Competent CRM systems foster strong bonds with existing customers and accelerate the sales pipeline. How can brands guarantee success with these solutions?
Customers want to feel understood so they can trust your brand and resonate with the offerings. For any B2B brand to survive and sustain in the evolving landscape, customer centricity is essential.
Have you been facing challenges to build a connection with the audience? Zeroing in on a powerful CRM solution can help you achieve this.
Potent CRM strategies provide resources to derive valuable insights into target customers, such as data from sales, customer service interactions, and marketing campaigns. CRM systems store important information specific to customer preferences and behaviors. With this data, brands can build upon loyalty and boost sales through a consistent and positive customer experience across all touchpoints in the buyer’s journey.
How CRM Enhances Business Performance
CRM drives productivity, resulting in better customer satisfaction and higher profits. It helps address the needs of customers and allows businesses to be more strategic in activating customer relationships. Without the help of a CRM, it can be challenging to manage customer data, track leads, and gather customer feedback. This tool simplifies customer communication channels, maintaining ongoing customer contact through nurture campaigns.
Implementing CRM allows you to seamlessly streamline operations and focus on what matters most, delivering great customer service. However, investing in this solution can be a costly affair. The resources involved in its implementation and maintenance can be demanding.
That is why, before taking the plunge, it is best to assess all available systems and choose the best one.
What Goes into Successfully CRM Strategy Implementation
The CRM process is a concept in action. It involves tangible steps to attract consumers through the cycle of brand awareness. When you are clear about how you want to use it, an effective CRM can be a true asset for your brand.
These steps help brands improve outcomes with CRM solutions.
Set Clear Objectives
The first step is to map out the objectives and be clear about the expectations you are setting for yourself. A long-term approach helps you get the most out of your CRM, streamlining sales and marketing activities based on how they relate to customers and targets. Training sales and marketing employees on CRM use cases is imperative. This provides a clear understanding of the features and functions needed to meet the goals.
Qualify Leads
Work with your sales and marketing teams to navigate qualified leads and follow through on potential opportunities. A proactive approach like this helps garner more leads. Incorporating intuitive dashboards within your CRM can also provide real-time actionable insights. It will not only help filter out irrelevant targets but also align resources to pursue the top leads and convert them into customers.
Data Management
Understanding what data is entering the CRM helps ensure the quality. An effective system can manage and secure vast volumes of data. If customer data is incorrect or incomplete, it can hinder the consistency and quality of the system. You can achieve this balance when sales and marketing teams identify, collect, and input the correct data into the CRM. The best part about this software is its mobile access, which can be accomplished from virtually anywhere and anytime.
Acquire Leads
Presenting your brand to a potential customer network is only the beginning of the CRM process. Moving forward, brands must encourage the target audience to learn more about the offerings. The lead acquisition steps will vary depending on the structure and objectives of the company. For instance, a brand’s marketing team may encourage website visitors to share email addresses with a CTA attached to a newsletter. The sales team could use the CRM solution to start a live chat on the website.
Convert Leads into Customers
After engaging with your leads and capturing their interest, it’s time to focus on the lead conversion rate. The best way to approach this is to equip the sales team with relevant skills to identify how interested the leads are and whether there is a likelihood of purchase. A CRM assimilates historical data from past sales to narrow down lead-qualification criteria. These can be added as attributes to the CRM’s lead-scoring tools, providing identification opportunities with the highest probability of a sale. When a lead shows potential to convert, nurturing them will enhance trust enough to bring them on board. A simple way to achieve this is by sharing case studies, white papers, and relevant resources with the leads. Sales reps must also use CRM platforms to set reminders and tasks to follow up with interested leads. A CRM dashboard serves as a reminder that follow-up ensures that there are no missed opportunities.
Drive Upsells
How do you convince customers to switch products? Personalized recommendations via email are a great place to start. You can use CRM solutions to organize customers into smart lists based on similar purchase histories. You can then create custom email templates that send relevant product releases to entire lists of customers at once. This helps you rest assured that the promotional deals or releases you send reach the people who are most likely to purchase.
Align the Sales Pipeline with Your Customer Journey
Aligning the sales pipeline with the buyer’s journey amplifies success beyond measure. When brands address the touchpoints, motivations, and problems during all stages, it helps them connect with customers. This step predominantly involves outlining the sales pipeline stages, such as prospecting, qualification, proposal, negotiation, and closing. The alignment should be so perfect that these stages correspond to a particular phase of the customer journey, as encompassed in the CRM solution.
Set Up AI and Automation
Automation is redefining the modern business landscape. Integrating this feature into CRM systems helps manage routine tasks like sending follow-up emails, scheduling appointments, and updating sales opportunities. AI-integrated automation reduces the workload, leaving time to focus on other business operations and improving performance efficiency. For instance, you can send emails to new website visitors or follow-ups with prospects.
