5 Tips To Generate Leads At Outdoor Retailer

Tradeshows are not an inexpensive pursuit nor are they a guaranteed success. Outdoor Retailer is no exception. The value gained from attending and exhibiting at Outdoor Retailer is immense, but companies must consider their strategy to truly take advantage of that value. Just purchasing a ticket to walk the floor of most shows can cost several hundred dollars or more. Hosting a booth to market your brand is even more expensive. That does not even factor in the time commitment of your staff, strategy, design, and marketing collateral needed to have a competitive presence at most shows. Once those items are examined, the costs add up to be quite substantial. However, if a company maps out a strategy, then the benefits can be immeasurable.

Considering those costs, how can you succeed despite the high cost of entry? 

Trade show veterans can quickly provide you some info on lessons they learned the hard way. We have taken this into account and had a few tips below on how to get the most for your trade show marketing dollars:

  1. Establish your plans well in advance. A month before the show is not enough time to start planning. In fact, three months is not long enough. Successful marketers start planning at least six months before a show start, and many take a year or more.
  1. Set goals for all of the shows in your trade show schedule. All of your marketing efforts should tie back to the overall strategic plans of the organization and trade shows should align with individual campaigns that carry the marketing strategy forward. With that in mind, your trade show goals should match up with the goals of the campaign into which the show fits. Trade show marketing goals can include:
  • New leads and direct sales
  • Increasing traffic to your site - driving website traffic is always a good idea because it can also create new leads
  • Building your social media following - social goals seem a little passive to many old-school salespeople, but consider that most new sales require three to five touch points with a future customer before gaining commitment
  • Expanding your email list - while many prospects may not be ready to buy now, they may be interested in keeping in touch to learn more about your product/service over time. The buying process is cyclical so keeping in touch is critical

Once you have established your goal for this show, you should identify metrics that allow the analysis of progress, success, and failures at a given show.

  1. Stand out. How can you reflect the culture of your company at your show? Regardless of how automated and digital our world has become, people still buy from people. Future customers are interested in learning more about you and your company as well as what it is like to do business with you. Your booth presents an opportunity to reflect the individual traits that make your organization unique.

The tradeshow floor can become quite monotonous as one booth blends into another because people follow the same formula for materials, design, and displays. Create something that stands out. You spent years developing your product or service in a way that your value proposition is different from any other business, your first impression on your new customers should be a reflection of that effort. While the extra effort may cost more, this added expense can be the difference between whether or not a new key account bothers to stop to meet you.

  • Consider your booth - can you create something different than everyone else? How can this further the goal you set for this show?
  • Dress for success - how will you and your team dress? How does this reflect you as an organization and your culture?
  • Collateral - what are your signs and other materials going to do to further your goal? More on this later.
  1. Create a single call-to-action. Assuming you have set your goal and created metrics, you should establish the pathway that a future customer will take to reach your goal. This call-to-action will become part of every facet of your trade show strategy, allowing a customer to move quickly from being a total stranger into your sales pipeline.

While designing your booth, materials, landing page, and analytics, you should consider this call-to-action (CTA) as being the keystone to all of your efforts. A CTA should inspire a visitor to commit to an action of some type and can include:

  • Subscribe to our newsletter
  • Register for a webinar
  • Sign up for a product demo

A CTA will direct your visitors to a landing page, a web page that is specifically designed to provide targeted information to visitors in exchange for the offer for which they initially registered. In turn, your CTA will lead to increased conversions and more qualified leads.

Only gathering business cards a tradeshow, which is what many salespeople do, is squandering the valuable resources required to get the company to the show. While that lead may have seemed very qualified and excited about your business at the time of the show, that excitement dissipates as time passes between the show and your sales team’s follow-up. However, if your CTA draws that visitor back to your website, then they are more likely to move all the way from stranger to lead and on to becoming a customer because of the excitement generated by your offer. 

