4 Pieces of Sales Collateral Your Business Needs

Proper sales collateral can mean the difference between a successful revenue team and a so-so revenue team, but many small businesses aren’t tapping into this resource. 

Sales collateral helps your sales team educate potential clients about your brand and is usually developed by your marketing team or marketing agency. If done right, sales collateral keeps your sellers on brand, simplifies your offering to your potential clients, and gives your sellers resources to consult and leave behind. Not bad outcomes at all!

The problem is that many small businesses haven’t developed the necessary sales collateral to grow their business. We’re helping change that. Read on to learn about common mistakes we see businesses make when writing sales collateral and the pieces of sales collateral you need to develop for your business. 

Common Sales Collateral Mistakes

Sales Collateral Mistake 1: Failing To Segment

Many organizations tend to only think of their sales teams as a “bottom of the marketing funnel resource.” That can be a mistake. Depending on the deal, the customer, and how they came to your brand, the potential customer might actually be at the top or middle of the marketing funnel when they first talk to a salesperson. Low-funnel sales collateral won’t make a difference if the prospect is still only comparing your product or solution to a competitor. To combat this, ensure that your sales team has content for all stages of the deal cycle. This will vary from customer to customer. Typically, we recommend infographics for top-of-funnel, battle cards for prospects considering you versus another competitor, and case studies for mid-funnel.

Sales Collateral Mistake 2: Reusing Marketing Content As Sales Content

We want to clarify something here. Repurposing marketing content CAN be really useful. However, some small businesses, strapped for time, sometimes copy and paste marketing content from email marketing or their website into a piece of sales collateral. That’s likely a mistake. We have found that the prospect’s needs in the sales cycle are so different from their needs when they’re first learning about your brand. Now, rewriting or building upon a past blog or email promotion to create your sales collateral is a great option. Just be sure to adjust appropriately if you reuse marketing content in sales collateral.

Sales Collateral Mistake 3: Failing To Divide External & Internal Content

Not all sales collateral is meant to be read by the end prospect. Sometimes, your sales team needs help overcoming objections, synthesizing information, and staying true to your brand’s message. If sellers need help communicating the finer points of your value proposition, then internal-only talk tracks might be necessary pieces of sales collateral. Just be sure that it is crystal clear which piece of content is meant to be read by a prospect and which is only for a seller to consult. You don’t want to inadvertently give a prospect your entire sales playbook merely because a seller was unsure what was external and what was internal. This division of sales content into external and internal can also save you time. A properly branded piece of sales collateral requires a lot of graphic design to really impress a prospect. An internal-only piece might require a little less. 

Sales Collateral Mistake 4: Failing To Align Sales & Marketing

Too many brands think of the line between sales and marketing as a line in the sand. In this framework, every deal can be neatly and cleanly handed off from marketing to the sales team. A clear before and after, where the deal has passed from marketing to sales. However, this framework doesn’t help sales and marketing work together to close deals.

 Let’s walk through an example. Imagine a lead found your website on Google, thanks to your SEO campaign, and submitted a request for an appointment. A sales rep then schedules time with them to review their problem. In the “line in the sand” approach, marketing’s job is done. The lead has gone off their plate and is on the sales team’s plate. However, in our opinion, the marketing team’s job isn’t over; it’s only morphed! We recommend including that lead on email marketing promotions, even as they chat with your sales team, for the best results. The lead is likely still learning about your brand, and your marketing content is still useful, even as they plan out a deal with Sales. 

The more marketing and sales collaborate to move deals through to close, the better your outcomes will be. Trust us. 

Common Types of Sales Collateral

 

  • Case Studies: Everyone says that they’re the best. Potential clients are thus a little skeptical, and that skepticism is warranted. Combat this skepticism with social proof in the form of a case study. This demonstration of your excellence proves you’re the real deal. If you have a client that is willing to testify on camera about what you did for them, even better.

 

  • Battle Cards: When your prospect is considering your solution vs a direct competitor, nothing is as useful to your sales team as a battle card. This side-by-side comparison demonstrates the offerings, strengths, and differences between you and any given competitor and gives your sales team a talk track to help overcome objections. It’s important to note that battle cards can be both client-facing and merely an internal resource to help your sellers format their responses to objections. 

 

  • Whitepapers: Sometimes, your solution is a technically complex one, or your prospect’s need is very intricate. A whitepaper highlighting your thought leadership and industry expertise, is a great piece of sales collateral for these situations. The end goal of a well-written whitepaper is to elaborate on an industry problem at a high level of detail. These pieces of content are usually great resources to leave with prospects as conversations are beginning to demonstrate what your brand has contributed to the industry’s conversation around a topic.

 

  • Infographics: Infographics are quick, digestible pieces of content that outline what problem you solve and what that means for your prospect. This piece of sales collateral should be one-page and boost plenty of graphics and eye-catching images. The goal with this piece of collateral isn’t to win a deal immediately; it’s to give the client a quick run-down of who you are and build some awareness. We recommend sending this piece of sales collateral out after meetings with prospects so that they have a summary piece of content to consult later or show to other internal team members. 

 

Develop Your Dream Sales Collateral With JSL

As a small business, you don’t have the marketing resources that a larger sales organization might. That’s okay! You can still compete at the highest level with the help of a quality marketing agency.

JSL Marketing & Web Design is an award-winning marketing agency headquartered in Dallas, TX. We’ve been helping clients develop their dream content for years and are waiting in the wings to help you put your story on the page!

In addition to any of the above pieces of sales collateral, we might also recommend…

 

  • Formalizing A Brand Style Guide
  • A Competitive Analysis
  • Market Research
  • Logo & Graphic Design Improvements
  • Digital Marketing
  • & More

 

Fill Out The Contact Form To Talk Shop

How To Build Your Business Social Media Following

Social media is an amazing way to keep your customers aware of what is happening with your brand! Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram let you share content about your brand directly with your customers, which is a huge benefit for your business. If done right, you can use social media to keep your customers aware of your offerings, educate them about your brand, and collect customer feedback. And it’s typically a fairly low-cost medium! That’s not a bad deal.

However, you will need social media followers to maximize your social media presence. Going viral just isn’t a long-term strategy. You will need an established and engaged social media following to maximize your use of the medium. That can be difficult for some brands, especially if you’re new to business social media.

Read Onto Learn More About Social Media Following

Follow Others

If you want to increase your social media following, be prepared to follow. Following other business pages in your local market is a great way to do this. First off, there is an intrinsic urge to reciprocate that will help you increase your following. However, this also is just a great way to be plugged into your local area and up to date with the goings on with your compatriots. Now, we do recommend that you use some discretion when following other social media profiles. Following every social media profile, you possibly can will likely not help. Following social media profiles that are local and interesting is a better practice.

Paid Social

Paid social ad campaigns on Facebook or Instagram do cost an ad spend, but the results are clear. Most of your organic social media followers likely know your business or know about your business. If you’re looking to grow your business profile, you thus need to expand beyond reaching current customers and need to reach net new followers. While paid social ads aren’t for every brand, they are the best way to get your messaging in front of new eyeballs and increase the number of followers.

Ask Your Customers

Sometimes, all you have to do is ask. Your current customers are one possible avenue to growing your social media profile following. After all, they know your brand and likely are thrilled! If you ask enough of your best customers for follows, you will slowly but surely begin to expand your social media following. If you get most of your business from a brick-and-mortar store, we recommend training your front door staff to ask delighted customers to follow you on Facebook and Instagram as a part of their process.

