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We Couldn’t Do What We Do If It Weren’t For What You’ve Done
It’s easy to get wrapped up in the endless quest to help companies generate more leads, more sales opportunities and more new customers. But on Veterans Day, we wanted to take a beat and say thank you to everyone who has made sacrifices for us and our country.
If Generating Leads Was Easy, Everyone Would Have All The Leads They Need
We all know that almost no business has all the leads they need or want. I don’t think it’s wrong to assume that very few companies know exactly what they need to do to produce all the leads they need month over month.
This is reinforced for me when I speak to groups.
I start all my sessions by asking the audience to stand. I then allow those to remain standing if they exceeded their company’s revenue goals last year. They get to remain standing if they exceeded their company’s revenue goals in the first quarter of 2019. They can remain standing if they exceeded their revenue goals in the second quarter of 2019, and then I ask the same question about the third quarter of 2019.
By the way, this doesn’t mean these companies are having bad years — it only shows whether they’re proficient at hitting their revenue goals.
When I’m done asking, less than 10% of the audience is standing. This means 90% of the people coming to my talk are struggling to generate leads, and they are challenged to close those leads consistently month over month.
This epidemic intrigues me.
Today, Exceeding Lead Generation And Revenue Goals Feels About As Hard As Winning Six Super Bowls
Let me start by saying that I’m not a Patriots fan. Watching the Eagles beat the Patriots in the Super Bowl was one of the highlights of my fandom.
But I appreciate people who do remarkable things. The NFL is one of the most competitive sports leagues on the planet, and the New England Patriots are consistently one of the best teams in the league.
How do they do it? Generating leads and beating revenue goals is also one of the hardest aspects of business, and it’s getting harder every single day. Perhaps there are some lessons to be learned from the Patriots’ playbook.
Here are some insights into how Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots consistently win year in and year out.
Heat Map Data Provides Real Action-Oriented Feedback To Help You Drive More Leads
Using heat maps on your website is like being James Bond on the web.
In practice, you get to spy on your target audience. However, like James Bond, you’re not trying to be evil. You’re just trying to see what your visitors and your potential customers are doing, looking for and valuing.
You want to take a similar approach to search engine optimization and ensure your prospects are finding your website.
You want to find out which keywords people are using to find businesses like yours and take advantage of that intelligence. Fortunately, using heat mapping analytics helps you streamline your SEO efforts and improve the main source of sales leads for your business — your website.
Conscious Capitalism Means You Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is
Last month, Square 2 informed a gun manufacturing client that we could no longer be their agency of record. When we earned the business earlier this year, the decision to participate in the evaluation process was difficult.
“We actually asked our team if anyone had any issues with us working with a company in this type of business,” said Mike Lieberman, CEO and chief revenue scientist at Square 2. “There were a couple of people who stated their preference to not work on the client account, and we were able to accommodate them. Much of the team didn’t seem to have an issue with it, and we proceeded.”
Turns out, we did some excellent work together, and their program flourished. By September, the client had generated almost $400,000 in new revenue as a result of a program that was just a few months old.
So what changed?
Digital Growth Agencies Have An Obligation To Get Clients Results Quickly
You’ve decided you need an agency. Congratulations! You’ve made the right choice. No matter what your internal team looks like and no matter what their experience, an agency offers expertise and skills that your internal team can never deliver.
Agencies simply have more experience executing plans that perform than any internal team. Think about it for a second. How many companies has your internal marketing team generated leads for? One, two, three or four at the most, right?
Over the course of a year, agency teams work with four to eight times that amount. They simply have more experience and give you a better chance to succeed — if you pick the right agency.
Old-School Sales And Execution Is One To Many; New-School Sales And Marketing Is One To One
The experience economy proposes that both consumers and businesses want more than just delivery of products and services; they expect that an exceptional, positively charged and memorable experience will come packaged with their purchase.
This is raising the bar for companies. For those who get it, they’re creating Netflix-like buyer journeys for their clients, and closing new clients faster and more frequently than ever before.
For those still doing it the old way, they’re driving prospects right into the waiting arms of their top competitors.
Does that scare you? If it doesn’t, it should.
ABM Is A Tricky Tactic To Plan And Execute; High-Quality Intent Data Makes It All Easier
A few weeks ago, we published an article that talked about intent data at the highest level. What is it? Where does it come from? How do you use it? How do you measure its effectiveness?
Today, I want to drill down into account-based marketing (ABM) and how intent data can improve performance from good to great.
Account-based marketing, which is by far the hottest tactic for marketers and sales leaders, isn’t the silver bullet a lot of salespeople and marketing pros think it is. It takes solid strategy, planning and execution that can be iterated on quickly.
Why Using Intent Data Might Be The Smartest Move You Make Next Year
During my session at HubSpot’s INBOUND 2019, I spent a few minutes talking about intent data as a smarter way to go to market. I was surprised at the level of interest and equally surprised at how few exhibitors and agencies are talking about and using intent data with their clients.
Intent data takes your marketing from ordinary to extraordinary as you drive a higher quality lead, a more qualified lead for sales and leads that close much quicker than traditional inbound-marketing-qualified leads.
Let’s dig into intent data and help you get a better handle on whether this new marketing and sales innovation is right for your business.
Video Must Be A Core Component To Your Content Marketing Strategy In 2020
In case you missed it, video is exploding, and it’s now a requirement for any revenue generation program.
If you’re not producing and publishing at least one video a month, you’re not executing a complete content marketing strategy. Video is what people want, and you have to include it in your plans.
There are some keys to having an active video marketing strategy. You have to know what to talk about, how to produce the videos in-house and how to use the videos to capture new leads as well as nurture leads through your sales process and your prospects’ buyer journeys.
