One of the best ways to grow your email list and generate qualified leads for your business is to create content that appeals to a particular audience but isn’t readily available to them. The intent is not to shut them out, but to cultivate an engaged audience willing to exchange something valuable to them, like…
Many small business owners find themselves torn between working “on” their businesses or “in” their businesses. And more often than not, especially when you’re a 1-2 person shop, working in your business wins, hands down, leaving little time to do other things that’ll help grow your business, like marketing. But there are some who’ve found…
Customer engagement is perhaps the biggest challenge many small businesses face. Beyond the initial sale, many customers seem to disappear into a mysterious abyss and are never heard from again. And in the spirit of self-preservation, many of us immediately blame the customer. Â “We didn’t do anything,” we yell as we shake our fists…
Customers have high expectations. Gone are the days of transactional sales with faceless individuals who breeze in and out of your stores and on and off your websites. Today’s new normal is all about relationship. And one of the best ways to establish that relationship is through routine follow-up. What is follow-up? Follow-up is not…
When sitting down with decision makers, there is a tremendous amount of pressure on us, the business owner, to sell – to close the deal. So, we take out our gadgets and flip through our brochures, determined to convince them to end their search and sign on with us. And after all that time and…
When many of us are asked who our ideal customer is, our immediate response is ‘everybody.’ As small business owners, we don’t have the luxury of being picky, right? Wrong. It’s not about being picky, it’s about being specific. And taking the time to get to know who your ideal customer is, not only benefits…
The reality is, businesses need paying customers to stay afloat. But, as the marketing machine continues to churn out new ways of attracting them, often times, as business owners, we find ourselves moving further and further away from the very people we’re trying to connect with – customers. As a marketer, I’ll admit, things…
Most conversations about “nurturing” today revolve around lead generation and lead scoring. Getting leads “sales ready” is one of the benefits of popular tools like marketing automation software, which aims to, through a series of consistent and meaningful touches (like emails and social media activity) move leads from the top of the marketing funnel, where they simply display interest in…