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Cloud Lead Generation: Staying Afloat and Above The Clouds

October 9, 2019/0 Comments/in Lead Generation /by Judy Caroll

The “cloud” is more than just a buzzword, it is one of the most useful concepts that has been developed, and it continues to shape the digital future.

There is a lot of competition in the B2B cloud market, and sometimes it can get daunting.

However, there are plenty of things that organizations can do to differentiate their cloud solutions and make sure that they get a good slice of the pie.

Understand Techies Aren’t Just Your Customer Base

Remember that technical buyers are usually your first adopters when it comes to new technology, so this means that a good chunk of your customer base isn’t always going to be techies. This opens up your marketing efforts to a lot of other potential prospects.

You need to be able to craft content that can be easily assimilated by people who are not too technical.

Also, understand that even if you are dealing with a technical team, the decision-making unit (DMU) who will be deciding on the purchase won’t be purely technical people. At times you need to be able to help the professional team sell your solutions to non-technical people on the DMU.

Utilize Influencers and Thought Leaders

Your potential prospects are all watching what thought leaders and influencers are doing, so it pays to make sure that you have a couple of industry leaders backing your solution or providing your offering with some social proof.

It is also said that the role of B2B influencers will continue to rise as time goes by, paving the way for more collaborative partnerships when it comes to product or service promotions.

Work on Buyer Consensus

In the B2B world, it helps to be able to go with the buyer consensus, because they dictate the direction of the market at every turn. However, it is also essential that marketing teams be able to bring different sides of the conversation together to create solutions based on those needs.

Even connecting different types of buyers with each other will be able to set your product apart from the rest because it creates cooperation in a world competition.

Attempt to Solve Problems

Anyone can sell a product, but not a lot of people can sell solutions to real problems. People don’t need new products with all the latest features – although that’s great and all – what they need is to have specific issues dealt with quickly and efficiently.

Your selling process must be focused on the individual needs of the organization that you are selling, too. It makes no sense to position a product against a competitor’s because it does not help anyone move forward.

By being able to strategically place one’s product as a solution to a problem that is occurring, one can effectively market the cloud solution.

Focus on Showing Proof

There is a reason why whitepapers and case studies are still predominantly being created in the field of B2B sales.

It just works.

It provides proof an organization knows what they are doing in whatever field they are in. In a sense, it serves as a reminder to potential customers that if a company has already solved this problem in the past, they will be able to address other issues related to it.

Cross Promotional Campaigns

Posting your content on other blogs, promoting key industry partners, and being invited to maximize your material on other platforms will increase your exposure and allow you to extend your visibility.

The more people allow you to put your content on their site; the more vetted your company appears to be. Aim to post quality content instead of paying for advertorials; this will boost the quality of your marketing campaign.

A Killer Content Strategy

A majority of the information dissemination campaign can be done through the use of a killer content strategy, and there are many ways to create content that converts. It’s not just written content that one should be focused on, but there should also be a focus on engagement.

Methodologies such as harnessing the power of video and using other forms of interactive content can drive your content to the next level. When content is being pushed to these levels, one can expect that exposure levels will also increase.

However, the main point of a good content strategy is to allow people to be able to interact with the company’s posts and develop goodwill with the brand.

Account-based Lead Generation

The concept of account-based marketing (ABM) was created to address the marketing needs of tech companies and it’s a no-brainer that this strategic approach is highly effective for cloud providers, especially those selling to the enterprise.

With ABM, you can accelerate slow sales cycles by focusing your sales and marketing efforts on your best-fit customers, engaging them with hyper-personalized messaging, and develop these prospects into win-ready opportunities.

Featured Case Study:

Conclusion

These solutions to selling in a competitive market can be used individually or combined dynamically to create a multilayered approach to penetrating markets.

By being able to position a product in a competitive marketplace strategically, any organization can create better flow in their sales pipelines and prepare for any opportunities that may come their way. For competitive markets, it pays to make sure that every approach is being utilized in proper systems.

5 Most-watched Marketing Shorts From Callbox’s Video Playlist

October 2, 2019/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Here at Callbox we always strive to provide you with the best content from B2B marketing strategies to lead generation and everything in between. With multi-channel marketing being the top marketing approach in our times, we make sure our blogs address relevant issues to your business as well as pose solutions for them.

For this year’s round-up, however, we would like to highlight the best video picks from our Callbox video vault. As much as we like writing about it, we also love presenting you with audiovisual TLDRs.

So without any further ado, here are our top video picks that will guide you through your B2B marketing and lead generation journey.

The Path To Better Marketing Productivity

It’s no secret to anyone working in the business industry that marketing is the number one culprit in taking up most of your time and resources. There’s just too much going on on a daily basis such as planning, chasing deadlines, setting meetings with clients and with your staff. Oftentimes it feels as if you’ve done so much, even too much, and yet you’re still left with lower revenue.

In this video, we provide you with ways to improve your marketing strategies with proper approaches and better time management.

Rebound After a Horrible Sales Call

A sales call feels like a first date most of the time. There are so many things you want to achieve during your first interaction. You want to be able to put up a good front, impress them, catch their interest, and hopefully, they’ll want to keep going out with you. It’s the same for a sales call. Sometimes they are successful, other times you end the call in defeat. It could’ve been a bad day or bad timing and the prospect was having none of it.

It can happen to the best of us, so it’s important that you don’t feel too bad about it and instead ask yourself, “How can I recover from this one?” We’re sure you’ve already asked yourself this question countless times, and fortunately for you, we have the answers.

