Twelve Legs Marketing would like to share a big update. Recently, at the American Advertising Federation Colorado Icon Awards honoring the best of the Colorado Springs advertising community, Twelve Legs Marketing was recognized for outstanding work in three significant areas.
Volen Kiskinov was nominated for Media Strategist of the Year.
Jason Carter was nominated AND WON Producer of the Year.
And the entire Twelve Legs team (two- and four-legged alike) was nominated for AND WON Full-Service Agency of the Year.
How did this happen? Dogged pursuit. Throughout our team, we chase what’s best for our clients and partners with all our heart. We love the chase. We can’t get enough of it. It’s why we do it all day long, every day.
Thank you so much for trusting us to be part of your pursuits, helping us to grow as a team, and striving along with us. And know that these awards won’t lessen our love for the chase. In fact, they serve to make our pursuit even more dogged.
How one succeeds as a business owner or brand owner isn’t just about putting products and services in front of people daily. There are key marketing concepts, which are greatly important and require both copywriting skills, supporting evidence of claims, and staying in front of anyone who might raise an objection. Knowing the right words to put down to 1) attract readers and 2) convince prospects to connect involves research, skill, experience, and, in our opinion, talent too.
The more persuasive your writing is the better your chance of business growth.
We know how overwhelming writing and creating content can be. You’ve searched online for tips to help you craft compelling, persuasive copy; you see different guidelines, rules, tips, and advice, but just trying to comprehend all the materials and put them into writing leaves you speechless about where to start and how to write in a convincing way.
We won’t pretend that creating any type of content that triggers actions is easy. At the same time, there are proven methods from our experience, we are willing to share with you, to make things a little bit easier!
Knowing the proper persuasive copywriting techniques, can make you a copywriting pro and help you close more business.
In the following sections, we will cover:
What is marketing copy?
What is the tone of voice and why is it important?
Persuasive writing examples and tips
How Twelve Legs Marketing can help you create marketing content in-house or as a support team
What Is Marketing Copy?
Marketing copy is a combination of words intended to connect with and engage your prospects via promotional and advertising channels.
It aims to capture the attention of, communicate with, and educate your prospects on the benefits of your products or services. Persuasive content comes in the form of a story told via video, email, articles, or audio recordings. It creates brand awareness and builds relationships with your prospects.
Too often we see content, which focuses overly on features. Covering features of a product or service certainly has a place and time, however, benefits are where your buyers stop and listen. If you are great at explaining the benefits of what you offer, you will without a doubt capture the reader’s attention, and even better, keep them engaged for longer.
Good marketing copy should focus on your customers’ wants, and challenges, and how you can solve those. Make them your priority.
Persuasive writing is a vital tool that every business should possess.
What is the tone of voice and why is it important to your brand?
Think about it. Everybody you meet has their own way of expressing themselves, as unique as their face or fingerprint.
The voices we hear range from nasally and shrill to deep and silky smooth.
Some tones are pleasant and polite. Others are pushy and in-your-face.
Some can say it all with just a few words, while others never seem to get to the point.
The way a business communicates—and the way their communication is perceived—is no different. And if they’re consistent about doing it the right way, the connection they establish with their customers can be a very powerful marketing tool.
Is There Really a Difference Between Voice and Tone?
Sure there is. Consider the way we talk. Our voice is always the same, but the tone in which we speak changes depending on who we’re speaking to, and in what context. Our tone will shift when we communicate with our spouse, our boss, our best friend, or our dog.
To put that in terms of your marketing communications, your brand voice is singular and should always remain consistent. Your tone, though, might shift depending on the medium. For example, a corporate letter from the CEO will have a different tone than an attention-grabbing Facebook ad.
Ultimately, your tone isn’t about what you say, but how you say it. It dictates how the personality and character of your brand are portrayed.
Why Your Brand Needs a Tone of Voice
Marketing writing (especially B2B) doesn’t always consider voice/tone. As a result, the writing becomes non-discernible with no clear identity. It’s often too serious, formal, heavy on features and jargon, and worst of all—an inconsistent jumble of styles.
Here’s why creating a tone of voice for your brand is critical:
It makes you human. Your customers are people—often warm, friendly, and down-to-earth. When you speak to your audience as peers and friends, you instantly become more relatable and authentic. Corporate buzzwords and jargon come across as insincere.
It makes you different. If you took your logo off your website or sent unbranded emails, would your tone be immediately recognizable, or would you sound just like your competitors? Your unique tone can create a memorable relationship with the reader they won’t find with other brands.
It can substitute in-person communication. With fewer opportunities to talk face-to-face, your written words become even more powerful. The tone of your website and marketing material can lay the foundation for a strong working relationship.
It builds authority. When you write with personality and style, it shows you have confidence in what you’re saying. This resonates with readers, making you trustworthy and valuable.
It gives you focus. As markets get more crowded and competitive, your brand identity is paramount. Creating and using a tone of voice will help you hone in on the true essence of your brand—and why your audience should care.
It helps drive action. At its core, all marketing copy should: establish an emotional connection (we know your pain), ignite desire (escape from pain is within reach), and provide the direct action to fulfill that desire (do this to find relief). This becomes easier with a clearly defined tone of voice.
There are many different types of tones, here are a few examples:
*Source: Chart from “Watch Your Tone! The Ultimate Guide to Developing Your Company’s Tone of Voice.”
Finding Your Tone of Voice
Different brands will have different value propositions that appeal to different audiences with different sensibilities. In other words, there is no “one-size-fits-all” tone of voice. It needs to be nuanced, and unique, and rely heavily on your specific brand values.
Anchor your tone of voice in your brand by making it an expression of your way of thinking.
Evaluate your current position and identify your brand values
Create 3-5 brand values that are specific and visceral, not generic and dry
Bring your brand values to life by describing what they mean to you and your audience
Build a bridge from values to tone by articulating how each translates to a writing style
Let’s take a look at an example. Here are brand values translated to the tone of voice for an organization that hosts large annual conferences and trade shows for the food & beverage industry. We’ll call them “F&B Worldwide.”
Brand Value 1: Welcoming Meaning: We want our readers to feel a special camaraderie. We may come from different places with unique talents and diverse skill sets, but we share a common bond: a deep passion for the F&B industry.
How to translate brand value “welcoming” to your tone of voice:
Do: Be warm and relatable. Establish an emotional connection with readers as friends and fellow foodies, not as customers.
Don’t: Get technical and formal, but at the same time avoid being too sappy and sentimental.
Brand Value 2: Vibrant Meaning: We are energetic and lively. Our community and our event are a place of inspiration and invigoration.
How to translate brand value “vibrant” to your tone of voice:
Do: Be vivid. Go beyond words that make readers think about the event and make them feel what it’s like to be a part of it.
Don’t: Try too hard by overwhelming them with long-winded descriptions and cringe-worthy adjectives.
