I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but here it is:
There isn’t a silver bullet that will fix all your sales, marketing and lead generation issues.
It’s not unusual for a client to approach us and say, “My website isn’t generating any leads.” Upon further discussion, we often find that the client isn’t doing anything to promote their website. They’re not running ad campaigns, sending emails, or investing in improving their SEO.
Having a website alone isn’t going to automatically start pulling in leads. Your website isn’t a lead generation tool; it’s a lead collection tool. Your marketing efforts are what generate qualified traffic and leads.
With that said, there isn’t one single marketing tactic or channel that’s going to turn a diminishing sales pipeline around. Sometimes our clients say, “I need to improve my keyword rankings so I can get more traffic and leads.” And while that’s the right attitude to have, SEO alone isn’t going to solve anything. It needs to be done in conjunction with a whole host of other marketing tactics.
So what works?
When a client asks us, “What should I be doing to generate more leads?” Our response typically includes 5 or more different tactics, from content marketing to email to SEO to offline campaigns.
Ultimately, being successful with marketing doesn’t mean putting all your eggs in one basket. It’s about doing a dozen little things really, really well.
Here are just some of the things we do to promote Pronto:
- 2 email newsletters each month
- Drip email campaigns
- One-off Promotional Email Campaigns
- Publish 6-8 new blog articles each month
- Host webinars
- Run an AdWords campaign
- Run a LinkedIn Ads campaign
- Run a retargeting campaign
- Constantly work on earning new inbound links and improving our SEO performance
- Publish ebooks
- Create educational videos
- Build relationships with our reseller network
- Build relationships with our partners
I don’t mean for this to be a blueprint for your marketing strategy. What we’ve done to market Pronto won’t necessarily fit with your business, but I do think it’s important to show how much it takes to build a successful online presence.
I understand that there can be budget constraints, so it might not be feasible for you to run multiple ad campaigns or invest several hundred dollars per month for content or link building for SEO. In those cases, you need to start thinking creatively about how to approach your marketing with the resources you have because just worrying about your pipeline will change nothing.
If you’re not sure where to start, come talk to us!
Always be hustling
My middle-school basketball coach told me that hustle wins games. He’s right, but hustling is difficult — especially when it oftens means working hard without feeling like you’re getting anything in return. However, every once in awhile, that extra hustle leads to an offensive rebound or a stolen pass or a blocked shot, and those little things can add up to big gains in the long run.
It isn’t enough just to execute on some basic marketing tactics because there are a dozen other competitors doing the exact same thing.
By hustling and putting in extra effort, you can make your business stand out from the crowd. How you do this is kind of up to you. One of our IT services clients sends a personalized bottle of alcohol to his prospects after a sales meeting. But you should find something that fits with your business and your personality.
Sure, sometimes that bottle doesn’t make a difference and is a “waste” of money, but other times it will be the little nudge that prospect needed to choose him over one of his competitors.
At Pronto, we try to differentiate ourselves by cutting through all the B.S. There are so many marketing and web development companies out there full of empty and outlandish promises. They’ll say anything to close the sale, so we take the opposite approach and earn our prospects’ trust by having honest discussions about what it takes to be successful online.
We also try to go the extra mile with our clients when the opportunity arises. One client told us the only thing we could do to make him happier was to send him ice cream, so we sent a gallon of Cookies & Cream to his office. That client has remained with us for years and has enrolled in multiple add-on services.
Change in 2017
Make 2017 the year you stop the fruitless search for your magical marketing solution. Instead, focus on building and executing a well-rounded marketing strategy that involves multiple channels and tactics, and focus on putting in that extra effort.