Here we give productive and helpful ways to help you get back on your feet after a lousy sales call.

The Secrets To Increase Your Database with Qualified Contacts

In lead generation, we want to fill our pool of prospects to the brim as much as possible because when there are no leads, there are no sales. The only problem is when your leads are all not sales-ready or the wrong audience for your particular services and/or products. You don’t want to waste your time on dead contacts or even worse, contacts with invalid information.

What if I told you that there are secret formulas for you to increase your database who are also qualified contacts? Yes, you read that right! Increasing your database should not be a difficult nor complicated task. Spoiler: The secret involves outsourcing.

When Less is More: How to Make Prospects Buy From You

Usually, when we pitch our products to our clients, we like to turn it up to a hundred and give them a whole thesis on how and why our products can help them solve their problems. This may seem good in theory, but our consumers’ time is also ticking by just as fast as ours.

We have to understand how the buying culture has changed. The more you defend and talk about your product, the more the consumer thinks that you might just be compensating for the lack of quality of your product and we all know we don’t want them to think that. Keep your pitch short, simple, and direct. You’ll win them over a lot faster than you think.

Of course, to find out how you can execute this, you’ll find it all in the video.

Multi-channel Marketing Statistics Bound to Impact Your Business

Here at Callbox, we can’t stress enough how important multi-channel marketing is in this time and age. It is a must in modern B2B marketing if you want to keep your relations with your clients intact as well as actively engage with them. It’s an effective tool to be used in finding out what your clients are looking for and what piques their interest.

Traditional marketing is great, and we still use some of its strategies in our daily marketing, but most of its techniques have now become obsolete so it’s time to move with the times and embrace the modern approach to B2B marketing.

We put this video together to highlight the contrast between traditional and modern marketers. May we encourage you to take a look at it and evaluate which one you are and what you can do to improve and step up your game in multi-channel marketing.

Working in the corporate world, we understand that we are always in a hurry and we don’t always have the luxury of sitting down and reading a full-blown article. So, we hope that with our top video picks, we helped you gain some insights out of a few minutes of your day!

What Tech Companies Need to Do to Develop The Best Quality IT Leads

September 30, 2019/0 Comments/in Lead Generation /by Judy Caroll

A lot of people think that tech companies are at the top of their game because of their innovations. But the truth is, even tech companies suffer, especially in lead generation. It’s not really about getting leads per se but about getting high-quality leads that convert. That is why a number of them are now outsourcing and partnering up with professional lead generation services providers.

If you are an IT/tech company and you are asking, “How can our company overcome this challenge”, it starts with a couple more questions:

Who are we talking to?
What are we talking about?

Who are we talking to?

The first step in finding quality leads is knowing the key people you have to talk to and that starts with creating the buying persona. When creating this, you want to get straight to the decision makers. It will save you a lot of time, money, and effort.

Well, that’s easy, right?

Here’s the fact: companies are changing, especially when it comes to who’s making the decision. Not because a person has a certain job title means he has the final say. For example, a small startup company might not have a CMO or CFO. In some cases, the marketing heads have no purchasing power.

Before identifying who your decision maker is, you also need to define what kind of company will benefit from your product or service.

How big is the company?
How much are they making?
What industry are they in?

Next, what does your decision maker look like? Who do you want to be talking to? They should have similar criteria as your ideal organization.

What are their duties and responsibilities?
How long have they been working in the company?
What kind of decision maker are they — do they make the final decision and sign the paperwork? Do they conduct research and let someone know about the decision? Are they the ones who will directly use your product or service?
What kind of pages they visit and how much time do they spend on it?

You can get that information by looking at your existing customers as well as your late-stage leads. Look for common threads as you create a picture of your decision maker — the more detailed your profile is, the easier it is for you to find them.

You can have several buyer personas since your customers are diverse. The more you have, the better you can communicate with each of them. They can be the company’s Business Liaison Officer, the CMO, or the end-user.

What are we talking about?

According to APM Digest, organizations that are able to attract key decision makers in the tech industry dropped from 6 to 3 since 2011. In other words, IT decision makers are tough to please and only a few have managed to pass the test.

The report added that these successful vendors have been consistent, agile, and trustworthy in their mission to add value to the clients’ organizations. However, there are other factors that are critical to their success. These factors include:

Customer service and response time

Your customer service represents what your business is all about. It also reflects your company values and dedication to meet your clients’ needs and demands. Your customer service plays a significant role in lead conversion and client retention. According to Marketing Sherpa, 76% of these leads do not convert because of poor nurturing.

Your response time is also important. How long does it take you to get back to your customers’ queries and concerns?

A Harvard Business Review study said that US companies have a slow response time. It stated that only 37% of companies respond to their clients within an hour.

How about the rest?

Some take 42 hours to respond while the rest don’t care to respond at all. How sad is that? And then, many companies are surprised why their ROI goes down instead of up.

Understanding the business goals

Business goals are important. They direct companies and organizations, they provide clarity, and they help in decision making. As much as your business goals are important, so it is to your clients. If you don’t care about these goals, how will you know if your product or service is a good fit for the organization?

Post-sales support

Selling the product is not the final step of a successful business process. If the customer returns again and creates a long-term relationship with you, you succeeded. After all, businesses are all about forging long-lasting relationships.

When it comes to customer retention, one of the most effective strategies is having post-sales support. That sends out a message that you are committed to their growth and success.