Brand Value 3: Stylish Meaning: We want to demonstrate the inherent elegance and grandeur that defines our industry and the people within it.
How to translate brand value “stylish” to your tone of voice:
Do: Be bold. Sometimes being different is about being better—don’t be afraid to put a little swagger in the communication.
Don’t: Come across as arrogant. Confidence is one thing, but nobody likes a show-off.
Brand Value 4: Intelligent Meaning: We are a progressive organization that remains ahead of the trends that define our ever-evolving industry.
How to translate brand value “intelligent” to your tone of voice
Do: Be authoritative. Demonstrate thoughtful and practical ways we can enhance careers and enrich lives.
Don’t: Sound like a know-it-all with over-the-top hyperbolic jargon.
Now, here are those brand values brought to life with varying degrees of writing styles and tones.
Zzzz… Technical, verbose, inwardly focused. A lot of pomp, mimsy, and hollow jargon. For three decades, F&B Worldwide has provided premium professional development by leveraging resources, educational publications, and award-winning tradeshows for the food & beverage industry—from caterers to culinary professionals to business owners—helping them elevate their career trajectory and revolutionize their businesses.
Better, but still a tad meh.
Factual and to the point, but a little stiff and disconnected.
As the premier show for food & beverage professionals, F&B Worldwide unites a passionate community looking to perfect their art and enhance their services through four impactful days of learning, networking, and fun.
Now we’re talking!
Informal, welcoming, and relatable. You’ve piqued interest, now back it up.
As influential as it is mouthwatering, you won’t just attend F&B Worldwide—you’ll join thousands of friends bound to make your business simply irresistible and forever memorable.
Bonus: Checklist to Develop Your Own Tone of Voice Style Guide
Now that you have an idea of what it takes to create a tone of voice for your brand, here’s a quick checklist to assist in creating your own style guide. Official company-wide style guides are always a good idea to help ensure a consistent, united front with all of your marketing (written and visual).
Positioning Statement: How the guide will help people with their writing
Brand Values: Summary of the brand values you’ve identified
The tone of Voice: How your brand values translate to your writing style
Examples: Sample text of your tone of voice in action in different writing situations
Establishing your tone of voice and combining it with persuasive writing in marketing copy can propel your reader to take a specific action by triggering their emotions.
Additionally, as mentioned above, don’t forget to make content enjoyable for those who consume it. You know, human beings don’t get active in boring situations.
A Few Persuasive Writing Tips For Marketing Copy
Now let’s look at the few persuasive writing techniques you will need to include in your marketing copy that will compel your readers to take action.
1. Know Your Audience’s Challenges And Solve Them
Knowing as many details as possible about your market segment and its needs or challenges will position you to focus on the benefits of what you offer.
Identify how your product or service solves your audience’s problems. Marketing copy should be less about you and more about them.
Put yourself in their shoes. Why would you use your own products or services? Is it about safety, saving money, or maybe removing a problem? This is a great persuasive technique to incorporate when developing content.
Make use of the “so what?” mindset when pitching your product.
2. Know The Purpose Of Your Copy
You can’t be everything to everyone, nor can you cover all purposes of content in one piece. Start by highlighting the goal of your copy before you start writing.
For example, is your goal to drive more website traffic, educate your audience, or make them click on a particular link?
Are you going after top-funnel or bottom-funnel mindsets?
Have a specific purpose for your content—what do you want to pass on to the audience?
Within your audience, think through any specific segments that might be just enough unique to where they deserve a spin on your story.
If you define the purpose, and your readers, from the start you won’t confuse your audience or go off track. It will be easier for you to pick the correct words, and examples, and write faster.
how to write persuasively
3. Have Your Readers In Mind
Believe it or not, in many cases, your audience already knows what they want, thanks to the accessibility of content online. If you have a chance to have direct conversations with existing clients and pick their brains on why they chose you you might be surprised with some of the nuggets that you take for granted, because… well… you are “in it” every day.
Ask and don’t assume.
Put down your clients’ words in persuasive speech and see how simply communicating “in their language” will change the way your prospects interact with your business.
Another part of the puzzle to mention here is the very human nature to raise objections. Everyone weighs the pros and cons when making a decision.
Introduce an argumentative essay method to enable them to decide for themselves. In your favor.
Introduce social proof when you can. It is amazing how the opinions of strangers have become deciding factors in our purchasing journeys.
4. Write An Attention-grabbing Headline
Although there are no official figures, rumor has it that the average person is estimated to encounter between 6,000 to 10,000 ads every single day.
So how exactly do you stand out!?
This is where we believe that some talent can take you a long way, alongside the experience of having done it again and again.
A captivating headline can be the difference between someone scrolling past you or pausing with intrigue.
Write copy that whets curiosity and makes readers stick to the end.
In the body of your content, show social proof from your existing customers—testimonials. People develop an interest in what they see as much as what they hear.
To sway your readers to a particular point of view, use persuasive copywriting techniques that combine logical arguments with emotional appeal.
Use a conversational and friendly tone that resonates with your reader’s interest and mindset.
5. Avoid Using Redundant Words
Have you ever heard of KISS? Keep It Short and Simple! Making your copy too wordy is not a good approach in marketing communication unless your audience requires very in-depth information such as a persuasive essay (i.e. research paper, thesis statement, etc).
In most cases, focus on making your persuasive writing concise and exciting.
Remove any sentences and paragraphs that don’t help you achieve your content goal, be straightforward.
Include a matter of urgency like, “click the link to buy now,” “here is the last item in the store; get yours today,” etc.
Tips For Working With a Copywriter
Not all marketing teams have a designated writer. If you find yourself in a situation where you’re working with an outside copywriter (agency, freelancer, etc.), these best practices will make for a smooth and successful working relationship.
Have your talking points handy. Marketing writers aren’t fiction writers. The more messaging direction you give them, the better. They love details, facts, stats, keywords, and most importantly, specifics.
Tell them all about your audience. The more a writer can get inside the customer’s head, the more precise the writing will be. Access to any branding documentation and buyer persona research is always helpful.
Give them feedback. Most writers aren’t offended if you don’t like the first draft. They know that writing is rewriting, and see it as their job to make you happy.
Leave time for drafts. Leave some buffer room in your deadlines for feedback, edits, additional drafts, and perhaps most important of all, proofreading.
Collaborate with them. The creative process is collaborative. If you need help with campaign ideas, say so. Allow writers access to data and analytics that provides messaging insight. While the actual writing process is solitary, creating a beautiful finished product is usually done with insight from others.
So It Goes.
The copywriting and content marketing team at Twelve Legs Marketing is here to help refine or develop your brand’s voice. From advanced content marketing strategies to email marketing to creative ad campaigns, we’ve got you covered.
The Write Stuff
Most writing style guides are crafted and/or heavily utilized by a brand’s copywriter. So before we wrap things up, here’s a quick PSA to inform your writing (and help you work with other writers).