  1. Create a landing page for each show you attend. Mentioned above, the CTA will drive traffic to a dedicated landing page that furthers your overall goal. Prospective customers will provide their email address in exchange for a valuable piece of content such as a video series, ebook, white paper, or product demo. The page itself and the content offer should be tied back to your trade show presence. By creating a landing page that you only send trade show attendees to, you can measure the success of your trade show presence by the response generated by your CTA and landing page.

Finally, have a particular, detailed process for how the content will be delivered to leads and the process for follow-up. How will leads be scored and qualified in your system? How will you keep track of the follow-up process? What are your next steps to further your goal and move prospects down the buyer’s journey? These questions must be considered in depth before launching your campaign.

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By utilizing these steps as a guide and adapting the advice to your particular organization, you are certain to have trade show success. Please get in touch if you have specific questions on how to establish a strategy to make the most of your shows.

 


Inbound Vs Outbound Marketing

You might not have heard the terms inbound and outbound marketing before, but you have most likely experienced both without realizing. Read the scenarios below about inbound vs. outbound marketing.

inbound_vs_outbound__720.jpg

Outbound Marketing:

You’re in the middle of working at your desk and the telephone rings.  

You: Hello, this is John.

Marketer: Hi John, this is Sam from [insert name of Company X here]. Company X manufactures widgets. We pride ourselves on our quality and superior service. We have managed to help other companies transition to our widgets, and in doing so, we were able to help one company raise their retention rate of clients by 50% in six months. I’d like to ask a few questions to see if I can provide you with our services.

You: Well, right now is not the time for me to talk. Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.

This is an example of cold calling, which is an outbound marketing tactic. You’ve probably experienced this before and felt caught off guard. This type of tactic doesn’t form a relationship with the prospect and is interruptive. It shows a marketer-centric mindset and usually is not very efficient and rather costly. Other types of outbound marketing are mass emails (spam) and interruptive ads.

While each of these tactics may have a place as part of a larger marketing campaign, they do not work on their own in a vacuum. Let’s take a look at an inbound marketing scenario.

Inbound Marketing:

The sales process has changed dramatically in the past few years. Instead of relying on salespeople to inform them about new products and services to solve their problems, buyers are doing research on their own and arriving at a buying decision often without ever speaking to a salesperson at all! For this reason, marketing companies are transitioning from outbound to inbound marketing. Because of this, buyers feel more connected to the brand or business because of the relationship building aspects of inbound marketing. Read this scenario and think of a time you might have experienced this:

Steve is the production manager for an outdoor product manufacturing company. He has a problem with a bottleneck on his production line that has slowed down operations and decreased efficiency. He hits the Internet to search for a solution.

While researching, he happens to come across a blog post outlining areas that most plants usually incur wasteful production and how to remedy such issues quickly. At the bottom of the post, he finds a call-to-action that asks for his email in return for an e-book entitled “10 Steps to Immediately Increase Production Efficiency.” Steve is happy to give his email in exchange for such valuable information. Thus he has moved to the next stage in the buyer’s journey, or into the sales funnel.

After receiving his ebook, Steve receives subsequent emails promoting content and videos that help Steve to solve further his problem as well as other related issues that production managers like him have encountered in the past. Through this process, the company promoting this content has accomplished a few things:

  1. They’ve established a relationship over time through a contact frequency that made sense to the stage of the buyer’s journey where Steve was at the time.
  2. They have established a high level of expertise in Steve’s mind. He trusts this company with helping him to solve his problems.
  3. The company has nurtured this lead (Steve) all the way through the Awareness and Consideration Stage of the sales funnel to where they can now position their product or service in a way that Steve would be very willing to listen - sure beats a cold call!

How is it different?

In this scenario, Steve didn’t get bombarded with spam emails that were irrelevant to his interests or feel caught off guard with cold calls. Steve decided on his own time whether he felt that the company’s services were for his business, and he made the decision to call.

With inbound marketing, the consumer can give permission to be contacted instead of the marketer acting as an interruptive sales person in the consumer’s day. Inbound marketing conveys a customer-centric mindset.

