Business Growth Blog

A couple of months ago, I decided I wanted to start actually communicating with my online network, and I thought LinkedIn groups would be a good place to do that.

It wasn’t long before, lo and behold, I started to get some sales leads from my efforts.

I don’t just go into Linkedin groups willy-nilly. I have a purpose, and truthfully, it’s not necessarily to sell. But the cool thing is, once you start putting yourself out there and getting to know people, sales start to happen. That’s what networking is about though, right?

Here are 4 really great reasons to start engaging in LinkedIn groups:

Here's the truth: If you aren't setting sales appointments, you won't get new customers!

Doesn't sound like brain surgery, I know. But getting appointments is, to me, the hardest part of sales. There are three types of new potential customers we're trying to reach:

1. Leads: Someone who knows they have a problem, has been researching solutions, and wants to learn more about how you can help them.
2. Referrals: Someone who received positive information about you from a mutual connection. They know they have a potential problem and want to learn more about how you can help them.
3. Prospects: Someone you think would be a good fit for your products or services, but they don't know anything about you.

Creating a website is hard enough, but the work doesn't end there. The truth is, the majority of people will probably find you on social media first.

For example, someone connected with me on LinkedIn today, and I read his company profile on LinkedIn to find out about what his company does. I got the info I was looking for and didn't even go to the website.

So, what does that mean? It means you have to treat your social profiles the same as you treat your website - not as an after thought, but as a strategic part of your marketing plan.

Your social profiles should have the same components as your website, including:

Isn’t that the question of all questions - how do you get sales meetings with new prospects in your niche market? It’s strange being on the fence between a marketer and salesperson. (I’m a salesperson turned marketer).

On the one hand, as a marketer, I know that the best leads will come from the awesome content I create and promote. On the other hand, as a salesperson, I need business - today. I don’t have time to wait 6 months for my company’s brand new blog to start generating leads. I don’t have time to wait for my marketing team (if I have one) to start creating gated premium content. I’ll get fired - or go broke - if I don’t set meetings right away.

Read on to find out how to get sales meetings from a marketing perspective vs. sales.

If you don’t know what marketing activities are getting you the most leads and customers, you could be wasting money on campaigns that aren’t helping you at all.

There’s nothing worse than spending your hard earned money and not getting anything in return!

Here’s a quick video to show you how monitoring your website traffic sources can help you stay focused on marketing activities that get the best return on your investment.

If you've never done inbound marketing before, or have only dabbled, you're probably foggy about how much this all costs. What does an inbound marketing program look like?

Every company is different, so in order to get a true picture for your business you should talk to an inbound marketing consultant to help you create a plan that is reasonable for you. The examples I give below are very general just to give you a snap shot of what a plan might look like.

When it comes to all the functionality you need for lead generation, I came up with about 16 must-have marketing technologies- and that's just for starters. Truth be told, there are many others I wanted to include, but the list was getting too long.

Regardless, it's a LOT of stuff. Every technology costs money and they take time to learn. Worst of all, dorking around with technology can be a real barrier to actually doing marketing and generating leads.

Creating a marketing system that has all the functionality you need can be a challenge. You have 3 options for efficiently pulling all of these marketing technologies together.

There's no way around it: marketing requires that you have certain technological capabilities. Here's a list of the functionality you need in order to generate leads online (it's long, but there's an important reason for each component):

I was talking with an owner of an insurance agency the other day, and he was telling me one of his biggest challenges is getting his commercial insurance reps to clearly define their target audience. They’re struggling because they don’t really know who to start calling on.

It seems so simple: Who do you want to be your customers?

But when your service can span over multiple industries, it can be a real challenge. It’s still kind of a challenge for me and my marketing services! I could sell to a million different kinds of companies. Can’t I just sell to anyone who comes my way?

Sure I can. But the problem is that sales don’t normally "come your way." You have to actively go out and find people who could benefit from using your product or service and then convince them they would be better off working with you.

If you don’t clearly define your target audience and who you want to work with, sales is an uphill battle. Here’s why:

Many businesses are still foggy about how blogging can impact their revenue goals. Here is an example to help clarify:

Increase website traffic

Tactic: In your social media status update areas (like on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter) create a compelling short sentence that directs people to the blog article on your website.

Here is an example of a comment I would post on social media:

“Check out these three reasons why salespeople should start creating blog articles - https://www.ascendbusinessgrowth.com/blog/salespeople-should-start-creating-blog-articles.”

Once someone clicks the link, they are on my website. Okay, website visitors are great, but how does that affect revenue growth?