First, what do copywriters/content writers do?
Write clear and engaging marketing campaign copy: headlines, emails, print collateral, webpages, ads, and all sorts of other advertising messaging
Create optimized long-form content (articles, ebooks, research reports, etc.)
Refine your message so it sounds polished and professional
Relate to your audience in a voice they understand with a message that’s concise, informative, and persuasive
Proofread your copy to remove any spelling, grammatical, or structural errors
If you can’t have a copywriter on your team, don’t worry. Here are some best practices to help you craft better marketing copy.
Start with questions. Before you even begin writing, ask yourself what you want your audience to know. Who is this message for and what’s your value proposition? Dig deeper. Go beyond the basics and ask yourself: How do I want to make my audience feel? What is my goal? And lastly, why should my audience care about my product? Do your research. Stay away from generalities. Add in facts, figures, anecdotes, and any details you think may convince your audience to buy or learn more.
Make it all about them. Use “you” and “your” instead of “we” and “our” and speak to their emotions—imagine you’re writing to one person instead of an entire audience. Have someone check your work. Have others read over your work to catch any grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, awkward wording, and general clarity of the message.
Just write, baby. There’s this idea that there are a bunch of secrets to good writing. There are principles, sure, but memorizing them won’t get you any closer to becoming a writer. The only way is to just write.
Why Should You Hire Twelve Legs To Write For You?
Hiring the best copywriters from Twelve Legs Marketing to create persuasive copy for you will take away your burden:
Crafting the best words: Our job is to use the right words to create compelling copy for you, so why do you have to go through that stress when we are here to make it easier for you?
Not having enough time: Hiring Twelve Legs Marketing gives you enough time to focus on your business and other work activities.
Making you top the persuasive game: It is evident that you know more about your business than we do, but we can use our persuasion skills to help you close more business.
Our highly experienced copywriters know their way around marketing copy, and our goal is to achieve your business goal.
Developing a memorable and consistent brand is difficult, especially if your company offers multiple products or services. No branding effort is complete unless you find a way to stay top of mind with your customers.
Giving your brand a distinct voice ensures that people remember it as something they can trust and relate to, regardless of the product or service they encounter from you. As a result, giving your brand its own voice will have a significant impact on how well it performs in the future.
However, in order to do so effectively, you must first understand the significance of a brand voice and how it can assist you in achieving that goal.
Let’s look at what a “brand voice” is, why it’s important for businesses, and how you can create one for your company.
What Is a Brand Voice?
A brand voice is the tone of language used to represent your brand messaging. In other words, it is how your company communicates with customers about its products or services.
Your brand voice works to lay the groundwork for all of your marketing efforts. It is how you choose to communicate about your company, including the tone, language, and manner in which you address your audience.
Developing and maintaining a strong brand voice will allow you to connect with your customers on a more personal level, increasing sales and customer loyalty.
Why Does Brand Voice Matter?
The voice of a brand is one of the most important aspects of developing a strong brand personality.
As a marketer, you understand the importance of brand personality. It’s what makes your customers recognize your company and want to keep returning.
As a result, developing a brand identity based on your brand voice will enable you to differentiate yourself from the competition and connect with customers more personally. This link will help your customers understand your brand and what you have to offer, increasing sales and keeping customers returning.
A unique brand voice will also allow you to create a consistent brand experience for your customers. This is significant because customers want to know that the company from which they are purchasing is trustworthy and reliable.
A distinct brand voice also enables you to develop your content’s language and tone of voice (TOV). A TOV is how you tell a story using your brand voice. It is how you use language to personally connect with your audience and entice them to continue reading or engaging with your social media posts and online content.
Tips on Developing a Successful Brand Voice
Developing a consistent and unique brand voice for your company can be difficult. This is because brands often get stuck in a rut of using tired cliches or over-analyzing every word they produce.
Here are five pointers to help you create a consistent and compelling brand voice for your business.
1. Decide On The Key Message You Want To Communicate
When developing your own brand voice, the first thing to consider is what your key message will be.
This is the key message you want your audience to take away from your marketing and/or branding.
To better understand the main message you want to send with your brand voice, consider your mission statement, brand values, and the benefits of using your product or service.
2. Choose the Words and Tone You Want To Use
Once you’ve decided on the key message you want to convey through your brand’s voice, the next step is to select the brand tone and words.
While your key message can help you narrow down your options, it is not a comprehensive list. You should select words that are likely to resonate with your target audience.
Consider the following factors to narrow down your options:
Who is your primary target audience?
What different social media platforms do they use?
What are their interests?
Following consideration of these factors, you will want to categorize your audience. You can then choose words and phrases that will resonate with each group and help them remember your brand.
3. Incorporate Emotions Into the Mix
Although your message may contain facts, figures, and product details, it will not be well received by customers without any emotional appeal.
Your brand voice is the perfect place to incorporate emotions that will help to create a personal connection between your brand and customers.
Before you decide on the emotions you want to use to create a distinctive brand voice, you will want to consider your brand’s personality.
A brand’s distinct personality is the combination of its visual and verbal characteristics. It’s what makes your brand stand out from the rest. You can use your brand’s personality traits to guide your decisions when selecting the emotions you want to incorporate into your brand voice.
4. Research Your Target Audience
Before deciding on the words to represent your brand, you should conduct research on your prospects. This will help you understand how your audience thinks, what they do, and what they care about.
You can also get ideas by studying other brand voice examples.
5. Select The Words That Define Your Brand’s Voice
Now that you’ve narrowed your options and have a better idea of what words to use, it’s time to choose the words that define the voice of your brand.
When developing a strong brand voice, choose words that your customers can relate to and trust.
Customers will be unlikely to engage with your brand if it sounds too sales-focused. Customers will forget about your brand as soon as they leave the store if it sounds too bland.
A Brand Is a Voice, and a Product Is a Souvenir
When creating and maintaining a successful brand, it is critical to have a consistent and memorable brand voice. People will remember your brand if it has a distinct identity, regardless of what your company sells or does.
Twelve Legs Marketing can assist you in developing a strong brand voice that is consistent with your company’s core values and goals.
Our process was developed over the years while supporting many companies (big and small) to find and establish their voice. Your brand voice matters. Being a unique and very important, part of your positioning, our team will guide you through the questions you and your team need to answer before we audit existing content and work on your verbal and visual presentation.
We will determine the right voice for you and evolve a compelling storytelling framework which you and your teams can use and successfully implement.
Enable your prospects and customers to relate better to your company, and drive better business outcomes for the long-term.
Contact us to learn more about us and the marketing solutions we can offer you.
When creating a website, your first priority should be to make it look good. WRONG. When developing a website, most business owners overlook how many people will be able to see it and how they can attract more visitors.
The issue is that most people who create websites are not professional web designers; rather, they are business owners with limited knowledge of HTML and other related coding languages.
