How Lead Generation Works

The Internet is a vast wealth of resources that serves different purposes. Whether you browse for leisure or to earn a living, there is so much potential from the web where you can tap different niches for a profit. While social media marketing is a hot topic right now in the business world and being exploited by just about anyone, the first thing that can make or break any marketing efforts online is generating leads.

Lead generation is the act or process of determining and cultivating a possible target market for specific goods or services. A classic example of not making use of lead generation is the annoying cold-calling phone telemarketers who disrupt our day or night with their monotonous pitches. Other times these telemarketers directly call businesses and reach out to a qualifying point of contact, which is very much different from cold calling where you just dial a number and try your luck after speaking with the person. In lead generation, although you are calling people out of the blue, their names and information have been supplied to you after some surveys or such where these people expressed interest in a category where your business fits in.

The ultimate success of any business to business (B2B) marketing strategy or program revolves around lead generation. How many new qualified leads resulted from your marketing efforts? How much did it cost to generate each new qualified lead?

Qualified means the prospect is genuinely interested in your business, wants more information on your solutions and expects to make a purchase soon.

Every B2B marketer continually looks for innovative, lead generation approaches. The challenge comes from finding the right combination of campaigns that produce the greatest number of qualified leads at the lowest cost.

And when you ask the experts what strategy in generating leads works best, these are the answers:

Which Lead Generation Strategies Work Best?

In multiple studies, these inbound strategies consistently rank near the top regarding generating quality B2B leads:

• Email Marketing

• Content Marketing

• Search Marketing

• Social Marketing

(Via: http://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2017/04/06/lead-generation-tips-from-a-pro.html)

So, what are the elements that constitute a great lead generation? After all, you should have some sort of a plan before doing anything else, right?

To understand lead generation, it’s important to first understand the mechanics of the lead generation process. The best lead generation campaigns contain either one or all of the following components. From a tactical perspective, a marketer needs four crucial elements to make inbound lead generation happen.

These components include an offer, a call-to-action, a landing page and a form.

An offer

Firstly, you need something of high value to offer your audience. Your offer needs to be not only informative but of interest to your specific audience; you need them to want to download it.

A call-to-action

A call-to-action (CTA) can be text, an image or a button linking directly to a landing page for people to easily find and download your offer. 

A Landing page

A landing page is different to your other web pages. A landing page is a specialised page that contains information about one particular offer and includes a form for the user to fill in to access the offer itself. 

A form

As we’ve mentioned above, your form will sit on your landing page. The information you’re asking for in your form should reflect the perceived value of the download. Try and keep the form as short as possible.

(Via: https://www.hitsearchlimited.com/news/what-are-the-4-elements-of-lead-generation-id0530)

Now that you have a plan in place, how can you ensure that you’ll be able to generate successful leads that can elevate your business and your profits?

Make a plan. Every lasting change begins with a plan, and a plan is often the result of a vision. When you visualize your success and the life you want to lead, you can outline your plan and set yourself up for success.

Track your activities. Tracking holds you accountable and allows you to stay consistent. When you work to regularly track your activities—whether it’s in your CRM or on your calendar—it’ll eventually become second nature. 

Change takes time, so be patient and keep working toward adopting this successful habit.

(Via: http://rismedia.com/2017/04/06/secret-successful-lead-generation/#close)

Businesses make use of lead generation in various ways and they have all been proven to deliver varying levels of success depending on how well you executed your plan. And the best thing about this is that you need not do the actual generation yourself because many companies offer to do it for you at a set price depending on how much data you want and the extent of lead generation involved. If you haven’t tried it yet, give it a try and realize your business’ fullest potential that you won’t be able to achieve if you just rely on your product or service to speak for itself.

The post How Lead Generation Works is available on https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/content-marketing/how-lead-generation-works

Traveling Made Easy With Google Maps

Traveling has never been easier than it is now, with technology to save you from every possible mishap along the ways. From planning to your actual travel and until you get back home, you can do your research online without even requiring the services of a professional travel agent. You can book your plane flight online, or perhaps a cruise ship tour, a train ride, etc., you can do it all from the comfort and convenience of your smart gadget. Even booking your hotel or Airbnb accommodation can be done in a snap. As a result, you get to save lots of money you can spend on something else.

