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Tips to Help You Generate More Leads from Your Website

public-domain-images-free-stock-photos-high-quality-resolution-downloads-public-domain-archive-14-1000x667A website is an essential business tool. Most businesses use it to generate leads. After all, nothing happens without a lead. No sales, no profit, no revenue, nothing! Unfortunately, it’s not as easy as throwing a “click here” button and watch as the leads start pouring in. In order to generate leads, you need to take a more strategic approach.

Here are some tips that will vault your online lead generation efforts into overdrive.

Get optimized

Undoubtedly, the best way to channel a flood of visitors to your website is to make sure that your site ranks in every search engine. People won’t visit your site if it’s on the 2nd or 3rd page of the search engine. With the competition getting tougher than ever, you need to work your best to achieve and maintain top search engine positions.

Make sure it’s mobile-friendly

Today, more and more people are using their mobile devices for online activities. In fact, studies indicate that mobile traffic accounts for at least one-third of the total web traffic. If you want more leads from your website, you need to make sure that people can access your site through their smart phones or tablet PCs.

Make your contact details visible

Don’t make visitors search for your contact information. Make sure that your phone number is clearly visible on every page. Some business owners make the mistake of thinking that potential customers prefer email as a means of communication. Survey reveals that 75% of client’s sales leads come in by phone.

Install a live chat feature

A lot of business owners think that live chat is only beneficial for retail businesses. But we believe that every business website can benefit from this tool.

Let’s take a restaurant as an example. Having a live chat feature is actually beneficial for this type of business since it helps facilitate reservation. Plus, it is very helpful for visitors, who have some questions or clarifications. We recommend businesses to assign an employee to answer customer queries during regular business hours. This simple step can produce significant results.

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Tips for Social Media Success

socialmedia_9.8Now that so many businesses are using social media to reach out to potential customers and drive more traffic to their site, it’s only a matter of time before they realize how difficult it is to succeed in social media marketing.

This blog post shows you how to achieve success with social media. Check out the tips below and start incorporating them into you social media strategy.

Choose the right platform

There are dozens of social media platforms across the web so feel free to explore which platforms are best for your business. Choose the platforms where your prospective customers most likely spend their time every day.

Deliver content consistently

One of the best ways to increase engagement and grow your following on social media is for you to be active. Keep in mind, though, that social media success requires more than the random postings about your great sale or latest products. Be sure to provide content that are valuable, interesting and relevant to your audience.

Post timely

Research shows that 92.4% of all retweets happen within an hour of posting. That means that the day and time your post has an effect on virality.

Do your research and determine the best days and times to post for your demographics and industry. Also, remember that there are different time zones for different places in the world. To ensure that people will be able to see your content, no matter the time zone, we suggest that you post more contents throughout the day.

Include pictures

“A picture is worth a thousand words”, they say. But it may be worth more in social media. Posts with pictures get more engagement as compared to those without pictures. In fact, research reveals that 44% of Facebook users are more likely to interact with brands if they include pictures in their posts.

Measure results

The only way to determine whether or not your efforts are successful is by measuring and analyzing the results. If you publish a blog, you want to see how many readers are subscribing, what posts they are reading, how many comments you’re receiving and how well your blog compares to others in the industry.

 

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Signs It’s Time to Outsource Your Online Marketing

BIMS_9.1As a business owner, you want to oversee every aspect of the business. But as the business grows, you will then realize that you can’t do everything on your own. You need to delegate tasks so you can focus on things you do best. Knowing when to hire people is an important part of building a successful business.

In this blog post, we’ll give you 4 reasons why you should outsource your online marketing. Read on and find out if it’s time for you invest in the services of offsite experts.

You don’t have the right skills

At some point in time, you’ll be facing certain challenges you can’t solve on your own. Rather than spending countless hours trying to come up with an effective marketing plan, it might be best to pay someone else to handle the marketing side of your business so you can focus on providing quality service to customers and make more money.

You’re not producing enough fresh content

If you want people to find your website, you need a steady supply of fresh, quality content. But if writing isn’t your forte and you find yourself putting off the task until a few hours before the deadline, why torture yourself? Let an online marketing agency do the work for you while you sit back and enjoy the results.

You’ve reached a plateau

You’ve seen some promising results in the past, but after a few months, you realized that you’re not getting promising results.  Keep in mind that it is a fast-changing environment and you need to keep up in order to succeed. Outsourcing will help you keep up with the rising demands of your marketing.

You seem to be running behind

This is common, especially for small business with only a handful of employees. Your business is growing fast and their workload is starting to become heavy. Eventually, you’ll find that all your projects get pushed against tight deadlines and you seem to be running behind on projects and campaigns, it may be time to consider bringing in a new team.

 

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Social Media Trends That Are Bad For Your Brand

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Social media marketing can be comparable to traditional media marketing. The only difference is that it is a lot faster. Trends waxes and wanes in hyper speed, going from cool to super lame in a matter of days or weeks. As a result, it is becoming more and more difficult to stay relevant.

