When you’re trying to gain important clients, you can’t rely so much on passive means like word-of-mouth. You must actively pursue marketing strategies which generate leads that you can follow up on. The trick of course, is in knowing which strategies are likely to be most fruitful in that regard. Industry experts have many different ideas on what may be the biggest marketing trends for the coming year, but those listed below appear most frequently on their lists.
1. Authentic Marketing – Authenticity is in. Show potential clients the genuine, human side of your personality, and try to appeal to the emotions of your intended audience by telling a story, using humor, participating in a worthwhile cause, or simply by supporting the local community where most of your pool of potential clients will come from.
2. Utilizing Video is Key – Video is the most engaging form of Internet content because it appeals to our most dominant sense, i.e. vision. It’s also versatile and shareable, which extends its reach for the originator. It is known that at least 75 million people consume some form of online video at least once every day, and experts predict that it’s entirely possible YouTube will soon overtake Google as the most-used search engine in the world.
3. Diversify Your Content Marketing – Survey after survey continues to show that content is king in providing value and information to potential clients. In order to stand out from the crowd, you need to offer a good mix of content forms to your audience. Use these diversified forms to demonstrate your company’s expertise, to drive traffic to your website, and to capture leads. Once you’ve secured worthwhile leads, make sure to follow up on them to the utmost.
4. Adopt Long-Form Content – There are many studies showing that longer content improves search engine rankings, even content as long as 3,000 words. A recent study conducted by SerpIQ revealed that most of the Top 10 search engine results in a given area included landing pages which had upwards of 2,000 words. There is a shift in progress toward long-form content which engages readers for a greater period of time, especially when accompanied by graphic support.
5. Visual Content is Essential – Presenting information in various ways such as photos, images, videos, infographics, and graphs, can help you reach the large segment of your target audience which is more visually-inclined. For example, LexisNexis has produced an infographic which illustrates the difference between the number of hours that lawyers work versus the number of billable hours included in that span.
6. Hone in on the Power of LinkedIn – Using LinkedIn should be an essential component of your B2B marketing strategy, since more than 80% of social media B2B leads are sourced from LinkedIn. Take advantage of features and activities such as participating in a group or starting a new one, highlight your professional authority by publishing on Pulse, and try making use of Sales Navigator to connect with potential clients.
7. Explore multi-channel marketing – Reach out to potential clients via several different social networks, and on each of them, strive to provide them with content which is relevant and useful. Make sure that all channels funnel potential clients to your website, which should be the centerpiece of your marketing strategy. It goes without saying that your website has to be outstanding in all regards, the deal-closer of your marketing and advertising efforts.
8. Rely On Reviews – Getting Google reviews from previous clients is an absolute must, simply because statistics have clearly demonstrated that virtually all consumers will read reviews of any given business before actually engaging with it. The actual numbers show that 90% of Internet users search for a business in this manner, and that more than 88% of those searchers have confidence in the reviews that they read.
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