These days, everyone seems to have an opinion about things you should be doing on social media. If you’re trying to market your small business, you need to be careful about which social media advice you follow. Some of it may be helpful, but a lot of the time, it’s not necessarily applicable to your business or even helpful. Here are some of the worst offenders:
1. “You should be on all the social networks.” While there’s nothing wrong with experimenting with different social platforms, maintaining a presence on every single social network out there would be very time consuming, and not necessarily effective. You don’t have to be on every single social network--plain and simple. But you DO need to be on the same social networks that your audience is using. Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin are all generally safe bets since they have a wide range of audiences, but you should also take some time to think about which networks are relevant to your marketing efforts. You’ll get more of a return on your efforts if you give this some consideration.
2. “Social media can replace your SEO.” Wrong. Social media and SEO are both important elements of a marketing strategy and using them together can strengthen your marketing efforts. While social media engagement influences search rankings, SEO can drive traffic to your social media profiles. If you skip over one or the other, you could be missing out on a lot of traffic.
3. “You should use popular hashtags to get more exposure.” You really have to be careful about this. Trying to make the system work in your favor doesn’t always pay off. It can turn off potential customers to your brand and, if you really go too far, it can become a public relations nightmare. Take for example, last year’s PR disaster that was Kenneth Cole. Attempting to gain exposure from a protest in Egypt, the clothing company sent out this tweet, which angered many followers.
4. “You can automate all of your updates.” Social media is time consuming, so it’s tempting to automate everything to save yourself some time. While this is okay some of the time, like when you have a set of blogs to share with your followers, doing it too much can come across as cold and impersonal. Your followers want to interact with you on a personal level. This means you need to take time each day to share things with them that are time relevant, or that you think will be useful. And when people respond, you need to interact with them back. Think of social media as a conversation, rather than just talking at your followers.
5. “The more you publish on social media, the better.” When it comes to social sharing, think quality over quantity. Whenever you create and share something, you need to make sure that it’s relevant and useful to your audience. Otherwise, you’re just cluttering their newsfeeds with useless information and making them want to unfollow/unlike your page.
With so much social media advice floating around, it can be difficult to separate which advice you should follow, and which advice you should toss out. As a word of general advice, you need to make your social media all about your audience by making the content you share relevant and by engaging in conversations with your followers. Your audience will appreciate the consideration. Of course, developing this kind of rapport is very time consuming and can be difficult to figure out on your own. If you’re having trouble managing your social media on your own, you can hire a social media marketing agency to build your social media presence.
For more tips on which social media “tips” to ignore, check out this blog by HubSpot.
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As an inbound marketer, I’m constantly searching for different ways to explain this concept to business owners who are unfamiliar with marketing, and especially online marketing. Recently, I have read a few very entertaining analogies. Inbound Marketing is like...a snowball fight, a Thanksgiving meal, peanut butter, dating, and even like the perfect hotdog.
While all of these analogies are cute and clever, I was looking for a simpler concept that stressed just how important having quality content on your website really is. Which is how I came to my conclusion -- Inbound Marketing is Like Choosing the Perfect Book.
What? Stay with me here and I’ll explain.
Before the days of Amazon, Nooks, Kindles, etc, people would go to the bookstore and walk to their favorite section to try and find a great book to purchase. They had an endless amount of topic options and authors to choose from. So how did we ever find what we looking for?
1. The Appeal.
One of the first ways to narrow down the selection is to look at the size of the books, the covers, if it is a series, and within a few seconds, determine if the book appear appealing enough to look further into, or if it is going back on the shelf without another look.
This describes your website design and branding. Is your website poorly outdated? Does it represent your company in an eye catching and appealing manner? If you don’t like the look of your website, or if it is too complicated, then your consumers won’t either. When they click on your link, they should immediately feel that the company is professional, approachable and modern. If not, they will click away and find someone else who is.