Now, it is important to ensure that you make a value proposition when you’re asking current customers. Let’s say you’re a smoothie shop, and you’re instructing your front-end staff on how to ask a customer for a follow on Facebook. We might recommend ensuring that your staff highlights the fact that you share information about monthly specials, coupons, and limited-time offers on your social media profiles. This increases the odds that you’ll get a few followers! The more they understand what’s in it for them, the higher the odds that you’ll be growing your following in no time.

Promote Digitally

If you do most of your business over the internet, gaining new social media followers can be a little different than if you’re a brick-and-mortar store. We recommend including a quick blurb asking for a follow at the bottom of your website and in email marketing correspondence for best results. You also can cross-promote other social media platforms if needed. Let’s say that your Facebook has plenty of followers, but LinkedIn doesn’t. There’s nothing that says you can’t begin linking to your LinkedIn profile to help get a little more traffic on that platform.

Collaborate

Planning a guest blog with another business is one tactic to consider when trying to grow your social media following. The idea looks something like this.

 

  • Find a relevant business to your industry.
  • Offer to write a guest piece of content on their website in exchange for you doing the same.
  • Once published, the business in question shares the guest piece of content on their social media platforms and tags your profile.

 

This strategy is a proven way to build relationships in your industry and also to get a little more traffic to your social media profile! This tactic is a little more time-intensive, so we don’t necessarily recommend it for everyone, but if you know a local business that you have a great rapport with, it might be worth considering.

Produce Great Content

It’s much harder than merely stating it, but producing great and interesting content is the best way to grow your social media presence. No one goes on social media merely to go on social media. They’re on social media for entertainment, and if they learn a little something about your brand in the process, that’s ok too. Per that, it’s imperative that you have great content to keep the following you have engaged.

If you need help planning a comprehensive social media strategy, turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design. We’re an award-winning social media agency proudly based in Dallas, TX.

Contact us for ….

 

 

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How Should Marketers Use ChatGPT?

If you’ve been following the news lately, you know that Chat GPT is the newest and hottest trend. The advent of  Open AI’s ChatGPT has the world abuzz and its reverberations are likely to be felt across a multitude of industries.

Data and tech types have been enraptured by how advanced the machine language processing of ChatGPT is. Employment experts are torn over whether or not this tech will create more jobs or result in widespread layoffs. And then some of us are just trying to write essays about world history in the style of a Nickelodeon cartoon. Regardless of your thoughts on ChatGPT and opinions on whether it’s a net positive or another piece of tech humanity is too incompetent to use correctly, it’s impossible to deny that Chat GPT will have a huge impact on the world.

The marketing world is not immune from this buzz. The practical benefits and technical imperfections of ChatGPT have got many in the industry asking themselves a question: how should marketers use ChatGPT?

We have our thoughts on the pros and cons of ChatGPT and whether or not it is capable of changing the marketing world. ChatGPT is an exciting and revolutionary piece of tech, but we don’t see it taking any marketing jobs quite yet. However, we are excited about the tech and what it could possibly do for the marketing world.

Read Onto Learn More About ChatGPT & How Marketers Should Use It! 

What ChatGPT Can’’t Do

ChatGPT is an amazing piece of tech, but it does have limitations. The technology is so new that comprehensive analysis has not been done, but some flaws are readily apparent. Experts have noticed that ChatGPT is phenomenal at processing information, but it lacks the ability to analyze at times. So, for instance, if you ask ChatGPT to write an essay about if a multi-level marketing scheme is worth it, it will succinctly recap the pros and cons for you.

However, ChatGPT will not weight these positions towards the evidence for each position, but will instead merely offer both the evidence for and against an MLM as equally valid. This sort of noncommittal and apathetic summary is fine if you ask ChatGPT to discuss the pros and cons of New World Vs Old World wine, since these are taste-dependent opinions. It could potentially be life-altering if ChatGPT takes this approach with something as serious as a medical, legal, or engineering question. ChatGPT can summarize well, but it can’t offer professional recommendations the same way a tenured doctor, lawyer or engineer could. (Or at least, it can’t yet.)

ChatGPT also is designed to give answers. It’s not designed to ensure that every piece of information presented is fully accurate. So, it is possible for ChatGPT to offer different answers to the exact same question, if prompted consecutively. Remember, ChatGPT wants to give you what you’re looking for, even if you already have received correct information.

These aren’t the only flaws with the system. ChatGPT is often too verbose when compared to a human professional’s recommendation, it often struggles with idioms and slang, and it cannot quite express complex emotions as simply as humans can. As it turns out, there actually are elements of being human that AI can’t fully experience and understand.

These flaws don’t render ChatGPT useless. It is important, however, to remember what the system can and cannot do. With that in mind, you can be better positioned to use ChatGPT effectively in ways that the tech can shine.

ChatGPT Marketing Use 1: Rough Draft

The main capability of ChatGPT as we see it is its ability to generate rough drafts. Every marketer who has written marketing copy before knows that not all drafts see the light of day and for good reason. Sometimes, you need to scrap a few drafts before you end up on the right path. All of these rewrites burn time. ChatGPT potentially could be your new resource for rough drafts. Ask ChatGPT to write your rough drafts and then consult what it has produced. Do you like the structure? Is the style what you’re going for? Is something lacking?

These rough drafts don’t merely provide you a resource to consult; they potentially could be a start on your final iteration. If your topic is simple enough, consider cleaning up and smoothing out the rough edges of ChatGPT’s first draft to get to your end draft. Your marketing content production time has just been halved without any drop in quality.

ChatGPT Marketing Use 2: Insight Stream

Similarly to the rough draft idea, ChatGPT offers marketers the ability to pull in additional insights through ChatGPT’s automation. Imagine you need to write a whitepaper for a very specific and technical industry. Typically, this would require quite a bit of research and planning to fully understand the layout and structure necessary for this whitepaper. Now, let’s say you have access to ChatGPT and decide to ask ChatGPT to write a rough draft for you. Basically, nothing too different from our previously mentioned rough draft idea.

As previously mentioned, you’ll need to edit, fact-check and reformat elements of the ChatGPT rough draft. However, ChatGPT’s machine-learning allows it to access more information than any one human could analyze. This means that ChatGPT will likely take your whitepaper in a different direction than you would have previously thought of taking. The nuances ChatGPT includes could prompt you to research an industry-specific trend you were not previously aware of and thus create a stronger and more compelling white paper. Essentially, ChatGPT is now your free machine-learning researcher and that’s a great resource for a marketer to have on standby, especially for technical writing.

ChatGPT Marketing Use 3: Expedite Processes

ChatGPT’s main strength is that it is capable of speeding up production times. While it’s not intelligent enough to automate certain high-level tasks, ChatGPT is sophisticated enough to perform writing tasks that previously only humans could complete. Imagine the basic and tedious typing and retyping that goes into writing social media posts, email campaigns and paid search campaigns. These sorts of writing tasks usually aren’t terribly complex, but they do take time.

Just like how ChatGPT can be used to make rough drafts, it can also be used to take first stabs at copy. While it will require research, editing, and strategic insight to approve and use ChatGPT’s copy, the machine-learning is nuanced enough to speed up the production of marketing assets. The more mundane elements of marketing writing can be automated at this point. Marketers can now focus on researching, planning, and testing campaign specifics and outsource the tedious elements of writing to ChatGPT.

ChatGPT Marketing Use 4: Experiment

No one writes marketing content just to write content. If you’re writing marketing copy, you’re doing so for your audience, whether you’re a freelancer, a marketing agency, an internal marketing team, or a business owner and these stakeholders typically want their marketing content written a certain way. Typically, you have deadlines, style guides, and target keywords to be aware of as well. That’s without the stressors of all of the other hats you wear in both your professional and personal life. Unfortunately, due to budget and time constraints, most marketers don’t experiment with creative writing in their marketing projects.

