3 Smart Ways to Fuel Your Marketing Efforts

December 10 / Chair 10 Marketing Team / filed under Internet Marketing

downloadable-content-marketing

You’ve been hounded about the value of an active blog, your social media pages are buzzing, and you’ve got a PPC campaign in the works. Congrats! Your marketing strategy is healthier than most, but is there more you can do?

In short… absolutely.

If you’re looking for a few smart ways to generate new leads and boost sales without dismantling your current marketing plan, we’ve got three great ideas you can implement ASAP.

Downloadable Content

Leads are the lifeblood of every brand. You can’t sell to people unless you have, well, people, but consumers aren’t exactly eager to cough up their email address let alone other identifying info. If you want to get something, you need to give something first. That something is downloadable content.

How-to guides, eBooks, cheat sheets, listicles, white papers, templates—these are all great examples of downloadable content that provides value. People want this type of content and they’re willing to trade something for it. Create a landing page describing the asset you’re offering, encourage people to sign up, and, once they put in their email, grant them access.

You give, you get, and everybody wins.

Online Events

People are busy and spread out. Unless you run a hyperlocal business, your audience is everywhere, and they won’t be showing up for your in-store promotion or grand opening soiree. They might sign up for a virtual shindig though, and that’s what makes online events so powerful.

The simplest kind of event is a Facebook Live. All it takes is a device—usually your smartphone—and an internet connection. Then you talk. Advertise is as a behind-the-scenes look, a Q&A session, or an exciting announcement about an upcoming launch. What matters is that you’re putting a face to your company and creating connections in real-time. That’s huge.

Webinars are another idea. These take a little more preparation as they tend to be more formal and participants expect cohesion and organization. There should be more value, too. Tie your webinar into the product or service you want to sell and use the platform as an introduction. If you’re selling a course on starting an e-commerce business, host a webinar on setting up internet-based payments. Shoot out invites to your whole mailing list, run some social media ads, and let those leads come to you.

Facebook Groups

Facebook groups are part community resource, part captive audience. They can be as hands-on or loosey-goosey as you like, but high-value groups often have multiple admins or moderators spurring daily discussions.

A few things to remember:

  • The group isn’t about you, it’s about the members. Deliver value in everything you do to help establish authority and make yourself indispensable.
  • Encourage participation. People want to belong and there is power in validation.
  • Keep hard sells to a minimum. If you’re posting about your $1000 sales course or Black Friday sale a dozen times a day, you’re doing this wrong.
  • Embrace variety. Stay on topic (nobody joins a group about HVAC repair to get continuously peppered with political rants or fondue recipes), but switch up your posts to include relevant research, guest posts, polls, memes, news articles, etc.
  • Have some regularity. You want people to view your group as part of their routine. Having Motivational Mondays when you share inspirational stories or posting a “What do you need?” post on Wednesdays keeps members coming back.

Events are experiences and experiences are memorable. Keep your brand top of mind with online events and see how quickly you scale.