LinkedIn is the world’s most outstanding social network for professionals to connect, learn, and exchange ideas. It is a digital platform where experienced entrepreneurs and job seekers can present their skills and attract potential customers.

The key to using LinkedIn is to obtain tremendous awareness and an excellent online presence. Fortunately, it offers elements that can assist freelancers, solopreneurs, and job seekers in developing a brand by presenting their abilities. In this article, we will focus on some of those features and show you how to make the most of them to boost your business.

What is LinkedIn marketing?

LinkedIn is among the largest social networking networks for connecting with others who share your interests. This social media platform primarily focuses on businesses, job opportunities, and everything else. The group can be expanded by bringing together those who talk about business and hold similar ideals.

However, more people than just businesspeople and job seekers use LinkedIn. Use this forum to network with people who can help you advance your career and discuss topics related to your field. You can benefit significantly from it if you can use it effectively. You may improve the planning of a campaign by using the full range of LinkedIn’s marketing features.

Features That LinkedIn Offer to Help Your Business Grow

1. Lead Gen Forms on Pages

To produce quality leads for your goods or services, the LinkedIn Lead Gen Form is the perfect marketing tool. A LinkedIn ad includes a LinkedIn Lead Gen Form. When a user clicks on the call to action in the advertisement, this form automatically gathers the user’s contact information from their LinkedIn profile, resulting in lead generation for you.

With the help of this, marketers can precisely target their audience and produce thousands of high-quality leads from a single advertisement. They also use the data to qualify these leads for the next marketing.

Amazingly, independent contractors can also use this tool to reach their intended audience. You would need a compelling landing page to attract potential customers, followed by an irresistible offer jam-packed with value. After that, introduce the lead generation form to collect their contact information so you may follow up with them and remind them of your offer.

2. LinkedIn Ads

A LinkedIn ad is put up beside a Lead Gen Form. By creating campaigns, you can increase brand recognition. Using LinkedIn ads to target your audience is quite simple. You can target an audience that is most likely to take action by using this option to streamline your advertising.

Target criteria after choosing an aim to use LinkedIn ads. After that, please select your favorite ad style and input an ad budget to set it up to run. LinkedIn advertising gives you a way to assess the effectiveness of your ad.

3. Clickable Links in Photos and Videos

A new LinkedIn marketing tool was recently released to aid content creators in increasing their engagement and visibility as brands. You can now include clickable links in your LinkedIn postings that are images or videos. You will be able to promote your brand’s website in this manner.

The only way to add a link sticker to your material is to use LinkedIn on a mobile device with the post-creation tool. Some users still need access to this new marketing option because LinkedIn chose to roll it out gradually. So if you are one of them, have patience. Your LinkedIn experience will soon get better.

4. LinkedIn Lives

The professional world has witnessed more virtual events in recent years than in the past. Business partners and entrepreneurs now frequently participate in meetings and do business online. You can use this by presenting LinkedIn Lives, streaming content, and interacting with other businesspeople in your network.

LinkedIn Lives enhances your exposure and insights while bringing interaction to your door. Marketers can take advantage of this feature’s strength to host a product launch. Please remind your connections of the events you have scheduled on LinkedIn. Finally, you may let them know when your session goes live and share replays with those who could not make it.

5. Cover Story and Profile Video

Influencer marketing works well because humans are emotional beings who associate a person with a brand. If you add a profile video and cover story, your clients will get a sense of your personality and develop trust when they browse your LinkedIn profile. The same principles apply to profile videos and video interviews.

You can describe your services and highlight your accomplishments in your profile video. Additionally, it works well for drawing clients’ attention and keeping them on your profile for longer. A profile video and cover story can help you connect with your audience and provide a starting point for a dialogue.

LinkedIn reports that roughly 80% of recruiters think a profile video is significant when choosing and screening candidates for a post. To demonstrate your skills and make a persuasive presentation, a profile video is a terrific tool for job seekers.

6. LinkedIn Polls

On LinkedIn, creating polls is a creative method to draw users’ attention. With the help of this function, you may interact with your network and let them vote on a shared issue.

People appreciate sharing their opinions, which makes LinkedIn polls excellent conversation starters. If you are clever enough, you could design a poll based on the demands or problems of your potential customers. You then attempt to respond to these queries and address these issues in upcoming blogs.

7. Visual Posts

Did you know that the brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text? Using LinkedIn carousel posts to share news and updates with your users will help increase engagement, CTR, and impressions. Carousel posts are a popular way for companies to share their knowledge on LinkedIn because they are essential documents you can post to your feed and allow people to scroll through them like a presentation.

Carousel posts are great for posting systematic directions, repurposing blog content, guide articles, and infographics. Although you can upload up to 300 slides in a single carousel, we advise being succinct and to the point.

8. Creator Mode

Another important function that aids in establishing your professional status on the platform is creator mode. You can inform the audience of what you will be discussing on the platform by using this function. Up to five areas about which you are knowledgeable can be selected, and you can share your thoughts and information on them.

Enhance Your LinkedIn Visibility

LinkedIn is unique compared to other social networking networks due to a set of guiding principles. To increase your visibility on LinkedIn, you must provide material geared toward professionals. It is best to conduct some studies to learn what functions on the platform. Finally, your LinkedIn profile must be optimized to flourish on this platform. You can also improve your LinkedIn lead generation by scraping LinkedIn profile data from prospects.

The post What Features Does LinkedIn Offer That Can Help Your Business appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

If not, it’s time to level up your current content types and strategies to drive more engagement and meet your social media marketing goals. 

According to recent data, users are 40 times more likely to share visual content on social media. 

However, if you want to engage your followers and potential customers better, you need to mix up your social media content offerings. 

Consider the four content types below when developing your social media marketing plan and strategies to boost engagement and reach your target audience.  

Let’s jump right into it. 

1. Videos 

Videos are a highly engaging medium and can be a great way to grab people’s attention on social media. 

Whether you create short videos specifically for social media or repurpose longer videos, ensure you optimize them for social networks.

Learn from the following tips to help you create compelling social media videos. 

• Keep your videos short. In social media, shorter is often better. Try to keep your videos between 30 seconds to two minutes long. Longer videos can make it hard to keep people’s attention, so a short yet catchy video would be better. If your content, such as tips on how to plan your small business shipping strategy, requires you to create a longer video, make a shorter version for social media containing key information. Then, include a link to the full video in the description.
• Use captivating visuals. Create visually appealing and eye-catching videos using high-quality images, graphics, and clips to grab your audience’s attention and keep them engaged. Captivating visuals can reinforce your message and make your videos easier for audiences to consume and remember, fostering engagement.
• Use strong headlines and captions. The headline or caption of your video is often the first thing people see. Ensure your video captions or headlines are compelling enough to grab your audience’s attention. Follow tried and tested content writing tips to nail your captions and headlines. Also, include compelling Calls-to-Action (CTAs) to help entice your viewers to act on your offers, such as subscribing to your channel or buying your products.
• Optimize your videos for each platform. Various social media platforms have specific video specifications. Ensure you optimize your videos for the platform you’re using, including adjusting your videos’ size or length and adding specific hashtags or tags. Simplify distributing your videos across your social media channels using popular social media management platforms such as SocialPilot, Hootsuite, and Visa Social. For instance, Vista Social’s content calendar and scheduler let you plan and schedule your posts for auto-publishing on your social media platforms.