Inbound marketing uses tools such as blogging to create interest, social media to engage leads, email marketing as part of the sales funnel and providing value with free resources, such as a downloadable ebook. All of these tactics build relationships with consumers over time.

Inbound vs. Outbound. Which one would you choose?


4 Strong Ways to Boost Exposure for Your Software Business

We can all agree that the inbound marketing way is the strategy to promoting your Software business online. From social media to SEO, visuals, email, and PPC, these are the best channels to attracting qualified prospects and customers to your brand. However, with so many pieces to the digital marketing puzzle, trying to “do it all” can prove to be an overwhelming, daunting task. Especially as a startup or one that is rebranding with a new product, the challenge of knowing which techniques to focus on to create fast results can be frustrating.

We have compiled four simple, yet highly effective, inbound ways to generate more exposure to your software business

By focusing on these tactics, you will increase awareness, traffic to your website, leads, and better your thought-leadership.

#1 Bolster Your Blogging Strategy

Developing a well-thought-out blogging strategy not only positions you as an expert in your software niche, but it draws needed exposure to your brand. You see, 71% of business bloggers say their blog increased visibility in their industries. Also, companies who blog regularly have 434% more indexed pages than companies who do not (Source: Search Engine Land). They also generate more leads and sales.

Use your blog to educate your audience on the problems you solve as a SaaS business. Consider the common issues and questions your market has and address them via your blog. Additionally, publish blog content that highlights the features, benefits, and usability of your software.

The key to generating results from your blogging is consistency and ensuring that your topics resonate with your target audience. Use an editorial calendar tool to help you plan, organize, and schedule your content. The calendar will help you maintain a regular blogging cadence to boost brand awareness.

#2 Tell Your List

According to Forbes, email subscribers are three times more likely to share your content via social media than visitors from other sources. Your email list is your biggest fan, and they are waiting to hear from you to engage with your brand. Even if you have a small list or you are just starting out, keep your subscribers in the know when it comes to the development and promotion of your SaaS. Share your blog content and ask them to share it with their social networks.

One way to get your list involved is to extend a 2-week free trial offer of your software, so prospects get a real-life experience with your product. Send them a survey at the end of their trial to get feedback and reviews. This information can help you tweak and modify, so it aligns with your audience’s interest.

Also, continue to grow your list. Building your leads list is the safety boat of your business. With proper nurturing tactics, it is where the bulk of your sales will generate from. With 59% of B2B marketers saying that email is the most effective channel for generating revenue, it is important that you leverage assets like your landing pages, web forms, and blog posts to keep growing your sales funnel.

#3 Facebook Retargeting

Follow your website visitors everywhere with retargeting. Also called remarketing, this paid strategy allows you to place a tracking code on your site which will set a tracking snippet (or cookie) on the browser of those who visit your site. This tactic will position your ad content to “follow” recent visitors everywhere they go online. Retargeting is extremely useful in keeping your software brand “top of mind” long after people leave your website.

The same concept applies to Facebook retargeting. You will create custom audiences and tailor marketing content unique to them for better engagement. It is highly cost-efficient for your brand and is one tactic that should constantly be running to maximize traffic to your site and produce fresh leads.

#4 Host Live Webinars

Webinars are solid platforms to share a wealth of knowledge in a presentation-style broadcast. You significantly improve your thought-leadership as you delve deeper into topics for more depth and understanding. In regards to marketing your product, webinars provide an opportunity to demonstrate, share the features and advantages, and allow participants to see your new software firsthand. Answer questions live to boost engagement and give the chance for viewers to purchase at the end with the benefits they will gain from acting now.

Finally, a webinar is a great method to growing your leads as each participant must register with the name and email info to join your broadcast. Simply promoting your upcoming webinar to your social channels and list can foster new leads every time.

Following the suggested inbound marketing tactics will increase brand awareness and exposure for your software business. Focus on getting good at implementing two of the tips, test your results, then ramp up from there. The key is to stay consistent in your efforts to measure what's working and resonating with your audience accurately.