Provide Superior Customer Service
You may have successfully converted target leads into customers, but the CRM system doesn’t end here. A key aspect of business expansion is customer retention. You need to figure out what will keep the customer coming back. One of the proven ways is excellent customer service.
Zendesk’s 2020 Customer Experience Trends Report illustrated that customer service reflects a consumer’s loyalty to a brand. For instance, poor customer service can reduce lead conversions and hinder your reputation. Support teams must be efficient enough to deliver premium support whenever, wherever, and however, their customers expect it.
49% of customers declared that a brand’s problem-solving ability is the best aspect of a satisfying customer service experience. CRM software elevates customer satisfaction by giving easy access to the data required to provide the ideal solution. This creates a stress-free and efficient experience for both customers and support agents.
CRM software is enriched with high-quality data, which allows brands to dive into past leads and customers to better understand the target audience. It goes beyond demographics and basic information. When implemented effectively, CRM systems help analyze the conversion potential of leads.
Measuring CRM Strategy Success
Although AI models and automation are in place, brands must review their performance and business impact. You can accomplish this with relevant CRM metrics to evaluate the success of the CRM strategy. Periodic analysis using metrics helps determine what is working and what needs improvement. Using a powerful CRM, you can track customer satisfaction scores, sales growth, and customer retention rates. Metrics like close rate, upsell rate, length of the sales cycle, customer lifetime value (CLV), and customer acquisition cost are essential. Implementing these tools will help brands stay on track and ensure things are progressing as they should.
Wrapping up
Marketers launch campaigns and initiatives to build deeper connections with prospects. Consider CRM systems like your personal assistant minus the coffee runs. A strong customer relationship management (CRM) strategy sets in motion competent business strategies to thrive in the market. These practices generate more revenue by enhancing customer relationships and brand trust.
Tailored interactions, delivered consistently, create customer-centric journeys that improve customer loyalty and business growth. CRM systems don’t have to be intimidating. With training and the best application, they can drive target leads and accelerate the sales cycle.
If you want to know more about incorporating technology to enhance customer engagement, please visit our publication network.
Since lead magnets help draw more customers to a brand, they must be created and stored in a reliable source. How can Dropbox safeguard such an asset?
Expanding businesses require a continuous back-and-forth of sales and marketing practices that are updated from time to time. But with all this growth comes the responsibility of managing more data. And then, there is the dilemma of where to store them. The same concern applies to lead magnets.
A lead magnet is a valuable resource offered to potential customers in exchange for their contact information. Typically, it is a holistic solution to a challenge. You can offer it at a lower cost or as a downloadable to understand how it sparks interest in your brand. A lead magnet must also be valuable, and brands can charge for it. The idea is to make the lead magnet appealing enough to compel people to make purchase decisions.
And there is one way to determine if your lead magnet is good enough- If it can derive more engaged customers!
With a value-driven magnet in place, this is how a lead gen framework pans out :
It begins with creating a magnet to garner more leads for a brand. A form is then created, followed by setting emails to share lead magnet details with anyone searching for them. The form can be available on the website so prospects can fill in the essential information and request lead magnets. After people start filling it out, the email marketing system receives a notification of the contact details of these prospects. You can also automate thank-you emails to these contacts with the lead magnet.
For storing and sharing these lead magnets, Dropbox proves to be an excellent platform. It is, by far, the most reliable source on cloud platforms, making lead magnets easily accessible.
Let’s explore this in more detail.
Setting your Dropbox for Lead Magnets
Dropbox plays an important role in B2B lead generation by offering a platform to store, organize, and share lead magnets. It is a secure and accessible space to organize valuable content and distribute it among the target audience. Brands can use Dropbox to upload files, share, and use links.
Incorporating Dropbox for managing lead magnets helps you benefit from the following
Centralized Storage
One of the outstanding features of Dropbox is it allows you to keep all lead magnet files in one central location. This simplifies the process of management and access whenever needed.
Smooth Collaboration
With Dropbox, you can experience seamless collaboration with team members or customers. It also lets you share files and folders, allowing multiple people to work on the lead magnet.
User-Friendly Interface
The interface is easy to navigate and systemize your files. Dropbox makes it easy to create folders, categorize lead magnets, and search relevant content.
Secure Sharing
Dropbox offers reliable security features to protect lead magnets. With this, brands can control people who access files, set passwords, and fix the validity period of shared links.
Diving into the basics of Dropbox and its role in lead generation establishes the foundation for effectively utilizing this platform for your lead magnets. Setting up your account is the first step towards harnessing its power for your lead magnets.
Create High-Value Lead Magnets with Dropbox
Dropbox offers a versatile platform that allows you to create various lead magnets. Here are some popular lead magnet formats you can create using Dropbox:
eBooks or Guides
Brands can launch informative content providing valuable insights, best practices, and strategies through ebooks or comprehensive guides.