2. The Match.
After you have chosen an appealing book, most people will then flip it over to read the summary on the back or inside cover. Here is where you can usually get a quick idea of the author’s tone-of-voice, what the book is about and if you think it could be a match for you. If everything lines up, great. But if the story seems cliche, immature or poorly written, it’s on to the next one.
Can you guess where I’m going with this? The book summary is similar to your website homepage, navigation and also you core services pages. This is where the consumer will get a better idea of the specifics of your business, what you do and if it matches what they are looking for. They key here is to remember, that just because you might seem like a match, doesn’t mean that they will choose you just yet.
3. The Choice.
The final step in choosing the perfect book is examining what the book really boils down to -- the pages of the story. By selecting a few random pages within the book you can determine your opinion of how good a writer the author is, and if you think you will enjoy the story. If the pages are up-to-par and meet or exceed your expectations, it becomes an easy choice.
These same pages that create a great book are the landing pages and blog posts on your company’s website. Each blog post contains valuable information you’re providing to the consumer and portrays you as the expert in the consumer's eyes. The landing pages offer them the opportunity to download even more of this info or gain access to another valued offer. Just like in choosing a book, your should blog provide the content the consumer is looking for. If it does and it presented in a professional manner, then it is a logical choice for that consumer to choose you instead of the competition, who provide zero background information of their products and services. In short, without a blog and landing pages, you are a book with no story.
So there it is -- my analogy of how inbound marketing is like choosing the perfect book. To learn more about this form of marketing, we encourage you to checkout our other blogs posts on inbound marketing strategies.
With the speed of the internet it seems like new social networks are popping up every day. It can be hard to keep up with the different trends and personalities of all of the communities that these networks create. Each social network attracts a very different audience, so it is important to adapt your message to best fit each audience. Understanding the culture of each social network will allow you to post in a way that gains the most attention. With the millions of hours that people spend on these networks, using social media for business gives your company personality and the opportunity to reach a large audience. Below gives you a little background on some of the most popular social networks and the times of the day that have the most traffic on these social media sites.
Facebook:
As the most widely used social network in the world with over 1 billion users, Facebook takes the cake for having the most members, and therefore the most diversity. When posting to your followers on Facebook remember that your post is competing with that of their friends and family. The success of Facebook came about because Facebook didn’t bombard its users with advertisements, so make sure that your post doesn’t look like spam. Facebook is all about catching up with friends and starting conversation. Make your post conversational by posing a question, or telling your followers something that they may not know. Also try to always post a good picture with your post. Visuals always help to stand out in your followers’ newsfeeds.
Research shows that Facebook’s peak traffic times are: 11am, 3pm, and 8pm on weekdays.
Twitter:
With over 500 million users, Twitter is another awesome platform to reach your followers. But Twitter users are very different from Facebook. Because Twitter has a cap of characters, many say that Twitter is like a Facebook for people with a short attention span. This means you need to know how to get your followers attention in the most efficient way possible. If your tweet doesn’t catch their eye, they will scroll right over it. And if you send out too many annoying tweets, they have no problem unfollowing you. Whether you are running a personal or business Twitter, if you want to reach a broad audience, your main goal is to construct tweets that people want to retweet. This is how you gain followers and spark conversation. Before posting a tweet make sure to think about what content you like most in your newsfeed. If you post hundreds of tweets a day about the same thing people will most likely get annoyed and stop following you.
Retweets on Twitter peak at 5pm and the best frequency of tweeting is 1-4 tweets an hour.
Tumblr:
When it comes to social media for business, a lot of people forget about or underestimate the power of Tumblr. Tumblr is a microblog that as of 2012 Tumblr reported over 120 million users and 15 billion page views a month. A majority of posts are pictures and gifs, but you also have the ability to post a piece of writing or a video. The tumblr community is a strong network of many mini communities of people with similar interests. If you get a good following on Tumblr, you will create a very loyal fan base that will repost and interact with your content. One way to begin to build your following is by adding appropriate tags to your posts. Research popular Tumblr tags and try to tie in those themes with your post. Do not use Tumblr as a normal blog with lots of text. Instead make sure to put a unique eye catching picture that you think people would repost. Then link your post back to your original site.
