Marketing executives at mid-sized companies have a difficult problem attracting new business because large enterprises can outspend them on lead generation. Having effective online marketing strategies to generate inbound leads becomes the best way to attract new business and avoid losing potential leads to competitors.
According to research published by HubSpot, companies with 30 or more landing pages generate 7 times more leads than companies with fewer than 10 landing pages, and those with more than 40 landing pages received 12 times as many leads.
Despite their limited resources, mid-sized companies must have comprehensive strategies in place to produce enough landing pages filled with fresh content and enticing calls-to-action to yield the leads they need.
1) Use a different landing page for each campaign or offer
One of the key factors that make online marketing successful is targeting a specific audience with content and an offer that they find appealing.
The first step is to identify your target market, making sure you have as much demographic detail as possible about potential customers. When you generate emails or offers, segment your list and make the offer uniquely appealing for each group.
Ensure you have a unique landing page for the offer that appeals to the target segment. While it’s true that more landing pages generate more leads, it is more probable that the additional leads result from targeting specific audiences with each page than from the sheer number of pages.
2) White papers make enticing offers
Whether your target is a consumer or another business, the individual needs to solve a problem and he/she comes to you for a resolution.
They may seek information about new industry regulations, business processes or new products related to a hobby. Whatever the topic of the white paper, if it provides some insight or an attractive offer to the individual, it will be effective.
In addition, you can often repurpose white papers into content for emails, landing pages and blog posts, saving you time and resources.
3) Webinars don’t attract as many leads as e-books
Consumers and business people seem to be over the fascination with webinars, because calls-to-action promoting e-books receive nearly twice the click through rate as webinar invitations do, according to HubSpot.
Save yourself the production hassles of webinars and put more emphasis on e-books or brief on-demand videos.
4) Blog frequently for best results
Most people who read blogs read between 5 and 10 blogs per day, and 46 percent of people online read them more than once per day, according to HubSpot research report The Science of Blogging. In addition, the average company dedicates just 9 percent of their full-time staff and 7 percent of the budget to blogging, and ten percent of companies have at least one person dedicated to content creation full-time.
According to HubSpot’s 2013 State of Inbound Marketing research report, 82 percent of companies say their blog generates a positive ROI so it’s worthwhile to blog frequently.
While you may be able to create the content you need in your spare time, you will quickly fall behind your competitors if you don’t blog at least several times each month.
5) Respond quickly
Most marketers intuitively know that the first company in the door has the best shot at the deal, but did you know that fully 30 to 50 percent of sales go to the first company to respond?
Make sure that your lead management process flows smoothly and that your reps respond quickly, or else almost half your inbound leads might never have a chance to convert to sales.
Mid-sized companies must execute their online marketing efforts near flawlessly to outperform their larger competitors. Perfect execution includes:
- Precise targeting and segmentation
- Offers and landing pages designed for each segment
- Multiple calls-to-action
- Fresh and valuable content
- Rapid response to leads
To improve your marketing effectiveness, make these five tactics the core of your online marketing strategy.
What other strategies have you used for successful online marketing?