But what if that could change? What if ChatGPT could be your soundboard for changes in content tone? Imagine having the ability to ask ChatGPT to write four or five different blogs or email promotions, but each with a distinct tone. Maybe your brand has always had a more laid back tone, but you see elements of ChatGPT’s crack at a formalized tone that intrigue you. Maybe you’ve struggled with writing conversational ad copy, but you see glimmers of a new brand voice with ChatGPT. That could potentially revolutionize your brand’s tone and messaging and without much effort at all on your end!

ChatGPT Marketing Use 5: A/B Test

This isn’t a direct use of ChatGPT, but rather an outgrowth of the product. As we’ve mentioned prior, ChatGPT has the potential to cut production times dramatically and basically automate mundane writing tasks. Now, imagine using ChatGPT to produce different and distinct styles of email messages, ad copy and blogs. We recommend investing that extra time into evaluating which version of a piece of content drives the best results.

Marketers have been A/B and A/B/C testing since the dawn of time, but too often, the time required to create copy prohibits many marketing teams from really A/B/C testing as often as they should. With ChatGPT, the time spent to create ad copy is removed as a constraint and marketers can now test virtually endless combinations of copy in their paid ads, email campaigns, and web content.

Evaluate Your Marketing Strategy With JSL Marketing & Web Design

ChatGPT will absolutely shake up the marketing world. This new technology means that producing quality marketing content will be easier than ever. However, the mere use of ChatGPT will not guarantee success. More and more businesses will rely on ChatGPT to produce more content than ever in the years ahead and proper marketing strategy will become more and more important. The difference between successful brands and mediocre brands in the post-ChatGPT world won’t be technology; it will be strategy, ability to pivot, and research capabilities. Good tech means faster production times, but a strategic and well-researched mindset always trumps tech in the marketing world, in our experience.

Need some help getting your marketing strategy ironed out? Turn to JSL Marketing & Web Design! We’re ready to discuss …

 

  • Brand Messaging
  • Content Strategy
  • Branding & Logo Design
  • Market Research
  • Competitive Analysis
  • & More!

 

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5 Quick Google Ad Optimizations

If you’re looking for quick Google Ad optimizations, you’ve come to the right place!

Google Ads is the premier destination for advertisers online. Millions of dollars are spent on Google every day and it’s estimated that Google Ads generates over 140 billion dollars a year for Alphabet. Google Ads is a staple of the global digital marketing ecosystem and thousands upon thousands of advertisers use this platform to reach their consumers. The reason why is simple. Google Ads offers a cost-effective pricing model, substantial reach and enhanced reporting. If you are a small business owner who is not utilizing Google Ads, we strongly recommend you begin investing in paid search campaigns to grow your business..

However, every pay-per-click marketer knows that managing Google Ads is part science, part art.. The Google Ads pay-per-click marketplace is a dynamic and ever changing environment and even the best campaigns need tweaks to ensure best results. While we wish it was possible to set and forget ad campaigns, there will be times that optimizations are necessary. Enter our recommendations for quick Google Ad fixes!

It’s important to note that these are quick fixes. All of these recommendations are simple and straightforward changes that any pay-per-click marketer worth their salt could implement in an hour or two. They will improve performance on any ad account, but they won’t immediately right the ship if your keyword strategy is off, your budget is too low, or your copy is poorly written. Rather, the below list of optimizations are simple steps for improvement that we recommend you start with. 80% improvement can be seen from 20% of the work, as they say, so we recommend starting with simple fixes before investing more time in substantive and more technically-complex optimizations.

Google Ad Fix 1: Negative Keywords

Negative keywords are phrases that Google will block from your ad campaigns. As a rule, search specialists use the tactic to exclude search terms they don’t want to spend money on. Every keyword you target on Google Ads will inevitably receive clicks from search terms that aren’t relevant. It’s just a part of digital marketing. Think of targeting “cheese” as a search term and receiving clicks from “cheese cake.” The good news is that this waste can be prevented and minimized with the addition of specific negative keywords.

Imagine you are a specialty online cheese shop. You have a “Manchego” ad group with specific keywords centered on this cheese product you offer. When you go and analyze search term reports, you see that this keyword is appearing for a variety of search terms. Let’s say that “what is manchego” and “what is manchego cheese” are two common terms you appear for.

You see, however, that while you receive a lot of clicks from these search terms, you have not received a single purchase from these terms. That’s to be expected; the “what is” search terms signal an interest in learning about manchego cheese, not necessarily an interest in purchasing. In addition to blocking these individual search terms, we’d recommend adding “what is” as a negative keyword. Proactively and strategically using negative keywords allows you to refine your Google Ads campaigns and focus on the terms that are most impactful for your business.

Google Ad Fix 2: Pause Low-Performers

Out of all of the fixes we recommend, this might be the easiest solution. Sometimes, the exclusion of poor performing ads, keywords and ad groups can be all you need to see better results. Let’s say in our cheese shop example, you’ve been running ad campaigns for a quarter and have some data to work with. You see in the Google Ads user interface that your Parmesan, Manchego, and Gorgonzola ad groups are producing a positive return on ad spend and the Specialty Cheeses ad group has produced only one sale, despite taking up 10% of your budget. Pausing Specialty Cheeses is likely a good call to free up budget to go towards more cost-effective ad groups.

The same principle holds true for individual ads and keywords. We recommend ensuring that you have enough data to justify any pause, but sometimes, disinvesting from certain ads, ad groups, and keywords is the right strategy for Google Ads Success.

Google Ads Fix 3: Evaluate Match Types

We like to use a fishing analogy to explain Google Ads to a non-marketing audience. Think of the search terms users type into Google like particular types of fish. The keywords you decide to enable, which will trigger your ads showing for a particular search term, are bait. Some keywords might sound like a good way to catch a certain type of search term, but actually only bring in unwanted search terms. Some align well to a premier type of search term and might not catch many search terms, but catch high-quality clicks.

That’s where match types come in. Match types tell Google Ads how wide a net to cast with any given keyword, to continue the fishing analogy. The three “nets” are board match, phrase match, and exact match and each has a unique advantage and disadvantage.

Let’s say you’re targeting the keyword “marketing agencies in Dallas.” That one keyword could potentially appear for very different search terms, depending on the match type selected. With a broad match type, you would reach Google users researching topics related to “marketing agencies in Dallas.” With a phrase match, your ads would appear for search queries with the same meaning as your specific keywords. An exact match type would only let your ads be triggered by search terms with the exact same meaning as your keyword. So, to recap, a broad match type will reach the widest, but least refined audience, an exact match type will reach the narrowest, but most refined audience, with phrase match being between the two.

Let’s return to our cheese shop analogy. Let’s say that the Parmesan ad group is hardly getting any clicks. A good way of combating this would be to utilize more broad match and phrase match keywords, if you’re mostly running exact match keywords. Inversely, if this ad group was wasting budget and clicks on unrelated search terms, you’re probably casting too wide a net and need to focus on phrase and exact match, if you’re running only broad match keywords.

Google Ads Fix 4: Consider The Landing Page

Landing page experience is a key component of quality scores, the measure Google Ads uses to evaluate how relevant your ad is to what the user typed into Google. If your ad takes those who click it to a poorly-correlated landing page, you will be dinged for it by Google.