One of the most popular travel buddies right now is Google Maps since you can easily travel foreign countries with its help. Wherever you are in the world, you can count on Google Maps to help you get to your destination in the fastest and safest manner. This web-mapping service offered by no other than Google makes way for faster and easier navigation. It features streets maps, satellite imagery, and even 360° panoramic view of streets so you know exactly what to look for when you get to your destination.

Perhaps more than any other innovation-in-your-pocket, Google Maps has changed the way people travel. As long as you're connected to the Internet (and, with a little forethought, even if you aren't) you can't get lost anywhere, and loads of people use the review feature to find bars, restaurants, or shops to explore. But what happens when you zoom out—like waaay out? Well, the feature still works, even on the continental level. That's right, you can review and rate all 17.2 million square miles of Asia, if you please. And plenty of people have. Here are some of the most entertaining reviews of all seven continents.

(Via: http://www.cntraveler.com/story/google-maps-reviews-of-entire-continents-are-bizarre-and-hilarious)

Google maps first came to be as a tool to help people navigate the world especially busy city streets and even the suburbs to rural areas. But today, you can even review oceans and continents with its help.

You can find virtually anything on Google, and it appears that now includes reviews for Earth’s continents and oceans.

Ever wondered what the internet thinks about the entire continent of Europe? North America? What about the Atlantic Ocean?

Well if you look up these locations on Google Maps you can now find some helpful reviews and star ratings. I use the term “helpful” somewhat loosely, because users are having more fun with this bizarre feature than anything.

(Via: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/google-maps-now-lets-review-continents-oceans/193511/)

However, the threat of coming across fake businesses and get scammed is possible as the discovery was made that Google Maps contain fake listings. Although the number is not that high, there is still a slim possibility that you end up with these fake listings and get hurt or scammed in the process. Why does Google allow this thing to happen, if indeed proven true?

Google announced last week that they had recently conducted a study to research the actors behind fake listings on Google Maps.

The study points out that “geographic proximity is the coin of the emerging localized-search realm,” which matches what I observed with the Possum update in 2016. This major algorithm update was responsible for making proximity to the searcher the #1 ranking factor for local search. This drives up the incentive for companies to create fake listings, since they need more “locations” in order to monopolize the search results and maximize exposure.

There were some things I saw in the study that were very helpful to know:

• Most of the listings that got suspended were in India and the United States (74 percent of all the listings observed in this study).
• 40.3 percent of the listings were in industries that are on-call, like plumbers, locksmiths and electricians.
• 54 percent of the suspensions in the United States were in the following six states: California, New York, Florida, Texas, Illinois and New Jersey, while these states only account for 39.9 percent of the population.

The study also looked at listings that were suspended due to marketing companies abusing the verification process and obtaining ownership of the listing without the consent of the business owner. This happens a lot in the restaurant industry, where marketing companies will create a copy of the business website and put a booking/ordering link on it, then charge the business owner for all orders placed via their system. They then take ownership of the listing via Google My Business, and the business owner is stuck paying for transactions from any customer finding their local listing on Google.

(Via: http://searchengineland.com/google-really-keeping-fake-listings-off-google-maps-272913)

The statistics from this research is somewhat dubious considering Google only looked at suspended listings and haven’t gotten to the bottom of it yet. The best thing one can do is exercise extra caution when using Google Maps especially when looking up a particular restaurant since most fake listings concentrated on this industry. But this is a serious concern that Google need to look into deeper along with representatives from the restaurant business who are often the victim here. Technology is supposed to make our lives easier and not expose us to unnecessary threats we are not yet ready to deal with. Knowing Google, they will do their best to settle this issue once and for all and bring back the lost trust of the people that were already affected.