Ready-to-use templates
Create templates or worksheets to help solve a specific pain point or allow customers to execute complex tasks in a simpler manner.
Checklists
Build a compiled collection of checklists or cheat sheets that outline a step-by-step guide to map the route for achieving a desired outcome.
Webinars
Uploading informative webinars or tutorials to educate the target audience on relevant topics or provide solutions to specific pain points.
Whitepapers
Another form of content is crafting in-depth whitepapers or case studies that provide valuable insights and illustrate expertise and industry insights.
Resource Libraries
Assimilate all valuable resources like articles, podcasts, tutorials, or tools that help the audience learn more about your brand and understand the way to solve specific pain points.
Steps to Make your Lead Magnet influential
Identify Your Target Audience
Before crafting the skeleton for the lead magnet strategy, narrow down the target audience and what pain points you want to address. This approach will allow the development of content that resonates with the pain points.
Select a Format
Figure out which format works best for your brand and the value you can deliver effectively.
Create Compelling Content
Attracting the right audience requires high-quality content offering valuable insights, practical tips, or actionable steps. Brands must organize content with substance that aligns with audience interests and pain points.
Design
The lead magnet must be visually appealing. You can enhance this by adding professional design elements, clear formatting, and engaging visuals.
Save Your Lead Magnet on Dropbox
Once you have a lead magnet in place, save it on the Dropbox account. Build a dedicated folder to organize all lead magnets in one place.
Tracking the performance- a step you must not skip
Measuring the efficacy of your lead magnet and optimizing the lead generation strategy requires keeping tabs on the performance. Dropbox has features that help you monitor and collect insights on the access and application of your lead magnet. Brands can visualize the access stats, where they check the views, downloads, and interactions with lead magnets.
You can also use link analytics, where you share links for lead magnets and access these to understand how these links perform. These links can comprise data such as the number of clicks, geographic location, and sources. Another way to go about this is to integrate analytics tools. Dropbox supports seamless integration with applications like Google Analytics to offer in-depth insights into lead magnet performance. Brands must leverage these to understand the outcomes of lead gen efforts.
Monitoring the performance of lead magnets on Dropbox allows data-driven decisions and fine-tuned strategies for better outcomes.
3 Best practices for Effective Dropbox management
Following this step-wise approach will pave the way for successful data management with Dropbox.
Organize Your Dropbox
Keeping the Dropbox organized works well in a couple of ways. Firstly, it lets you access files in a jiffy. You can save time spent on sorting through different fodders for lead magnets. It is much easier to dedicate a folder to all the lead magnets.
Clearly label the files and folders with names that indicate their content. Consistent naming conventions simplify the search for and management of lead magnets.
Consistent naming conventions make it easier to locate and manage your lead magnets. Creating subfolders is another way of introducing a system. It is also a good idea to remove lead magnets that have become outdated or are not relevant. Eliminating these allows Dropbox to be clutter-free and organized with the latest resources.
Safeguard the Files
Adding a two-factor authentication (2FA) will ask for a verification code in addition to your password when logging in, thus giving an extra layer of security. You can also choose to restrict access permissions to individuals you trust. The other team members can receive view-only access. Brands that share lead magnets through links can opt for password protection.
All this aside, you need to update the Dropbox password regularly. A strong and unique password helps maintain account security.
Optimize Your Lead Magnet for Best Results
Making lead magnets visually appealing helps to attract the target audience. Create compelling headlines and descriptions that communicate the value and benefits of the lead magnet. To make it visually appealing, use high-quality images, engaging graphics, and a layout that is easy to look through. Before zeroing in on the best format, experiment to understand what resonates best with the audience. Once the format is selected, keep track of the performance and tweak as needed to encourage high engagement. The periodic monitoring helps understand whether they are relevant to the audience. Incorporate new insights or trends as and when required to keep the lead magnets enticing. Drive better conversions with Ciente—ranked among the top lead generation companies in the USA for creating high-impact, audience-ready leads.
Summing up
Lead magnets are an efficient way of casting the net over a wide audience. It gives a trailer of your brand expertise, which increases the chances of garnering more audience. When it comes to using Dropbox for your lead magnets, there are both sides to the coin. Whether you are new to Dropbox or looking to optimize lead gen strategies, it is crucial to understand the role of this platform.
Although there are several types of lead magnets, what you implement will depend on the target audience, industry domain, and the value you bring to the table.
Elevating Content Syndication with a Leading Vendor in the USA
Content syndication providers have a large audience that helps you maximize reach. But how can you select the best syndication provider to achieve this?
Brands work hard toward crafting a content strategy and publish different forms of content to interact with the audience. However, despite all inputs, the business outcomes may not be as expected. And the main reason for this pitfall is a lack of reach.