This is not to say that you should not create a website if you are unfamiliar with coding or whether your web pages should be blue or orange!
On the contrary, a few simple tricks can assist you in developing an SEO-friendly website for high search engine rankings, increasing its visibility to search engines such as Google, Bing, and Yahoo so that more people can find your site when they search for something relevant to your business.
What Is SEO?
Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of practices that help websites appear in search engine results pages. It involves changes to the website and its content to help search engines understand its relevance to specific search queries.
SEO helps users find your website by making it more visible to search engines. Effective SEO and web design are essential for any business looking to thrive online. You can’t expect visitors to find your new website, let alone return again and again, unless you implement the best SEO web design practices from the get-go.
Here are some reasons why you might want to include an SEO strategy in your web design process if you plan to launch a new website or change the way your current site works:
Better Visibility and Brand Awareness
SEO increases your visibility in online search results, which leads to increased website traffic. The more people who visit your website, the more likely they are to make a purchase or subscribe to your service.
Many factors can influence visibility, including the quality of your site’s content, the linking structure of your site, the social presence of your brand, and the use of relevant keywords.
SEO, like increasing website visibility, can help raise brand awareness and make your brand more recognizable. A strong brand is essential for any business because it can help you stand out from the crowd.
SEO Drives Search Engine Traffic
SEO can assist you in driving relevant traffic to your website, which can lead to increased conversions.
Traffic and conversion rates are important factors that influence the success of a website and, more broadly, a business. If the majority of visitors to your website do not make a purchase, you are passing up enormous profit opportunities.
SEO Helps Build a Company’s Reputation
SEO, like brand awareness, can aid in the development of a company’s reputation. One of the most important aspects of any business is its reputation, which can make or break customer transactions. SEO can help a company’s reputation by increasing the number of positive reviews on its website.
SEO Can Help Build a Foundation for PPC
Paid search marketing (PPC) is a type of advertising that charges for ads on search engine result pages using an auction model. So, if you have an e-commerce site or a business that assists people in finding work, you can use PPC to increase traffic and leads.
How to Implement SEO in Your Web Design
The importance of SEO in website development cannot be overstated. After all, your website will not receive visitors unless people are aware of its existence.
Here are a few SEO website development practices you can use to create a search engine-friendly website.
Build a Responsive Website
Nowadays, many people use their smartphones to access the internet. The last thing you want is for your users to visit your website only to discover that it is incompatible with their device.
As a result, the first thing you should do is create a responsive website. In other words, ensure that your website is compatible with all types of computers, laptops, tablets, and phones.
This ensures that your website is compatible with all devices and accessible to all users, regardless of platform.
Improve Site Load Speed
Websites that load quickly and easily are rewarded by search engines. Slow loading times are becoming a major concern as more people use the internet for information and shopping.
If your website takes longer than 5 seconds to load, you risk losing a lot of traffic and potential sales. Choose a hosting company with a fast server and add caching plugins to your website to make it load faster.
Develop Content That is Unique and Valuable
Creating unique and valuable content is another essential SEO practice in website development.
You can accomplish this by conducting extensive research to gain a clear understanding of your target audience and their needs. Create content that addresses their concerns once you have this information.
Optimize Your Website For User Experience
Optimizing your website for user experience is another important SEO practice in website development. Simply put, you should ensure that your website is user-friendly and free of bugs and broken links.
When dealing with a brand-new website, you don’t have to start from scratch. You can always have your website redesigned to meet these requirements.
Keyword Research and Content Development
Many people believe that using a lot of keywords will help them rank higher in search engines. However, this is not the case. In fact, you should use keywords sparingly. You don’t want to stuff keywords into your content just to boost your rankings. This will make your content appear spammy.
For better results, include title tags and a meta descriptions.
Conclusion
When it comes to digital marketing strategies, the possibilities seem limitless. You must be creative and think outside the box to stand out from the crowd and reach your target audience.
Over the years, Twelve Legs Marketing has been honored to be recognized by several organizations for their work. These organizations include the National Association of Television Arts and Sciences, The Radio Television Digital News Association, and the American Advertising Association. Now Twelve Legs Marketing is proud to add the Telly Awards to that list.
Founded in 1979, the Telly Awards recognize the best work created for TV or video across all screens, with winners from elite advertising agencies, production companies, publishers, and television stations in the industry.
As Telly Award winners, we are thrilled to be honored among industry powerhouses like Netflix, HBO Latin America, Microsoft, Adobe, and Nickelodeon. Our three Silver Telly Awards were awarded in the following categories: Non-Broadcast: Not-for-profit, Non-Broadcast: Low Budget (link), and Branded Content: Not-for-profit.
Headlined by “Elevated By Art,” our collaboration with the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region, we can’t say thank you enough to all of our partners who trust us with their reputations every single day.
Jason Carter, CEO and Videography Lead of Twelve Legs Marketing
Building a Strategy
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, everything stopped. That includes the creation and enjoyment of art. As the leader for arts in Central Colorado, we presented this campaign to the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region to help bring a light to the darkness surrounding their industry. Teaming up with the Bee Vradenburg Foundation, Elevated By Art was born.
We realized in a time of isolation and separation, community stories would be the perfect tool to grab an audience’s attention and form a connection. So, we decided to base the campaign around local businesses and organizations that were using different art forms like dance, drawing, or cooking to help better the lives of people who have suffered from trauma in their lives.
Forging Valuable Emotional Connections
Coupled with ElevatedByArt.com, a brand-new hashtag #ElevatedByArt, and a thoroughly planned digital marketing strategy, we were able to strike a chord with the audience by highlighting the collective experience of the pandemic through individual stories.
Each video carried a different story but shared the same message “Art can help in a time of crisis.” With the planning help of the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region and our extensive experience producing award-winning stories we featured organizations and individuals who utilized cooking, dancing, acting, drawing, social activism, and recycling to help those in need.
Visibility and Impact
The result of the campaign for the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region was a collection of meaningful videos that could continually reach audiences and direct them toward the organization’s website, expanding their reach and impact.
The two Silver Telly Awards we received for the project in the Non-Broadcast: Not-for-profit and Non-Broadcast: Low Budget categories further speak to the strength of the campaign. This campaign was also recognized with a MOSAIC Addy Award by the American Advertising Federation.
We were so pleased with the results we produced for the Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Region and the accolades we received for our work. It highlights the importance of making an emotional, personal connection with your audience and how important videos are to achieving that goal.
Adaptability – A Critical Skill
The other project honored with a Silver Telly Award was titled “November Noel 2020 Virtual Event” and was in the Branded Content: Not-for-profit category. This project was for another one of our clients, Newborn Hope, an organization that offers resources to Colorado families impacted by premature birth.
We have worked with Newborn Hope for years but in 2020, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, they were forced to turn their annual fundraising event into a virtual event. Their goal was to create a virtual version of the event that would still generate interest, feel like it met the same professional standards attendees were used to, and bring in donations.