Here’s a list of social media trends that can hurt your brand. Read on to find out which trend you should finally put to rest.

Facebook exclusive

Facebook may be one of the most popular social media channels today, but focusing your marketing efforts on Facebook is certainly not a good idea. Why? It’s because it has the most competition and advertising can be more expensive.

Focusing on one platform is like advertising on TV alone, and not using radio, print, billboards and any other channels to reach your audience.

Live blogging

During the SuperBowl event last year, a lot of people were active online, chatting and posting about the event as it happens. Some businesses took the opportunity to engage with their audience by posting something about the said event. If the brand is about sports, then this is justifiable. But if not, then there’s no sense talking about the SuperBowl.

Try focusing in topics that would be of interest to your target audience. They’re expecting you to provide them with content about specific topics, not some general world news.

Half-baked story

Social media is a great place to keep up with breaking news. We strongly advise that you check your facts first before sharing stories on your blog or business page. Do your research and make sure that the news is from a reliable source.

Sharing half-baked stories will affect your brand in a negative way. The last thing you want is for people to see you as an unreliable source.

Ignoring LinkedIn

If you’re not on LinkedIn, then you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to get more branding for your business. LinkedIn is the best social media platform for business owners and executives to be in. Here, you can expand your network and meet people in the same industry.

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4 Things We All Need to Stop Doing on Social Media

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The growth of social media continues to expand. Facebook has over 1 billion users; while Twitter and Instagram has over 280 million and 200 million active users respectively.

Many of us flock to these popular social media sites to give and receive the latest scoop on pretty much everything. We all love to post different events in our lives to let everyone know what is going on, but some people gets overboard when it comes to using social media.

Whether you’re using social media for professional or personal use, here are 4 things you should stop doing.

Oversharing

You probably have a friend who updates their status every 15 minutes or so. It can get irritating sometimes, especially since your news feeds is full of their postings. We hate to break it to you, but no one wants to be that clued in about your life.

Using more hashtags than words

Hashtags are great for giving your campaigns their own special theme, finding and jumping into conversations and categorizing your posts, but piling on the hashtags just looks desperate. Please keep your hashtag usage in check.

Automated messages

It may seem like a good idea to send a thank you message to users who follow you, but I’m willing to bet that some people consider it as spam.

While there are some people who say that sending automated messages has helped grow their follower count, it may come off as detached, lazy and out of touch for some. Remember, genuineness wins when it comes to earning the trust of your target audience.

Adding people to groups without their permission

Groups are a great place to talk to people with the same interests as yours. Just because you created a group for golfers, doesn’t give you the right to add your golfer friends to the group without their permission. If you think some of your friends would be interested to be a part of the group, consider sending them a message and tell them what it’s all about.

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Strategies to Keep Your Business One Step Ahead of the Competition

bims_8.10Every business owner wants his business to stay ahead of the competition. But if you want to remain successful, a lot of things should be done and most of them are not particularly easy.

Here are some strategies that you can use to keep your business one step ahead of the competition.

Know your competitors

Entrepreneurs can enjoy great benefits by keeping track of their competitors. While we urge you to spy on your competitors, we discourage you from duplicating their ideas. Your goal is to see what they are offering and what their unique selling point is. Figure out a way to make it work for your business and use this knowledge to your advantage. If you want to stay ahead of the competition, you need to do it better than they did.

Build a relationship with your customers

You and your competitors will be competing for the same customers. Whoever wins will receive a bigger segment of the market.

It is easier to keep a customer than it is to acquire a new one. All it takes is a better offer from a competitor or a single negative experience. Show your customers how much you value them by interacting with them through social media and improving customer service.

Never stop innovating

In order to succeed in today’s quickly developing world, you need to change more often and sooner than you think. What might be working for you today might not be effective in the future.

Innovation is the key to sustaining your company. If you want to satisfy your target audience then you need to give them what they want. But most of the time, their wants and needs change. You need to be able to keep up with the demands of the people. Follow consumer trends and try to keep up with the developments in your sector.

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How to Motivate Customers to Buy Your Product

BIMS_8.4.15If you have social media buttons on your product page, we’re guessing that you added them because you wanted people to share your products through different social channels. After all, more shares mean more publicity, and more publicity can lead to more sales. But you also have to understand that people don’t just buy things they see online. They need a reason to visit your store or website and buy your products.

Here are 3 simple ways to motivate customers to want to purchase from you rather than your competitor.

Understand your customers

To increase sales, you have to understand the psychology behind how people make their buying decision. It would be extremely difficult for you to motivate them to buy if you don’t know their wants and needs.

Identify your target market and conduct a survey to help you find out the types of products they’re interested in or if your current products meet their expectations and some products suggestions that they would like to see in you sell in the future.

Feel good products

During the times of economic stress, the sales of non-essential items decrease significantly except for one: lipstick.

While people are looking for ways to put food on the table, lipstick sales were still skyrocketing. Why? For women, these tubes of colored wax are more than just cosmetics. When they’re feeling blue, lipstick provides confidence and represents happiness, hope and opportunity. If you think of it that way, then $8 is just a small price to pay as compared to the benefits they can get out of it.

