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Digital transformation is NOT going away.
Over the past year, we have relied on technology more than ever; without it, lots of us would have fallen into a ‘clientless abyss‘.
There is no doubt, 2020 has accelerated our transition to shiny new tech, and many businesses are beginning to observe increased client acquisition and retention as a result.
Throughout this blog, I highlight key tools, techniques and strategies that you can implement in your business to unleash your sales and marketing superpower.
Let this be the start of your technological transformation.
Build Digital Awareness and Presence...
While there is no silver bullet for building a formidable online presence, there are some steps you can take to get your brand under the spotlight.
Before reading on, ask yourself these questions:
- Who is our ideal client?
- Where do those clients spend most of their time in the digital space?
- What do you want them to be thinking and feeling as they come across your brand?
- What value can WE provide that THEY need?
Now you have begun to think about the ‘who’, ‘where’ and ‘what’ we can explore the main subject of this blog… the ‘how’.
Building an online presence requires a delicate balance between authentic value-focused and sales-focused content.
A typical B2B approach across Linked would adopt the 80/20 rule. Eighty-percent of content delivers industry-specific value, with the remaining twenty promoting products or services.
Having a thought leader or industry expert associated with your brand is a prominent example of powerful value-driven marketing. Better yet, empowering every employee to establish a personal brand can generate a significantly larger, and more diverse audience.
Superpower #1: Empower your team to build personal brands.
Three quick tips to generate greater awareness
- Utilise personal brands as well as business pages
- Consistency > Intensity
- Use a variety of content mediums including video
Generating more leads...
Firstly, let’s define a lead. According to Hubspot, “A lead is any person who indicates interest in a company’s product or service in some way, shape, or form.”
If you find yourself reliant on networking events, purchased data, business expos or even newspaper ads to generate new leads as we move into 2021 – you need to act now!
After building a digital presence, we can start exchanging ‘gated’ value for lead data; whether it’s an e-book or webinar, a trusting audience will trade their name and email address for your words of wisdom.
The abundance of tools that claim to do this job perfectly has become overwhelming. We suggest starting simple and building your gated e-books, checklists and diagnostics with tools such as Typeform or Survey Monkey.
These lead magnets can be distributed across your existing digital platforms, ready for your audience to submit their information.
Superpower #2: Become known for high-value content, and exchange it for personal information.
Check out how we use Typeform to build gated content below!
Three quick tips to generate more leads
- Keep track and act upon Click-through rate (CTR) and conversion rate at an absolute minimum
- Use bold, yet appropriate images, videos and copywriting to attract your desired audience
- The content your audience engage with is key to understanding their wants and needs.
Nurture... Nurture... Nurture
“The battle for most clients is won through relationships, and lead nurturing is the sword”.
The combination of automated and personal lead nurturing is responsible for many successful business relationships, that often convert into paying clients.
So, what’s the difference?
Automated Lead Nurturing = Communicating with leads at scale during various points of the customer journey, including after exhibiting specific behaviours, such as abandoning a cart on a website, or downloading an e-book.
Example: A lead downloads an e-book on the subject of CRMs. Based on this action, they enter an automated email campaign helping them decide on what CRM is right for them!
Personalised Lead Nurturing = Highly personalised and authentic content delivered on an individual basis, based on your current knowledge of a lead.
Example: A LinkedIn connection asks a question in the comments of your recent LinkedIn post. You create a short personalised video addressing their comment and send it to them directly via LinkedIn messenger.
Digital technologies have transformed how we communicate with leads and prospects. The use of video is a perfect example.
Whether it’s nurturing at scale with informative YouTube videos or personal outreach videos sent directly to your LinkedIn connections, consistent communication through your leads preferred channels is essential when a sales conversation appears.
Vidyard is an essential DIY tool for businesses looking to build better relationships online.
Many digital tools allow for advanced tracking, and Vidyard is no exception. After sending a video, it’s easy to learn more about your lead through reviewing analytics such as view length and position in the funnel.
Superpower #3: Demonstrate a balance between automated and personalised nurturing, using tools such as AutopilotHQ, Vidyard and LinkedIn.
Three quick tips for better nurturing:
- “Stop proposing before buying them a drink”.
- We can learn a lot about the wants and needs of our prospects through their engagement with our content.
- Use tech to nurture at scale and on a personalised basis
Converting with Confidence...
All of this effort in building an audience, capturing data and establishing quality relationships means very little if not proceeded by a sale.
Companies looking to technologically transform can continue to do so right until the close (and beyond!).
Typically, delivering a proposal is a rather anti-climactic event. The experience of scrolling through a bland PDF no longer installs the recipient with confidence.
And.
If there is one thing we want a buyer to feel while looking at our proposal, it is confident.
Once again, we can deploy our technological advantage. Better Proposals allows your brand to stand out through the delivery of beautiful and easily accessible digital proposals.
Check out this example below.
Superpower #4: Use perfectly designed digital proposals to ensure your prospects remain confident every step of the way.
Three quick tips for more conversions:
- Do what others aren’t doing.
- Beautiful proposals are not a substitute for a robust sales process.
- Align your digital proposal with your brand to create confidence.
Tracking, Analytics and Integration
Finally, we have tracking, analytics and integration; an important selection of factors directly impacting your ‘technological success‘.
Tracking allows you to see who does what and provide personalised value accordingly.
Analytics allow you to see and act on what is working (or not working) in your digital marketing and sales.
Integration ties each component of your strategy together, improving usability and saving time.
The alignment of these factors is important in building stable technological foundations in your business.
The specificity of these factors prevent me from making recommendations, however, I invite you to participate in our Growth Marketing Checklist, through which we will provide initial guidance regarding the digitalisation of your sales and marketing.
Superpower #5: Ensure that you track, analyse and integrate your digital sales and marketing efforts – We will get back to you with your personal superpower after you’ve taken our Growth Marketing Audit.
Brining it all together...
As a writer, I tend to waffle. Here are your no fluff sales and marketing superpowers achieved through digital transformation.
Superpower #1: Empower your team to build personal brands.
Superpower #2: Become known for high-value content, and exchange it for personal information.
Superpower #3: Demonstrate a balance between automated and personalised nurturing, using tools such as AutopilotHQ, Vidyard and LinkedIn.
Superpower #4: Use perfectly designed digital proposals to ensure your prospects remain confident every step of the way.
Superpower #5: Ensure that you track, analyse and integrate your digital sales and marketing efforts – We will get back to you with your personal superpower after you’ve taken our Growth Marketing Audit.
As mentioned at the start of this blog, digital transformation is NOT going away, so I offer you our support to ensure your business is not left behind.