Creating a Strong Virtual Event
Our strategy to make the virtual event for Newborn Hope as successful as possible was to produce high-quality clips, shot in three different locations, and bring them together into one impactful video to share at the event.
We incorporated recognizable elements such as shooting at the Broadmoor Hotel where the event typically takes place in person. This way, the attendees still have a way to connect the virtual event to the live event they are used to and they don’t feel like they’re completely missing out.
A Memorable Outcome
With our support, the final event was still up to the same professional level that attendees are accustomed to and successful in terms of getting a significant amount of donations.
The team at Newborn Hope was pleased with the results we produced for their event, saying,
The amount of time that they put into it, the care… They captured what we wanted. Twelve Legs Marketing was fantastic.
Viewers also raved about the production:
I am watching the virtual November Noel event, and I have to tell you, this is the best virtual fundraising event I have seen all year. Just really, really well done. I was so moved by the stories you shared.
The Silver Telly Awards we won for our work on the event was just icing on the cake. We learned some of the key components of a successful virtual event- a commitment to high-quality videos, eliminating potential technical problems- and delivered for the client.
The Google Gods can be quite fickle. Always changing their algorithms, making it essential (and often challenging) for companies to stay on top of all the latest SEO trends.
Some businesses are well aware of the ever-evolving SEO landscape. Most, though, have a hard time keeping up.
This is the story of a B2B organization that could not catch traction for new terms – either didn’t have very good rankings for or none at all.
Thanks to a solid partnership, focused efforts and committed work, here we are only a few months later, and the website is now in the game!
Increase in organic visibility on Google
Website Evolution Needs To Meet Business Development
In late 2018, the company launched a new, revamped website. Thousands of pages were redesigned and rewritten, all coming together to provide a far superior UX to what they previously had in place. Through it all, they considered SEO, aiming to keep their already ranking critical terms and keywords.
But their key search terms and phrases they wanted to expand on, due to the evolution of the business. With the understanding that their new website could be even better optimized, they enlisted the services of Twelve Legs Marketing to grow traffic without scaling content.
The process began with step 1 of the Twelve Legs’ SEO strategy: conduct an audit to develop a benchmark, based on current performance, and define opportunities to grow success, without adding stress on the internal teams.
The SEO Audit Findings
Our SEO audit takes three key areas in account:
Technical SEO
On-Page SEO
Backlinks
Similar to acquiring a home, fully updated on the outside, but in need of love and attention inside, the website had a beautiful front, improved user experience, and was ready for our team to upgrade the interior workings.
As suspected, there were several areas that needed immediate attention, including URL structures, duplicated content, incorrect redirects, broken links, etc.
The audit also concluded that there were many focus keywords and phrases that the company’s target audience was searching for on a regular basis—and their site wasn’t showing up on subsequent SERPs (search engine results pages).
The keyphrases identified as having the most potential to increase the company’s search visibility had to do with the change of terminology audiences use. The research around the evolution of trends and behaviors over time is key to a successful SEO strategy.
So we rolled up our sleeves and got to work.
The SEO Recommendations
The audit report showed the website ranked on average #26 on Google for one of its main terms “service desk training,” and worse still, when a prospective customer searched for “help desk training,” the site was nowhere to be found.
After getting a handle of the sheer size of the website, it was time to make a few basic changes.
Identify low-quality content, which hinders rankings
Clean up the low-quality content
Organize all technical and content issues including incorrect redirects, broken links and missing titles
Clean up as many technical and content issues, as quickly as possible
Identify the pages on the site with highest potential for ranking growth
After identifying the focus website pages that best lended themselves to optimization for key terms, we dove into the on-page cleanup:
Key Terms, Key Page: Use high-potential pages to rank for keywords/keyphrases, working both into the updated content.
Page Content: Significantly update the key pages’ meta titles and content to include keyphrases and related search terms throughout specific areas of the page.
Images: Often forgotten, but certainly important, we worked with the creative team to develop a more visually appealing presentation of the key pages.
Converting Sales Page: It’s one thing to optimize for search, but will the page generate interest in buying? We developed content to allow pages to follow a natural conversation style and encouraging users to engage with strong call-to-actions.
Internal Page Links: Apart from identifying the key pages to utilize as pillars for SEO success, we also built a map with other internal pages throughout the website where a link back to the newly-optimized page would be a natural fit.
Backlinks: If Google likes what we’ve done that’s great, but we also know that Google will look for external factors to determine if our pages are worth showing at the top of search results. The cherries on top of our sparkling key pages, were finding opportunities to boost authority with backlinks (a link from other websites to our pages).
Search Engine Optimization Begins
With the recommendations approved by the client, we used the detailed reports and SEO plan produced during the audit to guide the optimization.
The content overhaul was significant.
The pages were updated to strategically take in account the company’s goals and the competitive field they operate in. at the same time, we ensured the site still delivered on everything the user was looking for when they entered keywords into their search query.
Careful not to oversaturate the pages with keywords, we used related search terms throughout the content to complement the focus keyphrases. As Google algorithms have evolved, there’s actually less importance on keyword density and more on searcher intent. No one wants to read something that sounds forced and inhuman.
If it doesn’t address the readers’ pain points or answer their questions, search engines will know…and you’ll pay for it.
The Result Prove It Was All Worth It
The initial phase of optimization took approximately 3 months. At the starting point, if you recall, the numbers left much to be desired…
Service Desk Training
Before: #26 on Google
Now: #3 on Google
Help Desk Training
Before: No ranking
Now: Google’s page 1 results (#7)
In just 4 short months, post completion of phase one, the most recent report told a different story…
“Service desk training” skyrocketed to #3 on Google, and “help desk training” went from no visibility at all to gracing Google’s page 1 results (#7)!
Now in the game with a total uptick in search visibility of +8% on Google, the overall search presence for these keyphrases is currently twice as good as the company’s next competitor. And it’s an ongoing process as we continue to defend and improve their ranking in this space.
The green line is our client’s organic visibility, compared to orange, red and blue – competitor websites
An 8% lift in Google visibility equals thousands new qualified website visitors each month!
A Robust and Informed SEO Strategy Can Make A Big Difference
A solid SEO strategy can make all the difference. Tech support professionals looking for help desk training and service desk training options are now finding our client as a top choice for their career development.
A few months ago, that wasn’t the case, and the conclusion is simple: SEO can have a bottom line impact on your business. In this specific case, so far an 8% lift in organic rankings equals 30% lift in organic traffic to the website!
In a separate article, we shared insights on lead nurturing specifically through email marketing. Here, we’ll take a closer look at the foundational building blocks that must be in place before you can launch a successful B2B lead generation strategy.
So let’s jump right into the key elements you’ll need to consider before launching your B2B lead generation campaign:
Target audience
Lead magnets
Lead capture
Conversion landing pages
Lead scoring
More on all those a little later.