2. Behind-the-scenes posts

One of the free and low-cost marketing strategy ideas that can engage your social media audiences effectively is to share behind-the-scenes content. 

Sharing BTS photos and videos can give your audience a glimpse into your business’s inner workings, helping you build a stronger connection with them and engage them better. 

BTS content can also humanize your brand and give your audience a sense of what goes on behind the scenes. It helps your followers know your brand better, which is always great for boosting engagement. 

Consider creating the following social media BTS videos to help boost your engagement rate.

• Product or process videos. Share videos that give your audience a behind-the-scenes look at how your products are made or your team works. These content types can help you build trust with your audience by showing them the effort and attention to detail that goes into your brand and products. For example, the Instagram post below shows what goes on behind a product photoshoot for Golden Child Candles.

• Employee or team profiles. Humanize your brand and show the real people behind your business by sharing your employees’ or team members’ profiles. It can also help showcase your team’s diversity and talent, which can put your brand in a good light. For instance, you could show a short animated video clip highlighting the people who helped develop your new performance testing software after launching.   
• Office or workspace tours. Give your audience a tour of your office or workspace to give them a sense of your company culture and working environment. It can also be a great way to show off your company’s facilities and amenities.
• Event coverage. Share behind-the-scenes coverage of events your company hosts or sponsors to give your audience a unique perspective and showcase your community involvement.

3. User-generated content

You don’t always have to make content from scratch to engage your social media audiences. 

Instead, encourage your audience to share content related to your business or products, such as photos or reviews. 

It’s one way of increasing your audience engagement and building a sense of community around your brand. 

Feature User-Generated Content (UGC) in your social media posts. 

Doing so lets you show appreciation for your customers, encouraging them to continue engaging with your brand.

• Credit the original creator. Give proper credit and attribution to the person who created the content. You can tag the original creators in your post or include their handles in the caption.
• Engage with the users. Respond to comments and questions on your shared UGC post to encourage more audience interaction and engagement with your brand.
• Use Story features. Share UGCs on Instagram Stories or Facebook Stories to showcase UGCs at the top of your social media feeds. It can help draw more eyeballs to your shared UGCs and boost engagement opportunities. 
• Run a contest or campaign. Host a contest or campaign where users can submit their content for a chance to be featured on your social media channels and win prizes. It can drive engagement and get people excited about creating and sharing content related to your brand. Skittles’ Instagram Story below is a classic example of asking for brand-related content from users.

• Include UGCs in social media ads. Consider using UGCs in your paid social media ads to showcase real people using your product or service. It can help increase trust and show a sense of authenticity in your marketing efforts.

4. Questions and polls

Questions and polls can boost your engagement on social media because they encourage people to participate in the conversation actively and share their opinions. 

Questions and polls can also increase your content’s visibility and raise the chances of more people sharing your content with their followers.

Follow these tips to make the most of questions and polls in your social media marketing content. 

• Make it easy to participate. Use clear and concise language in your questions and provide easy-to-understand options for polls, so it’s easy for viewers to answer. 
• Encourage participation. Use a catchy or attention-grabbing headline or caption to encourage audiences to participate in your question or poll.
• Offer incentives. Consider offering incentives, such as discounts or exclusive content, to entice people to join in your questions or polls.
• Use polls to gather data. Leverage polls to get data and insights about your audience’s preferences and behaviors. These can be valuable for improving your social media marketing strategy. Baskin-Robbins nails this approach with its Yay or Nay poll on its two ice cream flavors.

For example, you could ask your followers about the content they would like to see more from your brand, such as a quick review of ExportYourStore. 

• Mix it up. Don’t just stick to text-based questions; consider using other formats, such as images or videos, to make your content more interactive and engaging.

Increase your engagement with diverse content types

Boost engagement and keep your audience interested by creating various content types for your social media marketing efforts. 

Get creative and try multiple content formats and types to see what works best for your brand and target audiences. 

Continuously test and refine your content strategy to increase your reach and build an engaged community on social media.

The post 4 Content Types You Should Include in Your Social Media Marketing Efforts to Boost Engagement appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

More than 50% of the world’s population uses social media when they are online. And most businesses today use this opportunity to showcase their company’s face and get better reach.

Without the right social media strategy, it’s easy to fail to generate enough traffic. You could create tons of different social media posts, work across platforms, create detailed infographics and still fail to attract enough people. Well, that’s where a social media marketing plan comes in. 

Here are 8 steps to get some good social media marketing ideas. 

1. Create your viewer persona

Reach out directly to your audience. To get to know your audience better, track your regular viewers. Start creating the persona for at least five types of your ideal audience.

You may use this information to create your audience persona:

• Name
• Location
• Age/Gender
• Job title
• Average Income
• Goals and challenges

When you build the persona, analyze what you can give your audience, so they are more engaged with your offering. 

This way, it will be easier to know which social media network you need to target. According to Statista, the 4 most popular social networks worldwide as of January 2022, ranked by the number of monthly active users are:

• Facebook 
• YouTube
• Instagram 
• TikTok 

2. Set your Goals and Objectives

If you do not have a good idea of your goals and metrics, it will be tough to create a viable social media marketing plan.  Most companies develop a social media marketing plan to achieve a set of goals, which often include:

• Lead generation
• Website traffic
• Brand awareness

Your goals should align perfectly with your metrics. This will determine your return on investment. 

3. Understand your Market 

To succeed in social media marketing, you need to understand the market first. Is your audience looking for something specific? Is there any market gap you can tap into? What does your audience profile look like?

Observe your competitors and analyze their social media marketing strategies. All companies do not use the same types of social media marketing. Do some research and you will start sorting out the puzzle.

Deliver content your audience is looking for. Look for blog posts and feeds that resonate with your viewers’ demands, not what you think is good.

4. Choose your Platform and Schedule your Posts

Social media platforms have different audiences and hence can serve different purposes. 

• Facebook, for instance, is widely used for displaying the company’s loyalty.
• LinkedIn is great for business development
• Instagram is best for visual engagement
• Twitter is best for community building

First, check your audience type and then consider which platform to approach. You can even look at when your audience is logging onto the targeted platforms and choose the best time to post accordingly. 

5. Create Content

Let’s break down the content into three different categories.

• Visual – A lot of the visual content gets easily shared on social media platforms. Videos of any kind can be great content for your social media marketing. Visual content is often recorded and saved for future reference. You can learn how to record a screen on Mac or Windows.
• Useful – Are you talking about gadgets, education, or life hacks? According to statistics, people like to share What-Post, Why-Post, How-to Article, and List.
• Emotional – Content which raises any emotions in viewers can also increase engagement. 

To create more accurate and engaging content for your users, develop a voice and tone for your content. To make this happen, perform some self-assessments about creating your marketing personas. Here are some questions you may ask: 

• What is your brand’s personality?
• What is your brand’s relationship with your audience?
• What kind of impression do you want to set for your audiences?