Meanwhile, you can still rely on good old Google map to take you places without the fear of every getting lost again. Go to uncharted places and discover new towns and cities you've only heard about in books or seen on TV. Experience life first hand and reward yourself with the gift of travel and all those memorable experiences that will last you a lifetime.

Traveling Made Easy With Google Maps is republished from All Systems Go Marketing

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/social-media/traveling-made-easy-with-google-maps

It’s The Quality Of The Content That Counts

The Internet is littered with various type of contents that sifting through its long list of website and posts may look like an impossible task to the untrained eye. Fortunately, search engines, especially Google, have developed a method in classifying and ranking these contents, so that web users can find related posts to the keywords they have typed in the search box.

For your business to stand out amidst the competition, it has to have that wow factor and meet specific requirements in order to rank first. You can’t just expect to rank high in search engines if your content sounds rubbish and lacks substance. While you are not expected to write poetic and classic pieces like literary masters do, the content you post should be at least creative and engaging enough aside from containing relevant and useful information in your field.

No matter what kind of marketer you are, content matters.

The reasons for this are manifold. Yes, there’s content marketing, which has long been called the “new black” in the marketing arsenal. Content marketing has risen to prominence for a slew of very, very good reasons. It’s customer-centric, rather than sell-centric. It’s about you rather than me, and it’s the marketing of attraction rather than interruption.

Content has also become popular due to the democratization of media. Everyone can do it (though doing it well is another story entirely). Blog? Podcast? Video? All you have to do is own a phone.

Media channels are flooded with content, especially social media. Can you imagine what these platforms would be like without any content in it? And when browsing through your newsfeed, the thing you least like is reading about fakes news or lousy content that shouts spam. You don’t want to waste your time on these clickbait contents. Modern consumers want to read about something informational, where they end up one information smarter than they did before opening that link.

Content isn’t just for marketers. Content originates across the organization, primarily in public-facing functions such as sales, HR, customer service, product development and in the executive suite.

The culture of content is arising not just because brands are publishers, but because employees are publishers, too. Some will shrug this off this as noise rather than signal, but the proliferation of channels, platforms and devices is further enabling employees to speak on behalf of the brand.

Add to that requests from teams in social media, sales, thought leadership, real-time marketing, recruitment and customer service, and the demand has never been higher for continual content creation, refinement, repurposing and reformatting.

Content can help elevate numerous functions, from social selling to diverting calls from a call center to most cost-efficient digital channels. Smart organizations evangelize this message for cost savings, employee empowerment, thought leadership and other benefits.

(Via: http://marketingland.com/content-matters-no-matter-type-marketer-217413)

The contents your brand post speak a lot about your company and people will base their opinions depending on the message you communicate to them.

Online contents also reach a global audience. Your content should be friendly enough that people of all walks of life and nationalities can relate to or at least target a specific industry or niche and try to build your expertise so people listen (or read, in this case) everything you talk about something in that field.

Brands are no longer merely peddling products, Ané Honiball reckons. They’re producing, unearthing and distributing information.

Do you remember the big hoo-ha years ago about subtle product placement in movies or on TV? Well, the big shift from traditional to native content is no surprise, really, given the fact that gripping content is hugely effective in adding value to the user experience.

We’re seeing everyday how cleverly designed content marketing strategies morph into powerful relationship building and brand positioning tools. It’s a great way to take businesses – both large and small – to the next level. Brands are no longer merely peddling products; they’re producing, unearthing, and distributing information.

(Via: http://themediaonline.co.za/2017/06/is-content-marketing-the-new-black-with-brands-becoming-content-publishers/)

It’s all about the user experience now. Consumers don’t just buy things or avail of services because that’s what they see on ads but more so because they benefit from these brands. Consumers support a brand they believe in, and they can only learn more through quality content a brand posts about their products and the mission and vision of the company.

It’s like hitting two birds with one stone actually. Aside from ranking high on search engines and be seen by your consumer-base, engaging and quality content helps you streamline your traffic so you target the right people with your posts and most likely make a sale after or change their perception about your brand for the better. If you think about it, there is so much more to quality content especially that so much in the world has gone digital. People check the web first for many of their needs, which is why taking the time in crafting contents that stand out from the rest and really speak about your brand is a great investment over time.

