The holiday season has come and gone, and with that many people have hit the ground running to start off the New Year. Phones are buzzing, emails are out of control, and vacations have come to a close. It’s also that time of the year where everyone has made their New Year’s Resolution, both at work and in their personal life. Not to mention, if you work in a calendar year rather than a fiscal year, your sales and marketing goals have been set and you are ready to hit them.
So how can you tackle those goals? How can you control your leads and flourish in 2016? Simple, understand the technology you use and your audience in which you are targeting. Here are 3 simple tips to making sure you do understand the technology and your audience:
1. WHERE ARE YOUR LEADS COMING FROM AND HOW DID THEY GET THERE?
Old-school ways of getting your leads is cold calling. You buy a list, you call down the list with a script, and you wait for a call-to-lead ratio in order to succeed with a “bite” from someone who is interested. Yes, it’s old-school, and yes, many still do this. But technology has changed and there are other ways you can see where your leads are coming from. Websites, such as Google Analytics and many other platforms, allow sales and marketing departments to see through which avenues people are visiting. Are you posting blogs or social media posts? These all should have backlinks that a simple analytical tool can track, read, and report back to you.
Knowing where and how your leads heard about you or how they are “walking through the door” is important. It allows your marketing department to see if their collateral and message is being received properly, and it also sets you up for the next tip, “Who is your audience?”
Gaining the information of where and how your leads are getting into the door, allows you to take that information and drill down a little deeper. Who exactly is your audience? Every sales person, better yet, every company, has an ideal target audience in an ideal target location. It’s the framework in understanding if someone is actually “qualified” to be able to use what you are selling. It also allows you to know if you are talking to the right “decision makers.”
By drilling down into the above data, you can better see a more specific audience than the general target one. You are able to drill down into which browser they are coming in from (helpful for marketers to test their collateral on specific browsers); you are also able to see time of day; what type of company/industry; keywords they use; and much more. All of this will help you narrow down your overall message to meet a specific audience’s needs. And, this leads us into our next tip.
3. HOW ARE YOU SPEAKING TO YOUR LEADS?
From all this information gathering and review, you may realize you have more than one specific audience. From this, you need to look at how you are speaking to them. Is your collateral giving you the audience you want? If not, change it up. Experiment with why it’s not the right audience and make it target the audience you want. Is it targeting more than one? Allow it, but make sure to keep your marketing material different in order to target the specific industry you want to. You may be hitting both a non-profit industry and a professional service; they speak two different languages. They use two different key words and also have a different end-goal. Your material should reflect the appropriate language for the audience and level of employee you are trying to reach.
Taking these three tips and forming them to fit your company will let you prosper in this new year. Don’t let yourself fall behind while everyone else is tackling their leads. Get in the game and reach your goals!
Do you have questions about marketing and sales in the technology world? Don’t hesitate to ask our Marketing and Sales Department by contacting KTL Solutions at 301.360.0001 or by emailing [email url=”info@ktlsolutions.com” class=””]info@ktlsolutions.com[/email].
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ELIZABETH MORIS| Marketing Coordinator Elizabeth is responsible for the development and management of KTL’s marketing department while designing and overseeing marketing operations and campaign planning. With her creativity and design background, Elizabeth maintains KTL’s branding efforts, marketing plans, social media marketing, and performance improvement strategies. She also manages the consistency and fluidity of different collateral mediums making sure KTL’s main image and goal are continuous. Her specialties include graphic design, content editing, event planning, tracking analytical data, public relations, integrated marketing, social media marketing, and print and web design. Elizabeth is proficient in Adobe Suite and Microsoft Office. She attained a Bachelor of Arts in Corporate Communications and Commercial Design from Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA and a Master of Arts in Publication Design from the University of Baltimore in Baltimore, Md |