Ready to leverage a professional team to help bolster your inbound marketing strategy for 2017? Use the form below to reach out to us. We are equipped to help you step up your marketing game!

 


7 Steps to Building an Amazing Patient Nurturing Email Workflow

The ability to use the power of marketing and strategy to advertise, increase sales or improve outreach as a business strategy has application in every industry. Just as a marketing strategy is important for any entrepreneur,  it is equally important for healthcare providers such as doctors, dentists or orthodontists. The power of building a solid patient nurturing email workflow serves to increase engagement, improve care, save staff time, and increase your client base. With just a few simple steps, you can take advantage of powerful tools to be more efficient with your email marketing, getting the right messages to the right people at the right time.

1. Set goals

Determine your objectives for your email campaign. Is it to inform patients about new services? To provide appointment reminders to improve attendance? Is it to inform and improve compliance with treatment recommendations? Is it to improve outreach and bring in new patients? As you identify multiple objectives dependent on the patient type, then you can move to the next step where you will narrow your focus for each group.

2. Target your audience

For each goal, there is an intended target audience. Creating a list of criteria for inclusion into the group helps determine placement. Some patients will belong to the group who receive personalized appointment reminders, while another group receives a newsletter about ongoing care and specials on cosmetic procedures. Sometimes these lists will overlap and other times they will be separate. This is all part of getting the right information to the right people. Laying the groundwork is an important piece predicting the future success of your workflow.

3. Map your content

Determine what content you will deliver, what you intend to accomplish with this piece and when you will deliver it. Thinking about the examples above, the patient who gets appointment reminders might need them when they set the appointment, a week ahead of time and again the day before the appointment. For the patient receiving your newsletter offering a special on cosmetic procedures, perhaps you want to send the first notice three months before the winter holidays and then again monthly as a reminder before party season begins.

4. Compose emails 

Be intentional with the message you send and consider that when you compose the email. For each type of patient, you will focus the content of the message and end with a specific call to action. Perhaps that call to action is for the patient to confirm, cancel or reschedule an appointment. Or, it is a link to learn more about a procedure and an invitation schedule a consultation. Decide here what the message will say, how many times to distribute it and what is the desired outcome.

5. Set workflow rules

You don't want to inundate patients with emails, so carefully setting up rules will prevent this. Workflow rules can specify who receives an email batch and when they receive it, but can also exclude patient groups or certain days or times. If your office is closed on Friday afternoons, you don't want to send an email with a call to action that prompts a patient to schedule via phone and no one is there to respond. Likewise, the patient who has weekly orthodontist visits might lose an important appointment reminder if they are also receiving the email about a cosmetic procedure that they do not qualify for at this time.

6. Go live

After the pre-work is completed, turn the workflow and start collecting data!

7. Analyze and improve

Analyze the data and make changes where needed. Are you meeting the goals? What is your click-through rate? What is your conversion rate? Are you seeing an improvement in adherence? Watch how the workflow performs and prepare to make changes. Change the subject line, the offer, the frequency or the call to action and analyze the impact.

At HARNESS, building email workflows is just one of the services we offer to improve your marketing campaigns, expand your business and increase your exposure. Contact us to learn more about creating a patient-nurturing workflow that will help your practice.


Inbound Marketing to Ensure Customers Find Your SaaS Business (Part 2)

As the developer of a Software as a Service company, you obviously have put a great deal of thought into your product or products. Even before development began, you thought about what kind of service you could provide, what kinds of companies you could serve, why your product(s) is best for those potential customers.

Now, you need to figure out how you can best reach those potential customers and convince them your SaaS company is the best solution to their needs.

That's where the services of an inbound marketing company can come to your assistance. This is the second part of a two-part blog on how inbound marketing can ensure customers find you in the burgeoning SaaS business. In the first blog, we offered you a primer on inbound marketing that you can find here. In the second part, we will explain how all that hard work you did in development can lead directly to a successful inbound marketing program for your SaaS company.

