by John Heida | Jan 3, 2022 | Facebook, Instagram, Social Media
It’s no secret that all business owners seize opportunities to sell their wares. The task is made easier due to the rise of social media. One popular method of this is social selling.
Social selling is a marketing strategy that involves social media, email, and personal phone calls to connect with prospects and close sales. The concept isn’t new, but it has recently become the go-to tactic for businesses trying to lead in B2B sales. Companies have seen significant results from using social selling as a part of their selling strategy. However, there are still some businesses that don’t utilize it. As a result, they lose out on a lot of profit.
In this article, we list down the benefits of social selling. Read on below to get started.
#1 – Shortens the Sales Cycle
It’s now easier to connect with them online instead of cold calling customers and hoping they’ll pick up the phone.
In social selling, buyers and sellers are in constant contact. Therefore, cold calling is not only unnecessary; it’s also a waste of time. A great deal of energy and effort goes into making calls and hoping that the person on the other end answers. Instead of wasting time, you can focus and improve your social selling efforts.
#2 – Increases Your Lead Quality
You can generate a lot of qualified leads through social media. These leads are high quality and are more likely to hit your sales quota. Of course, this depends on your prospect’s social media following size.
#3 – Strengthens Your Marketing Strategy
Your social media marketing strategy is strengthened by using social selling. This is because you will be able to make many connections with other business owners and their contacts. You can use these connections to understand your target market better. You’ll also be able to make a stronger case when you share your solutions to their business challenges on social media.
#4 – Changes Prospects’ Perception
Social selling allows prospects to see you as a real person. This is a big advantage because you’ll be able to change their perception of your company. The focus will not be on who you are and what you do, but on their business needs. Ultimately, this will make them more likely to consider your company’s product or service than others.
#5 – Increases Customer Loyalty
When your prospects are convinced of your product or service, they’re more inclined to become loyal customers. They’ll continue to do business with you and buy more from you in the future. They’ll also be more likely to refer your company to others.
#6 – Attracts New Prospects
In line with customer loyalty, you can use your connections to attract more prospects. With social selling, you can show the world the value you can provide your prospects. You can also get the word out about your products, services, and company.
#7 – Improves Your Conversion Rate
What’s a conversion? For B2B businesses, it’s the rate at which prospects turn into customers. The higher your conversion rate is, the more money your business can make. The good news is that you can improve your conversion rate through social selling.
#8 – Improves Your Brand Recognition
Your brand is strengthened if you can achieve results through social selling. It’s a powerful selling tool because prospects see you as a resource and an expert in your industry. This, in turn, will allow you to build your brand and gain more customers.
Conclusion
Social selling can help you achieve better results for B2B sales. If you don’t already have a social selling strategy, it’s time you started implementing one. Your prospect’s perception and perception of your brand will change. As a result, they’ll be more inclined to do business with you.
Silo Hill Media provides top-quality social media marketing services. Our solutions are tailored to any business, and our goal is to ensure that every possible method is implemented to achieve its goals. Contact us today to learn more!
by John Heida | Nov 23, 2021 | Social Media
Social media is a powerful tool for marketing your business. However, as with other tools in your arsenal, a social media platform can only help you further your goal and objectives if you know the ins and outs and understand how best to use its features.
While social media has the potential to create a competitive advantage for your business, it won’t serve you well if you heavily depend on it without exerting enough effort and developing a clever strategy. Winning doesn’t involve working hard—you need to work smart to stand out and generate more profit!
Every organization that has climbed the ranks on social media platforms did not simply create a business page and left things to chance—their teams kept up with the changes and shifting trends and adapted to keep from getting left behind.
If you think your social media marketing strategy is missing something, read on below to learn about the most important practices you should be following:
1. Be Consistent
No matter how wonderfully crafted your social media post is, it could quickly get buried by the hoards of other posts being shared on the platform. A single post can’t do much for your business—your target audience can quickly forget about it and move on to other things.
If you want to stitch your brand in your audience’s memories, you need to do more than just post every few weeks. The key to social media success is consistency! By posting quality content consistently, the more likely you can entice customers and increase the possibility of your target audience seeing your posts.
2. Create Quality Content
It’s crucial to keep in mind that posting consistently alone won’t guarantee you excellent results. Sure, your target audience may see your posts on their feed, but are they engaging with or just scrolling through your content?
Your posts aren’t just meant to be seen by the target audience—they should also encourage them to stop scrolling, read or watch what you have to say, and then complete your desired action. As such, you must work on creating the right kind of content!
When developing content for your social media page, keep in mind that it should reflect your image and brand. Rather than aiming to seem trendy, your content should have the same tone that aligns with your branding.