Now, you don’t need to be egregiously wrong with the landing pages you drive traffic towards to pay a price. If you’re not smart with the landing pages you select for your ad campaigns, you can still suffer a consequence. Let’s again return to our online cheese shop. Let’s say all ads lead towards your homepage. That’s not a bad destination at all! However, remember that, in this fictitious example, you’re running multiple ad groups for specific cheese search terms. Your homepage is a fine landing page, but if a user clicks on an ad promoting “cheddar cheese,” they’re probably expecting to see that product on the landing page they end up on.

With that in mind, consider the results your campaign could see with a few landing pagechanges. We’d recommend choosing cheese-specific landing pages for specific ad groups. Let’s say your web page has a Parmesan subsection, for instance. We’d recommend placing that as your landing page for that specific ad group for best results! Reducing the number of clicks necessary to complete a purchase and aligning ads to the contents of the landing page is a great strategy to increase checkouts and ensure that you are not suffering a relevancy ding from Google.

Google Ads Fix 5: Evaluate Your Strategy & Adjust Bidding

Google Ads allows users to set distinct bidding strategies to help maximize campaign performance. We could spend days discussing the tech and strategies behind each one, but for now, know that each bidding strategy correlates to a goal for that campaign. For instance, a “maximize clicks” bidding strategy tells Google to prioritize clicks on your ads over all other key performance indicators. A “maximize conversions” bidding strategy tells the platform to focus on conversions, like phone calls, check outs, or requests for information, over all other key performance indicators.

Now, it’s imperative that you utilize the right bidding strategy when setting up a Google Ads campaign and that your selected bidding strategy correlates to your wider business objectives. This might sound obvious, but you would be surprised how easy it is to select the wrong bidding strategy if you are unfamiliar with Google Ads. Let’s once again return to our cheese shop. In this instance, conversions, or checkouts from the site’s online store, are probably going to be the most impactful for this business’s bottom line.

However, let’s assume that the cheese shop is new and has very little brand recognition. Because of this,  the shop’s main goal is to get as many eyes on its ads, website, and content as possible, to familiarize the market with the shop’s name and cheese offerings. A slower start to online sales is fine with the cheese shop, since they know that they need the brand recognition to kick off their digital marketing. Given all of that information, a Target Impression Share bidding strategy might actually be best for the cheese shop, since they just want to familiarize their target customers with their wares, even if that means less online sales in the short term. We’d likely recommend quickly copying and relaunching the shop’s campaigns with a Target Impression Share bid strategy.

Maybe you’re focusing on CTR as the main goal for your ad campaigns, but need to report on Return on Ad Spend to show success. Maybe you’re focusing on Return On Ad Spend as a main goal, despite the fact that your product is quite technical and complicated and is often purchased after a long and deliberative sales cycle. Regardless of what your use case is, consider what bidding strategy you’re using in Google Ads and determine if you need to make tweaks to better align with your business needs.

Improve Google Ads With JSL

It’s again worth repeating that these are all quick fixes. These recommendations are simple, easy-to-implement, and don’t require a lot of time. Plus, all of these recommendations will help improve performance. However, if your Google Ads strategy needs more work, none of these corrections will work miracles. That’s not to say that our recommendations aren’t effective; sometimes, more effort and research is needed to achieve better results if you’re in a high-competition market or new to Pay-Per-Click marketing.

That’s where we come in.

JSL Marketing & Web Design is a full-service marketing agency, based out of Dallas, Texas. We’re not only an industry-leader in SEO; we’re your strategic advisor on all things marketing related.

Depending on your unique needs, we can work on improving…

 

  • Ad Messaging
  • A/B Testing
  • Keyword Research
  • Audience Targeting & Observing
  • Competitive Marketplace Positioning
  • Landing Page Experience
  • Ad Group Breakouts
  • & More!

 

Fill Out The Contact Form For A Free Google Ads Audit!

5 Email Newsletter Mistakes To Avoid

Email newsletters are a great way to educate your customers about your brand, but there are some newsletter mistakes you need to be aware of!

Every good marketer knows that establishing a loyal customer base is a great way to grow your brand cost-effectively. It’s exponentially cheaper to turn a one-off customer into a repeat customer than to gain a new one-off customer. There are many ways to build that loyal audience, and a business newsletter is a great way to speak to your most loyal customers. A good business newsletter is a great medium for delivering product updates, advertising new specials, celebrating business wins, and highlighting exceptional staff.

While most businesses aren’t writing business newsletters and should, this blog is for businesses writing and distributing a newsletter now and looking to avoid common newsletter mistakes. Writing a newsletter can be tough, so the more advice you can get, the better. A good business newsletter requires knowing your audience and nailing your brand voice, which is harder than it sounds.

Per that, to help guide you through your email newsletter, we assembled our content team’s thoughts on common business newsletter mistakes.

Business Newsletter Mistake 1: Getting Too Technical

Email newsletters are a great way to promote new pieces of content on your website, share industry news, and prime your audience for new product releases. However, it is important to remember that your readers likely aren’t experts in your industry. Remember, they depend on you to be the expert for them. We recommend sharing industry news and explaining its impact on your business, but we would encourage you to keep it comprehensible. Your readers want to be informed and understand your thoughts on your industry. Still, they don’t need to dive into the more granular elements of macroeconomic conditions, industry controversies, and product development.

Now, if you are a Business-to-Business company, you have more leeway to use a little more jargon than you would if you were marketing to consumers directly. Your target audience, if you’re trying to reach a business decision-maker audience, is likely to be more educated on the nuances of your industry and willing to learn more about your brand’s context. Still, we would recommend keeping your newsletter a little more conversational. If you want to take a more technical tone, we recommend linking your newsletter to a whitepaper or case study on your website. That’s likely the best way to highlight your industry expertise without leaving your audience behind.

Business Newsletter Mistake 2: Choosing The Wrong Cadence

This email newsletter mistake is pretty easy to make. Open rates will often stay below 50%, no matter how relevant any one email is, so a lot of marketers start thinking of email marketing as a volume game. If you see a 30% open rate on every email, why not send the newsletter out more frequently to ensure more eyes read your content?

However, this approach can backfire. The more emails you send, the higher probability that your readership decides to unsubscribe. That’s not a good outcome for your business newsletter.

The inverse can also happen. Since it requires time, planning, and attention to detail to send out a great email newsletter, some small businesses can find it easier to send out email newsletters only once a half. That’s not much better than the weekly email, in our experience. We typically recommend at least a quarterly cadence for an email newsletter but monthly can be better for certain industries and brands.

Regardless of which cadence you decide to follow, be sure to stick with it. Nothing will drop your readership as quickly as haphazardly sending out email newsletters when you have the time. It’s better to send them out quarterly, if that gives you the time to plan, research and write than to send out subpar emails on no set cadence.

Business Newsletter Mistake 3: Being Too Topical

You’re writing a newsletter, so it makes sense that you should incorporate current news, right?

Well, not exactly. Yes, you should incorporate industry-related news and educate your readership about new happenings with your brand. This is a great way to share content with your audience. However, be cautious that you don’t write a newsletter that ONLY tries to connect to current events.

If you’re writing about impactful changes in industry regulation, process, or product offerings, staying topical isn’t a bad use of space. But sometimes, business newsletters only include information about the latest fad on social media, recipes for the changing seasons, or well-wishes for specific holidays.

We get it. Sometimes, you’re on a deadline and need to fill space. Still, be wary of using seasonal or topical content to use all of the digital pages. If your readership wanted a recipe for Christmas cookies, they’d consult a baking blog, not your newsletter.