There is a key driver of interaction here: distribution.
Distributing content across various platforms increases reach and engagement with new or existing followers. Studies have shown that businesses leveraging content syndication experience 45% more sales.
If brands outsource syndication services, it can help more prospects move through the funnel.
Content syndication vendors help you distribute content across multiple channels that the target customers spend a huge chunk of time. They manage the logistics, ensuring that the content reaches the right audience and new markets that you probably never had access to.
Let’s understand this in more detail in the next section.
Why Hire a Syndication Partner?
A syndication vendor helps derive the most out of the original content, expand reach, and improve audience interactions.
Content syndication could give tangible results, but at the end of the day, it is about partnering with the right vendor. The best providers would be well-versed in distributing and promoting your brand’s content across several channels to reach specific customers. Across the most appropriate channels. Since there are different types of content pieces, you need to tweak your strategy based pm the content: blogs, whitepapers, newsletters, and more.
Vendors offering syndication services help a brand’s content reach a wider audience. They connect you with the target audience on relevant channels, distributing high-value content- leveraging online platforms and an already engaged audience to give your brand more visibility and ensure s continuous flow of qualified prospects- accelerating the sales funnel.
Criteria to Identify an Efficient Content Syndication Vendor
Considering these factors facilitates identifying the providers who meet your criteria.
Pricing Structure: Start by checking every vendor’s pricing model and verify whether it matches your budget or if its value is worth the investment.
Reputation and Credibility: The best way to verify these is to tap into the vendor’s track record, client testimonials, and industry awards.
Network Reach and Quality: Research the platforms it collaborates with to understand its reach potential. Gathering details like size, diversity, and quality of the vendor’s distribution network will also help with this.
Targeting Capabilities: Since the objective of hiring a content syndication partner is to launch targeted content, brands must verify customization potential. Figure out personalization abilities based on audience segments, demographics, interests, etc.
Content Quality: Among the many options you come across, prioritize vendors that maintain a standard for content quality.
Content Amplification Strategies: Tap into the vendor’s tactics to boost content reach and engagement via social media and influencer partnerships.
Compatibility: Before narrowing down on the vendor, align it with your existing marketing technology stack, including CRM systems.
Customer Support and SLAs: Evaluate the vendor’s customer support capabilities and inquire about the SLAs (service level agreements). Their technical support and campaign management must ensure timely issue resolution.
Scalability: Going for a vendor offering scalable solutions and flexible campaign management solutions will help you achieve the desired outcomes. Select a vendor with scalable solutions and adaptable campaign management tools to accommodate your evolving growth objectives.
Data Security and Privacy: Pay attention to vendors who follow the GDPR and CCPA regulations and implement actions like data encryption and access controls.
What makes Ciente the Best Content Syndication Vendor in the USA
While searching for a syndication vendor, several options could pop up on the internet. Here’s why Ciente is the most reliable option.
Ciente is a leading tech publication with a global reach of millions. We understand the content and ensure it reaches the right customers through our tailored syndication strategies.
Our team makes sure all content is SEO-enriched, helping all content get more search rankings.
Here is a list of our key USPs
Multi-channel distribution: Our team uses channels like emails, social media, and our in-house platform to generate highly-qualified responses through content.
Massive network: We have an active audience comprising senior leaders and decision-makers.
Editorial expertise: Ciente optimizes all content to improve engagement and consistently A/B testing to put the best foot forward.
At Ciente, we strive to boost brand credibility by amplifying your content on our in-house publishing network, allowing you to tap into our wide audience base. Our tailored syndication services help overcome the problem of generating traffic and provide consistent engagement with the target customers.
Final thoughts
The value of content is derived when it is visible to more target customers and triggers a response. Content syndication is the doorway to escalate the visibility of what is published. And it does so by publishing materials on the channels where the prospects are most active. Effective syndication helps draw a network of audience to your content. But for that to happen, brands need to choose an efficient vendor. Ciente’s content syndication services make your job easy by improving the optimization efforts and publishing content on relevant third-party channels.
Value-driven content plays an important role in attracting the target audience. How can classification enhance search rankings?
Brands publish a series of content to help customers with relevant information for navigating through the complex digital landscape. But, if the content is not structured properly, it can hinder the performance. Classifying any content has the potential to boost search rankings. Structuring content with classification improves how search engines index web pages, helping brands get better visibility.
At its root, content classification allows companies to organize and categorize content into meaningful groups. You can integrate relevant tags and keywords here to give the audience a clear understanding of what each content illustrates.
When we talk about content classification platforms, they indicate the process of classifying a document into one or more classes based on its content. Brands can select classes from a pre-established list— a hierarchy of categories.
Content classification eliminates the stress of manual decision-making and automates information management. Brands can leverage the process to filter out irrelevant content that does not hold any business/customer value. The essential materials are sorted into relevant categories that can be easily accessed.