Who Are Your Potential Customers?

As we explained in the primer, inbound marketing targets potential customers who turn to the Internet looking for your service, generally to solve a need or problem they are encountering in their lives or business. In the marketing field, we refer to this as their "pain point" and address how your product can ease their pain.

The first step in identifying these potential customers is to develop a "persona" so you can target the communication to the appropriate level.

Do you have an accounting software package you'd like to sell to Fortune 500 companies? Or do you have an accounting package you'd like to sell to a mom and pop retail store? Or maybe it's an accounting package you'd like to sell to farmers who spend their days in giant tractors, tilling thousands of acres. Each of these "personas" will respond to different forms and levels of communication.

What if your SaaS idea is something completely different? Maybe you've developed a program that can point avid readers to authors who write similar works and you get a share from each book you recommend through an online bookseller. Or maybe it's obscure documentary films. Or Japanese anime. Again, you are targeting very different "personas" so you need your language to appeal to each of these targets as they search for answers.

The more you know about your potential customer, the better your inbound marketing effort can succeed.

What Are Their Pain Points?

Before you ever developed your software, you had a vision for what it could do and why it could appeal to your customers. You already were thinking about how you could relieve their pain points, whether you thought of it that way or not.

Putting that thought into language that will attract potential customers is the next step to a successful inbound marketing effort. Knowing the language of your potential customers is vital to successfully meeting the ever-changing demands of Internet search engines.

If you're promoting that accounting software to Fortune 500 companies, their CFO is not going to search for "accounting software". She is more likely to search for "ASC 606 compliance" to deal with her latest pain point. Understanding how your best potential customers will speak and search boosts your chances of reaching them in the first place.

Drawing Your Customers into the Funnel

Video Marketing for your Sales Funnel

If you remember from the primer, we talked about how inbound marketing casts a wide net through search engine optimization to ensure your company appears highly in search results. The next step is to make those searches pay off into customers who enter your funnel and become paying customers.

Research now is pointing to the absolute necessity to feature video on your website and in any marketing effort. HubSpot reports that 59 percent of executives would rather watch video than read text; while individual consumers are four times as likely to watch a video as read text about a product, Small Business Trends reports.

The same report from Small Business Trends notes that 50 percent of executives are likely to seek more information about a product or service after watching a video. The same research found 65 percent will visit a marketer's site and 39 percent will call a vendor after seeing a product or service video.

As you can see, you've already done much of the hard work necessary to launch an inbound marketing effort for your SaaS company in identifying your potential customers and their pain points. Contact us to learn how to take the next step in developing a marketing program that will make your company stand out in the crowded field of cloud computing.


Inbound Marketing to Ensure Customers Find Your SaaS Business (Part 1)

You have the idea. You have the expertise to put the package together. You even are entering into one of the hottest fields of business. Now, you just need to learn how to find customers in need of your software as a service company.

Since you're targeting a tech-savvy field, you need to be where they can find you. According to Forbes magazine, public cloud-based business is expected to grow at a robust 19.4% annually with revenues to reach $141 billion by 2019. Those kinds of projections also mean opportunists will be flocking to the field, increasing competition for your business. Inbound marketing is the best way for you to ensure customers find you in the burgeoning SaaS business.

In this two-part blog series, we'd like to give you a quick primer on why inbound marketing can benefit your SaaS company and in the second part start you thinking about how you can stand out to your potential customers.

What Is Inbound Marketing?

Plain and simple, inbound marketing is how you find customers among those who come searching for you. Well, maybe they are not literally looking for you, but they are looking for someone who can do what you do to help them do what they do.

Put another way, your potential customer has a need or a problem, what marketers call a pain point. When they have this pain point, what are they going to do? In today's technological market, they are going to go to the Internet searching for a solution to their pain point. You are the person with that solution, so they need to be able to find you, then believe that you are the best person to solve their pain.

Inbound marketing works by positioning you to be found by the most potential customers who have a similar pain point and need your solution.