6. Set your Budget

Set your budget according to your brand’s needs. Cross-check the total marketing budget of your brand and ensure that your social media marketing budget fits comfortably in your marketing budget.  

Also, check if your social media marketing budget covers your plan’s primary aspects. It should be enough to cover all the listed requirements, which normally include:

• Paid promotions
• Analytical tools
• Campaign content
• Social media management tools

7. Track Results and Rebuild the Plan

In a social media marketing plan, re-evaluating the plan is crucial to the strategy. Use analytical tools to monitor content performance. To analyze and perfect the social media marketing strategy, you can:

• Set your benchmarks: Check the performance of the posts published in the past few weeks or months. Get a clear result of the engagements and set it as your benchmark, which you will keep chasing every time. You can always increase the number as your audience starts growing. 
• Trial and repeat: Try something new that might increase audience engagement between your regular posting periods. If this new strategy works and crosses your set benchmark, implement it in your regular social media marketing strategy.

8. Engage with your Community

Social media marketing implies talking to your audience through digital posts. So, when your audience talks to you, talk back. 

For example, updated patch notes can be delivered beforehand through social handles if you have a gaming company. At this point, the audience will ask several questions related to your posts and share their needs. Talking back gives them a sense of trust, which is crucial when trying to create a strong community. 

Besides just building a community, brand conversations are too important to ignore. It’s what helps build word of mouth and create overall impressions about your company. You can’t just survive with paid marketing over the longer term. Instead, you need to focus on customer retention and loyalty, and that’s where having an active social community helps.

Final Note

Choose your social media according to your business needs. Rechecking the marketing plan monthly, quarterly, and annually is important. If required, conduct some real-time interviews with your audience. 

The post Social Media Marketing Plan – 8 Steps To Follow  appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

Marketing to B2B prospects is not the same as promoting to B2C customers. 

A B2B buyer typically takes longer to make a purchase decision.

They do more research, consider more alternatives, and are more rigid when it comes to their requirements.  

They’re also taking more self-guided journeys now than ever. 

This magnifies the importance of high-quality content in B2B sales, especially in reaching and engaging potential clients.

If your business is struggling to reach clients, here are nine content marketing strategies you should definitely use. 

1. Transcend blog posts with visual content

Blog articles are reliable in building your authority, generating organic traffic, and nurturing brand loyalty. 

But they’re not enough to close deals with high-stakes B2B clients. 

Go beyond regular blog posts and immerse leads with a diverse, visual content experience. This includes webinars, downloadable guides, checklists, newsletters, and infographics. 

Statistics show that 67% of B2B marketers use static visual content (infographics, charts, photos, etc.). Videos, on the other hand, are used by a whopping 71% of B2B marketers to connect with their audience. 

Use visual content creation software to build visual content at scale. Look for solutions that provide intuitive tools, templates, and collaborative features to fast-track the content creation process. 

2. Write case studies

Conduct and publish original research to establish your credibility as an information source in your industry.

Remember, B2B prospects mean business. They need the hard facts and numbers before they can be swayed into a purchase. 

Case studies, for instance, analyze a product’s performance in the real world. It puts theories to the test and explores the best strategies to achieve optimal results. 

To craft a great case study, highlight your experiment and results as soon as you write the headline. Mention numbers to make it more eye-grabbing, like: 

• “…grew by 200%”
• “…from 200 to 12,000” 
• “…in 30 days”

Case studies can be published as long-form posts or downloadable PDFs. If you have the resources, go with the latter to make your content more compelling. 

3. Share client success stories

Let prospects know about your successful clients to show exactly what they can gain from choosing you. 

Successful clients combined with brilliant content writing make for engaging success stories. 

These content pieces start by sharing the client’s background and emphasizing their pain points to instantly boost relatability. The climax, however, is how they used your product or service to overcome their challenges and attain success. 

4. Claim thought leadership with industry reports

Research and compile original statistics related to your industry and package them in an industry report. 

This is normally created as a PDF, making it an effective lead magnet if your goal is to build your B2B email list.  

Building an industry report is best done with original data. However, some reports supplement their claims with sourced facts from other authoritative brands. 

Remember to use data visualizations like graphs, timelines, and charts to make data-driven information more readable. 

5. Use interactive content

Create interactive content to engage B2B leads, understand them on a personal level, and build an active community around your business. 

Interactive content doesn’t require cutting-edge technology or coding mastery to create. 

Social networking platforms come equipped with tools to help brands share interactive content with users. For example, live videos allow them to communicate with their audience in real-time to make the connection feel more organic in the eyes of prospects. 

Other networks like Instagram let you share interactive stickers that work on autopilot. You can run polls, answer questions, get user-generated content, and more. 

6. Embrace TikTok

B2B marketing and TikTok are more compatible than you think. 

Countless consultants, agencies, and entrepreneurs hop on TikTok to share valuable lessons, prove their expertise and achieve thought leadership. 

TikTok is a short-form video-sharing platform used by billions of users worldwide. And as long as you have a reasonably-capable smartphone, TikTok has everything you need to publish engaging and authentic content that prospects will enjoy—from video editing tools to trends that boost your visibility. 

You just need to learn the language of the community to make relatable content. Observe other creators, copy and paste popular TikTok quotes, and follow trends to maximize your reach. 

7. Structure a funnel-based content experience

Great content is meaningless if it’s targeted at the wrong leads. 

That’s why every content marketing initiative should be guided by a marketing funnel: the different stages in a buyer’s journey. 

This includes the following: 

• Awareness: Your lead just found your brand.

• Interest: Your lead interacted with your brand at least once (e.g. signing up for your newsletter)

• Evaluation: Your lead is now checking reviews and learning about your offerings.

• Decision: Your lead bought from you.
• Loyalty: Your lead is a repeat buyer and advocates for your brand. 

It’s important to create tailored content experiences specifically for each stage of the marketing funnel. 

For example, publish blog posts, infographics, and ads for leads at the top of the funnel. Those in the evaluation stage, on the other hand, should be sent coupon codes via email, free white papers, and customer success stories. 

To speed up the content creation process, buy SEO articles from reliable agencies that understand your marketing goals. Just be sure to review their portfolio and test their commitment to clear and accessible communication by reaching out to them yourself. 

8. Use content syndication

Content syndication involves re-publishing existing posts on other channels. This is a proven way to improve content discoverability and referral traffic. 

Websites like LinkedIn and Medium allow marketers to syndicate content and reach a wider audience. 

LinkedIn, in particular, is teeming with B2B contacts. Re-publish your articles there—or add them as highlights on your profile—to get on your prospects’ radars. 

9. Implement a content tracking system

Use content performance analysis to figure out which of your strategies are working and which aren’t. 

Not even the most gifted content marketers can build flawless campaigns in one go. Marketers can only track their results and make the necessary adjustments. 

Double down on strategies that get results, fix what can be improved, and eliminate failing tactics to save resources. In a sphere as grueling as B2B content marketing, you need first-party data to guide your decisions—not just the “best practices” that everyone else is doing. 

Conclusion

B2B content marketing may involve more work, research, and dedication. But if you do it right, the payoff will be HUGE. 