The classification process analyses documents, distills the main crux, and assigns a category. So, you do not just search for a single word or phrase. It helps improve accuracy since the system adapts to the unique nature of your business. Blog content classification works by identifying different categories from the examples that you provide. When the system receives feedback, it adjusts in real time and implements any corrections made. Classification accuracy must be adjusted to the changes in your business.
Types of Content Classification
Brands can select among two main types of classification: rules-based and machine-learning automation. The choice depends on factors: content type, audience, and end goal.
Rules-based classification
This type of document classification works for both digital and scanned content. Rules-based classifiers, as the name suggests, are rules-oriented for classifying content. It is based on predefined rules that analyze specific features within the content. For example, there could be a set of criteria to label certain services or offerings based on a keyword used to identify them. Although simple, rules-based classification could seem restricting and confusing. Brands need concrete plans to label and distinguish content, improving the structure of this system.
Machine Learning Automation
Machine learning is evolving rapidly, and its applications have extended to content classification. B2B companies can now harness the power of this technology for intelligent automated blog content classification. This approach focuses on developing a machine learning-based model involving collecting training data. Labeling data improves classification efficiency. However, there may be a risk of human judgments interfering with these labels. To avoid this interference, brands must use behavioral data to keep track of possible judgments.
Reasons why you must consider content classification
We have enlisted some major points highlighting why brands must classify content-
Enhanced User Experience: Well-structured content makes it easier for readers to find relevant insights.
SEO Advantages: Search engines favor structured content, increasing the chances of higher rankings.
Improved Engagement: Readers are more likely to explore your blog when they can easily navigate it.
Automation: Categorize your content automatically.
Flexible & Customizable process: A flexible system allows brands to comply with content classification requirements.
Cost-efficiency: An advanced content classification platform will help avoid storage expenses by saving only necessary information.
Some tools that help with content classification
There are several tools available to assist in managing blog content classification. Content classification is managed with efficient tools that simplify categorization. For example, Trello is great for visualizing content plans and tracking progress. Google Analytics is another example that provides insights into how users interact with your content, helping you refine your strategy.
Then, there is Evernote, an all-in-one tool for capturing, organizing, and sharing notes related to your content.
The tool you choose to integrate will depend on the type of content you are dealing with and the content strategy you are implementing.
Step-by-step guide for acing the classification
Content classification offers the power to improve SEO to great lengths. But how do you ensure its effectiveness?
Follow these pointers to skip the hurdles and seamlessly navigate through this process.
Define Your Categories
The first step to classifying content is to run through different categories that match the content you want to classify. It could be just blogs or include more than one form of content. Brands must ensure that they are open to including multiple posts while being specific to offer clear direction. For example, you could go for Digital Marketing: SEO, Social Media, Email Marketing, Content Marketing KPIs.
Strategically Integrate Tags
Although categories are about broad groupings, tags are best suited for more specific topics that fall under those categories. Many types of tags can be used on websites to improve classification and search ranking. When considering tags, use them as keywords that help further classify your posts.
For instance, while administering sites, you can typically add tags for meta, title, header, and blog post. You can tag single words or phrases. If words like news, events, awards, etc. are used for category headings, then tags should include the major industries you serve and the services you offer. Tags work best for projects, employees, recruiting, and anything else that may apply to multiple posts.
Here is another example- if you have content under the category of social media, tags like Instagram, FB advertising, and content strategy will be ideal. Using tags appropriately can help in internal linking, thus enhancing user experience plus SEO ranking.
Create an Editorial Calendar
Have you experienced a situation where you want to deliver different types of content but have been unable to execute your plans? Well, that’s why brands need an editorial calendar. An editorial calendar enables brands to plan, schedule, and organize content in advance. This streamlines content delivery and ensures consistency but also spans across various content over time. Either create using Excel or PowerPoint or use suitable software. Consider using Trello, Asan, and Google Sheets to prepare an editorial calendar.
Integrate a Consistent Format
Consistency goes a long way in aligning with your brand voice and setting the tone of communication through content. A consistent format helps readers connect with the brand and the message you are trying to convey. You can use a fixed structure for posts, like beginning with a robust introduction and main body, ending with a conclusion, and including a CTA. A systematic flow helps readers know what to expect, making it easier for them to navigate your content.
Implement a Search Functionality
Search functionality is boosted with elements that attract an audience and enhance engagement. It could involve adding visual elements like images, infographics, and code snippets to enhance readability. Alternatively, components like clear headings and sections can be used to make content more systematic, giving it a better flow and readability.
Regularly Review and Update Categories and Tags
The demand for new content is constant, new materials are bound to be released. As more content gets added to the database, categories and tags require a periodic review. In the absence of this check, it may become difficult to keep track of whether the new content aligns with the strategy. Updating categories and tags ensures that all content remains organized while enabling you to identify potential gaps.