It’s The Quality Of The Content That Counts was originally seen on www.allsystemsgomarketing.com

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/content-marketing/its-the-quality-of-the-content-that-counts

Google: Modern Digital Spy

We all value our privacy. Of course, who wants to get all their garbage exposed for the entire world to know? But sorry to burst your bubble because you have been spied on for a long time now without you knowing. Sorry to break the news to you if you don’t know about it yet. But can you help it if you just love the web? It almost has all the answers you are looking for and best of all, you can have it in an instant. Google Chrome is perhaps the best search engine there is mainly because Google has crafted various related services that make life a breeze and it’s so easy to use too. It contains millions of articles and links that people may find useful in their daily lives.

Unfortunately, this beloved browser is hiding a deep dark secret. It’s been spying on us all along. For the past 18 years that Google has been around, it has taken note of all your Google searches – yes, all. It remembers all the things you’ve asked Google for, even those naughty questions you are too embarrassed to ask another person, even to a doctor. It’s really scary to have all your deepest darkest secrets archived by no other than a tech giant like Google who won’t have second thoughts of selling it to third parties if the price is right.

During the hoo-ha, one of the spooks with whom I discussed Snowden’s revelations waxed indignant about our coverage of the story. What bugged him (pardon the pun) was the unfairness of having state agencies pilloried, while firms such as Google and Facebook, which, in his opinion, conducted much more intensive surveillance than the NSA or GCHQ, got off scot free. His argument was that he and his colleagues were at least subject to some degree of democratic oversight, but the companies, whose business model is essentially “surveillance capitalism”, were entirely unregulated.

He was right. “Surveillance”, as the security expert Bruce Schneier has observed, is the business model of the internet and that is true of both the public and private sectors. Given how central the network has become to our lives, that means our societies have embarked on the greatest uncontrolled experiment in history. Without really thinking about it, we have subjected ourselves to relentless, intrusive, comprehensive surveillance of all our activities and much of our most intimate actions and thoughts. And we have no idea what the long-term implications of this will be for our societies – or for us as citizens.

(Via: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/18/google-not-gchq--truly-chilling-spy-network)

Although it is quite a common knowledge today that we are being watched online, some are still oblivious to this chilling fact. Billions type in questions on Google on a daily basis. The same can be said for the billions of Facebook users who log in daily to their SNS accounts. All your queries, likes, comments, posts, etc. all leave a digital footprint that people inside the organization can use to their advantage, whether to be sold to third-party businesses for instance or even tapped by the government for information during disasters or terror attacks.

Google claims it wants to help you in every way possible. They are a search engine, a smart thermostat, a map, a video site, a place to create content and socialize and much more.

The list goes on and on with what they do and offer based on their many acquisitions.

What they don’t tell you in any way obvious, is that they scan every slice of Google that you use. All that information . . . becomes part of your “permanent record.” They argue it’s useful in order to customize your experience.

Google is doing everything they can to subvert your right to be forgotten. They seem to know literally everything you’re doing and what the temperature in your house is.

Remember, this is the same Google that was fined millions of dollars by several different countries when they literally stole IP addresses and WiFi passwords from citizens’ homes as they drove by in their quest to map the world. By this time we are all exhausted by the mind-numbing targeted ads and content we receive. Who is that really useful to? To them of course.

(Via: http://www.mirror.co.uk/tech/what-yahoo-hack-taught-facebook-9205897)

In reality, spying has been a part of Google’s plan all along. It has worked like a data vacuum alongside Facebook and many others in compiling personal data and browsing habits of consumers either to be sold to data brokers, businesses, and even the government for a profit. Every single one of your searches is added to your permanent online dossier and the list just adds up as you continue to use these platforms today, tomorrow, and in the future.

