Is your website already turning visitors into customers? If not, then what are you currently doing about it?
Visual branding solutions for B2B organizations are my speciality, but my world, like everyone else’s, is changing. Fast.
I can’t, and won’t, approach client work the same way I used to. Why? Because one of my responsibilities is to assist businesses in attracting and retaining clients, and the old paradigm (traditional networking, trade advertisements, and so on) is progressively fading away.
You may have not realized it, but many small businesses are still stuck with the old-fashioned method.
But here’s the way to go: Online lead generation built on useful content marketing.
To explain this, let’s take a fictional case study of two people, each of whom is a marketing director for a small business.
Ms. Vivianne and Mr. David work as marketing directors in Company A and Company B respectively.
Both have the same goal in mind: to grow their firm’s client base and convert potential customers into paying customers.
Company branding, which of course, includes a streamlined positioning statement, logo, tagline, collateral materials, and a sparkling website, is part of the strategy.
What’s the difference? That comes down to how each company approaches the acquisition of new clients.
Ms. Vivianne
Vivianne has been the marketing director for a year at her engineering firm. She has a well-thought-out strategy. She thinks it’s fantastic, but little did she know that in today’s marketing climate, it might be a little too… traditional.
Vivianne plans to attend as many networking events as she can. She might even get the chance to deliver a few talks to demonstrate her company’s credibility.
Her master plan is to network, then pass out business cards and pamphlets with the intention of sending possible clients to a gleaming, flashy new website.
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Then there will also be ads in trade magazines.
She’ll also buy lists and make cold calls, as well as follow up with emails and more phone calls. She’ll hold hands with clients for months in the hopes of getting a nod.
Isn’t that exhausting?
Mr. David
David, the marketing director at engineering firm B, had also gotten his branding right, but he took a different approach to marketing than Vivianne.
Unlike Vivianne, David engaged an expert. In fact, it was the expert he engaged that mentioned something about “contemporary” content marketing to him.
He’ll go further into web analytics to figure out which channels the site’s traffic is presently coming from. He’s also going to pay attention to the words and phrases customers use to locate his firm and attempt to write material that’s relevant to those terms.
He’ll be more active on social media in order to better target potential clients and identify who is mentioning his firm.
David now understands that a brand is much more than a flashy website and logo.
A company’s essence is something that can and should be written about. His firm’s culture, experience, and expertise, for example, can be included in the website as highly targeted web copy, blog content, and downloadable whitepapers.
He’s focused on SEO and developing a keyword strategy, but more concerned with producing original, authoritative material that Google loves.
With all of this in mind, David’s new website will be designed to sustain client interest, highlight the company’s competence, and expand his email list.
Because his website was developed on a Content Management System (CMS) platform like WordPress, he has much more control over it. He wasn’t made to sit behind a bunch of code, and the website was strictly designed to create more and more business leads.
Guess what? David doesn’t have to make cold calls nearly as frequently as he used to, and he doesn’t attend nearly as many networking events as he used to. His website now gets found on Google Search for a variety of related search queries and keywords. He is, in reality, gold.
Isn’t it brilliant?
Conclusion
Chasing after prospective clients with pamphlets and handouts is not the smartest way to convert them into buying customers. In fact, studies have shown that it puts them off. In retrospect, content marketing would have brought higher-quality leads and created a better impression of your business.
You have a website, then let’s help you turn it into a lead magnet! Schedule a phone call with us today or contact us directly on our website.