Use the strategies above to hook, engage, and convert savvy B2B leads. Just remember to track your results and fine-tune your strategies over time. 

The post Content Marketing for Service Providers: 9 Ways to Reach More B2B Leads appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

Like most startup digital marketing agencies, you’re likely struggling to manage your time and resources. 

Addressing operational challenges and client demands to increase your company’s profitability is most likely becoming challenging to do.

Fortunately, there are tried and tested platforms to help streamline your team’s workflows and deliver your clients’ expected results — starting with the five must-have tools for startup agencies below.

1. Vista Social

Vista Social is a Social Media Marketing (SMM) management one-stop-shop that helps your agency manage client campaigns seamlessly. 

It gives you more control over your clients’ social media marketing initiatives—from auto-generating hashtags to scheduling content publishing and reporting.  

Vista Social’s robust features help you manage your SMM campaigns and tasks efficiently. It has a clean, modern-looking interface and is packed with easy-to-use features.

You can put your team’s workflows on steroids with the platform’s unique and handy features, including a built-in Image Editor, Review Management system, and Universal Mentions for tags.

The best part is, Vista Social is very affordable. Unlike similar tools, Vista Social doesn’t charge per user. It charges only $2 per profile, saving you a lot of money for your business.

Vista Social’s integration is quite comprehensive, too. You can connect networks such as Facebook, Pinterest, Google Business, Instagram Business, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

2. Factorial 

Factorial is a dependable Human Resource or HR software that agencies and small to medium businesses use to optimize HR tasks and workflows. 

The platform integrates payroll, document, vacation, and benefits management in one location. It also automates your critical HR tasks, reducing errors and giving you more visibility into your workforce and company data.  

Factorial offers robust features for time tracking and shift management, talent acquisition, training, and onboarding (and offboarding), employee performance assessment, and payroll summary (among others). 

Automate your workflows and eliminate repetitive, time-consuming tasks. 

For instance, you can automatically send leave request notifications and trigger actions to share documents with employees. 

Factorial integrates with Greenhouse, Slack, Google Calendar, and other compatible apps via Zapier. You can also create custom integrations with Factorial’s API. 

The platform offers a free demo, and you can pay $4 or $6 for monthly plans, depending on the storage and number of features.

3. Slack

Combining the power of Slack and reliable digital marketing software such as your content management app allows you to plan, design, and organize your content and collaboration methods.

Slack helps simplify and streamline communications across your teams. 

Instead of combing through countless emails, Slack provides a channel system with individual threads and one-on-one messaging features. It can help your team members track and stay on top of conversations and manage information easily. 

Channels allow members to contribute to a topic conveniently. A bar shows numerous channels (or topics), and all you have to do is click one.

Slack’s forum board-like interface can store long conversation histories you can easily go through and find the information you want. 

You can also branch off the main topic with threads without getting lost from the primary conversation thread.

Attach files and links to posts in channels and threads and privately message specific members of your team. You can also react to posts and hold both video and audio calls.

Slack makes it easier for your team to address issues, discuss and share project updates and documents, and collaborate efficiently. 

Slack offers integrations with MailChimp, Google Drive, and Dropbox. It has a free trial and offers monthly plans: Pro for $6.67 and Business for $12.50.

4. Trello

Trello is a collaboration tool to help teams organize notifications, delegate tasks, and keep track of work progress and activities. 

The tool makes it easy to view and monitor your tasks by displaying your to-dos and other information into a neat and compact system. 

Log into a Trello board, and you can immediately see all of your tasks displayed at once—from your project proposal document links to the latest updates on your content development projects.

The Trello board consists of lists and cards, similar to how you’d attach sticky notes to a wall with notes or cards you can modify accordingly.

You can edit cards, attach files, insert links, and transfer them to another column of cards called a list. 

Besides the boards, you can access Timeline and Calendar tools for planning projects and staying on schedule. The Table view also connects works across multiple boards.

The platform can integrate with Confluence, Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Evernote.

Get a free Trello plan for individuals. You can also opt for paid plans for small and medium-sized businesses (with up to 100 members) and enterprises (with more than a hundred members). 

The monthly plans cost $5, $10, and $17.5.

5. vcita

vcita is a business management app for small businesses and agencies to manage clients, time, and money efficiently from a central platform.

vcita’s primary features include: 

• Scheduling software and calendar 
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Client portal
• Online payment management
• Lead generation via email and SMS 

The app lets you store and track activities with customers, new and old — including payment history and client preferences.

You can manage your billing seamlessly by automatically sending estimates, receipts, and invoices.

vcita equips your team with the essential tools to build and manage client relationships and transactions while delivering memorable customer experiences. It optimizes your workflows to drive sales.   

It is compatible with Zoom, WordPress, Google, Facebook, Paypal, Wix, Venmo, and more. 

vcita offers a free demo and monthly plans of $19, $45 (the most popular), and $75 with corresponding features and functionalities.

Get your startup up and running 

The best-fitting tools can address your unique business needs while making things easier and quicker for your team.

You can spend more time on core processes and critical aspects of your business with tools designed to streamline your HR tasks, organize your communication, manage schedules, and keep track of client activity and information (among others).

Know which tools can supercharge your agency’s workflows and help you meet your targets and drive your expected results.    

The post 5 Must-Have Tools for Startup Marketing Agencies appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

Link building is the popular go-to SEO strategy, and it’s no surprise considering the power links hold. 

The problem is, most people build links before they have a site worth linking to. So, if you haven’t got your website set up properly with a solid SEO foundation, it’s time to do that now.

However, if you have all your SEO ducks lined up, now it’s time to give your site a boost by adding links into the mix.

But before showing you some excellent link building strategies, it’s beneficial to know what makes a powerful backlink so you can make smart decisions whilst building links:

What Makes a Powerful Backlink

Whether you’ve decided to hire professionals or you’re planning to do it by yourself, you must understand what makes a powerful backlink. If you choose to outsource the work, you won’t have as much control over the links so be extra careful on which link building services you use.

When building a powerful backlink, you need to consider the following factors; if you don’t, the backlink could cause you more harm than good. 

One of the first things to consider is having the link naturally placed; it shouldn’t look forced into the page. You should also keep in mind the level of authority the referring domain holds; the better the authority, the more power the link has.

And these aren’t the only factors to consider:

The referring website has to be relevant to the content you’re trying to rank. There’s no point in having a website in the transport niche linking to a site in the dieting niche. There’s no relevance, and Google knows it.

Lastly, it needs to be a real website! And just as importantly, (in most cases) you need to avoid sites with a “write for us” section.

This is like a big flashing neon light in Google’s eyes; basically saying, “I Manufactured This Link, Penalize Me”. 

If you keep these things in mind when building your links, you’ll end up with stronger links with a lot more chance of moving the needle.

Link Building Strategies

Okay, link building strategies have been around for a very long time, which is good news; it means you have plenty of opportunities to score powerful backlinks. 

Below, I will walk you through three of the best strategies for building powerful backlinks. And as a bonus, you’ll also be introduced to one of the most underused strategies:

Guest Posting Your Way to the Top

This link building strategy is very popular, and for a good reason; it’s incredibly effective.

