive interactions with your team, and your business builds a better brand reputation and learns more about how to create better products.

Image source: https://helpcrunch.com/blog/customer-driven-marketing-strategy/

When your customers are happy with what they buy from you and how they communicate with you, they’ll tell their friends. And this word-of-mouth marketing can be more powerful and have a bigger and longer-lasting impact than any type of advertising or SEO campaign.

If you are ready to get more traffic to your site with quality content that’s consistently published, check out our Content Builder Service. Set up a quick consultation, and I’ll send you a free PDF version of my books. Get started today and generate more traffic and leads for your business.

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Michael Brenner is a globally-recognized keynote speaker, author of The Content Formula and the CEO of Marketing Insider Group. He has worked in leadership positions in sales and marketing for global brands like SAP and Nielsen, as well as for thriving startups. Today, Michael shares his passion on leadership and marketing strategies that deliver customer value and business impact. He is recognized by the Huffington Post as a Top Business Keynote Speaker and a top CMO influencer by Forbes. Please follow him on LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook and Subscribe here for regular updates.

Sourced from Marketing Insider Group

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