Noted speaker and author, John Maxwell, quoted, “A leader who produces other leaders multiplies their influences.”

If you are able to make that business a market leader, they also push you up and extend your influence.

Long-term viability of the company

Knowing whether your business is viable or not is quite tricky. However, there are certain factors a business has that make it viable in the long term.

It has a unique selling proposition — what makes your service or product unique?
It has a stable customer base — do you know what type of people buy your product?
It has a competitive advantage — yes you have a unique product, but are there others who are selling something that is similar to yours?
It is financially stable — this is the most important factor of a company’s viability. Do you have the cash flow for your day-to-day operations?

Thorough knowledge of their product portfolio

Product knowledge is not only good for your customer service but for your sales as well. If your marketing and sales teams have a thorough knowledge of what you offer, it will not be difficult to answer questions and address concerns wherever and whenever.

Walking the Talk

If you want to succeed in the tech industry, you need to know who your audience is and you thoroughly know what your message is.

IT and tech decision-makers are a tough nut to crack. You can’t just go to them with a song and dance or a poorly executed product presentation. You need to live and breathe what you’re offering to them. If they see you value your product or service, they will also value what you present to them.

How to Optimize your Landing Pages for your Multi-channel Campaigns

September 25, 2019/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Landing pages are essential in any lead generation effort, not only do they help with conversions, but they allow for proper methods of monitoring and tracking to be implemented.

Optimizing a landing page may seem daunting, but there are a couple of things that one can do to make the process easy.

In this article, we take a look at the essential optimization procedures for your landing pages, and how you can harness these for maximum conversions!

Landing pages per channel, not per campaign

Here is one rule that everyone often overlooks: “You cannot have a single landing page for everything.”

It doesn’t matter if it’s a single campaign if the traffic is coming in from a LinkedIn ad or telemarketing qualification calls, it needs to be optimized for that channel of acquisition. This is due to two things.

It is easier to monitor through the use of a UTM on Google Analytics; this way, marketing teams will know the behavior of clients and prospects on that page.
It will give you room to customize that landing page for the customer that came in through a different marketing channel.

By simply acknowledging the fact that they came from a particular channel, your prospects can have the idea that your organization prioritizes giving them customized material. This leads to your brand being known for personalization for its customers.

This procedure can be as simple as adding a symbol for the social platform they came in from or acknowledging and thanking them for the fact that they took your call.

Clean up your landing page design

The design of the landing page is essential to its potential to convert your customers. Functional design is a clean design that is clear and one where a customer feels good about themselves. Your customer needs to feel a sense of their “problem” soon being solved by their “decision” to use your solution.

Your design has to communicate that.

Get your call-to-action buttons done right

A proper call-to-action button doesn’t stress the visitor out; it gives you a clear message of what click that button will do. Avoid tiny text or ones that deal with pricing.

A great way to improve your CTA buttons is to use a non-standard copy such as “Get *Your Proposed Solution* Now,” by using something like this, you differentiate yourself from your competition who may be using standard CTA button text such as “Sign Up.”

Prefill forms when you can

Nobody likes long forms on landing pages, but only asking for someone’s email address can be tricky when qualifying prospects. The best thing that you can do is to pre-fill forms whenever you can with what a standard customer would want. For example, if you are offering several packages, and it is a form for information requests, then populate the form with your standard package in the drop-down menu.

This makes your customers’ lives easier.

Testimonials help

We all know that testimonials help convert, but did you know that keeping them nearer to your Call-to-Action buttons could be the push that you are looking for. However, here are a few rules with the usage of testimonials:

Make sure they include a photograph of the user.

Full names are more believable than handles – if you can do both then go for it.

Video testimonials are more valuable than quotes.

To incentivize or not to incentivize

You don’t always have to give away discounts, but remember the psychology behind giving things away. Prospects will feel like they already owe an organization something, so they have to reciprocate in a way; maybe through a purchase of your product.

The FOMO effect

By telling customers that the product or service that they are looking at could be the last thing that they can get their hands on, one adds to the “Fear of Missing Out” or FOMO effect. This creates a sense of urgency that can help drive the conversion faster.

Improve page load speeds

An extra two seconds of the loading time is enough to deter your prospects from staying and waiting for your landing page to load. One must make sure that page speed optimizations are done beforehand to prevent this from happening.

Think of it this way, you’ve already spent a considerable number of resources trying to get a prospect to get into your landing page, and now they are about to leave for one reason or another. This is time for you to get creative and use an exit popup with something compelling that addresses why they chose to leave.

It can be in the form of an incentive or something convincing enough for them to recheck your landing page.

There are many ways to optimize a landing page, but the problem is that not a lot of people take advantage of the many ways to do so. Your landing page is one of the most powerful tools that you have in your pipeline because it serves as a touchpoint for you and your customers. Maximize your social, telemarketing, and sales campaigns today with these simple tips!

5 Marketing Trends That Will Shape The Telecom Industry in 2020

September 23, 2019/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Judy Caroll

2020 looks to be an exciting year for the telecommunications industry with new technologies being developed that are set to continue onwards through the course of the next few years.

It is especially crucial to be flexible in the B2B landscape. If not, companies will be left out as they become less and less competitive. Hence, different services and innovative efforts are gaining prominence such as lead generation services, database management, social media and digital marketing, and more. For marketers looking to adapt to the growing trends in B2B sales, there are a couple of things to look out for in the next strategy meeting.