How Does Inbound Marketing Succeed for Software Businesses?

Inbound marketing works by looking at your potential customer base with a funnel approach. A funnel is wide at the top and narrows down as it gets closer to delivering the goods where they belong. A funnel approach to marketing is one that casts a wide net at the top where potential customers can learn about you and your service. Once the customers become interested, the marketing becomes more targeted to convince them to advance further into the funnel to learn how your service solves their pain point, ultimately turning that potential customer into a money-paying customer.

Inbound marketers first cast that wide net by ensuring your company is positioned to be found by anyone who has a certain pain point that your company can solve. Inbound marketers do this by understanding your potential customers, knowing their pain points and ensuring when they search for a solution, your business stand out among the search results. This is called search engine optimization.

Because Internet search engines always are trying to give their customers the best results, they constantly change how they judge content to ensure the best results. As a busy executive, you don't have time to keep up with those changes, but an inbound marketing company can do that. Marketers must understand such language as keywords, long string keywords, video matrix, etc. to ensure your content stays at the top of the search engines' results.

Casting the net is just the first part of the inbound marketing approach. The next steps involve capturing those potential customers' attention and convincing them your company offers the best solution to their pain point(s). In the next blog post, we'll talk about how you can help with an inbound marketing campaign by thinking about who your potential customers are and how you can offer them the best solution to their pain point.

Contact us if you'd like to learn more about the intricacies of inbound marketing and how it is the best solution for SaaS companies seeking to expand their customer base.

 


Five Tips for Efficient PPC Management

PPC, or pay per click advertising, is a mainstay of effective internet advertising that has benefits for the advertiser and the advertisement host alike. Under PPC, advertisers only pay for each click an ad receives. While sites hosting the ads receive payment based on the frequency of clicks. This process helps hosts gain revenue that is tied directly into audience response to the ad while helping advertisers limit ad expenditures to only those ads that get results.

However, to make the most of your PPC advertising, you need to keep a few simple PPC management rules in mind:

PPC BUDGET

Not all search engines were created equally and should not be budgeted equally. An ad hosted on Yahoo will almost certainly not get the same number of clicks – or eyes – as the same ad on Google. Why is this important? When allocating funding for your ad program, you need to take this into account when determining which service will give you the greatest return on your advertising dollar. For instance, if you are running an ad on Yahoo and Google, don’t split your budget 50-50 between the sites. Your budget should reflect a realistic idea of how much cost each site will incur for the campaign. Realistically a 30-70 split should be more appropriate but will vary based on the quality or appeal of the actual ad and how efficient your search engine optimization (SEO) has been set up.

Allocate budget based on hard numbers: A corollary to the point above is to let actual conversion numbers guide your PPC advertising budget. Allow enough budget flexibility that if you see that one campaign is working better than another that you can direct more resources to that ad or ad campaign. However, all budget decisions made after a campaign is launched should be based on hard market analysis, not on gut feeling or personal preference of one site over another.

 

PPC CHALLENGES

Be realistic about the challenges facing PPC advertising: Your PPC program is only as good as the management of your PPC program. There are some pitfalls that good PPC management can mitigate: rising cost of PPC due to increased competition and cost per click; managing hundreds if not thousands of keywords; the challenges of creating PPC advertisements that work in mobile browsers; and the ongoing battle with ad-blocking software. A professional, full-service digital marketing agency can help you overcome these hurdles.

PPC ANALYTICS

Campaign Analytics is your friend: Many services such as Google AdWords can deliver very precise statistics regarding the efficiency of your campaign. Need to know which keywords are the most efficient? What time, the day of the week, or day of the month does your ad drive the most clicks? These services can extract this data for you so that you can fine-tune your ad campaign to deliver the most clicks at best time for your business – and your budget.