Now, you may have heard the age-old debate about link building being a ‘black hat’ strategy. 

Google has given many warnings about using guest posts to rank your site, but when done correctly using my advice from the previous section, you are at very little risk.

Not only does guest posting do that, but they also help you build a larger target audience, which is fantastic for marketing. 

Guest posting is an easy technique, but it’s not what it used to be.

Once upon a time, you could score guest posts with very little money involved. Unfortunately, this is not always the case anymore, you may be required to pay a publishing fee (just make sure the link is really worth it before investing).

If you’re going to build guest post links, follow these four simple steps:

Pick Your Targets

The very first thing you need to do is find targets you want links from. But how do you do this?

Your best option is to use Ahrefs link intersect report to find out what links your competitors have. Make a list of any referring sites your competitors have, but you don’t.

Check the Power of the Sites

Now you have a list of potential opportunities for you to score links from, it’s time to check if they are worth your time.

Again, you can do this with Ahrefs.

For each URL you’ve found, you want to run it through the site explorer to analyze the site. 

Ideally, you’re looking for sites with a high domain rating (DR); what counts as high? Usually, pages over 60+ but a good mix of sites work so also consider anything 30+. 

Contact the Blog

If you feel the site ticks all your boxes, it’s time to reach out to the blog owner and offer them some fantastic content that adds value to their website.

Make sure you write a really good pitch as no doubt they get lots of requests, so you need to stand out. 

Create Your Content

If they are happy to move forward with the guest post, it’s time to get writing. Whether you are writing the content yourself or outsourcing, just remember to keep the audience in mind. 

You should try to include things like:

• Images
• Videos
• Internal links 
• Quotes

Once everything is completed, it’s a case of submitting and getting it published with your bright shiny link placed naturally within the content.

Testimonial Link Building

It has to be one of the most straightforward strategies out there; in fact, it almost feels too easy to be effective. 

Using this technique, you can build powerful homepage links. All it takes is to write a few lines of text. 

The idea is to reach out to products or services you’ve used within your niche and offer a testimonial.

For this, you’ll need to follow these steps:   

Think of Your Targets

This step involves brainstorming all the products and services you’ve used that relate to your niche. 

If you’re struggling to think of suggestions, look at what your competitors use; just make sure you can provide a genuine testimonial before reaching out.

Pitch to the Right Person

Finding the email address might seem tricky at first, but with the right tools such as “Hunter.io” or “Find That Lead” it’s quite easy.  

For each email you find, add it to the spreadsheet next to the URL ready to send the pitch.

Pitch Your Idea 

The next step is to pitch your idea to the owner of the product or service. 

In the pitch, you should introduce yourself, and explain how the tool has helped you do X, try to include some real results (this is more likely to get approved).

Ask them if you can put something together for them; just make sure you keep it simple.

Get the Link

Once everything has been agreed upon, it’s time to write the testimonial. It only has to be a short piece but should include things like

• What you like
• How it helped
• Tangible results

When it’s written, it’s time to send it off and get it published.

Help A Reporter Out (HARO)

This is another excellent strategy you can use to build links for your website; more importantly, it’s an entirely free service.

What makes this technique different from the other strategies is the websites come to you. More importantly, big websites use this service.

But how does it work?

Sign Up To The Service 

The first thing you need to do is sign up as a source on the website. 

Once you sign up, they will send you three emails a day, which are broken down into categories.

You need to look through the list and find questions that are in your niche. You then want to run their website through Ahrefs to see the DR. 

You’re looking for sites with a med-high rating.

Make Your Pitch

Websites with a higher domain rating will get more requests, which means it will be more challenging to get the link…

So you’ll need to bring your A-game.

Make sure you answer all their questions in great detail and include your website’s bio and a link to your relevant page. 

The journalist will then get in contact with you to say whether they’re going to use your content or not. 

Easy!

BONUS: Internal Link Building

As mentioned before, this strategy is severely underused, yet it holds so much power. The best thing about internal linking is the fact that is completely free to use, and more importantly, you can’t get penalized for it.

• Help Google find new content
• Help Google rank your pages
• Directs traffic to money pages

How do you increase your internal links?

You need to think of a list of pages that you want to increase the rankings for and add their target keywords next to it.

From there, it’s pretty easy.

You need to perform a Google search to find pages that are related to the primary keyword. It should look like this:

You want to open each search result and add your links to the page, preferably using an exact match anchor text. 

Do this for each of the URLs you’ve listed as essential. This will take some time, but the results will make it worth it.

Conclusion

There you have, four strategies to increase your rankings. Remember for these to be successful you need to have a site worth linking to in the first place.

Links are a valuable commodity and can push your website to success if built correctly.

The post Link Building Strategies: How To Build Powerful Backlinks appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

If you’re struggling with getting your customers’ attention, then it’s time you produce some killer video content.

Amplify your e-commerce marketing with these seven content ideas.

1. Stories

Stories are seconds-long posts that disappear after 24 hours. They can be videos, images, photos, etc., and be overlaid with filters, GIFs, and other objects.

Stories are great for creating effective social media marketing campaigns. They capture your customers’ attention, evoke a sense of urgency, and entertain viewers, among others.

Use stories on Facebook and Instagram to showcase your company culture, activities, products on sale, and more.

Cinnabon shows us how they did it:

Get creative with your stories. If you’re using them as social ads, pick the best format, insert compelling CTAs and links to the right landing pages, and post at ideal times.

2. Tutorials

Teach your viewers how to operate your product through tutorials. Doing this lets you give value to your audience, motivating them to consume more of your video content.

It also helps hesitant buyers see how using the item is achievable for them and, consequently, influences their buying decisions.

Here’s how Luxy Hair published video tutorials:

On the other hand, Tresemmé filmed its braids tutorial through a demonstrative interview.

Video tutorials are also useful for companies with virtual products. Ecommerce platforms, for instance, post videos to teach beginners how to set up their store, integrate apps, and more.

Shopify, for instance, creates various animated help videos, such as on connecting third-party domains, adding policy stores, and more:

3. Webinars

People join webinars to learn more about a niche topic, set of techniques, or products. Leverage them to introduce your product and elaborate on its capacities.

To do that, plan your webinar flow and product presentation. Offer value by highlighting your customers’ pain points and how your product solves them.

Next, choose a webinar platform with functionalities for specific needs, such as presentation boards, social media live streaming, etc.

You can even use video conferencing software, some of which have features ideal for digital training. Consider also some knowledge commerce platforms used for online courses.

Promote your webinar by sending email invitations to your subscribers, announcing it in advance on your social page, and creating pop-ups on your site, among others.

4. Product Kit Reveals

Excite your customers for what you have in store through product kit reveals. Feature a set of items every month according to your chosen theme.

It can be products that are best for summer, can help moisturize dry skin, create a fashionable Christmas outfit, and more.

So Susan, for instance, reveals its Color Curate box in animated videos with upbeat background music, like this:

Aside from grouping together items by themes, you can use this tip to cluster top- and low-selling products and increase your sales and margins fast.