Let’s take a look at the possibility of 5G networks and the role of influencer marketing in the telecom arena this coming year.

The Role of Influencers

The rise of B2B influencers is apparent in the realm of B2B, and the B2B telecom industry is not insulated from this trend. There is a prediction that as influencer marketing becomes decentralized, we will see a rise in micro-influencers that are sought out for their industry and thought leader status. This brings into light what a company is doing to encourage business leaders to promote and support their products.

Influencer marketing is changing the way we view promotion.

It is undeniable that influencers bring about a sense of social proof that reiterates the benefits of a product or service that they are supporting. This automatically increases the goodwill of what they are supporting, giving the notion that “if it’s good enough for the expert, it’s good enough for me.”

As early as now, companies who are heavily invested in their B2B marketing have to take advantage of the role of influencers in promoting the products that they are marketing. This can be as easy as tapping the people or business leaders that your prospects are actively listening to, and making sure that you are linked to their thought leaders to rally in support of your offering.

The Rise of 5G Communications

There is much hype over 5G communications, and there’s much reason for it. In today’s ever-connected world, there is a growing demand for faster protocols for data transfer. There is an increasing demand to be connected with high-speed data access to power up data-hungry needs, such as high-definition video broadcasting and streaming.

5G also seems to be a promising stepping stone for IoT devices that have to perpetually connect to the internet to fully live their purpose.

Companies who are dealing heavily with telecoms or communications, in general, have to have their marketing plans ready by the time 5G kicks in. By being able to prepare for the technology to come or having 5G available processes, one can take advantage of the new marketing that is coming up for grabs.

Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Automation

Even if it’s just chatbots, your company has to lead the way when it comes to marketing automation. Not only does it emphasize superior customer service and savings when it comes to manpower, but it also reiterates a company’s commitment to new technology.

Here’s what.

The telecoms industry is akin to the tech industry, if companies wish to survive, they must not only rely on producing platforms that are of superior reliability, but they also have to be continuing to push the boundaries and limitations of current technology. This allows prospects and existing clientele to recognize that a company is ready for the future.

Current investments in AI and machine learning can allow for more efficient products to be created and if integrated into current offerings can give a company an edge over the competition.

The Shift in Realities

VR and AR can prove to be useful in showcasing a company’s unique selling proposition, and it’s a great presentation strategy given that a company is taking advantage of new technology – just like in our previous example.

It is a way of providing an alternate form of content for one’s customers.

VR can be used to give virtual tours while AR can be harnessed to build tools that analyze live images and provide commentary.

Content Marketing

We cannot stress this hard enough, but your potential customers are exposed to content daily, and it is only natural that an engaging content strategy is used to turn them over to your side. Whether it is providing whitepapers, case studies, or even tutorials on technology, you are dealing with tech-savvy people who want to be in the know.

Make sure that you have a well-developed content marketing strategy that you can quickly assimilate within your market. While you’re at it, it pays to know that your content has to be on platforms that your customers are frequently on.

There are a lot of growing trends in the world of B2B telecommunications, but they all rely on the fundamentals of this niche: technology and proper lead nurturing, by being able to provide reliable technology with a focus on the customers, one may be able to expand properly into the future.

Grow your existing channels of marketing communications from properly built pipelines to smart calling. There are a lot of things you can do today.

7 LinkedIn Lead Generation and Sales Prospecting Rules To Follow

September 18, 2019/0 Comments/in Lead Generation, Social Media Marketing /by Rebecca Matias

LinkedIn is the biggest professional social platform, and it is one of the most powerful channels of acquisition that we have today.

However, marketing and selling on LinkedIn can be daunting because it doesn’t function like a regular old social media platform. More so, many are still not aware of how to effectively optimize LinkedIn considering that many businesses nowadays, like lead generation services providers, are leveraging on this platform.

In today’s article, we take a look at the rules you must follow to become effective at finding prospects, generating leads, and winning customers off of this platform.

Rule 1. Optimize Your Profile

Before you can even reach out to another person, you have to make sure that your profile is optimized, and we’re not just talking about putting all your achievements on it.

Your profile is where potential clients will judge you and your company by. To a certain degree, you are carrying the image of your organization.

Quick tips to optimize your profile:

Smile in your profile photo and use clothes that you would typically wear to a quick meeting. Everyone’s sick and tired of the standard formal picture; they want to get a glimpse of how they will meet you in person.
Your profile headline should summarize what you do, forget fancy titles; you need to tell people looking at you what it is exactly you do and how you solve their problems.
Your summary has to be convincing. Don’t bore your reader.
Clean up your professional experience.
Your cover photo has to be you in action.
Make sure you have links on your profile to your landing page!

Now you can proceed and not be apprehensive if a contact you’re speaking to decides to check out your profile.

Related: Update your LinkedIn Profile for a Better Lead Generation

Rule 2. Connect then Connect Some More!

Make sure you are friends with a lot of people because the more connections under your belt, the more powerful and engaging your posts will be and the more people will trust you. Invest in a tool that automatically connects you with people or engages them with a message; this will be powerful in the long run. You can opt to message them manually, too, if you want to go after a customized approach.

Rule 3. Publish Engaging Content

Want to get noticed without having to message everyone individually? Then, make sure you’re publishing content that everyone likes. By being able to establish yourself as an industry leader, you get to have the ear – or rather the eyes – of the people, and this is useful for building goodwill. It also shows that you are an active contributor.