PPC KEYWORDS

Don’t be afraid to narrow your niche to drive the right customers to your site: Few things irritate potential customers – and cost you lost PPC dollars – quite like a misleading ad word or SEO term that drives customers to an advertiser that is not what they seem. For instance, if your specialty is electric guitars, resist the urge to push just ‘guitars’ as a keyword. Customers looking for acoustic guitars will quickly flee your site, while you will be left holding the bag for wasted ad clicks. Ineffective PPC is a waste of the customers’ time and your resources.

At HARNESS, we offer a full range of digital marketing services designed to drive your business to the next level.

Contact us today to put our professional, full-service digital marketing experts to work for you to create the captivating content that you need to engage your customers.


Harness Consulting

Climbing Gym Marketing: Inbound Marketing Funnel

Take your business to a new level through proficient inbound gym marketing. Increase your day pass purchased, increase memberships, get your current classes to a new level of participation.

 

The digital marketing funnel infographic: winning new customers with marketing strategies

Inbound Marketing

Top of The Funnel

Introducing new prospects to the top of your funnel may include several methods, all of which are unintrusive but welcoming. It isn't about chasing after leads, but rather inviting those who are intrigued by your content. For example, your gym produces a video about bouldering that your site visitors who have never bouldered find interesting. They notice that bouldering is based on balance and strength, that you have a spotter close by and a thick crash pad for safety. They have considered trying climbing off and on, and by watching your video, they are highly intrigued and are interested to know more about bouldering.

After watching your video, they go to your website and fall into the top of your marketing funnel (Awareness). This video helps your prospects get to know more about climbing, and how being a part of it may support them to find a solution to a problem, or help them in a particular need such as needing a new form of exercise. These 'learners' at the top of your funnel represent 85% of your website visitors.

Middle of the funnel

About 10% of your site visitors come back as 'shoppers' to scout and learn more about your gym. While they are browsing, they find an article regarding climbing harnesses and shoes. This post goes over not only the thrill of the climb but important aspects of safety such as inspecting your harness. They become more curious and take a look at testimonials from your customers, the cost involved, the benefits, training, and everything a novice needs to learn.

Since they are close to reaching a decision, it is time to ensure that your social media portion of your marketing strategy is fully engaged. Instagram is mainly geared toward small business and will benefit your marketing. In fact, Small Business Trends posted an article stating 50% of Fortune 500 companies use Instagram for marketing. The article includes great information about the best times and days to post in order to secure the highest engagement from your audience.

Bottom Panel

The bottom portion of your funnel is about 5% of your website's inbound marketing traffic. These are the 'buyers' who need a summary to reinforce all the benefits of becoming a member. This may be a time to offer a new member promotion, or a free trial. By introducing them to the sport and by giving a brief introduction on the basics of footwork, different types of holds, and climbing with straight arms, you are able to build new climbers who are far more likely to make climbing a lifestyle

Your climbing gym is on the rise. Through inbound marketing tools such as videos, blogging, and social media, you will have great success in building your foundation in regular memberships, newcomers, and investigators.

Contact HARNESS today to get a wealth of information to assist you in marketing your climbing gym.


Landing Pages can make or break your marketing

Landing Pages Can Make or Break Your Marketing Efforts

Businesses that have achieved online marketing success typically have websites with several key components. In addition to responsive, user-centered design and good content that's genuinely valuable to their readers; successful businesses utilize good landing pages throughout all of their marketing campaigns. This is because good landing pages are the bedrock of effective inbound marketing.

Your landing page is often the first representation of your company. It's what your potential customers see when they click on a search engine listing, a social media ad, a PPC ad, a blog post, a Slideshare, or a YouTube video etc.

In fact, whenever you post informative content and a call-to-action like:

  • Grab your copy of this free e-book,
  • Join our list for free updates,
  • Consult with an expert free, or
  • Receive a 30-day free trial without giving your credit card number, etc.

Your readers should click through to a landing page, not the homepage of your website. If you send them to your home page, they might not know what to do; and even if they can figure it out, they likely won't have the patience.