First, the process of planning a lead generation strategy starts with a question…
Who Are You Trying to Reach?
We begin with the basics. A strong lead-generation strategy begins by developing target personas—what professionals are you hoping to attract and compel to action (the small business owner, the marketing manager, the marketing director, the sales director, etc.). When developing your target personas, always be sure to consider:
What are their main challenges and pain points?
What are their business objectives and sales goals?
What value can your product or service deliver to each persona?
What kind of content are they consuming?
Where are they consuming their content?
What motivates their purchases?
In addition to determining target personas and ideal prospects, understanding what motivates current customers to buy your products and invest in your services will provide valuable insights to create your marketing and sales funnels. This can be done by sending a brief survey asking trusted partners (both long-term and newer) to answer a few strategically positioned questions, like:
What they find most valuable about your products/services
Why they chose you over the competition
What types of industry-specific content usually gets them to act
What topics are they most interested in learning more about
What insights help them do their jobs better
And so on…
What are you selling and what is the value you deliver?
Prior to developing any content or creative or messaging for your lead gen campaign, put yourself in the shoes of your ideal prospect and ask yourself: “Why should I buy from you instead of your competitors?”
The answer to this question is what differentiates you from your competition. The answer is what makes you better than the rest. The answer is your elevator pitch detailing what you offer. The answer is your value proposition.
But before you create a value prop specific to your lead gen campaign, go back to your target audience and the personas you established. Take each audience member you’re trying to attract and identify their key objectives. Now think about what motivates their purchases. Your campaign should be anchored in a message that addresses those factors: audience objectives and motivations.
Maybe you sell advertising media and sponsorships to your B2B audience. What differentiates your platform from your competition’s? Perhaps you offer inventory exclusivity for a niche audience. In that case, buying media directly through you is better than buying it through Google DSP.
Be it media, enterprise-wide technologies, or anything in between, your B2B lead generation strategy should engage and inform your audience on how your services are different, better, and fine-tuned to address their specific goals and needs.
When you’ve established and roadmapped your target buyers and have a clear idea of your value prop, it’s time to start developing value-based marketing efforts.
How are you feeding your funnel and nurturing prospects through it?
According to a recent Demand Gen report, 96% of B2B buyers want content with more input from industry thought leaders in order to make intelligent buying decisions. The buying process for any target audience is a journey with multiple steps.
The more detailed and robust your communication and promotion strategy, the easier it will be to successfully find and reach top of funnel leads and strategically nurture them with relevant content and messaging. Awareness…consideration…decision, hopefully ending the cycle with a closed sale.
Lead Capture (give before you ask):
As traffic is driven to the B2B sales pages on your site, consider how you’ll capture prospects information in order to further nurture them. Planning a succession of content to deliver will be crucial when warming up audiences. For example, if a prospect new to your company reaches a landing page, they should be presented with an asset of high value, but low commitment (research paper, case study, how to guide, etc.). If the content is based on research discussed above, it should hit main pain points and stress the value your products/services provide to overcome their challenges. Simply requesting their email address in exchange for the content is sufficient at this stage.
Lead Magnets:
There’s usually a bit of a gap between converting website visitors into leads. Sometimes those visitors leave and don’t return—often because they never hear from the organization again. You must continually attract and keep them coming back. That’s where lead magnets come into play. Having a variety of lead magnets, positioned and developed strategically will be important for filling your pipeline. Example lead magnets include: services promo videos, bonus tips, ebooks, etc. These can be distributed in multiple ways, including email opt-ins, subscriptions and social media follows or exclusive professional groups—all being signals of interest.
Landing Page Conversion Techniques:
These pages are designed to specifically capture prospects’ information and have one call-to-action. The narrow focus of these pages with a clear CTA will keep your audience focused and increase the odds of a conversion.
Lead Scoring:
This is an important element of lead generation campaigns, as it allows you to rank and prioritize prospects based on their engagement with your content. To achieve this, technical integration between your marketing tools (databases, CRMs, email platforms, etc.) will be required, as well as well-defined processes around how to handle, tag, score, and track all leads.
Observe, measure, learn, and optimize
A good lead generation program needs constant monitoring.
Which ads, headlines, emails, and CTAs, are performing well, and which are returning lackluster metrics (impressions, clicks, opens, conversions). Testing, adapting, and adjusting on the fly is essential to any lead generation campaign.
If you have the capacity, you can set up triggers for more nuanced follow-up emails, retargeting ads, and nurture paths depending on the actions each lead takes as a result of your communication.
An effective B2B lead generation strategy speaks to the needs and concerns of a prospective buyer while taking them on a journey. A journey that hopefully enlightens them with all the things that differentiate your product/strategy and ends with a closed sale, happy customer, and brand ambassador for years to come.
Excellent news! With 85% of internet users in the U.S. watching videos online, it’s probably time to boost your brand presence in this important medium, if you haven’t already.
First things first, though—we’ll need to decide on the best camera for your business video shoot.
While there may not be one perfect camera for all situations, understanding the goals and ideal end result for your video can help us determine the type of camera best suited to your needs. Is turnaround time of the essence for quick posting (or even live streaming) on social media?
We like to understand the venue where the production will take place too. Many surrounding elements can impact our recommendations for equipment.
For example, if you are shooting in weak light that may require more precise lens options.
Are there lines from actors that will need to be recorded? That will determine the size of the crew and audio equipment needed.
What’s your budget for video production?
These are all variables that will help inform our decision.
Remember, don’t get hung up on the most advanced (and expensive) technology. There are several options we can to capture quality video for your business. Let’s start by examining the two opposite ends of the spectrum.
Red Camera or Smartphone: Is Either Right For Your Corporate Video Production?
Red Cameras
At the apex of professional-grade cameras sits the Red Camera. It’s a staple in Hollywood (along with other high-end options from ARRI) meant for cinema-style shooting. It uses traditional film lenses and other film hardware including matte boxes and follow focus systems—yet it’s completely digital. Red Cameras come with serious gravitas. And not surprisingly, they also come with a huge price tag.
Sure, we can make your video look like The Joker…
But for most small business owners (and even large companies for that matter), using a five-figure video camera for a corporate video is not only incredibly impractical, but totally unnecessary. With recording formats that allow for a ton of work to be done in the editing room, it’s no surprise that big budget films lean heavily on Red Cameras. But, odds are the budget for your corporate video is slightly less than the $60 million it cost to make The Joker.
Don’t get us wrong, the jaw-dropping capabilities of these cameras are pretty awesome.
And as a top video production and marketing agency, we want every corporate video we produce to be the Citizen Kane of corporate videos—but using a video camera of this caliber for a 90-second clip that ends up on your Facebook page might be overkill.
Smartphone Cameras
Compact, always at the ready, and easy to use, the video quality on smartphone cameras has come a long way.