Rule 4. Check Out Who Else They’re Viewing

Fancy connecting with someone that could be a prospect for sales? Then, double it up, by checking out the “People Also Viewed” bar to the right. This is where you can find other prospects that are similar to the prospect that you are checking out, and just like you can add more leads to your pipeline!

Rule 5. Check Out What Your Competitors Are Doing

Good marketing and salespeople know who their rivals are and you can always go find a competitor and check out who they have in their network. This is great for two reasons: first, it gives you a view of the playing field and to what extent they are using the network to scout for prospects, the second is something else entirely.

Here’s what.

Remember that it is harder and more expensive to sell a completely new customer? The same theory applies here, your competitor’s prospects are now laid down for you, and you can now connect with them, given that they already know what your product or service is. This makes your job easier.

Rule 6. Use Targeted Searches When You Are Adding Connections

Did you know that you can use Boolean searches on LinkedIn? This means that you can combine several keywords and phrases, find specific phrases, limit your search, and refine results quickly. This allows you plenty of room to find people that you want to connect with.

Now instead of looking for people from the purchasing department only, you can combine that with people who are in purchasing that went to a specific school.

The possibilities are endless.

Rule 7. Use the LinkedIn Sales Navigator

If you have the resources for it, the LinkedIn Sales Navigator tool is worth taking a look at. It can help you with the way you prospect for new prospects for your pipeline. However, it does cost money, and some may argue that you can manage without it, but given the fact that it was built by the platform itself, it is still pretty indispensable.

By combing LinkedIn prospecting with the other tools in your arsenal, you can create a multidimensional sales experience that combines different channels of acquisition. You can even nurture leads using LinkedIn. Supercharge your pipeline today with these great tips and put your lead generation strategy on the next level!

Examples of Exceptional SaaS Marketing from 3 Notable SaaS Brands

September 16, 2019/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Earlier this year, the story of an influencer who has more than two million followers but struggled to sell 36 t-shirts became viral. To add insult to injury, her post about that humiliating experience got 36K likes on Instagram. Almost everyone was baffled how on earth can she get tens of thousands of likes but have difficulty selling 36 shirts.

That example might sound laughable but it is also an eye-opener, especially in the concept of SaaS marketing.

The lesson learned is almost a cliche — not because you have a great product or service, people will kill each other to buy it.

However, there are businesses and companies that are able to hit the nail right on the head and become successful with it. Here’s a list of some of them:

Netflix (Customized Content and Innovative Ideas)

The modern consumer is not only well-informed but also clever. They know if a company is really listening to them or just wants to get their money.

While arguably more of a half Saas than a full SaaS solution, Netflix follows the SaaS-pricing model and this example is a must-know for SaaS companies out there.

Netflix was able to earn the trust and loyalty of their customers by delivering customized content to each country, region, and person. That means that the content in the United States is very different than in Asia.

What’s more amazing is that even each person also gets their personalized content – what you have is different than what your kids have. What’s more amazing is that content is delivered automatically on a regular basis to the user’s account. It saves them time wondering what to watch or what’s new because everything they need is there.

And if you think Netflix is stopping, you’re wrong. They have recently added the Netflix Party feature where you can watch the same movies with your friends at the same time in different locations. So if one of your friends does not have Netflix yet and you don’t want them to miss the fun, you will refer the service to him.

As a result, Netflix has currently more than 150 million paying subscribers worldwide and that list continues growing despite the recent setback the company faced.

Trello (Word-of-Mouth and Straightforward Product)

As of June 2019, Trello has 35 million registered users and 1 million active teams worldwide — all that for a company that is barely 10 years old.

What is Trello’s marketing secret? You’ll be surprised — None! Yes, you heard it right.

Instead of spending their time creating a marketing strategy and millions on advertising, they focused all their money and energy on building a simple yet powerful product.

Using Trello is very straightforward. If you are a company with several teams, all you need to do is register in Trello, create separate boards for different teams, and invite each team member to their respective teams. You can add tasks using cards and categorize them. Everyone on that team can see what’s happening and they can create updates when needed. No task is lost or forgotten and everyone gets informed — how cool can that be?

But what’s cooler is you don’t need long tutorials or spend hours to understand how it works. Even children and not-so-tech-savvy users can understand it.

It did not take a long time before people and businesses started to sing their praises about this wonderful tool and the fire caught on. Trello continuously stokes that fire through valuable content and amazing rewards.

Canva (Influencer Marketing and Educational Content)

There are many graphic design websites but nothing becomes synonymous with the word except Canva. It has saved a lot of people who have no graphic design training and businesses that have no in-house designers. There are similar websites but they cannot match what Canva has done.

It’s a freemium tool that gives you access to hundreds of templates, graphics, and other design tools. Creating a project is easy — you just drag and drop what you need, make a few adjustments, and you can save or share your design. If you want to hone your graphic design skills, Canva has tons of content that will help you achieve that goal

But what really helped Canva grow its subscribers was through influencers. Even before its early years, Canva sought out brand evangelists on different social media platforms to talk about them. These people not only promoted Canva but some of them created tutorials and taught classes. They even got Guy Kawasaki on board as their brand evangelist. As a result, Canva continued to grow exponentially — now that is what influence is all about!

Grow Your SaaS Company

Success in any industry takes hard work and creativity not only in creating your product but in marketing it to the public. It also takes patience to find the best method that will be compatible with your business.