Tumblr’s traffic starts building at night with its peak hours between 7-10pm.
LinkedIn:
LinkedIn is the “professional’s facebook.” Instead of posting pictures of friends and family, LinkedIn users are strictly business. Your profile has room for one headshot along with your resume and skills. People mainly use LinkedIn for networking and job searching. If you are posting content to LinkedIn, it should tie in with your industry or trending news for the day. You can create a business page for your company on LinkedIn so that people can learn more about you when searching. Your connections on LinkedIn don’t want status updates every hour, instead make sure to post quality content that they can learn from.
LinkedIn traffic peaks weekdays at noon and early evening (5-6pm).
If you are looking to build your social capital, then you need to familiarize yourself with these popular social media platforms. It may take awhile for you to fully acclimate to the network’s culture and personality, but the sooner you start, the earlier you will begin to build your following. Remember that it can benefit you to post during the peak traffic time, but with more traffic comes more competition. Create posts that stand out above the rest and engage your audience. If you are having trouble finding time to manage your social media on your own, you can hire a social media marketing agency to build your presence on these networks.
More often than not you hear people say they are visual learners, not auditory learners. Everyone processes information differently, but most people agree a combination of the two is best. It’s said that people remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they see, and 50% of what they hear and see! With stats like that it’s no wonder more and more people are recognizing the benefits of video.
Since the birth of Youtube in 2007, it has become the second largest search engine in the world. In 2011 Youtube had over a trillion views. That’s over 140 views for each person on Earth. People love video, plain and simple.
So how does this affect your business? Whether you’ve been intentionally shying away from video or not, it’s time to get on the bandwagon! Here are some reasons why video could be good for your company.
- Videos can help provide clear information in an easy-to-use way. Instead of having to search through different web pages and scroll through different content, people can just hit “play.”
- Video can help establish your image. A video will share the personality of you or your company more than text ever will.
- People are more likely to be engaged by a video. Studies show that a person who views a video will stay on a website an average of two minutes longer.
- Creativity is another benefit video offers. You can add graphics and images that add interest to what you’re presenting.
- Videos encourage sharing as well. People are more likely to share a video than text, especially on different social media channels.
- Exposure. Not only can you have video on your website, but you can also link it to social media websites too. This greatly increases your exposure. A quick look at the Youtube statistics page proves just how many people watch videos!
- Producing video is also easier and more affordable than it has ever been. There are plenty of programs that allow you to shoot, edit, and upload your own video for little to no money. But professional video production is also increasingly affordable and provides a level of quality you may not be able to produce yourself.
Video is also versatile. No matter what company, service, or product you have it’s safe to say video could benefit you in some way. Here are some types of video your company could use.
- Informational: The possibilities are endless; anything you need to communicate could go in an informational video.
- Instructional or How To: It’s easier to understand instructions if you can see what you’re supposed to be doing. A “how to” video gets the point across much faster than text.
- Company Overview: If you want to share the mission of your company, procedures you have in place for new employees, or the general spirit of your company, a video can do that.
- Product Demonstration: Videos work particularly well for product demonstrations. It’s easy to say a product does what it’s supposed to, but if you can show the viewer it’s that much more persuasive!
- Testimonial: Testimonial videos can be a powerful tool if you are offering a product or service. Seeing other people who support the product or service gives people confidence and adds to the credibility to the company.
Video can be a powerful tool. This means it can be a powerful aide, but it has the potential to cause harm if done poorly! Think about if a homemade video would work for your company. If you think a professional video would be best for your company, contact GreenHouse Social Media for more information about our corporate video production and editing services.
What is “Hotspotting”?