Smartphone cameras are lightweight, portable, can shoot landscape or vertical, and most offer some special effect options like time-lapse and slow motion. Smartphone cameras even shoot in HD (many also have 4K options!).
Just remember that not all 4K/1080 HD footage looks the same. The sensors on a smartphone are smaller than more advanced cameras, so even though the footage is HD and 4K in image size, the quality will be lesser when shot on a phone.
Storage space can also be a concern when shooting a lot of video on a phone. Here’s what you can expect, based on video settings…
Standard video recording:
720p HD at 30fps: 40MB per minute
1080p HD at 30fps (default resolution): 60MB per minute
1080p HD at 60fps (smoother video): 90MB per minute
4K at 24fps: 135MB per minute
4K at 30fps: 170MB per minute
4K at 60fps: 400MB per minute
Slo-mo video recording:
1080p HD at 120fps: 170MB per minute
1080p HD at 240fps (most frames, default): 480MB per minute
Bottom line: to get started on the production of your business videos, often the best thing to do is just that…get started. And the easiest, most cost-effective way to do it is with a smartphone.
Camera Options for your Business Video
Now, let’s take a quick look at all the options for making the perfect business video.
Smartphone cameras
As mentioned, convenience and ease-of-use outweighs quality, but as we’ve established, smartphone cameras can hold their own these days. A suitable option for efficient video capture.
Compact Cameras
Also known as point-and-shoot cameras, they’re a slight professional step up from a smartphone camera. Most compact cameras are easy to operate with focus-free lenses and auto settings for exposure and other key features.
Bridge Cameras
The intermediary between point-and-shoot and more high-end cameras, bridge cameras include one fixed but versatile lens with auto and manual options.
Mirrorless Cameras
Light, compact, fast, and great for video, but limitations include less than ideal in-camera audio options, fewer lenses and accessories than DSLR and professional cameras
DSLR Cameras
A Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR) camera is essentially a digital photo camera fitted with the ability to take high quality HD videos. These cameras come with extensive lens selection and optimal viewfinders.
Cinema-Style Cameras
High-end options from Red, ARRI, Sony and Canon dominate this market. They come with more bells, whistles, and far superior video and audio quality. They’re very expensive, best suited for professional videographers and those who need that “motion picture” look and feel to their videos.
Share Your Story Through Video
Always remember that the quality of your video will be rendered meaningless if no one sees it. So in many cases, businesses find their sweet spot in erring on the economical side with video production costs—thus ensuring there’s more than enough budget left to optimally market and distribute the video.
If you have questions or would like to see how Twelve Legs Marketing can help you produce videos for your business, contact our award-winning video production team any time for a free 30-minute consultation!
Sadly, we may never have a definitive answer to those age old questions. But what about the most profound dilemma of all…
Should you outsource your marketing or keep it in-house?
Whether you’re a 3-person startup, a blossoming business with dozens of employees, or a large and established organization, there are pros and cons to both options. Ultimately, it all comes down to your unique situation. Here, we’ll focus on some of the key benefits to hiring a marketing agency—and a few best practices for getting the most out of your partnership.
Marketing Agencies Are Cost Effective
Let’s start with obvious: hiring a full team of talented marketers is not only challenging and time consuming, but also mighty expensive. According to the recent 2020 Salary Guide: Creative and Marketing, their combined salaries alone will set you back more than $850,000/a year, and that’s before you open your big heart and offer benefits.
Chief Marketing Officer: $164,000
VP of Marketing: $145,000
Digital Strategist: $79,750
Marketing Manager: $78,000
Content Strategist: $73,500
Copywriter: $72,500
Web Designer: $69,250
Video Editor: $59,500
Social Media Manager: $59,500
Account Executive: $55,000
Maybe you’re just looking for help with digital and video. Perhaps content and copywriting is your current need. Or website development and social media could be a concentration right now. A marketing agency can provide specialized focus and expertise depending on your budget and business needs, and if it’s the full service treatment you seek, any good marketing agency will provide the services of all those specialists for far less annual cost.
Pro tip: Commitment = savings. Quality agencies prefer to avoid small, one-off projects. Partnering to share in long-term success often makes the most financial sense for all involved.
Marketing Agencies Can Scale…Fast
If you need to raise awareness, increase leads, drive sales, launch a campaign, or overhaul your website, starting from scratch internally is a herculean (and time-consuming) effort. Posting the job, pouring over resumes, several rounds of interviews, checking references. When you finally get the right person or people in place, then begins the on-boarding, training, and finding the right tools and equipment to help them succeed.
Even if you currently have a team in place, there’s always a constant battle of turnover and new talent acquisition, more training, more implementation…
When you hire a marketing agency, they come pre-equipped to hit the ground running. It’s all about fast and efficient innovation, and your ability to boost your efforts and scale increases exponentially. Outside experts and specialists from marketing agencies are ready for all phases of your mission-critical projects, so they can begin, progress, and reach full maturity in a fraction of the time.
Pro tip: Sharing is caring! If you have current messaging, brand guidelines, customer personas, past collateral, examples of marketing you like/don’t like, etc., it can greatly expedite the process and help your agency partner succeed even quicker.
Marketing Agencies Stay Ahead of the Trends
The marketing world never stops evolving. More than ever before, today’s digital age requires us to not only keep up—but stay ahead of all the tactics, techniques, and trends that seem to shift almost daily.
And with that fact comes a hard reality: very few in-house marketers can keep up. They’re so bogged down in day-to-day tasks—simply checking the box and moving onto the next assignment—that learning, growing, and adapting with the industry always seems to sit on the back burner.
Marketing agencies are different. It’s their job to fully understand the latest Google algorithm updates, overnight Facebook policy change, content marketing best practices, SEO nuances, and everything else moving the needle in the marketing world.
On top of all that, you can rest easy knowing your marketing will benefit from unprecedented access to the latest marketing tools and platforms. We’re talking premium-level softwares, services, and analytics reporting that would cost you a lot of time and money to implement and learn.
The expansive, cutting-edge suite of industry research, trend monitoring, and social media listening tools used by Twelve Legs Marketing would cost your in-house marketing team thousands of precious budget dollars each month, for example.
Pro tip: Trust in your agency’s process.Becoming a “client” may be a transition for you. If results don’t come overnight, know that your success is your agency’s success…you chose them for a reason.
Marketing Agencies Reduce Your Stress
CEOs and Marketing Directors who choose to keep everything in-house have to manage employee stress, squabbles, and the inevitable interoffice politics that can often derail progress. Professional development, performance reviews, and everything else that comes with managing a team is laborious.
Agencies on the other hand, are set up to manage themselves. The good ones employ a full team of experts who are fine-tuned to function as one cohesive unit, with a full suite of internal processes, procedures, and daily check-ins to ensure each client receives the care and attention they deserve.
Ultimately, this gives you the freedom to set your marketing efforts on auto-pilot with the knowledge that your goals are being met and objectives exceeded by a trusted team of skilled professionals.