Additionally, engage your viewers, converse casually, and highlight the benefits. This lets you connect meaningfully with your audience and convince them more easily to get your products.

5. Industry Expert Interviews

Create Q& A videos on niche topics your customers often ask about. Interview industry experts to generate interest in your content, draw in more viewers, and increase engagement.

For instance, if you’re selling health and wellness items, hold discussions with a life coach to educate your audience about improving their personal fitness.

Here’s another example by Skinceuticals, which hosted Talk Skin to Me:

With info straight from credible individuals, expert interviews offer your viewers immense value and help persuade them to take your offers.

6. Brand Videos

Convey your vision and mission, company culture, personality, and products or services through brand videos.

Doing this helps your customers understand your ethos, connect with your brand more deeply, and trust your product quality and sincerity in your service delivery.

Check out GoldieBlox’s sample:

Their video shows three girls who got bored watching a pink-dressed, princess-like trio on TV and proceeded to build their Rube Goldberg machine instead.

Challenging the stereotype of girls playing only with dolls, etc., Goldberg presents young, feminine engineers that will build the future, which is what their toys are all about.

With videos like this, you can build your e-commerce brand, heighten awareness, traffic and buyer patronage, and deliver powerful messages.

7. Influencer Tips and Reviews

Influencer marketing is among the most popular e-commerce marketing strategies because it gives businesses massive customer reach and ROI in sales and profit.

Partner with famous influencers that relate to your niche and hold the same values as you do. Then, sponsor their videos that provide tips, product reviews, and others.

Supergoop, for example, works with SoothingSista in a sponsored video:

Partner with influencers for these videos, and you can easily widen your brand exposure and make the most out of your marketing budget.

8. Brand or Product Comparisons

Create a video that compares your product with that of other common brands. This lets you showcase how your product outranks theirs in various aspects.

That’s what Blue Buffalo did in a video featuring two women who bought different cat food brands. one used Blue Buffalo; the other Purina Fancy Feast.

This technique lets you show your viewers the credibility and superiority of your product, convincing them to choose your brand over your competitors.

9. Celebrity Features

Feature prominent persons in your industry to share tips, trade secrets, or anything about themselves. These people can be influencers, vloggers, celebrities, artists, etc.

Doing this catches your audience’s interest and attention because everyone wants to know more about their favorite personalities or see them do fun stuff.

You can even feature famous persons who are avid users of your product. Smashbox did that with pop music artist Ariel Beesley on their series, In the Makeup Chair:

Amplify your e-commerce marketing with videos now.

Capitalize on video content to promote your e-commerce store. With these ideas, you can convey your message and capture your audiences effectively.

Conclusion

Align your video content with your marketing goals and target audience and be creative. In time, you’ll reap the rewards and catapult your performance if you don’t give up on video marketing.

The post Amplify Your Ecommerce Marketing with These 9 Video Content Ideas appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

Wouldn’t it be cool to see your brand’s name plastered on a mega screen in Times Square? It would be awesome to have thousands of New Yorkers and tourists see your ads alongside the major brands. Hold on, reality check!

Times Square is a high traffic area that squeezes as many ads as possible into a few city blocks, and those ads cost around $5000 per day. Whoa! Meanwhile, Google also seized a high traffic opportunity to get brands in front of thousands of eyes – but with an internet audience instead.

Google banner ads won’t make you Times Square famous, but it does offer a cost-effective way to build your brand and has its unique advantages.

What Are Google Banner Ads?

Google Banner Ads (also known as display ads) are seen all over the internet as part of the Google Display Network. After being in service for 19 years, these are considered to be the first type of “digital ad.”

When you visit a website and see ads loading, those are likely Google Ads. They are seen prominently at the top, midway, and on the sidebar.

Websites make money by allowing Google to show these ads on their site. So there’s an incentive for these websites to generate traffic. Everyone wins! Google gets paid, the website gets paid, and you get your ad shown all over the internet.

What is the Google Display Network?

The Google Display Network is made up of 2 million websites, videos, and applications across the digital landscape.

Google Display Network sites are in an agreement with Google to allow these ads to appear on their properties in exchange for getting a cut of the ad revenue.

Ever hear of click-bait? Well, those attention-grabbing headlines are intended to lure you to the website so they can earn ad revenue from your visit.

One day, as you’re scrolling through your Facebook feed, you see a sensational headline in a post. You click on the link and here’s what you see…

An ad for 1800Contacts.

Are Banner Ads Worth the Investment?

Pop-up ads aren’t seen as much as in the past, but years ago they were everywhere. It was a nuisance that built up a distaste for digital ads in general.

Banner ad placement has improved by taking up screen real estate without blocking the view of the content. But people are still stuck in psychological patterns that have been confirmed and categorized by banner blindness studies.

So while it’s a challenge to capture the audience’s attention and the click-through rates are 0.35%, digital ads still have something called PEAR value. PEAR stands for Potential Eyeball and Retention.

Repetition is part of the marketing process. Consumers usually need several encounters with your brand before they are ready to covert.

So that’s why bigger brands (like 1800Contacts from the earlier example) even bother to continue with Google Banner Ads. They understand that brand awareness is an important part of the conversion process.

In spite of a low click-through rate and a fickle audience, GDN’s reach of 90% of internet users raises an advertiser’s hope for chance glances and peripheral viewing.

What Websites Will My Google Banner Ads Show Up On?

And how many websites are part of the Google Display Network, again? Google boasts a territory of 2 million digital spaces made up of websites, apps, and videos.

However, your ad won’t be seen on even close to 1 million websites, and that’s a good thing. Google uses cookies and algorithms to allow advertisers to target certain types of websites.

Cookies track user behavior online. This helps Google retarget users (more on this later) and determine what they are looking for or interested in.

Audience Types

• In-market – Those who have been detected by Google to be in the market for a specific product or service.
• Affinity – User search patterns reveal interests. This is helpful for lifestyle targeting.
• Custom intent – Through their own research, an advertiser may know exactly what websites or digital properties they want to target.

This intelligent way of advertising means the ads will be more relevant to the audience. This aspires to reduce the odds that the ad is tuned out while offering the advertiser more value for their spend.

Google Banner Ads Can Be Used to Fit Any Budget

Banner ads are a budget-friendly way to get in front of your desired audience. How much you want to spend and for how long is up to you.

The average small business will spend $9,000-$10,000 per month on display ads. Costs are determined by the number of clicks and “views” the ad gets (impressions).

The average CPC (cost per click) on Display Network is under $1. The average CPM (cost per mile) is $2.80 per thousand views. These add up to your total spend.

Google Ads runs on a bidding system that gives advertisers control over their ad campaigns. In this system, you set the budget and this determines how Google runs your ads.

Google Ad Bidding Structure

• Default bids – Without customization.
• Custom bids – Set up with targeting specifics such as topics.
• Bid adjustments – Allows changes and control over when and where ads are shown.

Google Ad Customization Options

Google Display Ads customization is made up of features. Let’s get familiar with them.

Enhanced CPC (Cost-Per-Click)

If Google detects a better chance of a sale, it automatically increases your bid to seize this opportunity. This allows your PPC budget to be spent in a smart way.