“Hotspotting” is one of the newest up and coming ways to market a product online. Consumers can watch a video online, click on the product in the video and get directed instantly to the website where you can buy the product. Take this Juicy Couture Video (http://www.juicycouture.com/features/california-dreaming/features-california-dreaming,default,sc.html) of a model in different outfits; by the click of a button you can buy what she’s wearing!
Since people are shopping online more and more these days, larger companies are trying to find new ways to market their products and make it easy for people to buy them. Hotspotting has been around for a few years, but it’s just now being more and more recognized. It’s even being used for more than just ecommerce or advertising on websites. Some music videos use it so you can click and buy the song playing or learn more about the band and where to see them play. There are also interactive tools like face-to-face video chatting or sing-a-longs.
How does it work?
This technology places an interactive layer on top of a video known as a ‘clickable hotspot.’ While watching a video the technology makes it possible to hover your mouse over the hotspot and shop directly from the video. There are different software programs that are used for this. They have a LinkTo program within that can set a link from a video on your YouTube channel. You can create as many hotspots with different interactive landing pages as you want within one video.
The Future of Marketing…
This is the upcoming way to market a product. It’s the future of the online advertising. By using the interactive videos, online consumer traffic can increase along with the customer time spent on the site. By linking it through YouTube Channel it can be spread easily throughout social media websites as well. It even can give you a cheaper Pay Per Click average. Film has always had a powerful impact on its viewers and now adding interactive product purchasing to it just makes it a more powerful tool.
Pinpointing the best way to market your business is a challenge for even the most successful companies. Between fighting for your customers’ attention and the constant evolution of marketing tactics, businesses are usually lacking in some area of their marketing strategy. Hubspot recently dissected some of the top challenges marketers face. We think these marketing challenges can apply to businesses as well. Below you’ll find some of the most common marketing challenges and how to overcome them.
1. Generating awareness and driving traffic
Many businesses struggle to connect with people they’ve previously been unable to reach. If you want to create more sales for your business, the first thing you have to do is attract the interest and attention of your audience. The hard part is figuring out how to do this.
The best way to generate awareness and drive traffic to your business is to let the customers find you. But that doesn’t mean you should sit back and wait for the sales to roll in. Your target audience is actively searching for the product or service you offer, so you need to make it easy for them to find you -- before they find your competitors.
There are a few ways to do this, whether you’re a new business searching for customers for the first time, or you’re established and want to grow your customer base.
Doing all of these things can help drive up your search results, driving traffic to your business and generating awareness.
2. Targeting effectively
Before you can start building a relationship with your audience, you need to clearly identify who that audience is. No business wants to waste its time communicating with the wrong group of people because this group isn’t qualified and won’t produce new leads or customers.
In order to make the most of your marketing efforts and ensure you’re not chasing leads that will never convert to customers, you need to identify your target audience and what their interests are. If you can’t create a message that interests them, your message will get lost. Once you know who you’ll be talking to, creating content they’ll find relevant and valuable will be simple.
While thinking about who your target audience is, try answering these questions:
- What is my target demographic?
- Who has a need for my product or service?
- Who would be interested in receiving this information?
3. Using social media to generate customers and revenue
Creating a strong social presence means you’re one step closer to turning leads into customers. But, many businesses struggle to make this leap from social engagement to sales. What many businesses don’t realize is that having a strong social presence is not the end goal. They need to also be targeting, engaging and nurturing the connections they make through social networks. Doing this will help build a relevant social following that can be used as a source for new leads.
To make the leap, businesses need to focus on engaging with their social followers by quickly responding to messages, recognizing influential followers, starting conversations and personalizing communication. Also, make sure your communication is always relevant and interesting to your audience.
4. Keeping up with marketing trends and strategies
Marketing is constantly evolving. The focus used to be on print media, but with advances in technology, the focus has shifted to online media and video content. Still, with so many different marketing tools and social networking sites popping up, keeping up can be difficult.