Summing up
Brands spend hours figuring out the best strategies for amplifying content performance. We often miss the significance of classifying content and the difference it can make. A well-organized content form is pivotal for its success and reach. These blog content classification tips will help enrich the user experience, improve SEO, and drive more traffic. That said, classification is not a one-time task but requires continuous attention and adjustment to remain effective.
A high lead gen score indicates that your marketing efforts are on point. But how do you get there?
As per Hubspot’s report, 6 out of 10 marketers struggle with lead generation— a huge challenge besetting the tech industry.
But marketing leaders can overcome this pain point by focusing on what gives the best results.
Meeting business goals requires leaders to anticipate a specific number of leads in the sales pipeline. The numbers must be practical, and the expected results should align with your company’s growth strategy. When you are setting the goal, specificity plays an important role. That’s why factoring in lead gen calculations is imperative.
But before we dive into the calculations, let’s understand two important terms associated with leads.
Important terms associated with leads.
Lead quality:
Focuses on scoring leads based on their likelihood to convert into paying accounts. After all, it’s not just the numbers that matter. It’s also lead quality.
Lead feedback:
This gives you an idea of what the prospects think of your brand and their experience with you. Surveys or feedback forms can provide such information. These details would help improve user experience, making your campaigns more targeted.
Make a difference with a Lead Generation Goal Calculator
A lead goal calculator simplifies narrowing down the precise lead target that should come from your inbound marketing strategy.
Steps to use a lead generation calculator successfully
Set Monthly Revenue Targets:
It begins with identifying the revenue target for every month. You can use spreadsheets for this step to maintain consistency and place all information in the same place. However, remember not to miss updating the spreadsheet if the revenue goals are adjusted.
Calculate the Required Number of Deals:
Once you have a revenue number, you need to determine the number of deals you must close to hit the target. For this, brands can use marketing software to determine the average revenue generated by each customer per region. The next step is to sum up the average sale value on top of the row above each region. The lead generation goal calculator will automatically provide the value of your leads based on the percentage close rates you input in the spreadsheet in step 1.
Define Revenue Attribution Between Sales and Marketing:
Here you need to define the revenue split. This means determining the portion of revenue that comes from sales and the portion that comes from marketing. The number would depend on how your business attracts customers –via inbound or outbound strategies.
Analyze Sales Closing Rates:
This step involves evaluating your sales closing rates, i.e., the percentage of leads that turn into paying customers. Extract the data of the past six months from all marketing channels that you use to generate leads. Assess the information to have an accurate sales closing rate.
Validate All Entered Data for Accuracy:
The last step is to verify all the numbers entered in the previous steps. As you add data, the calculator automatically updates the total revenue for each customer and region. It adds all the numbers to give you an accurate monthly goal. This number generated by the calculator should match the potential revenue generated by each region per month.
This is the basic functioning of a lead generation calculator. Brands can make it more relevant by customization to match your specific requirements. For instance, you can break down revenues to reveal revenue generated per customer instead of per region to achieve more detailed and accurate numbers.
Use Lead Generation Goal Calculator
Lead Generation Goal Calculator
Lead Generation Goal Calculator
Enter the values below to calculate the number of leads required to hit your sales target.
Best practices for lead gen goal calculation
Calculating lead gen goals improves the performance efficiency of a brand’s marketing efforts, increasing the lead conversion rate. These tips and practices will maximize the effectiveness of the process.
Determine your baseline
A baseline is a good starting point for determining your lead gen goal. You must know the current lead volume and lead-to-customer conversion rate. These details provide a solid foundation from which it is easy to start and get up and running.
Understand your target audience to the T
Fulfilling lead gen goals is next to impossible if you don’t ‘get’ your audience and what they need. Parameters like audience size and niche market influence the targets you set. Brands must also consider the unique attributes of the customers that help them set achievable goals.
Evaluate your resources
The time and financial resources you invest will depend on the number of leads you are targeting. The lead gen goal will be a driving factor for budget allocation. If you have the resources planned, it prevents overspending while achieving the goals.
Understand your sales cycle
The length of a sales cycle largely influences lead-gen goals. And without keeping this in mind, the goals you set could be impractical, throwing off your lead gen efforts. For instance, if the sales cycle is long, it may take time to generate the desired number of leads. That’s why it’s important to fine-tune the goals as per the sales cycle.
Summing up
The sales teams pursue leads to drive more revenue for the brand. But keeping track of the goals could seem impossible. The lead gen goal calculator is a tool that helps businesses of all sizes to identify goals. This can be coupled with budget planning to ensure your resources are not exhausted. The tool is precise in its calculation, allowing you to focus on specific solutions and seamlessly measure sales performance efficiency. However, it doesn’t end with calculating lead generation goals. It’s pivotal to nurture leads to enhance the overall ROI generation.