Now, we highly recommend incorporating some degree of tradition in your email newsletter. We love seeing staff birthdays and work anniversaries highlighted in business newsletters since these sorts of moments help humanize your brand to your customer and promote a sense of loyalty. Develop your own sense of tradition for optimal results; just be sure your traditions are relevant to your customer base.

Business Newsletter Mistake 4: Making Your Newsletter A Sales Pitch

We get it. You’re busy and want to maximize your outreach to existing customers. There is nothing wrong with that. However, if you fall into the bad habit of viewing your business newsletter as solely a chance to upsell or promote new offerings, your readers may start unsubscribing.

These readers know your brand and likely have already purchased from you. They opened your email newsletter to stay updated on the industry and your business, not feel like they just walked onto a used-car lot, complete with a pushy salesperson. Now, if you are offering a new product, we definitely recommend promoting that product via email. It shouldn’t be tangled up with news updates if it’s important enough to warrant an announcement. We recommend sending out a promotional email separate from your newsletter. Let the newsletter be about your brand, not your sales pitch

Business Newsletter Mistake 5: Failing To Segment

Email marketing is a great medium for newsletters, although printed newsletters can work for some brands. But good email marketing requires a wide net of email addresses since only 40%-50% of recipients will open any email. Per that, brands sometimes fall into the trap of throwing every email address they have onto a contacts list.

That can often be a mistake. The best use of a business newsletter is to grow and develop a loyal and excited customer base, the most excited and engaged people who have ever purchased from your business. Sending out a generic business newsletter to every email you have is likely to fail at reaching that objective.

We recommend pruning your customer list down to as core of a group as possible. Depending on how many email addresses you have, you could even create multiple customer remarketing campaigns. For instance, you could send general product announcements via email to all of your contact lists, send a quarterly newsletter to a smaller subsect and then deliver a “Rewards Club” email to an even smaller subsect. Regardless of how you segment your audience, just be sure you deliver email content your reader will be interested in. This is a key marketing rule to keep in general: the more targeted your content is, the better.

Take Your Email Marketing To The Next Level With JSL

We mentioned previously that print newsletters could be effective for some brands, but email is the best vector. In our experience as a digital marketing agency, email marketing is the most cost-effective, labor-efficient, and targeted way to reach existing customers. If you’re a small business that often sells to existing customers, you must use email marketing, no ifs, ands, or buts.

However, small businesses often struggle with getting email marketing down pat. Email marketing requires technical savvy, marketing experience, and design skills to really be done right. If you’re busy managing your business, that can be unrealistic. That’s where JSL Marketing & Web Design, your premier email marketing agency, enters the picture.

Depending on your specific needs, we can work with you to develop….

 

  • Automated Email Campaigns
  • Targeted Email Blasts
  • Segmented Customer Lists
  • Digital Graphics
  • Content Promotion Strategies
  • & More!

 

Fill Out The Form Below To Begin Your Email Marketing Planning!

3 Quick Ways To Remarket To Existing Customers

Remarketing to your existing customers is a foolproof way to grow your business, but too few small businesses use remarketing effectively!

Many small businesses don’t have the time to invest in multiple marketing projects. We get it; you’re busy, and there’s only one of you to go around. At first glance, putting your time and energy into gaining new customers might make sense. After all, why would you want to put your marketing dollars toward customers you already have in your camp?

Well, the reason why you should consider marketing to existing customers is pretty simple. It’s effective! Your current customers already know your brand and have some familiarity with your offerings. Per this, they’re likely to repurchase from you, making remarketing to current customers a great way to use your marketing dollars effectively.

Think of gaining net new customers via marketing like hunting. It’s time and energy-intensive, but it can be rewarding if done right! Inversely, think of remarketing to your current customers like tending an orchard. It will require a lot of time to plant and grow the orchard. The orchard will likely require more tender loving care at first, and maintaining this orchard will be time-intensive. But if done right, you’ll be able to reap rewards from that orchard for years to come and often with mere maintenance work, not the laborious amount of effort and luck required to hunt.

That’s your customer base! If done right, you can win repeat business from a customer for years and years, and what’s more, you can win this repeat business cost-effectively. That’s one of the reasons why we recommend putting your marketing dollars and effort into marketing to existing customers. Yes, they are currently a customer, but you’ll likely find it easier and more cost-effective to grow their business than incentivizing a new customer to purchase.

To help you plan out your remarketing campaign, we assembled our thoughts on quick, easy ways to reach your current customers and grow your customer base!

Remarketing Tip 1: Brand Collateral

As a digital marketing agency, we love the Internet. The worldwide web has done so much for marketing and for the marketing of small businesses in particular. No one can deny that. Still, it is worth remembering that marketing did exist before Google, as shocking as that might be. Brand collateral is a great example of marketing in the long-forgotten B.G years. (Before Google!)

Moreover, brand collateral is a great example of how you can use remarketing to stay top-relevant with your current customers. Distributing free branded items for customers or at an event your brand sponsors is a great way to stay top of mind.

Imagine you’re a doctor’s office distributing free, branded refrigerator magnets to every new patient. While this might be an altruistic service, it can also serve an ulterior motive. Keeping your name and brand on the fridge door for your past customer to see dramatically increases the odds they return the next time they need a health concern treated!

There are numerous branded items your business could produce, among them…

 

  • Pens
  • Shirts
  • Notepads
  • Mugs & Drinkware
  • Stickers
  • & More!

 

Remarketing Tip 2: Email Updates

Email marketing is a great way to reach your current customers. For one, it’s extremely affordable. While the software necessary to run email marketing does require some investment, the cost of sending emails is practically nil. This makes email marketing one of the highest Return-on-Investment marketing activities.

We recommend using email marketing to keep your current customers engaged. There are a couple of ways of doing this. Customer recall campaigns are a strategic and simple way of keeping a past customer interested. We typically recommend sending a confirmation email directly after any purchase, whether it’s an online purchase or a physical appointment. After that, a monthly follow-up, followed by a three-month check-in, is a great cadence to keep in touch. Regardless of how you structure this campaign, we encourage you to consider what cadence makes sense for your customers and your unique needs.

Another great use of email marketing is the promotion of new products and services. These “email blasts,” as they are sometimes called, keep your new specials, offerings, and merchandise top of mind with your customer base. For best results, segment out your customer base into smaller sub-lists. For instance, if you sell college sports merchandise online, we’d recommend sending an email about new sweatshirts only to those who purchased a sweatshirt in the past for best results.

There’s a lot you can do with email marketing. We usually recommend …

 

  • Email Blasts
  • Business Newsletters
  • Customer Recall Campaigns
  • & More!

 

Remarketing Tip 3: Loyalty Clubs

A loyalty club is a great way to incentivize your best customers to keep coming back. These promotional clubs incentivize your best customers by cultivating an air of exclusivity. Let’s face it; we all love feeling like we’re in the “in-crowd.” A loyalty program is a great way to make your best customers feel like they’re getting in on the ground floor. However, your loyalty program also provides tangible offerings to your top customers that aren’t merely psychological.

We recommend using a customer loyalty program to…

 

  • Try Out New Specials & Discounts Before Launching To Your Wider Customer Base
  • Incentivize Increased Ordering (Buy 5, Get 2 Free, etc., etc.)
  • Research Customer Wish Lists For Your Product Or Service
  • Cross-Sell Your Customers On A New Product Or Service
  • Upsell Your Clients On A More Premium Version Of Your Product Or Service
  • Gather Information For Other Marketing Activities (Email Addresses, Phone Numbers, etc., etc.)
  • Ask Top Clients For Google Reviews Or Video Testimonials For Broader Marketing Efforts

 

Each of these recommendations could be its own blog post, and we encourage you to do more digging into each point before rolling it out at your business. Regardless, our point still stands; there’s a lot you can do with a customer loyalty club beyond merely upselling, cross-selling, or incentivizing more purchases.