4 Lead Generation Techniques to Drive Interest and Awareness

September 11, 2019/0 Comments/in Lead Generation /by Rebecca Matias

Lead generation has been undergoing a lot of changes with the growth of the internet. Different new services that didn’t exist in the early years are now available like account-based marketing, lead generation services, and database management. Many years ago, people have access to limited information and they are dependent on what is being fed to them. Now, however, they can find any kind of information they want with just a click.

While such access presents a lot of advantages, it also has disadvantages for marketers. Social scientist Herbert Simon talked about it saying, “What attention consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients.” Consumers have their attention on so many things that they don’t focus on just one thing anymore. More so, they learned to ignore the information they don’t want. Because of that, marketers now have to fight tooth and nail to get the attention of prospects.

Fighting Attention Scarcity

To fight attention scarcity, you have to think like your target audience. After all, they’re the ones you are trying to reach and win over. It does not mean creating a new strategy but tweaking your existing one (maybe) just a bit.

Craft the right content and messaging to attract prospects

Remember those kinds of movies where a beautiful woman fell for some ordinary despite being pursued by other guys who are way better in every aspect? If you noticed, there’s one trait why this normal guy wins the girl – he became her best friend!

The same thing goes with marketing. If you want to get your target audience’s “love” and undivided attention, you need to become their trusted advisor. And that can be done by creating content that speaks to their needs and pains. Content that also includes the solution and somehow brings them a eureka moment.

More so, building trust requires patience and consistency. You have to put out content on a regular basis. Consistency sends a message that when your target audience needs you, they can always find you waiting with helpful advice for them.

Choose which inbound and outbound channels to use

Herber Simon also said that because there is a scarcity of attention, there is a “need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it.” In other words, you need to be where your audience is. If they spend more time on Instagram than on Facebook, then you have to invest your lead generation effort on Instagram.

Moreover, a healthy lead generation strategy combines both outbound and inbound channels. You might be tempted to just focus on the inbound marketing but these two make a lethal combination. If your inbound is not enough to cause your prospect to make the purchase, outbound can give them a little extra nudge toward the buying decision.

Set goals and objectives for each channel

Lead generation is about setting goals. Each finished goal means success. Goals also tell you if your efforts are worth it. Goals also help you arrive at your destination. Without goals, you will just be riding a merry-go-round, going round and round in circles.

When you begin to set goals, think SMART. That means, they should be:

Specific – what do you want to achieve for each channel?
Measurable – can you measure it against a metric?
Achievable – will your team be able to reach it?
Realistic – is it relevant to the values and vision of your business?
Time-bound – do you have a deadline for it?

Specify the role each channel plays in driving and capturing new prospects

Consider your channels as your foot soldiers who are marching for battle. To win the war, however, it should be clear to your soldiers what role they play in the team before you deploy them.

As mentioned earlier, using both inbound and outbound channels are beneficial for your lead generation efforts. While there are many specific channels under inbound and outbound marketing, they have two general purposes or uses. Outbound channels are used to introduce your message and content to your target audience. On the other hand, inbound channels allow your audience to know your brand deeper and hopefully convert them.

Creating a Pleasant Sound, Not Noise

There is indeed a lot of noise that competes to get consumers’ attention. The challenge is not to create louder noise but a pleasant sound through valuable content that is deployed across various channels.

Why Lead Generation is Important in Today’s B2B Marketing

September 4, 2019/0 Comments/in Lead Generation /by Rebecca Matias

The primary goal of lead generation is to create a sales pipeline by capturing and stimulating the interest of buyers in a certain product or service. It can be done online, offline, or a combination of both.

There are many channels for acquiring leads but without a solid lead generation process, you will just be wasting time.

When it comes to processes, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution. Often, it is the product of constant evaluation of your existing processes where you determine what works and what does not.

Moreover, a solid lead generation process does not only focus on acquiring leads but also puts into consideration the nurturing and customer retention strategies. In other words, it should be a holistic strategy.

This article will share with you some insider tips and tricks based on our experience as a lead generation services provider.

Here’s what a solid lead generation process can bring

Aligns with how today’s B2B customers actually begin their buying journey

A few decades ago, lead generation involves the marketing team acquiring the names of prospects and passing them to sales. The buyer expects the sales team to give them in-depth information about the product or service. On the other hand, the sales team expects to be talking to early-stage buyers who haven’t been qualified yet.

The modern consumer, however, is the direct opposite. They can get the information they need from a variety of resources. Thus, they already know about the product or service even before they talk to the sales team.

With a solid lead generation program, you become a valuable resource to prospects throughout their buying journey. You position yourself as an expert who can help them solve their pain points. That includes giving them expert advice and answering any questions they may have along the way.

Allows you to easily refocus or scale your customer acquisition program

A good lead generation system can be easily measured by KPIs. Your KPI criteria depend on your business goal, process, and target audience. These let you know whether your strategy is effective or not and scale your customer acquisition program easily.

Shortens the sales cycle and improves win rates

Part of a solid lead generation program is a solid lead scoring system. This allows you to easily determine whether a lead is already in the buying process or still deciding. If you are able to determine your leads immediately, you save your team from wasting time and doing unnecessary things. Furthermore, you can easily evaluate which areas need improvement, and which ones are effective.

You can also easily filter, deliver, and enhance your leads to different systems. Once you identify the highest quality leads, you can also direct them to the right conversion process while avoiding those that don’t meet your criteria.