It’s Time to Bust Prevalent Marketing Misconceptions
Businesses often underplay marketing’s role. It’s time to unravel the unspoken myths and spotlight the reality.
Marketing has always been thought of as a creative field. But by alluding to it merely as a creative space, we often forsake its technicalities and the value it brings. Fair to say, it all depends on the perspective.
Marketing is neither easy nor a one-way street in today’s buying dynamics. The level of complexity it involves can even unnerve industry experts.
For instance, a CMO might understand marketing’s role differently than a CEO. Even its external functionalities are perceived differently from the minute internal operations. Often perceived as a means to build a brand, it’s also the wheel driving an organization’s revenue.
Even being a marketer itself is not just a mundane task. It requires market knowledge and expertise of the entire customer lifecycle journey, systems, and understanding of broader business objectives. The human aspect, i.e., the team possesses such elaborate skills – one cannot highlight any single facet.
From curating strategies, outlining ICPs, and understanding stakeholders’ vision to identifying gaps, implementing campaigns, and measuring performance – marketing entails it all. The intangible definition of marketing to its tangible characteristics is dynamic and ever-transforming.
At the crux, it’s a complex landscape to define.
Marketing is technical but also experimental. It assumes tangible and intangible elements of a business. And its stunted understanding can influence the direction of an organization. Because marketing plays a pivotal role in market expansion and without full awareness of its significance, the business can take a huge plunge into the ocean. And get lost in the market noise to lose its footing.
To ensure this doesn’t happen, brands need to question their misconceptions regarding marketing. This includes stakeholders’ and other decision-maker’s misbeliefs with respect to how marketing can maximize their profitability.
Without debunking common myths concerning marketing, how does one develop effective strategies?
Unraveling Marketing Myths, Decision-makers Hold
Marketing misconceptions can prove detrimental to small businesses and start-ups. There are common misperceptions high-level executives hold that influence and create bias in their decision-making process.
And when the upper management doesn’t hold accurate information, how can the team develop the right strategies? This is a conundrum. But there’s a solution to this – break apart these fallacies and spotlight the correct stance.
Marketing is More Than Ads
Marketing is rainbows (multicolor designs) and sunshine (catchy one-liners).
Yes, marketing is indeed a creative endeavor. It consists of advertising campaigns with bright colors and catchy one-liners. But what about the uninteresting parts?
The final content might be engaging and compelling, but the process is extensive. It requires hours of research and several drafts before the final product comes through. Let’s admit that even designing and content writing might entail significant moments where the process is fun.
There’s an entirely different side – developing campaigns, strategizing, and report-making that are part-and-parcel of repetitive tasks one finds tasking. But, these facets of marketing are what drive the steering wheel to ensure actual numerical outcomes.
The other side of the story plays out differently. It attributes PR and advertising as significant aspects of marketing. However, the truth is quite different.
PR and advertising are entirely different elements of marketing. PR helps maintain and build relationships, and advertising is construed to influence prospect decisions. These are before and after – what about the middle?
This area is also what marketing takes care of. It’s more than about ads, especially traditional means and methods. The focus is actually brand building and understanding what could be the most effective ways to increase the performance of multiple marketing channels.
Long-term trust and loyalty link a brand and its clients. And marketing works as the bridge. From discovery to client support, maintaining a consistent flow of revenue takes more than traditional advertising.
Small businesses and start-ups don’t need marketing teams.
Small businesses might rely on regular customers. Consider cafes – many local cafes depend on regular coffee drinkers for consistent revenue. It’s something we are all aware of.
But this isn’t the case all the time. Different industrial domains hold varied demands – the expectations are widely different. Imagine a tech start-up. The market continuously witnesses the rise of new businesses, and it’s easy to get lost amidst all the noise.
Marketing can be a key resource to change this. It helps expand efficiently and retain a strong customer base.
Word-of-mouth marketing can only help businesses to an extent, especially in close-knit circles. It can displace the clients’ attention to another brand if a better product enters the market. New competition can get ahead of the race at any given time.
However, marketing strategies can offer a consistent means to reduce customer churn rates and expand seamlessly into new territories. Moreover, it’s challenging to forge partnerships without a proper marketing plan.
And in the long run, it may halt or disrupt the brand expansion, subtracting its recognition and reputation in the existing and new markets. It might become exhausting for small businesses, but with the ideal help, marketing can bring modest value to the brand, helping it grow gradually.
Marketing strategies only work on new buyers, not existing ones.
Having regular customers doesn’t mean they won’t pack up their interests and gravitate towards a brand with appealing offerings. That’s why the priority is establishing customer loyalty.
Remarketing to existing clients is a crucial step in marketing that most businesses skip. But it shouldn’t be the case.