Sell the benefits

You have probably heard of this a dozen of times before. When creating a product, be sure that it solves a problem. Most customers buy a product to solve a specific problem.

After a long day at work, this man found out that his dog chewed off his favorite pair of shoes. Now, he’s looking to buy a new pair of shoes. Now that you have a potential customer, the best thing you can do is to promote the benefits of your product. Don’t just stop at describing the product; provide them with additional information such as the price, features, awards etc.

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How to Market Your Business on a Shoestring Budget

BIMS_7.28Most business owners are too busy running their business that they don’t have time to overlook the marketing side of the business. Because of this, they choose to hire a professional to take care of the job.

If you are running a business and you have enough budget set aside for marketing, then good for you. However, not everyone have the money to hire professionals. The good news is you don’t need to spend a fortune to promote your business, and small steps can bring big rewards.

Here are a few recommendations that can help you market your business on a shoestring budget.

Email marketing

If you are starting a business, begin by sending an email to your family, friends, colleagues and anyone who might be interested in what you offer. Be sure to ask permission before adding their names on your email list.

Build your brand on social media

If you want to build a fan base, then engagement should be on top of your priority list. That said, you need to build your brand on social media.

Social media offers a tremendous opportunity to engage with your target audience. Identify your target audience and find a way to pull them in. If you’re pushing salesy content in the hopes of attracting potential customers, then you’re doing it wrong. Post quality contents that they’ll find valuable and interesting. You can also offer some advice, ask questions or solicit opinions.

Build relationships

It can be a lot more challenging to keep a customer than it is to attract new ones. Because of that, it is important to build a relationship with your existing customers. Keep your lines of communications open. Send newsletters or promotional offers to keep them updated about the events you’re hosting, new products you’re launching and current promotions.

Online contest

Online contests can help create buzz. Yes, you need to prepare some good prizes to get participants, but the number of participants and potential leads will be worth the price.

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5 Ways to Promote Your Blog on Social Media

bims_7.21So you have a great blog. You regularly post relevant and informative content, and that’s great. However, it will do you no good if you don’t have traffic coming your blog’s way. Without readers, your content will never maximize its reach.

For many bloggers, getting the word out about their newest venture can seem like a big challenge. But by promoting your blog on social media, you’re potentially exposing yourself or your business to millions of people from all over the world.

This week, we’re going to shed some light on how to promote your blog on social media. Keep reading for tips on how to drive traffic to your blog.

Add photos

Studies suggest that social media posts that include images get 12% more engagement as compared to those with no photos. So be sure to use full-sized images to get more likes, shares, comments and generate more traffic to your blog.

Share your blog posts on social media

If readers are not coming to your site, go to them instead. Give your fans and followers a taste of your blog by sharing your blog posts on social media.

Include the link to your status post, but be sure to delete it in your text before posting it. Your update will have a clickable image, which will direct users to your blog.

Use the right social channels

Considering that you know your target audience, we’re assuming that you know where they hang out. Concentrate your efforts where you audience spend their time on. If your target audience is foodies, you might want to spend more time on Pinterest. If your audience is the C-suite executives, LinkedIn might be their preferred social platform. Don’t waste your time on social channels that do not appeal to your audience.

Keep it short

Keep your posts short, clear and intriguing. People’s attention spans are short and they won’t be interested to slog through tons of information. Limit your posts to one sentence. If possible, keep it under 140 characters. Remember, short and witty updates generate the most engagement and click throughs.

Use conversation starters

Ask intriguing questions to the readers and direct them to your blog for answers. In order for them to get the answer to this specific question, they’ll need to click the link and read through your blog post. Now that you have captured their attention, write more interesting and informative blog posts to keep them coming back for more.

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Tips for Connecting with Industry Influencers on Social Media

BimsBlog 2.3.15Whether you’re running a small business or a big brand, you can reap great benefits when a highly influential person talks about your business. It can help you drive traffic to your site, increase your SEO and build your online social standing.

You need to be efficient with your time and even more effective with whom you choose to connect with. You want to be able to connect with industry influencers – people who have a success story, speak at conventions, widely published and well respected.

Here are a few tips for connecting with industry influencers on social media. Read on for a simple system you can immediately deploy.

Find your influencers

The first thing you need to do is to find your influencers. Industry influencers are industry experts and thought leaders that have a following that is similar to what you want to achieve. When looking at an influencer, take into account their search engine ranking, Klout score and number of followers.

Interact with them actively

Keep an eye out for influencers for chances to reach out. Interact with them through contents they are sharing. Feel free to ask a question if you think a particular point they’re making requires further explanation, show your appreciation for an article they have written or share their work through social media. Whatever you do, be genuine.

Nurture the relationship

Once you’ve engaged with an influencer, be sure to keep the lines of communication open and reach out to them once in a while. Take the initiative to strike up a conversation. Send them an email to let them know about a campaign you’re running or invite them to events you’re hosting. If you see you can provide assistance, do it. This can help grow your relationship and build trust with the influencer.

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