Sets the stage for building relationships and trust

Content marketing is part of a solid lead generation process. Through this channel, you position yourself not only as an expert but also as someone who offers a solution through valuable content. By regularly and consistently providing relevant content, you earn the trust of your customers and prospects. Consequently, it is not difficult to build relationships once trust is established between both parties.

Increases the return on marketing investment

Clear processes give birth to clear goals and objectives. When your marketing and sales team know what they should be looking for, they become more effective and productive with what they do. And with everything in place, an increase in your ROI is inevitable.

Don’t Waste the Benefits

Any good strategy is wasted if it remains on paper. Furthermore, it won’t be as effective if not communicated to your team properly. If you want some guidance on how to create a solid lead generation program, we will be happy to walk you through it.

The Top 6 Sales and Marketing Pain Points of B2B Healthcare

September 3, 2019/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Judy Caroll

You are not alone.

We understand that scaling in the B2B healthcare industry can be difficult. However, for us to truly grow and scale, we need to identify the pain points in our efforts and find intelligent solutions in dealing with them.

Today, we take a look at the various pain points in B2B healthcare sales and marketing, and how some healthcare companies are rising through the challenge.

#1 Information, Content and the Sales Pipeline

Here’s the universal truth for people who specialize in content marketing for the B2B healthcare industry: it’s hard. This is because you are trying to push content into a narrow segment of the market and coming up with topics can be difficult.

The strategy should move from a quantity to a quality-based perspective. The goal is to be a thought-leader when it comes to planning out a content marketing strategy for B2B healthcare. This means you have to differentiate what you release for it to stand out amongst the stiff competition.

Furthermore, address the issue of informing your prospects at each stage of the pipeline. Your prospects will want a B2C experience that you have to make available to them. This means being able to provide information that they may need at every step of the way.

Of course, you still have to optimize the content to make sure it ranks well so that they click on you instead of your competitors.

#2 It Takes Too Long

The most intense pain point in B2B healthcare is the amount of time it takes to close a deal. For you to make a successful entry into a market, you need to be able to prepare for long-term sales and lead nurturing process. It takes a considerable amount of resources to stay afloat as you wait for a decision to be made.

#3 HIPAA Compliance

If your product or service allows you to deal in any part or form with private patient data, then you better be HIPAA compliant with the way you do things. However, it is beyond telling and showing the prospects of your compliance. Since it is a very particular industry, you need to be able to either help or protect their HIPAA compliance as well.

Stay a step above the rest by caring for the other issues that bother them.

For instance, a lot of healthcare IT support companies often highlight their ability to help medical facilities be more HIPAA compliant with the way that they do things. This is another example in the B2B marketplace of solving a client’s potential problem instead of advertising the benefits of your services.

#4 Risk Aversion

The healthcare industry is careful about the purchases that they make because they can directly or indirectly affect the lives of the people that they cater to. It adds to the length of the transaction period and the only way around this risk aversion is for you to be able to address the concerns that they have. However, viable solutions must be made for you to be able to make it past your fears.

Another good thing to mention is that you should have a product or service that can quickly be adopted to minimize the strain on them switching to your platform.

#5 Buying Committees and GPOs

Since healthcare is risk-averse – as we mentioned earlier – getting the final word on a purchase will usually require a decision-making unit that is comprised of more than one member. Some will even take it further and rely on a GPO or group purchasing organization, to work in getting them the purchase that they need.

This means you need a multilateral approach in lead nurturing and everybody that’s part of the DMU should be well-informed and nurtured in the pipeline.

#6 Budget Cycles

Healthcare and medical facilities have budget cycles that work differently from other industries. They are usually tied to a fiscal year’s worth of budgets. This means your approach to lead nurturing also has to change.

Being able to attract the prospect and keep them interested until they are ready to purchase from you can be a year-long process, and you should have procedures in place to make sure that you are nurturing them and following up with them every step of the way.

This is the only way to secure your advantage.

Sales and marketing are never easy, especially in an industry such as B2B healthcare. However, it is only through thorough considerations of what the problems are that we can fully adapt to the needs that we have.

We have to stop treating our pain points as problems, but rather as opportunities for creative growth.

It might be hard, but a well-rounded lead generation campaign is not impossible once we start dealing with our pain points.

Labor Day: Why You Should Take The Time to Reset, Reflect and Plan

August 29, 2019/0 Comments/in Growth Hacking /by Rebecca Matias

Usually, we talk about how to deal with the different trials you may encounter in your business; how to solve problems in terms of lead generation and marketing strategies. In the world of business, the hustle never stops, especially if you want to stay on top of your game. There’s no time for slowing down. The attitude should always be “go, go, go!”. There is nothing wrong with this kind of motivation.

However, for this year’s Labor Day, we would like to talk about three specific things you may consider squeezing into your busy schedules. Don’t worry, they’re not hard to accomplish. In fact, they’re easy as pie.

Rest and Reset

In our busy world called corporate, rest isn’t something that is always readily laid out on the table because constantly being on the move is required to keep the business going. But for Labor Day we would like to encourage you to take a step back and rest.

Can you still remember the last time you just sat back and enjoyed a day doing absolutely nothing or doing the things you enjoy doing? No? That’s because you haven’t done that in too long. Rest and reset is highly crucial to keep yourself motivated and striving when you go back to work

In the business world, we work long hours. Businessmen usually stay up the latest and are also one of the first people up in the morning to continue yesterday’s hustle. On this day do the opposite. Sleep in. This is your green light so take advantage of it and don’t feel guilty! Ditch your alarm clock and sleep for 10 hours if you want.