Cross-selling and up-selling to existing customers helps retain them for a long time. Because once they have bought from a brand, it doesn’t mean there aren’t any doubts and challenges later on. Remarketing to them helps address their pain points and allows the brand to be on top of their mind.
These are why lifetime loyalty and retention are crucial for businesses to thrive.
Customer’s loyalty towards a brand should match the businesses’ trust in their regular ones. Not attending consistently to the clients can prove detrimental to the company, damaging the market-wide reputation.
When word-of-mouth marketing works wonders, it may affect the brand negatively, also making them lose out on new clients.
The cornerstone here is that retaining clients is not easy. So, it’s crucial to note that marketing efforts shouldn’t merely hope to engage new buyers but also continue targeting existing ones.
Social media doesn’t work for the brand or it’s everything for them.
See, social media is comparatively a new channel for marketing. Traditional methodologies didn’t consider this a major part of their functionalities. But with growing digitization, it’s necessary to sway a little to where the wind blows – to find a delicate balance between keeping up with the trends and finding what fits the brand.
Social media has become an effective and affordable tool for marketers to remain in the rat race. They leverage the consumer’s thirst for snackable and scrollable content by offering them compelling content and ads.
These are the platforms where the customers are most likely to notice the brands.
The diversity in social media users is also transforming. Beforehand, younger generations were more active, but numerous adults have also started using Instagram and Facebook. These are people who earn and have decision-making capabilities.
They are also a principal part of the consumer market, offering brands an advantage – a new audience segment to target and increase their customer base.
It can be resourceful for businesses with a meticulously planned strategy. But just because it’s been gaining traction and entails millions of users doesn’t mean brands should saturate their budgets into just one channel. It might not offer them returns as significantly as they think.
Social media with the right balance can function as a tool for marketing and advertising alongside its own embedded shoppable features.
Good quality products and services can sell themselves. Who requires marketing, right?
This misconception is rampant in the market.
It’s not a complex notion to debunk and also quite self-explanatory. Yes, the brand entails high-quality offerings and a positive buyer experience.
But what if no one knows about it?
Moreover, imagine there is excessive competition, and with access to advanced tech, how difficult is it to come up with solutions of comparable value? With the right resources and time, it’s possible. Not as if the products or services can become the talk of the town by leveraging marketing, but they grab significant attention to make the market realize – Oh hey, I’m new here and would like to make acquaintance with what I have to offer.
There are so many layers that marketing adds to the brand’s perception that it narrows down the prospective buyer’s vision to believe – this solution is curated only with them in mind. This adds a significant edge to businesses that might seem small against the industry giants.
Marketing is a catalyst. It creates awareness regarding the brand’s existence and attracts the right audience to kickstart the revenue wheel. Beyond this, it also highlights the crucial details – from what the brand does to how the solutions can help the prospect.
These steps are unskippable if one of the key objectives is to grow consistently and expand into new markets.
Traditional tools entail no influence in modern marketing.
Marketing, traditionally, is understood as a means to grab attention. And the conventional marketing tactics kept this in focus. Even if this is what most believe in, it’s false.
While modern marketing has unearthed several more complexities and dynamic buyer behaviors, traditional marketing tools still play a pivotal role.
Leveraging traditional marketing channels is a holistic approach. While automation and AI might take the front seat today, TV, radio, and newspapers still hold space in targeting a particular demographic. Or the local audience.
Technically, development and execution decide a lot of things here.
Marketers also believe that email marketing is dead. But to be frank, it’s in between traditional and digital roadways. It plays a significant part in personalizing communication with new and existing buyers. Meanwhile, it also adds a dash of sophistication and professionalism to the entire process.
On the other hand, even the radio is not dead. Podcasts can be said to be the new radio. While podcast advertising does indulge loyal listeners, radio targets the general audience. It actually boosted the reach by penetrating diverse audience segments.
The reality is marketers still leverage these channels and continue to seek effective results.
There are multiple and varying faces to marketing.
Marketing is not just one thing. For different individuals and industrial domains, it can heed varied faces. For a buyer, the perspective might differ compared to a seller. And even within the organization, marketing might mean something different to the CMO and the CEO.
While market conditioning can instill biases into decision-makers, marketers, and prospective buyers, it’s important to never negate its vitality. It’s the first and foremost rule.
Once a marketing team is hired and attributed responsibilities, they develop and execute strategies. If this leads to significant profitability, then who’s to say marketing is faux?
The answer is present within the numbers itself.
Preconceived notions can only harm the brand itself and stunt its growth. But understanding marketing will debunk this thinking.
And there’s more to learn. Especially with the emerging tech-changing society, marketing has also been majorly impacted. It will keep on morphing into something one doesn’t understand.
Rather than consuming misleading conceptions and assuming aspects of marketing, it’s necessary to take a step ahead and educate ourselves. Investigate the minute details and underline the truth.
