As a service-based business, your goal is to attract great leads that you can then convert into paying customers. However, while there are several ways to do this, there’s only one that will get you the results you’re after.
I want to talk about taking those leads and moving them through your sales funnel to increase your bottom line.
Because while leads are great, if you cannot convert a good percentage of them, you will struggle to hit your sales targets.
So, how can you ensure that you’re converting your leads and making more sales?
With a digital marketing strategy, of course!
What value can a digital marketing strategy bring to your organisation?
A great digital marketing strategy takes a three-pronged approach to help you reach your business goals:
- First, it works to attract more of those high-quality leads that you need.
- Second, it uses the right tools and tactics to increase your conversion rates throughout your sales funnel.
- Third, it outlines strategies to increase your client spend over the customer lifetime (CLTV).
According to HubSpot, 94% of the top-performing salespeople surveyed believe that they receive better leads from marketing. When you consider that an effective digital marketing strategy also helps to convert these more qualified leads and increase their spend, it’s easy to see the enormous value of using a digital strategy in your organisation.
Let’s consider the link between your Marketing and Sales functions
There once was a time when Marketing and Sales used to be silos within a business, isolated and operating independently of each other. However, this should no longer be the case.
Recently, I defined the two types of leads: Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) and Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs).
I explained that an MQL is a lead that has moved through the funnel purely through interactions with your marketing channels. For instance, they’ve read a blog, looked at your landing page, downloaded an eBook and so on.
However, once the transaction moves offline or to sales, such as booking an appointment or a free demo, as is the case with most service-based businesses, the lead becomes an SQL.
This means that to effectively move a lead through the funnel, you need a digital marketing strategy that is heavily integrated with your Sales function.
This will also help to facilitate “Sales Enablement”
HubSpot defines Sales Enablement as the iterative process of providing your business’s sales team with the resources they need to close more deals, meaning you can use the tools and tactics found in your digital marketing strategy to also boost your sales team’s performance.
As you can see, in the modern business world, marketing and sales are inextricably linked. That’s why you need a digital strategy that can help you to maximise results across both functions.
What tools can you use as part of your digital marketing strategy?
One of the more effective tactics that your digital marketing strategy will outline is how to utilise your customer touchpoints.
These are the different types of interactions between your business and your customer along the sales funnel.
When looking to deliver more high-quality leads to your business, consider the following touchpoints as examples of tools that you can use:
- Always-on thought leadership videos
- Educational blog content
- Strategic digital partnerships
As your lead moves through the funnel, you can strengthen your conversion rate using tools such as:
- Personalised marketing/introductory packs
- Personalised video introductions
- Pre-qualification questionnaires
Once you’ve signed your client, you can look to increase their spend using tactics including:
- Timely email marketing
- Re-engagement calls
- Personalised product recommendations
The Ask Marketing team's top Martech tools for sales enablement include:
- Calendly’s pre-requisite questionnaire functionality - check out how we have used it here
- Canva recording studio
- Loom
- Video Ask (a new tool launched by Typeform)
- Typeform
- Qwilr
With digital marketing, there are always so many new ways to reach out to and interact with your leads and customers along the sales funnel, allowing you to effectively increase your sales results and hit your business goals every time.
For more information, check out our 9-Step Digital Marketing Strategy Guide.
Do you need help with strategic digital marketing for your business?
All you have to do is Ask!
At Ask Digital Marketing, we combine decisive digital strategy and managed marketing execution to help B2B service-based businesses build demand, establish thought leadership and own their industry through digital business marketing.
Stop waiting. Start building. Experience success.
Just get in touch with us and we can discuss your business to help you navigate the digital marketing landscape towards success.
Let’s harness the power of digital marketing today!
For more great marketing content, connect with our company leaders, Alexandra King and Stephanie King, or follow our Ask Marketing LinkedIn page.
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