In line with this, may we also encourage you to do something that makes you feel good? Maybe a session at the gym that you’ve missed out on because of your busy schedule, or going out and watching a movie, or going out with your friends. It’s Labor Day, enjoy yourself!

Reflect

This is important to keep yourself in check. Take this special day as an opportunity to reflect on your growth. How have you changed from the person you were a year ago? What have you achieved and learned since then? This is a healthy way to evaluate and re-evaluate. In the same vein, you can apply this to your business as well. Take a look back at how your business has been doing in the past year. Has it been growing? Has it become stagnant? Is there something that needs to be worked on and focused on more?

Taking your time to reflect while your hands are unoccupied by work allows you to see the state your business is in at the moment clearer. Not only will you see how much your business might’ve grown and improved since it started or since the past year or few years, but you’ll also discover all the nooks and crannies you might’ve missed to fill. You’ll be surprised at the things you find out about how you have run your business so far that you would otherwise not notice because you’ve always been busy with just focusing on the now. This leads us to the next point…

Plan Ahead

Now that you’ve taken a closer look at your own growth as well as your company, you can now start to plan ahead. Make a list of all the things you want to improve and work on for your business. Jot them down and pitch them to your team when you get back to work. Having the knowledge to not just see but also recognize where you might have fallen short in operations, is actually having the power to turn the situation around and turning your business’ weakness into a strength.

In line with this, think of strategies, marketing campaigns, and opportunities you can take advantage of. If you think you could amp up your marketing campaigns, look for opportunities – you can hold a campaign, seminar, or even a short talk. If you think that maybe you need to step up in your lead generation strategies, try looking into outsourcing this task so you can focus more on the improvement of your services and products. With your team, figure out how you can engage with your audience more on your social media platforms.

There are endless possibilities and always room for improvement. There are just some things you cannot see or realize if there is a deadline for a task constantly roaring in your ears. Remember that Labor Day is your day so take full advantage of it, and if you follow these three simple steps, you will be recharged and up on your toes again in no time!

What Makes IT Lead Generation Different from Other Industries?

August 28, 2019/0 Comments/in Lead Generation /by Judy Caroll

There are a lot of lead generation principles available out there, but they’re not all created equal for each industry. IT or technology lead generation fall under these categories. Your lead gen efforts have to be differentiated that is why lead generation services providers carefully study the situation of a company (client) to better cater to their needs.

In this article, we take a look at the strategies that we can implement in our IT lead generation campaign, whether you are an IT startup looking for new IT or software leads or if you’re an established IT company that needs to expand its lead generation efforts.

IT is Technical – Play By The Rules

IT and software are very technical fields that involve volumes of procedural and systematic data. During IT sales, the decision-making unit (DMU) usually comprises of the prospect’s professional team, so you have to make your technical data easily accessible and appealing to those people as well.

You have to be prepared to explain how your company’s methodology works, including its quirks.

Don’t Alienate the Non-Technical People

However, a caveat of presenting technical information is the fact that most DMUs are also comprised of people who do not understand the jargon. You also have to be willing to offer your product or service in a way that satisfies the needs of this group.

By being able to provide the different members of the DMU with information that is relevant to their roles, you will be able to reach them more effectively. This means you need to be able to provide for their bottom lines as well, give them solutions to their pain points.

Also, here’s an added benefit, say that you are only dealing with the IT team with your offering. If you can offer solutions that are relevant to someone with no technical expertise, you will be able to allow them to sell your product internally to the organization for you.

The Buying Process Has Started Before They’ve Even Contacted You

If a prospect contacts you, this generally means that they are already into their buying process and you are one of their candidates. The race here isn’t to show them what your product does, but rather how your product is differentiated from the rest of the other vendors that they have contacted.

Also, think of it this way, they’ve probably read about your services in the past. They know what you’ve been doing so far, so now the questions are more specific. In this light, it is also useful to find out more about your prospects so that you can address whatever pain points and challenges they’re facing.

Content Marketing is Different

Given the technical nature of IT, your content marketing plan will also be different. You will need to create more specialized pieces that aim to answer specific questions. These pieces will also need to be optimized.

Content marketing will have an informative rather than viral approach since these will be the foundation of a prospect’s information about your organization.

Since tech is extremely information-driven, it is also a good idea to share whatever information that you already have, which leads us to the next most crucial point in generating sales leads for IT.

Establish Yourself as an Industry or Thought Leader

Even B2B leads in tech are also affected by social media, so you need to establish a presence that goes beyond traditional marketing. You have to be a thought leader.

Contrary to popular belief you don’t have to be the most significant player in the market to start being a thought leader; you can do so by being able to establish the methodology for best practices first and market these ideas.

This is why it is essential that whatever information you have that can add value and not compromise your profit margins should be shared with everyone in the industry. For example, let’s say through the results of surveys you have formed a case study, which has a strong statistical foundation.

It would be advisable to make these results available to everyone else; this allows you to be an industry leader in a particular subject because you are willing to provide value for free.

Remember, companies have established their foothold in the market with the value that they have given out to customers and prospects. There is nothing wrong with this as it boosts the image of your brand.

Related: How Thought Leadership Can Boost IT Lead Generation

As you can see, by just customizing some of the general principles that we have for lead generation, you can create an effective segmented and targeted campaign. There are a lot of lessons in lead generation and nurturing, but we need to customize for our needs.