Landing pages are pages that are tailor-designed to provide each individual reader with what they want, while also gathering the contact information you need to:

  1. Nurture the lead,
  2. Hopefully, convert that person into a customer
  3. Then, convert him or her into a long-term customer and brand advocate

Landing Pages can make or break your marketing

One of the Main Reasons to Start Working with a Digital Marketing Agency Today: 

"You only have 8 seconds to get your readers' attention online."

There are too many other websites and vendors competing for your readers' time. Give them exactly what they've come to your website for in a compelling way, and they will stay long enough for you to get a lead.

That's why landing pages are such a crucial part of your online sales funnel. When your goal is to attract only local customers, sometimes landing pages are the only part of your online sales funnel. For example:

  1. A potential local client sees your ad,
  2. They click-through to find the exact information they're looking for, (who you are, what you do, why you're qualified to solve their problem and a simple offer or a basic call-to-action).
  3. They contact you, and
  4. The person-to-person sales process begins

Many experts believe that good landing pages are the most crucial part of most sales funnels. They also recommend A/B testing several different landing page ideas and using the most effective one.

When you're ready to take your business to the next level, contact us at Harness Consulting. We use a combination of the most effective marketing strategies to make sure we get and keep your potential clients' attention longer.

You will come across some firms that offer only PPC management, others that offer only SEO consulting and others that specialize in only video marketing.

  • According to Unisource, 90% of users say that seeing a video about a product is helpful in the decision-making process.
  • According to ComScoreafter watching video, 64% of users are more likely to buy a product online; and
  • PPC campaigns like Google Adwords are converting at a nice average of around 2.7%.

Why Limit Yourself to One Strategy?

We have experts in every online marketing sector that will work hand-in-hand to design and manage your campaigns, so you can get the most out of your advertising dollar. We know what strategies build businesses in the modern marketplace.


Inbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing Essential

Wouldn’t you agree that it’s better to attract qualified, ideal prospects to your sales funnel rather than attempt to promote your business to everyone, creating “hit and miss” results? Or that it’s advantageous to embrace a strategy that connects with, engages your audience, and builds long-term customer relationships versus just focusing on getting the sale?

Absolutely! You see, there is an entire methodology that not only brings potential customers to you but keeps them coming back for more!  This approach has resolved multiple issues for businesses like time wasted on unqualified leads, little website traffic, and low lead conversions.  The more effective way to promoting your business is through inbound marketing!

This strategy has shown to be the best way to do business online.  In fact, 3 out of 4 marketers across the globe prioritize an inbound approach to marketing (Source: Hubspot).  Studies consistently reveal that inbound marketing successfully increases traffic, lead generation, sales and repeat business for brands who leverage this tactic.

What Exactly is Inbound Marketing?

Inbound Marketing

The inbound marketing concept centers around creating and sharing valuable content that solves problems and answers questions for your ideal customer (or buyer persona).  It simply draws prospects in through education.  Because of this noninvasive, selfless approach, prospects are instantly drawn to your brand and see you as the expert in your niche.

There are four key components to a working inbound marketing strategy.  It includes:

  • Attract: Driving quality traffic to your content via blog posts, social media, SEO strategies, video marketing, etc.
  • Convert: Turning website visitors into leads through your lead offers; you giving visitors something valuable in exchange for their contact information
  • Close: Transforming leads into customers by using closing tools like email marketing and marketing automation to help seal the deal
  • Delight: Creating happy customers and loyal, raving fans of your brand, converting into repeat business

The major benefit to inbound marketing is the process of nurturing a “stranger” into an eventual promoter of your business.

Why It’s Essential in 2016

Inbound marketing, when done right, positions your business for long-term success.  Consumers are fed up with being inundated with advertisements yet they are constantly online seeking solutions to their problems.  Search is the #1 source for content traffic generation and it’s the preferred choice for looking up information.  Inbound marketing positions you to be found by your target audience when they’re searching for you, making it essential for your business in 2016!

If your business is ready to start leveraging inbound marketing tactics to begin drawing qualified prospects into your sales funnel, contact us here for a scheduled consultation.  We are certified to help!