The only way to fight this practice is to walk away from it all. But then, can you really do it in a world that is quickly becoming digital in all aspects as the days go by. Unless you decide to live off the grid, you need these modern conveniences as you communicate with people and basically survive. It’s a tough call, really. Your best recourse is to limit the amount of personal information you share online and never forget that you are being watched since studies show that when people know they are being observed, their behaviors change and becomes more calculated leaving you less room to make careless mistakes.

The following blog post Google: Modern Digital Spy was first seen on https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/content-marketing/google-modern-digital-spy

Breaking The Internet With The Help Of Social Media

We all hear the term “breaking the Internet” once in a while. That’s when someone or something does something really mind-blowing that virtually everyone on the planet who uses the web is talking about it all at the same time. Celebrities and performers are often responsible for this amazing phenomenon but it can also be other prominent figures in various niches. Some even end up as funny memes that stays on the annals of the web forever.

Aside from becoming a sensational star, you can also break the Internet as a means to promote and grow your brand. The potential is limitless if you just know how to market your brand right. And what better way to let the entire world know about your brand and what you offer through social media. SNS may have its many flaws but it proves to be a helpful tool in tapping the right market and delivering the essence of your brand. You can be all over the Internet once you capture the attention of the countless SNS users all over the globe. For instance, Facebook is not just a great platform to connect with friends but it is also a great avenue for entrepreneurs to target consumers via Facebook Ads and Facebook Retargeting.

Whether you’re building a brand on social media, marketing a business event, or campaigning for a cause, you’re fighting everyone else for space — not just your immediate competitors.

In today’s market, social media noise is a serious problem, hindering a company’s reach on the powerful marketing medium.

What’s more, today’s audience is constantly interrupted and have begun to show signs of ad aversion.

It makes perfect sense to focus a great deal of your time and effort in social media marketing because a big chunk of Internet users are on social media too. However, there are millions of competitions too for the attention of the public. Even traditional advertising is no longer that effective in promoting your brand. If you don’t know what you are doing, you might end up wasting your time, money, and effort in a fruitless endeavor that may even send you to bankruptcy.

Social networks have grown more crowded, and users’ attention spans have dramatically dropped. About three years ago, Ogilvy predicted that reach for brand content on social would eventually drop to zero.

You could rely on social media ads if it wasn’t for the surge in usage of ad blockers, or your audience telling you they hate ads.

Despite these drawbacks, several brands are managing to engage communities and drive business through social networks.

(Via: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/social-media-noise/197377/)

Don’t underestimate the power of quality and straight-to-the-point content. While consumers like seeing flashy banners and logos sometimes, the new breed of consumers now also want to know more about your brand and what they can get from you before deciding to click that link to your website. If the content you post can capture the consumer’s divided attention, then you may be on to something good.

Social media has become one of the most effective marketing tools ever. It’s created an entirely new sub-genre of marketing and has become a digital publicity beast. If you’re a business owner developing a marketing strategy, including social media to boost your company’s brand awareness is a no-brainer. But before you start creating profiles for your company, you need to determine which platforms would be best to promote your brand and improve your organization’s name recognition.

When choosing the right social media channels to focus on, you should consider the type of products and services you offer as well as who your target audience is. Additionally, each platform has different groups of users characterized by certain demographics, so having a solid understanding of each channel’s reach is crucial to your overall social media strategy.

(Via: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/boost-brand-awareness-social-media-01864156#A7gI4jhffA6J87qm.97)

It’s pretty obvious that there are different types of social media platforms and it targets different demographics too. Facebook is an all-time favorite by many of all ages while LinkedIn is used sporadically by professionals when they are looking for work or needing to hire employees. Instagram focuses on the visuals and Twitter alongside the former is mainly used by older Millenials who like flaunting on social media.

The bottom line is, it’s the type of content you post that matters whenever you use social media. Creating customized content is non-negotiable knowing that various social media platforms differ. Once you understand what posts to publish in what platform, what keywords to use, etc. you won’t have a hard time breaking the web and catapulting your brand to fame and fortune, which is the reason why you are in business on the first place.