The best thing to do is read marketing industry related websites, blogs and articles to discover new trends as they emerge. Marketing is constantly evolving, so unless you evolve with it, your business could get left behind. The most important thing to remember is to go where your audience goes.
5. Increasing and Proving ROI
Once upon a time, businesses created marketing strategies, implemented them and moved on. But now, with so many tools available to track marketing efforts and their effectiveness, its becoming more important to be able to justify your marketing efforts in terms of leads, customers and revenue.
While this does take up more of your time and energy, these tools do offer an opportunity that wasn’t previously available. Now businesses are able to clearly identify what’s working and what’s not so they can invest their time, effort and money in the right places.
Creating and maintaining a strong marketing strategy can be time consuming and challenging. If your business is facing any of these, or other, marketing challenges, contact GreenHouse Social Media Agency now to see how they can help your business reach its full potential.
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Technology and the Web have had a dramatic impact on the video production industry in the last five years. Think back a couple of years, and video was thought of as a highly specialized, expensive, and time consuming service that only the big brands with big budgets could afford. Today, almost every cell phone and handheld camera are equipped with video capabilities that are as simple as point-and-shoot. With this cheaper equipment accessible to the public, it’s become very easy for anyone to make a video.
At the same time, many smaller brands and businesses are beginning to embrace online video as a means of reaching and engaging their new type of audience. Consumers no longer want to read long pages of text to figure out what they want to know. We all know that it’s proven that today’s society has a shorter attention span and wants instant gratification. So, what better way to give them want they want than to create a short, entertaining video, with the creative content the consumer craves.
Combine both of these trends and you know how have the “perfect storm and the perfect opportunity for providers and purchasers of corporate video production services,” according to Jimm Fox of One Market Media. So what does this mean for your business? Continue reading and we’ll explain.
How the evolving video market has changed online marketing.
Video Marketing Takeaways:
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If you aren’t using video you’re losing customers to those who do.
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Video on a website has a dramatic search ranking and SEO benefits.
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Video incorporated into a complete marketing strategy results in higher social engagement rates, higher click-through rates and higher conversion rates.
With these facts, video has firmly established itself as the frontrunner for the future of online marketing. But, it’s not just the number of people who are watching videos that’s important – it’s the reasons why they watch it. This is where the new age video production companies are stepping up and proving what businesses need.
How new “value-added” corporate video production companies are better for your business.
The “value” in a video production company used to be the expensive equipment, the large number of people on set, and the years of experience of those directing and shooting the video. Today however, the true value is in how you use the video to accomplish specific business goals, not only in the production itself.
In this economy most business owners don’t have the luxury of paying for an expensive video for the mere purpose of a “fluff piece” for brand recognition. These days, the business has a specific problem and wants a targeted, well-planned video that will work with the marketing strategy to help solve this problem and achieve the business objectives. Social media, interactive, landing page and mobile videos all have specific goals.
Maybe the video on Facebook aims to soft-sell the fan and attract them to the website. Whereas a landing page video will quickly provide the necessary information and hard-sell the customer or convert them into a valuable lead for the business to follow-up with. Whatever the purpose may be, the key is to set the objective, research and plan, incorporate the video into an inbound marketing strategy and place the video on the appropriate website pages or platforms for maximum conversion.
“Gone are the days of creating sales videos that you pass out on DVD’s for 10 years. Now consumers are all about fresh, yet still high-quality content, that will engage them on a monthly or weekly basis,” says Chris Fletcher, GreenHouse Social Media’s Chief Social Producer.
GreenHouse Social Media strives to incorporate the best of both worlds for corporate video -- combining high-quality video production with the marketing tools to back it up and achieve results. Contact us today to discuss your online video and marketing goals!
Benefits of Video
The average human attention span is eight seconds. If you do not entertain your reader in that amount of time, they will click away from your page. People do not have the time to sit and read something that does not interest them. They just don’t have the patience. A way to fix this problem is by introducing video into your marketing strategy.