The members of your customer loyalty club should be your most engaged and most eager clients. Use their opinions and recommendations to gather marketing information, enhance your business’s offerings, and improve your marketing efforts. Trust us; the more you talk to your top customers, the more you’ll learn, and that’s never a bad outcome.

Remarket To Existing Customers With JSL

Every business is different. If you plan on marketing to your current customers, you might need strategic advice from a trusted marketing partner to help you reach your goals. If you need help discerning what is and isn’t working in your current marketing and think an outside expert could be helpful, contact JSL Marketing & Web Design today!

Your brand is unique and has specific needs. Our process takes all of that into consideration. You’ll never be treated like your brand is just like everyone else because, well, it’s not! Marketing is complex. We factor that complexity into our process by getting to know you and your strategic goals. From there, we then work to develop a custom marketing plan for your unique needs!

After that free strategic consultation, we might recommend…

 

 

Fill Out The Contact Form To Talk Shop!

How To Choose A Marketing Agency

When you need help expanding your business, knowing how to choose a marketing agency is a great skill to have! Marketing agencies have been industry staples and trusted partners for advertisers for years and the right marketing agency is a huge boon for any brand looking to supercharge their marketing.

However, there’s a myriad of marketing agencies out there and they are not all created equal. Business owners often find themselves fielding pitches from a plethora of prospective marketing agencies and it can be confusing if you aren’t familiar with the marketing industry.

The terminology will be completely new, the pitches will start to blend together, and eventually, the unique, creative agency names will start to sound less cute and more cliche. There’s only so many ways you can purposefully misspell your agency name or claim to be “ground-breaking,” but somehow, every startup agency finds a way to be cliche in their own tired way. The point is, you’re busy growing your business. You don’t have time to separate the real, award-winning agencies from the two-bit pretenders.

That’s why we wrote this blog to help you think through how to choose the right marketing agency!

Read on to learn About Choosing A Marketing Agency!

The Benefits Of A Marketing Agency

Why would you even want to partner with a marketing agency? Well, there are a couple of reasons.

The Right Marketing Agency is A Source of Knowledge

If you’re a small business owner, time is a scarce resource. You don’t have time to learn about the finer points of A/B testing, market research, and SWOT analyses. The right marketing agency can help you fill in those gaps and augment your knowledge of your industry and business with marketing specific knowledge.

The Right Marketing Agency Offers Specific Technical Expertise

Digital marketing is a complicated specialty and it’s short of impossible to master the specifics without working in the industry. Backlinking, schema mark ups, search engine optimization and keyword strategies take time to master and most small businesses just don’t have the time to master these digital marketing practices. A good digital marketing agency will have specific departments or people for specific purposes and that distribution of work lets your business invest in mediums you never thought possible. Now, with the right agency alongside you, you can use SEO, PPC advertising, and web design to grow your business!

The Right Marketing Agency Frees Up Time

Compartmentalizing marketing into separate functions frees up time for all parties involved. Maybe you can manage your in-store marketing and customer loyalty promotions, but need help with bringing in new business. Outsourcing the aspects of your business that an agency partner can manage gives you time to focus on what you do best: managing your business!

How To Choose a Marketing Agency

Well, now that you understand the benefits of marketing agencies, how do you actually choose an agency?

Research Each Agency

Researching any potential marketing agency or marketing partner is the first and ultimately, perhaps the most important part of your process. We can give you great advice, rules of thumb and tips and tricks, but unless you are able to research for yourself, all of that is for naught. We encourage you to delve into any potential marketing agency’s online presence and analyze them thoroughly. You won’t be disappointed.

Consider Your Strategy

While researching a marketing agency for your needs, it’s important to consider your strategy. You can select the best marketing agency in the world, but if you don’t align that choice to your comprehensive marketing strategy, you won’t see the best possible results. If you know your needs, you can better select agencies to help get you there. For instance, if you need to focus on your branding, selecting a marketing agency that specializes in lead generation won’t be a recipe for success. Inversely, if you need market research to better inform your marketing strategy, selecting a branding-focused marketing agency won’t quite cut it.

Ask Potential Agencies For Proof

Asking for proof from any prospective marketing agency is crucial. Every agency will claim to be the best in their niche and it can be confusing if you take all of these agencies at face value. We recommend separating the real deals from the rest by asking for social proof of some sort. Any marketing agency worth their salt should have client testimonials, case studies or white papers for you to review.

Now, because most agencies will have these promotional materials handy, don’t take these promotions at face value. Your potential agencies have likely curated their marketing materials to focus on their best clients, projects, or moments. To combat this, go straight to the source. Reviews on sites like Google Maps, Yelp, and BING will come straight from customers and be more authentic.

Look For Industry Recognition

Finally, any marketing agency worth hiring should have earned the respect of the industry. Keep an eye out for industry awards, memberships, and any recognition that showcases what this marketing agency has been able to do.

Your Dallas Marketing Agency

Enter JSL Marketing & Web Design, your top Dallas marketing agency! We’ve been helping businesses across the Dallas-Fort Worth area grow their businesses for years and are looking forward to partnering with you! Your business is unique. Choose a marketing agency that understands that and helps you promote your business accordingly.

There’s a lot we can say about our business, but we’d rather let our industry awards speak for themselves! They say it all way better than we could!

And our clients’ perspective is definitely worth sharing as well!

“They’ve been wonderful to work with. They’re always on top of any task.” – Melissa W. 

We can offer any of the following services to help you promote and grow your business!

 

  • Email Marketing
  • SEO
  • Market Research
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising
  • Web Design
  • Brand & Logo Development
  • Content Development 

 

Fill Out The Contact Form Below To Get In Contact With An Expert!

5 Ways To Get To The Top Of Google Maps

Have you ever used Google Maps to find a restaurant? Most of us have. Have you ever asked Google Maps for a restaurant and been offered listings for nearby movie theaters, coffee shops, and retail stores? You likely have not, due to how much time, money and energy Google has invested in making sure that Google Maps is the top Maps app available. This investment has paid off, as 60-70% of Americans use Google Maps.

That user base also means that Google Maps is a big factor in any local industry. The difference between a restaurant at the top of Google Maps for a search and a restaurant that isn’t even on Google can be the difference between profitability and failure.

But how do you get to the top of Google Maps? Google’s algorithms and ranking factors can be difficult to understand for most small business owners, but the consequences can be fantastic or catastrophic. Whether you like it or not, Google Maps is a medium you need to consider, especially if a large percentage of your business is local to your area.

The content team here at JSL Marketing & Web Design put together this handy reference guide to help you get to the top of Google Maps in your area. Read on and study and if you play your cards right, you too can be at the top of Google Maps in your local area.

Read Onto Get To The Top Of Google Maps!

SEO Tip 1: Optimize Your Google Map Listing

You might think that it’s merely as simple as having a Google listing. While having a listing is simple, keeping up to date with your listing can be a challenge. There’s a variety of information displayed on that listing, information that is vital to understanding, evaluating and contacting your brand. Many brands don’t even have this information properly displayed or worse, don’t have the information up to date. An old phone number or an inaccurate hours of business could cost you a sale.

Once you get past the obvious glitches, it becomes readily apparent that most businesses aren’t effectively utilizing their Google listings. Linking to your website is a great way to let Google users leave Maps and browse your menu or services to make an informed decision, but many brands don’t connect the two.