The following blog post Breaking The Internet With The Help Of Social Media is republished from www.allsystemsgomarketing.com

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/social-media/breaking-the-internet-with-the-help-of-social-media

What Local Businesses Need To Know About SEO

Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur. Unfortunately, a flair for business can’t always be taught or learned but often an inborn trait. However, that does not mean that you can’t learn to be a good businessman as you go along. There are certain business practices that you can learn over time. After all, a lot has changed and the market isn’t the way it used to. For the most part, the rapid progress of technology is what changed everything we know about business. Social media is a big business driver now and even natural-born entrepreneurs should learn about various SEO practices to make their brand stand out amidst the crowd.

If you think you got SEO mastered already, you’re quite mistaken because local SEO is actually a little different than just basic SEO. Getting reviews and building links are just some of the things you need to remember if you want your local business to stay afloat despite the continued dominance of franchises. There are also certain mistakes you’ve been unconsciously doing that are detrimental to the growth and success of your brand. Knowing what these mistakes are early on can save you from a lot of headaches later in the game.

For some reason, more than ever before, it seems like most business owners (and many marketers) are equating content with SEO. It’s like suddenly, the only thing that matters is content, content, CONTENT. If multiple pages aren’t added to the site every month, then obviously, no SEO has been performed.

Hopefully, everyone reading this knows that the “content, content, CONTENT” play is way off-base. The problem is that most business owners don’t know, and many of us aren’t doing a sufficient job of educating business owners to show them why. If there’s a huge disconnect between what marketers know and business owners believe, we’re all going to have problems keeping clients.

So this month’s edition of Greg’s Soapbox is calling out the “content, content, CONTENT” play and showing why overloading on content is a bad strategy.

(Via: http://searchengineland.com/stop-overloading-local-seo-content-275013)

Content may drive traffic and sales but like everything else, too much of something is not always a good thing. You may be overcrowding your site with useless data that isn’t working to your advantage and the clutter may even drive consumers away. You don’t want that to happen if you want your business to stay profitable indefinitely.

Where do you start? The most important first step is to devise a plan. It takes time, even for a properly optimized site, to be recognized and assessed by search engines as being friendly, relevant and having authority on given topics. Identify your target audience and consider how their needs are to be met by your service or product. Competitors should be identified and studied. Plan for how much time will be allotted to SEO efforts and don’t shrug it off. SEO is not a “set it and forget it” type of marketing technique. And don’t forget a plan for measuring and assessing results, using free tools like Google Analytics. Unless you track your results, you can’t know if your efforts are paying off or if adjustments need to be made. Ask yourself and your team members “what is local SEO to me and what do I want to accomplish using it?” This exercise will help you see the strategy as less of a tedious activity that’s supposed to help increase your business and more as an important business tool that will help you achieve great results over time.

(Via: http://www.business2community.com/seo/beginners-guide-local-seo-strategies-small-business-01855295#zHMTPQcV8WcPWSYU.97)

Mastering SEO for local businesses is no rocket science but it’s not an easy feat to pull off either. It can be tricky for newbies in the market but with a little help, you’ll do just fine and may even make a lot of bucks along the way. First on your list is to establish your business profile as you set-up your listing. Next on your list is to write compelling and quality content that consumers would actually want to read. Your goal is to convert them into paying customers after reading your post while doing this in a subtle and business-like way.

And because the Internet is a global platform, think of your business as a global brand too. Everyone on the web is a potential customer. So, make sure to list your brand all over the Internet. Then, don’t forget that link building helps build your credibility as an authority in the niche you are in. It likewise helps a lot when ranking since people will often come back to sites they feel they can trust and educate them on various things. And last of all, it’s all about reviews. Happy customers will help spread the word for you. They will be the testament to how your brand delivered its promise, whatever it may be. But remember to remain flexible at all times since change is the only permanent thing in the world, even on the web.

What Local Businesses Need To Know About SEO Find more on: ASGM Blog

source https://www.allsystemsgomarketing.com/seo/what-local-businesses-need-to-know-about-seo