Pro tip: Lay it all on the line. If there are tensions or challenges among your in-house teams, executives, and decision-makers, tell your agency. Keep it professional and on-the-level, but full transparency makes it easier to execute and deliver on a collective vision.
Is Hiring a Marketing Agency Worth It?
Are there benefits to keeping marketing in-house? Absolutely. Homegrown expertise, ease of communication, and 24/7/365 commitment to your brand vision and company values, to name a few.
But as we’ve shown, agencies certainly offer a lot of value.
Many businesses choose to use a combination. Maybe you have a talented writer on staff, but digital marketing is just too far out of your comfort zone.
Let’s say someone comes to your site and downloads a free ebook. In order to get the content, they fill out your landing page form, providing you some basic info (name, email, maybe even a phone number and some insightful comments). Wisely, you’ve planned ahead and while the ebook itself is “free,” you’ve captured valuable information in return.
Now you have a lead.
“The Glengarry leads are for closers only…”
Better yet, you have a potential customer.
But as we’ve established, unless they’re in the minority, they’re not going to make a purchase.
They must be educated…informed…motivated. They must be nurtured.
Why Is Email Lead Nurturing Important?
Because while they may not be ready to invest in your product/service right now, they could be your ideal buyer in the future.
In fact, according to Hubspot, 74% of companies say that converting leads to customers is their top priority. Here are some other eye-popping statistics that underscore the importance of lead nurturing:
96% of visitors who come to your website aren’t ready to buy…yet (Marketo)
Gleanster reports that 15-20% of the “not yet ready to purchase” opportunities converted into sales with lead nurturing
Lead nurturing emails get 4-10 times the response rate compared to standalone email blasts (DemandGen Report)
74% of top-performing companies use automated lead nurturing (Gleanster)
Nurtured leads produce an average 20% increase in sales opportunities versus non-nurtured leads (Demand Gen Report, 2014)
Lead Nurturing Made Simple(r) in the Digital Age
CRM, email tracking, marketing automation, oh my!
Hard to believe there was a time when lead nurturing was a manual process.
With decades of digital marketing experience, we at Twelve Legs have access to robust drip marketing tools and techniques that can keep leads engaged and moving through your sales funnel. Set up the canvas, identify content and key messaging points to communicate throughout, then press play. And based on performance, it’s quite easy to make adjustments on the fly, digitally speaking.
It can all be done at a relatively low cost, too, when you eliminate much of the overhead.
Are Your CRM Data Insights Maximized?
In order to run an automated email nurture campaign, your leads will need to be collected and categorized in some sort of system or database.
According to Eloqua, Taleo Corporation saw many benefits to their database through lead nurturing:
Increased the number of opportunities entering the pipeline by 118%
Nearly eliminated “unrated” leads from their database
Improved conversion rates at every stage of the funnel
Saw an additional 30% of visitors convert to marketing qualified leads
If you have customer relationship management (CRM) software in place, excellent. Now it’s time to make sure your contacts are all polished up.
Successful marketers should always have a steady stream of leads entering their database. So it’s important to keep it as clean and accurate as possible.
Identify your high/low priority leads, and remove all the ones that are fruitless and illegitimate—because a solid lead nurturing campaign starts with an audit of your database and careful review of each new lead to determine:
Is the contact info is accurate?
Did they share key purchasing preferences/details?
Did they fill out more than one lead capture form?
Do they interact with your content regularly?
The more “yes” responses each prospect elicits, the hotter the lead. When you’ve completed your database audit and vetted your leads, it’s time to categorize!
Adding Leads to Email Nurture Campaigns
If you’re getting the most out of your CRM, you’re probably increasing online conversion rates.
Start by creating categories that put each lead group on its own unique nurture path.
For example, if a lead didn’t provide many specifics, and commented that they’re “at least 12 months away from a potential purchase,” they may be tagged as “Long Cycle Leads” and placed into a more general nurture campaign. Their journey starts with awareness—it’s your job to stay top-of-mind with gentle reminders and relevant content that showcase the best aspects of your brand. This could go on for months. Make it hard for them to ignore you…not by browbeating, but with a compelling email once or twice a month. Simply keep them informed and be on their radar when they’re ready.
If a lead is expressing interest in your product/service through multiple capture forms and notes a few challenges they/their organization face, you might create a bucket for leads who share common pain points. The nurture campaign here can be a little more specific and aggressive, always highlighting the ways you can alleviate their “pain.”
You can get as granular as you’d like when it comes to categorizing leads, really.
For most marketers, a few nurture paths will suffice, based on the level of engagement demonstrated by different leads.
Using the form submission info you gather, and knowledge of how often they interact with your content (website, email newsletters, social media, resource downloads, etc.) can determine if the lead is “highly engaged,” “somewhat engaged,” “minimally engaged,” and so on. Each group can enter a different nurture campaign with targeted content, messaging, and calls-to-action.
Types of Lead Nurturing Emails
Each prospect’s situation will be different, and while your specific nurture campaign should account for that, the structure of your campaigns can be consistent. For automated drip campaigns, find a template that works for each type of email you’re sending at each stage, and tailor the content and message based on the group of leads you’re communicating with.
As an example, here’s a simple series of email types that could be set up to move a “somewhat engaged” lead to “very engaged/ready to convert” lead throughout a campaign spanning just a few weeks.
Awareness Email: At this stage, they want to be educated with resources, research data, and insight. Send them a Newsletter email that spotlights some relevant content and news about your product/service/brand. Right now your prospect is looking for answers.
Consideration Email: They’re starting to get more serious with more intensive research on whether or not your offerings could be a good fit. Send them a Multimedia email featuring a blog post, promotional video, and/or tangible resource.
Decision Email: They want to know exactly what it will take to buy from you, and why they should choose you over your competition. Send them an Offer email with a clear CTA to “buy now,” or “give us a try with this special offer,” or “set up a consultation.”
According to the Aberdeen Group, companies who effectively nurture their customer through the buying experience have:
54% greater return on marketing investment
5 times greater revenue from referrals
18 times faster sales cycles
Always Measure and Analyze Your Email Nurture Campaigns
What you don’t want to do with your nurture campaign is set it and forget it.
Carefully monitoring opens, clicks, and click through rates is important for each nurture campaign you deploy.
If you have the capacity, this will allow you to set up triggers for more nuanced follow-up emails and nurture paths depending on the actions each lead takes as a result of your communication.
Ultimately, your nurture campaign will inform whether you move on completely from a lead, optimize your campaign to further engage a lead, or contact a lead with your ironclad sales pitch!
An effective nurture campaign speaks to the needs and concerns of a prospective buyer while taking them on a journey. A journey that hopefully enlightens them with all the things that differentiate your product and ends with a closed sale, happy customer, and brand ambassador for years to come.
Which Online Quote Request Option Is Best For YOU?