Moral of the story, stay up to date with your listing for best results!

SEO Tip 2: Showcase Your Stellar Reputation

Reputation matters. The biggest brands in the world know this and pay thousands of dollars for public relations to prevent harm to their reputation. You might not have a public relations agency on standby, but you can have your customers sing your praises with the right reviews. The right quantity and quality of reviews lets your customers know that your brand is legitimate and in good standing with your customers.

There are a few reasons why this can be so impactful for your business.

 

  • Google will show listings with better reviews near the top of Google Maps.
  • Customers are much likelier to click on a listing if you have a number of strong reviews.
  • Customers are 35% more likely to click on a listing with review stars.

 

SEO Tip 3: Align Listings

There are dozens, probably hundreds of listings, for your business online. You might not know that, but a plethora of online directories and listings list your business. The problem, however, is that many of these listings aren’t accurate. That’s a big issue, as Google and other search engines look for business addresses to be accurate across directories. These random and scattered listings, listings you likely never set up, are almost certainly dinging your SEO. The best route to rectify this is to claim and correct these listings.

SEO Tip 4: Use Branded Images

Few people recognize that images can actually improve your local SEO. As with many internet marketing mediums, Local SEO is improved by beautiful images. We typically recommend location images of the building where your brand is located. This way, your Google Maps users are able to get an idea of what the physical location will look like before arriving in person. Use branded images to leave a longer-lasting impression and better inform your users.

SEO Tip 5: Reach The Right People At The Right Time With Google Ads

The aforementioned options are good fits for businesses who can take the time to properly optimize and grow their local SEO presence. However, some brands need to make a quicker impact and are willing to pay that premium to get to the top of Google. If that’s where you find yourself, we would recommend Google Ad campaigns to display information about your business at the top of Google and Google Maps.

Google Ad campaigns are…

 

  • Geotargeted
  • Cost-Effective, As You’re Only Billed For Clicks
  • Optimized Towards A Number Of Factors, Including Maximizing Clicks, Maximizing Conversions or Maximizing Impression Share.
  • Compatible with Google’s Search Audiences For Better Data

 

Climb To The Top Of Google Maps With JSL

Local SEO and reputation management can be hard. You’re busy running a business, hiring new staff, negotiating with vendors, and managing operations. The last thing you have time for is adding Local SEO to your ever-growing to-do list.

Partner with JSL Marketing & Web Design to get to the top of Google! Maps

Our process is simple; we take the time to consult with you and learn about your business before we design a strategy. There’s no one-size fits all approach here. Every brand is unique and deserves to have its own custom strategy. Our team works with you to learn the why behind your business and how to speak to your customers in your particular market.

Depending on what our SEOs recommend, we might end up…

 

  • Removing/Claiming Duplicate Listings
  • Scrubbing Incorrect Listings
  • Adding Keyword-Rich Content To Grow Organic Search
  • Optimizing Existing Location Listings
  • Generating More Reviews Via Reputation Management
  • & More!

 

Fill Out The Contact Form Below To Get To The Top of Google!

How To Get More Leads: 5 Strategies

If you’re a business owner, few things are more important than fresh leads! New points of contact to begin the sales process are always the lifeblood of any business. You certainly want a steady influx of new leads if you plan on growing your brand.

But even if you receive plenty of leads, how often are these leads highly qualified for your solution? That can frustrate any business owner and leave you convinced that marketing never pans out. How do you get more leads exactly?

The marketing experts at JSL Marketing & Web Design put their heads together and thought up five proven strategies to get more leads.

Keep reading to learn how to supercharge your marketing and generate more qualified leads! 

Lead Generation Tip 1: Utilize New Advertising Channels

New channels are an obvious starting point when you’re researching how to get more leads. If you’re not getting enough high-quality leads, maybe a new channel or tactic is what your brand needs. This is a strategy worth considering.

Depending on your business and its needs, you could consider any of the following:

 

  • Social Media Advertising
  • Pay-Per-Click Advertising
  • Local SEO Optimizations
  • Email Marketing

 

Lead Generation Tip 2: Adjust Current Channels

Sometimes, it’s not a lack of channels but how they are used. This will vary a lot from industry to industry and tactic to tactic, but we recommend auditing your current media mix for the best results. Sometimes, your marketing and lead generation strategy is stymied not by the strategy but by the execution of tactics.

To put this in a sports metaphor, imagine a football team. If the team never attempts passes over 10 yards, that’s comparable to a business not using Google Ads or email marketing. Let’s say that our fictitious football team does attempt passes over 10 yards but rarely sees positive yardage. That’s comparable to a business using Google Ads or email marketing, but not as effectively as they could. Just because you’re using a tactic doesn’t mean that you’re using that tactic as effectively as you could be.

That’s one of the many reasons why having a full-service marketing agency to partner with can be a real boon. Your marketing agency partner can evaluate the more esoteric aspects of your marketing plan and make adjustments along the way for the best results.

Common tweaks your marketing agency partner may recommend include…

 

  • Blocking Irrelevant Search Terms on Google Ad Search Term Reports
  • Reworking Subject Lines for Better Email Open Rates
  • Decreasing Bounce Rate on Website
  • Designing New Ads & Writing New Content
  • Making Local SEO Optimizations
  • Technically Adjusting Web Settings for Better Visibility 

 

Lead Generation Tip 3: Narrow Your Target Audience

As you work on generating more leads, you might run into a related problem: maybe the issue isn’t the number of leads, per se, but the quality of the leads that you are getting. This is usually a sign that you must better define your target audience to increase lead quality. Let’s say you’re a law firm that receives many inquiries about a subsection of law that your firm does not specialize in. While the number of leads is OK, the types of leads might not be.

Let’s say that our fictitious law firm goes back to the drawing board and decides that business law isn’t a good area for them and that they want to focus on family law. This revised definition of their ideal customer profile will probably lead to changes across their marketing. We would likely recommend revamping their web content to focus on family law keywords and further refining their Google Ads keywords to hit this tweaked ideal customer profile. (See step 2 above.)

Lead Generation Tip 4: Increase Brand Awareness

Most small businesses consider lead generation an end-point, not a destination. Let’s return to our law firm example. This law firm probably considers calls, requests for information, or booked consultations as leads. However, prospective clients don’t call or request information in a vacuum. It takes time for clients to get to that stage in their buying process.

First, they need to be aware of our law firm. They then need to research and consider our fictitious law firm before they make the decision to begin the sales process with the firm. Most small businesses will focus on the end point of that process when they try to generate more leads. (Think Google Ad campaigns and Local SEO, tactics which usually try to get more calls from interested customers.)

However, this is only the end point of this process. Increasing the number of qualified prospective clients aware of your brand will typically increase the number of leads. Many small businesses are reluctant to spend money on general brand-awareness advertising, but it is a proven way to increase sales.

It might seem counterintuitive, but make sure that you are spending money not only on generating leads but also on the brand-awareness elements. Trust us; the higher the awareness of any given solution or product, the greater the number of conversions.

We recommend…

 

  • YouTube Advertising
  • Search Engine Optimization
  • Brand Collateral

 

Remember, that call or booked appointment from a prospective client is only the end of a long buyer’s journey. Make sure your marketing is helping guide those prospective clients well before they pick up the phone and call you.

Lead Generation Tip 5: Enhance Your Remarketing

Last but not least,  consider thinking outside of the box to generate ‘new leads’. Maybe your current customer base is a resource for other leads and generated revenue. This is an excellent strategy since you already have their contact information, and they likely already trust you. The stats back this up. Generally, selling to an existing or past customer is significantly cheaper and easier than a net new lead.

