Many companies today recognize that online marketing efforts – including social networks, SEO, and their website – should be utilized to grow their business. However, there are still a lot of questions on how to truly use those channels to drive leads and interact with customers & prospects. Here are 5 ideas on how you can do that successfully.
Plan and Host a Webinar
Webinars can be one of the best ways to drive leads to your sales team. They also can help to get your Company’s name in front of a lot of people. Once you’ve planned a webinar, you can announce it on your blog, in social media sites, on your website, or in your email efforts. Webinars provide an opportunity to share your expertise with any number of people. In addition to that, they can create engagement opportunities. You can ask attendees to participate by asking questions, answering polls, and sharing their experiences. Also, by recording your webinar you will be creating another sales tool that your team can use in future efforts.
Launch an eNewsletter Campaign
A monthly eNewsletter campaign can be one of the most effective marketing activities that your company does. eNewsletters are a great way for people to stay up to date with what your business is doing. It also gives you an opportunity to show a more personable side to their audience. For example, you can provide a variety of content in each issue — this might include a How-To-Guide, a video featuring one of your staff members, links to popular blog posts & industry news stories, and pictures from recent events.
Host an Event or Seminar
Okay – yes, I am talking about creating an offline event. It might be an open house, a seminar, or a lunch and learn. But by creating these events, you will generate a tremendous amoung of opportunities to connect with your online audience. You can create emails that invite people to register via a landing page. You can create videos that highlight why people will benefit from the event. You can encourage people to talk about the event – before, during, and after – by using a specific hashtag on Twitter. Also, you can connect with all of your registrants on channels such as LinkedIn. The offline event itself might only last a few hours — but those online connections and engagement opportunities can certainly extend much farther.
Provide an eBook or White Paper
One of the best ways to drive leads to your sales team is to create an eBook or White Paper and then encourage people to download it. Once you’ve created the content, develop a simple landing page that allows people to register for the eBook or White Paper. Do not ask for too much information up front! Perhaps you should only ask for their email address. This will help to increase downloads and drive more leads to your team. Your reps will thus have the opportunity to follow up with these people and strive to learn more about them in the future.
Create a Contest
It’s true – people love games and prizes! Online marketing channels provide plenty of opportunities for companies to capitalize on that in the form of contests and giveaways. You can incorporate them into your eNewsletter, blog, social media sites, etc. Make it easy for people to register for the contest. Once that is done, send them a “Thank You for Entering” email. During that interaction, encourage them to check out some of your other online content while they’re waiting to see if they’ve won.
These are just a few ideas on how you can use online marketing activities to interact with your customers, generate new leads, and build buzz about your company. Those efforts should absolutely play an important role in helping you to grow your business.
About the Author
John Foley is the founder of interlinkONE, and has served as the
President and CEO since the company’s inception in 1996. He is also the founder of Grow Socially, an online marketing and consulting firm. He is widely recognized for his visionary approach in designing Internet
marketing applications that meet the changing needs of dynamic print,
fulfillment and mail service provider organizations.
Follow him on Twitter!