Target CPA (Cost Per Acquisition)

This feature allows you to exceed the $2 bid cap as Google runs your ads based on conversions insight.

ROAS (Run a Target Return on Ad Spend)

Wouldn’t it be sweet if you could optimize your campaigns based on how much revenue you’re generating for each dollar you spend? This feature optimizes spend based on “return on ad spend” (ROAS).

Viewable CPM

vCPM (viewable clicks per mile) takes into account how likely it is that your ad was actually seen by a person (ad displayed for at least one second).

Can I Choose Who Will See My Banner Ads?

Display ad targeting with affinity and custom intent audience allows your ads to appear on websites that are more likely to draw your ideal prospects.

Say you sell fishing rods. You can set your ads to appear on websites in the category of those who are interested in fishing and related topics.

Marketing Success Comes From Display Ad Retargeting

People tend to have their attention constantly split a hundred different ways. Retargeting helps them recall that they still haven’t taken that action. Marketers have found that retargeting significantly boosts conversions rates.

People leaving a site is a common occurrence, but Google Banner Ads retargeting is a gentle tap on the shoulder to remind visitors to come back and pick up where they left off.

Our Top Tips for Google Banner Ads That Actually Convert

Finding your way around Google Ads service is only half the battle. Without actual ads to run, there is no ad campaign, so let’s go over some ways to make effective ads.

• Use A/B Testing

Create different versions of your ad and have them compete against each other. If you’d like, you can test them with different audiences as well.

• Avoid Generic Messaging

Banner blindness works against you, so bland or overplayed messaging is likely to be tuned out.

• Find which Banner Ad Size is Best for Your Audience

There are various Google ad sizes. They come in different shapes and each performs differently. Google’s ad sizing tool is there to help!

• Responsive Ads

The responsive ad format is the default for Google. You give it your images and copy and it generates digital ads that automatically fit the format of various websites.

• Clear Display of Brand Logo

Your logo is a major part of brand recognition. Make a great impression on your audience by having a quality image file of your logo that is optimized for display ads.

• High-Quality Image

How do your images look on the screen? Image size and resolution affect how images appear, so also optimize your images.

• Easy to Read Headlines

Display ads have a small share of the screen real estate, so make sure your headlines are the best size in proportion to space and are clearly legible.

• Aim For At Least 3 Ads In Your Ad Group

A campaign should have more than one version of the ad so you can feature different ideas or products. This is also how you test which ad performs best.

Conclusion

The Google Display Network is the perfect channel to build brand awareness. Your ads can be seen on websites all over the internet and it gives you some control over who sees it.

For those who want to make every dollar count with ad spend, Google Ad features allow you to make your spend more efficient.

Google Ads is a self-serve digital advertising platform that is relatively easy to navigate. Google provides plenty of guides and tools to help you ease into using the service. Give yourself a tour of Google Display Ad tools today!

The post How to Become a Pro at Creating Successful Google Banner Ads appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

What is a PPC strategy? The short answer is that Pay-per-click is the best way to attract more clients to your company. PPC is a marketing tool that helps you drive more traffic to your website and gives you an opportunity to place your ads on significant places for your business. The most important thing – you only get to pay when your ad gets clicked.

Reality is that people won’t buy your product immediately when they see it on your website for the first time, and that’s why it is important to remind them of your presence and to increase your website traffic.

With so many digital marketing opportunities available, it can become difficult to decide what’s right and wrong for your brand. PPC Management is just one service that can help to boost your business conversions online and remarketing, in particular.

We’re taking a closer look at why, below.

1. Conversion Rates Will Increase Over Time

When it comes to setting up a remarketing campaign, a number of people have found that the conversion rate actually increases the more times a user sees an ad. Essentially, having seen the ad a few times, the user will become more likely to convert. Remarketing provides that gentle nudge people may need to finish what they started. Also, the most important part of remarketing, which is generally overlooked by marketers, is that you can initiate brand awareness in the first phase of the deciding process.

2. Facebook Offers the Best Reach

When it comes to remarketing, Facebook is one of the few platforms that will get you the most bang for your buck. It gives you the opportunity to reach out to millions of users and target the audience that is already interested in your products or services. With a number of remarketing options and targeting capabilities, you can drill down your audience to the very person you want to advertise your remarketing campaign to.

3. It’s Incredibly Powerful

Remarketing is a very powerful tool – especially when it comes to building a new brand or enhancing the awareness of an existing one. Additionally, you can target people with ads who previously visited your website.

Display remarketing, in particular, is the perfect way to increase your brand’s awareness as it is so much you can do to make sure that users remember you. When a buyer makes his research about a particular product or service, you should have a more aggressive marketing approach. This means when prospects see your brand for the first time and enter into the deciding process, you can use remarketing with responsive ads, text ads, etc., and based on their past behaviors, you can bring them back to your website.

4. It’s Not Limited

Unlike what many marketers believe, remarketing is one of the few marketing channels that isn’t limited in display ads and social media advertising. Remarketing lists for search ads or “RLSA” actually combine the intent of a user with additional data such as where the search was made and what device it was made on. Another great thing about PPC is that you get to choose the exact site where you want your ads to be seen. This means you choose your specific target audience, so you can take your time when placing your ad.

5. Lower Cost = Higher ROI

One of the biggest misconceptions about PPC is the notion that it’s a waste of money. Wrong! There is a simple rule that all marketers should follow – start slow. Spend your money wisely, use only keywords that are profitable, measure your parameters and continue investing in ads that generate profit.

When comparing search ads to social and display ads, it’s a well-known fact that display and social ads used for remarketing are much more cost-effective. Even though search converts at a slightly higher rate, the cost savings of social and display ads provide a higher ROI.

6. Mobile is a Popular Retargeting Channel

Mobile retargeting is one of the most popular channels among businesses and, when used alongside social retargeting, this channel could deliver even better results. Facebook’s mobile performance stands out in particular, usually generating more impressions and more conversions.

7. More Brands are Reallocating Their Budgets

With all of the above in mind, it’s no surprise that an increasing number of brands are reallocating their budgets to retargeting this year. Unlike a standard advertising campaign, a remarketing campaign subtly reminds prospects of your brand helping to improve conversion rates. Also, it gives you the opportunity to stretch out to your competitor’s audience.

8. It Works!

If there’s one fact that you’re going to take away from this post, it’s that remarketing works in your business’ and your audience’s favor. Use your resources to create and manage a PPC strategy that works specifically for you. The results are really measurable and quantifiable, and you can be certain if an ad produce results for your company or not.

Conclusion

Many researchers say that people click more on PPC ads than any other form of digital marketing. The benefits are countless. Without a doubt, PPC is the ideal fit for many businesses that want to expand its reach. It has the power of generating fast results and increase the overall traffic to your website. Have in mind, a wise PPC strategy won’t damage your budget, on the contrary, it will produce great returns.

If the PPC strategy is on spot and well-organized, you can achieve great results. Remember, it doesn’t mean PPC is not for you if you fail the first time. Instead, you may need to take a closer look at the metrics and try to readjust your ads.