There are several ways you can consider growing your current book of business.

Cross-Sell/Upsell

It’s rare for an existing client only to be interested in one product or contract. Yes, it does occur, but savvy small businesses should still consider growing every closed/won account into a larger one. There are several different ways of doing this. Maybe it’s piquing the client’s interest in new products. Maybe it’s cross-selling to a different location or part of the business.

We recommend considering your unique situation and identifying how you could generate more leads and revenue from your current client base.

Preferred Pricing

If a client is large enough, adjusting your pricing to incentivize a larger volume can be a good idea. Often, businesses think of this if their end client is a business, but it can work for B2C brands as well. A special as simple as “Buy 2 Pizzas, Get Half Off The 3rd” can be effective!

Referral Programs

Maybe your existing customer cannot buy more, but they can advocate for you. Offering gift cards or a reduced price if a customer refers to a friend can be a great way to spread awareness through your customers!

Continually Remarketing

Even if you are not constantly having sales conversations with existing clients, you should be continually marketing to them. Many small businesses don’t focus on this element of marketing, often to disastrous results.

Whether email marketing updates, a client-facing newsletter about your brand, press releases about new locations, services, or products, or social media marketing, keep the marketing conversation going with your current clients. It ultimately sets the stage nicely for when it’s time to pitch new contracts!

Generate More Leads With JSL Marketing & Web Design

Lead generation is part art, part science. Hit the lab with JSL Marketing & Web Design. We’re an award-winning, full-service marketing agency proudly serving clients across Texas and the USA!

What separates us from all of the other Dallas marketing agencies? The difference is how we tailor our marketing strategies to each client. Every campaign is different, and we work to ensure that we understand exactly what you need from your marketing.

There’s no one-size fits all approach. Your business is unique — partner with a marketing agency that understands that and treats your business as the one-of-a-kind brand that you are.

Fill Out the Contact Form Below to Get in Touch!

How to Create a Marketing Strategy in 7 Easy Steps

How do you create a marketing strategy?

It’s a great question to ask. Research indicates that businesses that think strategically in their marketing see better results. Most brands know they need to evaluate their marketing more strategically.

However, creating a marketing strategy is more complicated than planning your next campaign. Knowing you want to get in better shape is good, but until you take steps to get in shape, all that knowledge is theoretical.

Never fear! The marketing experts from JSL Marketing & Web Design are here to walk you through how marketing strategy development should go and common pitfalls to be aware of.

Read on to Learn More About Marketing Strategies! 

Marketing Strategy Dos & Don’ts

Before we run through the process of creating a marketing strategy, let’s start with some ground rules to help guide you through the process.

Do….

 

  • Consult With Multiple Members From Diverse Teams
  • Take Time to Plan
  • Have Fun
  • Use Verified Data to Guide Your Strategy

 

Don’t…

 

  • Feel Like Every Idea Needs to Be Perfect
  • Only Consider What Has Been Done in the Past
  • Create a Strategy Without Input From Other Teams
  • Plan Tactics Like SEO or PPC Before You Have a Strategic Goal

 

How to Create a Marketing Strategy

Now that you have a framework to keep in your back pocket let’s discuss the actual process of creating a marketing strategy!

Look at Your Goals

The world’s best marketing strategy can fail if it doesn’t align with your goals. You must align your marketing strategy with existing business goals for the best results.

Most businesses immediately assume that improvements in revenue are always their topline goals, but that’s not always the case. There’s nothing wrong with focusing on increasing revenue by X percentage, but we caution against automatically assuming that should be your overarching goal.

Sometimes, businesses need to increase the average contract size of their core 50 customers. Sometimes increasing the average order size is a better business goal. Be sure that you know what your business’s goals are, whether it’s an increased number of leads, decreasing churn rate, or getting to the top of Google.

Without this info, your marketing strategy is destined to achieve lackluster results. 

Research Your Customers

Knowing your customers is the next step in developing a marketing strategy. Focus on understanding their firmographic info.  How many employees do they employ? What industries do they operate in? From there, analyze their pain points. Why do they frequent your business? What problem does your brand solve for them? What are their goals?

It can be helpful to consider this in terms of current and prospective customers. The makeup and goals of your current customer base might differ from your potential customers, which might necessitate different marketing for each customer base. If you have the time, defining multiple subsets of customers could be worthwhile!

Know Your Competitors

Your competitors are the next stop on this journey, so evaluating them makes sense. Your competitors are operating in the same space as you, marketing to the same customers, and will often have similar brand messages, so the more you know about them, the better.

However, knowing the differences between each competitor is an integral part of developing a marketing strategy. Understanding what value propositions, core competencies, and product offerings your competitors offer help you align your business accordingly. Maybe one competitor is the dominant player in your local industry, but their customer service is lacking due to the sheer volume of clients. Maybe another has a great product but positions itself as a high-end solution.

Knowing this, you might decide that your brand should position itself as a white-glove, cost-effective solution, contrasted against the less-personalized Competitor 1 and the more expensive Competitor 2. This differentiation will help you stand out from the competitors and educate potential customers on what you offer: good customer service at a reasonable price. Ideally, customers who want a higher-end solution will go with Competitor 2, and customers who don’t mind less-personalized customer service will go with Competitor 1.

Plan Objectives to Get There

You now have a solid goal and knowledge about your base and competitor, but you still need to get a plan.

You have an overarching goal in mind, and it’s time to plan the steps to get you to your end goal. It’s worth mentioning that this stage probably will see the most variation. A large business’s objectives to increase lead quality necessitate different actions than a small business looking to decrease churn. We can’t give you specifics since it will depend, but we encourage you to think through the following.

 

  • What tactics should I use?
  • Which teams are responsible for this?
  • Are there internal milestones to pass before another stage can begin? How about external milestones?
  • Are there seasonality trends to plan around? 

 

Set a Timeline

Your marketing strategy must be timebound. Determine when this strategy will be evaluated and then set your timeline. Every team should know when their objectives are due. Usually, we recommend that you set aside six weeks at least to focus on any campaign. (Usually, a full 3-month quarter is better.)

Launch

It’s time to go live! Now that all the planning is done, it’s time to put rubber on the road. In this step, the content is written, the social media posts are scheduled, and the SEO work is completed. It’s important to note that this marketing work will not produce an immediate result. Moving a client through the marketing funnel takes time, from awareness to consideration to purchase. That’s why it’s so important to set aside time in the future to …

Evaluate

A marketing strategy isn’t done when it launches. Every marketing strategy needs to be evaluated against its benchmark to ensure that it is meeting its goals. Set aside time to return to your marketing strategy and look at results. Maybe everything is working great; maybe you need to make some tweaks. Regardless, be sure that you are constantly double-checking and reevaluating your strategy’s results.

It’s alright to need to adjust. Market conditions are always dynamic; you must evaluate if changes are necessary. 

Plan Your Next Marketing Strategy with JSL

Interested in planning a marketing strategy? Call JSL Marketing & Web Design today! We’re an award-winning, Dallas-based, full-service marketing agency, and we’d love to help you with your strategic needs.

We always custom-tailor our marketing strategies to every client’s unique needs, so rest assured that every element of your marketing strategy will be designed to fit your business! We might recommend the following, depending on what we uncover in our conversations and audits.

 

  • Email Marketing
  • SEO
  • Web Design
  • Videography
  • Social Media
  • Content Marketing
  • Logo Design
  • & More

 

Call JSL Marketing & Web Design today to plan your next marketing strategy!