Studies show that most people respond better to visuals than text. Combine that statistic with the fact the average adult in America has an eighth grade reading level -- and you can easily understand why video is a better choice over traditional text. Less than 30% of text on a web page is read, but videos hold the viewer’s attention for over two minutes. This gives you substantially more time to get your point across, making video the best choice to grab and retain their attention.
Although video production may seem more difficult than writing text, that’s actually one of video’s biggest advantages. Fewer people will go through the trouble to make a video, so there is significantly less competition. Resulting in your video coming up higher in the search results.
Benefits of Landing Pages
One of the most successful marketing tools in the world of inbound marketing is the use of landing pages. A landing page is a web page that your business creates to give more information about a specific search optimized topic. The goal of a landing page is to convert traffic into valuable leads for your business.
Because someone is searching for that specific topic, it means that they want to learn more about it. By providing them with a page with an offer that answers their questions and tells them how your business can help, it can create good quality leads who are genuinely interested in your product.
Combining Video and Landing Pages
So, now we know that video content grabs attention and landing pages create leads. Combine them and you have an amazing lead generator. Although every situation is different, all studies have shown a positive correlation between adding a quality video and the leads generated by the landing page. Many times it over doubled the amount of quality leads!
Don’t think that you can throw up any video on your landing page though. You need to make sure your video gives valuable content that is presented in a clear way. Take time to think about what you want to tell your listener in your video and customize it so that it matches the topic of your landing page. Give it personality and don’t expect people to watch anything that you wouldn’t watch yourself.
Here is a great example of a successful landing page:
Contact us at GreenHouse Social Media today to schedule a video consultation!
Creating good online content for your business is important part of any inbound marketing plan. It helps you build a relationship with your audience, generate leads, and turn those leads into sales. At this point, you’re probably beginning to understand the importance of putting out good content. And we’re not just talking about re-posting good content; we mean actually generating the content yourself so your prospects turn to you when they need information, need to solve a problem, or need a question answered. This isn’t really as hard as it may seem, but it’s not always an easy undertaking either.
Here are 7 tips to keep you on track to crafting first-rate, original content:
1. Be a resource - The key to writing content that you hope your customers or clients will read is staying up to date. In this age of the internet, something that happened a week ago is already ancient and let’s be honest, who wants to read old news? It’s important to follow influential people in your field, to stay current on the latest and best industry trends. You want your customers to view you as a resource with the latest information available.
2. Listen to customers - This might seem silly to even mention, but you’d be surprised by how many companies miss out on the priceless opportunity to listen to what their target audience is saying. Social media connects you instantly to your audience and allows you to effectively communicate with them at virtually no cost.
3. Have a plan - A plan can help keep you on target, which is essential. No one wants to go to any company blog and read about how their day went; they want to know what’s new in the industry and what that company can do for them. However endearing a diary post maybe, it will not generate any new leads. People don’t want to read sporadic thoughts; they want to see an organized theme that is relevant to them.
4. Brainstorm ideas - If you have a good brainstorming session about possible topics to cover, it can help you avoid the much dreaded writer’s block that even GreenHouse employees are afflicted by from time to time. We’ve found that even a far-fetched idea can spark another brilliant idea.
5. Back up with research - Use reputable sources for your industry to help establish you as credible when posting new content. If you do this accurately you might even be seen as an authority or expert in your industry that others rely on and cite.
6. Dress it up - Make your content aesthetically pleasing. People don’t like to look at uninteresting and repetitive things. Break up text because one long block of text will turn off any reader and their not likely to continue reading. Incorporate fun graphics that go along with your message to add some visual interest to your content. Video is another great underrated tool for producing effective content. Find the right video marketing services available to you.
7. Outsource - Not everyone is an expert at everything, because unfortunately, very few people are considered to be a jack-of-all-trades. Even if you feel capable of writing good content for your site, it can be time consuming and take your attention away from your day to day business operations. If you need help creating content for your business, you can outsource your content creation to an inbound marketing company in Orlando.