The post 8 Remarketing Facts To Make You Rethink Your Entire PPC Strategy appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.

Webinars can help position you as a leader in your industry. This helps you establish your reputation among the companies you want to attract as clients, setting you apart from your competitors.

Webinars are likewise useful in driving your leads further down your sales funnel since you can directly answer their questions and address their objections as part of your event agenda. You can also use webinars to demonstrate exactly how your products or services can deliver value to your leads.

But not all of this needs to happen by the sweat of your brow, so to speak. Your webinars don’t need to be one-and-done affairs, because you can record your live presentations, upload them to your website, and automate the entire webinar-driven lead nurture process.

In this blog post, we’ll dig deeper into some tips and strategies for using webinars to create a B2B sales automation pipeline, using ClickMeeting.

Why ClickMeeting?

ClickMeeting is a browser-based webinar platform, allowing your attendees to quickly join your webinars without having to install any apps. ClickMeeting also stands out from its competitors by supporting several features that enable businesses to automate, personalize and streamline webinar-powered pipelines that they refer to as “the webinar flywheel.”

The platform also has an extensive Knowledge Base library, where you can watch video tutorials and download ebooks that teach you about preparing and hosting webinars, as well as getting your attendees to convert into customers.

That said, let’s dive right into learning how to use webinars to create a B2B sales automation funnel.

Step #1: Understand your buyer persona.

Your buyer persona is a semi-fictional representation of the key decision-makers in the company you’re targeting.

In addition to their demographics and job titles, a well-developed buyer persona will also give you insight into their pain points and challenges.

These pain points and challenges could make great topics to discuss in your upcoming webinar.

Step #2: Review your buyer’s journey.

In general, there are three main stages that make up the buyer’s journey:

• Awareness Stage. Your prospects are going through a challenge or a problem. Their goal at this stage is to discover what types of solutions might help them.
• Consideration Stage. Your prospects understand the cause of the problem or challenge they’re facing. Now, they want to know more about their various options to address this.
• Decision Stage. Your prospects have now decided on a specific type of solution. They’re currently choosing a company where they’ll purchase the solution.

As you can see, your target audience has a specific goal they want to achieve at each stage of the buyer’s journey.

With this in mind, you need to create (and share) webinars that will help your audience achieve their goals and choose your product or service in the process.

Step #3: Create your webinar registration form.

Now that you’ve decided on your webinar’s topic, the next step is to create your webinar registration form. This is where people interested in attending your webinar can sign up.

To create your webinar’s registration form, click on the Schedule Event on the upper right-hand corner of your dashboard, and then click on the Registration link on the menu bar.

Here, you can customize the look of your Registration form, the information you’ll be collecting, and add details like the time and date of the webinar and the presenter’s bio, and update the colors, so it matches your company’s branding.

This is also where you can set the actions that you want to happen the moment someone signs up for your webinar.

For example, ClickMeeting can notify you when someone registers to your webinar or redirect them to a separate Thank You page on your website.

Step #4: Set up your automation.

Now comes the fun part: setting up the different automation features provided by ClickMeeting to get the most attendees (and possible conversions) during your webinar.

You can do that by going to Schedule Event > Automation to activate automatic actions, as seen below:

Automated Webinars

Running your B2B sales webinar as planned is critical for your pipeline, but if you can’t dedicate the resources necessary to run several webinars every day, then ClickMeeting has you covered.

The platform lets you run your webinars on a schedule, even when you’re unavailable, through its automated webinars. This automated event feature lets you prepare your webinar in advance and run it the way you want it to, from beginning to end.

To set your automated webinar, go to the Schedule Event page. Click Room Type, and select Automated. Next, set the date, time, and time zone, and your chatbox options. If you won’t be there to answer questions thrown during the webinar, then opt for No chat or Answer later. If you’ll be available, then you can opt for a Moderated chat.

Then, insert your CTAs, pre-recorded sales video, and other supporting files at critical points in the handy webinar timeline editor.

With automated webinars, you can streamline your workflow, include sales-propelling elements like CTAs, and ensure that your pipeline continues on productively despite being busy doing other things during the event.

Live social simul-streams

ClickMeeting also allows you to stream your live and automated webinars on either Facebook or YouTube simultaneously.

This allows your followers on either social media channel to join your webinar and share it with those in their networks, further expanding your audience reach.

ClickMeeting even lets you choose whether or not you’d like the software to automatically start recording your webinars the moment you go live, which is especially useful if you’re planning on eventually repackaging your live webinars as on-demand replays or as scheduled automated webinar experiences.

You can also use this setting to send your attendees the link to the recording so that they can watch it again. This is crucial if you’re hosting a consideration or decision stage webinar.

Post-webinar follow-ups

Another important automation you can set up here is the Follow-up.

There’s a saying in business: “The money is in the follow-up.” And for good reason. Sales cycles for B2B businesses require more touch points compared to their B2C counterparts. Often, in B2B situations, several people are making business decisions. This includes choosing which solution to use to address their problem and where to purchase it.

Automating the follow-up sequence for your webinar keeps your business on the top of the minds of the key decision-makers who attended your webinar. They can then show the recording of the webinar to their colleagues through the link included in the follow-up email you sent them after your webinar ends.

Automating your follow-up messaging also helps you retarget registrants who failed to attend your webinar by sending them emails with the event link.

Facebook retargeting ads

If you want to further retain your attendees and lead them through the rest of your sales pipeline from outside the inbox, you can also remarket them through Facebook retargeting ads.

ClickMeeting lets you integrate the Facebook Pixel with your user profile, to automate your retargeting campaigns. The Facebook Pixel lets you track your attendees and reach them strategically by retargeting ads with Facebook media buys.

To do so, go to Account Settings and click Integrations. Under the Analytics & Remarketing section, you will find Facebook Pixel. Enter your Facebook Pixel code to connect.

At this point, you just need to set up your retargeting ads campaign on your Facebook Ads dashboard, start running the ads while showing them to your retargeted audience, and you’re all set.

Your target audience can now “automatically” see your retargeting ads and get the chance to respond to your sales offers and other invitations.

Step #5: Integrate your existing sales and marketing platform.

Once your webinars are all set up, you’ll want to continue engaging and nurturing your attendees so you can convert them into clients.

You can do this by integrating the CRM you’re using in your business to your ClickMeeting account.

Once integrated, your marketing team can then export the attendees’ data, include them in an email autoresponder series already set up in the CRM.

And when a lead is hot and ready to buy, your marketing team can then send this to one of your sales reps and close the deal for you.

Conclusion

Webinars can help you boost your B2B sales conversion and revenues.

B2B leads and customers have questions they want to be answered at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

In this blog post, we’ve shared how you can use webinars at every stage of the buyer’s journey and showed you how you could use it to create an automated pipeline for your business.

However, your automated sales pipeline will only be as good as the quality of the content you share in your webinars.

Take the time to research about the pains and challenges your customers are facing, and create your webinar’s content based on those.

When your webinars provide them with the solutions that they’re looking for, they won’t hesitate to register and attend.

The post How to Use Webinars to Create a B2B Sales Automation Pipeline appeared first on Invoicebus Blog.