Contact GreenHouse Social Media today at (407) 956-5321 to find out how we can help you grow your business by creating valuable content that will keep your customers coming back to you.
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In today’s business world, it’s almost impossible to get something for nothing. An exchange of money, services or information is always necessary for both parties to be pleased. So why are countless businesses online simply giving away valuable information, tools or offers and wasting their time and intellectual property? Well, it’s quite simple. Most businesses simply don’t understand the critical middleman step that they are leaving out when consumers collect the item the business is offering.
This major disconnect is causing businesses to miss out on huge opportunities for growing their customer database and converting leads into sales. So what’s the middleman step? Landing pages, that’s what! Landing pages should be the focal point of all content marketing and lead generation efforts for your business online.
Confused? Well, don’t worry, you’re not alone. MarketingSherpa cites that the number one reason businesses don't use landing pages is because their marketing department doesn't know how to set them up or they are too overloaded. So let’s fix this problem.
What is a Landing Page?
According to HubSpot, “A landing page is a web page that allows you to capture a visitor's information through a lead-capture form (AKA a conversion form).” A good landing page will target a specific audience, such as traffic from a targeted pay-per-click ad, visitors from a specific email campaign, or visitors from a particular series of blog posts. The key to great landing pages are to have them as specifically catered to your target audience as possible.
Let’s say you’re an entertainment company running a pay-per-click ad about hiring a high-end wedding band for your dream wedding. Now, when that excited bride clicks on your ad and is simply directed to your company homepage, chances are this is going to be a bit of a let-down. Or, take that same ad, and lead the bride to a landing page about, “How to Choose the Best Band for Your Event.” A little better, but we're not quite there. Finally, take that same ad again, and have it directed to a landing page on your website with the headline “Download Our Free Guide to Planning the Best Playlist for Your Wedding.”
So, which page would the bride be most attracted to? Of course, the final option. You have lead the bride directly to a page specifically catered to her needs and are offering her something of value. Now that we have this super targeted page, let’s figure out how it works.
How Do Landing Pages Work?
There are five basic components to how a landing page works.
- Create a landing page targeted to a specific audience
- Offer your audience something of value
- (ebooks, whitepapers, webinars, free trials, demos, coupons, etc.)
- Require the prospect to fill out a contact form with their information to access the offer
- (This is your conversion tool for gaining the prospects information)
- Provide the person with the offer you promised
- Follow-up with them by email or phone to capture the sale
So, now let’s go back to our excited bride and the entertainment company. The ideal landing page scenario would be as follows -- A bride searches for “wedding band entertainers” on Google and sees your an ad for your entertainment company. She clicks on the ad and is redirected to a super targeted landing page on your website. The headline on the landing page is “Our Free Guide to Planning the Best Playlist for Your Wedding.” There are a few short paragraphs explaining what information will be in the guide, an attractive image and a conversion form (contact-capture form) where page the brides submits her information in exchange for the offer. This information can include, name, phone number, email, date of wedding, etc.
After she fills out this form, the bride has now been converted into a coveted sales lead to follow-up with. When she presses the download button, she is redirected to a thank-you page with a link to the PDF you promised her. Now that she has visited your website and taken advantage of the valuable information you provided her, she has a positive attitude toward your company and will be happily receptive to any further contact from you. You might choose to send her an automated email thanking her for downloading your guide and asking her to view your video portfolio of past wedding gigs. Provide your phone number to her if she wants to contact you to reserve your band for her wedding date. Finally, she calls you and books your band. And that’s a wrap!
Makes a lot of sense, right? Landing pages are a logical, middleman step that too many businesses are missing in their marketing process. Don’t be one of the business's missing the boat. Contact us at GreenHouse Social Media and we’ll be happy to meet with you to discuss how our full inbound marketing process will help your business succeed online!
P.S. -- Click the image below to see an example of a landing page.
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