3. Provide Value
Rather than being all about selling, the purpose of social media marketing is to offer your followers something valuable. More than entertaining or engaging content, your social media content should either provide a solution to their problem or offer information that they could use in their life.
To create valuable content, learn as much as your target audience as much as you can. By finding out how your audience uses the particular platform and their pain points, it will be easier to appeal to them through your social media posts.
Conclusion
Social media marketing can catapult your business to success—if you know how best to use it, that is. As with every marketing tool, it’s crucial to understand how social media works and how you can appeal to your target audience through this medium to reach your goals. As long as you work with a digital marketing agency that knows the ins and outs of social media marketing, you’re well on your way to success!
Do you need help with marketing your business on social media? Then, our team at Silo Hill Media may just be who you need! As one of the best digital marketing agencies in the Boise area, you can rely on our experts to create custom-tailored solutions to optimize your ROI. Schedule a call with us today!
by John Heida | Oct 18, 2021 | SEO, Social Media
Online marketing campaigns have become more effective in driving engagement, conversions, traffic, and revenue to businesses. Companies can acquire more internet users to either support or spread the word about their brand.
Now, digital marketing continues to be a more popular approach to promote brands, products, and services. However, there are various factors that businesses should consider to ensure that their online campaigns end up victorious.
1. Website Responsiveness
Last year, it was reported that there were 4.28 billion unique mobile internet users, indicating that over 90 percent of the world’s population uses a mobile device to go online. The statistics suggest that you must implement effective website responsiveness for your business’ platform to ensure a successful online marketing campaign.
It is essential to consider a website design that automatically adjusts to a user’s screen ratio. For example, people shopping online through their mobile devices should still see the products they’re buying without having to change, zoom in, or double-tap their screens. Web designers must consider optimizing your website into a platform pushing for a mobile-friendly approach.
2. Content Effectiveness
People go online for a primary reason: to look for information. Therefore, content effectiveness should be on everyone’s priority list to ensure an online campaign ends up victorious. As content has the power to make people interested, blog writing has to be one of the most effective ways to lock in people’s attention online.
Although users appreciate the content, it’s worth noting that they also value their time on the internet. It’s better to keep articles concise yet informative to ensure that no one has to spend too much time reading information they don’t need. Try to master producing articles with relevant details, turning your web visitors into potential leads and buyers.
3. SEO Management
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has become a vital part of online marketing campaigns. Leading search engines would need to rank web pages based on their content and use of keywords, producing a list of the best websites to click on a search result. The goal is simple: the higher the rank, the more users click on the website, resulting in better chances for an online business platform to succeed.
Several SEO practices make up a successful internet marketing campaign. One is good content. Another is a user-friendly website, and lastly is the proper use of keywords. Search engines like Google have disqualified some websites for overusing or overstuffing some keywords to get ahead of the competition. SEO always encourages businesses to play fair, which then leads to good results in the end.
4. Social Media Management
Social media is now part of producing a successful business campaign online. As there are more people on sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, it has become ideal for businesses to cross-post between their website and social media accounts.
Keeping in mind that there are four billion users online on social media, the platform does give your brand a significant boost. It also allows a creative approach for taking advantage of the internet to drive a more successful campaign.
Conclusion
Online marketing is a relatively new approach to promoting business. However, a study in 2019 suggests that search traffic generates at least 65 percent of the total eCommerce sessions, where 33 percent of those were organic, and the remaining 32 percent were paid searches. Therefore, digital marketing may be the future of online business platforms, securing a better way to engage, convert, and produce revenue for companies of all sizes.
Silo Hill Media is a digital marketing agency near Boise City, offering tailored solutions and local SEO services for business owners. Our mission is to work with our clients, structure a solution for their problems, and implement it to achieve their objectives. Schedule an appointment with us today, and let us know how we can help!
by John Heida | Aug 21, 2021 | Email Marketing, Social Media
It’s 2021, and the argument can be made that email marketing is dead. People are not checking their emails apart from professional work-related reasons. And, it’s probably justified if you’re one of the people that are starting to move away from email marketing. But, we’re here to tell you that this isn’t true. Email marketing continues to be one of the best forms of marketing out there. Here are a few reasons why email marketing is not going anywhere for the foreseeable future.
Marketing is costing companies a fortune these days. According to Statista, Microsoft has spent $20.12 billion in 2021 alone on marketing, and the year isn’t even over yet. This goes to show how important marketing is even to a fortune 500 company that pretty much everyone on the internet already knows about.
In a world where companies are spending billions on marketing, email is a refreshing sight. Email marketing is completely free of cost. It doesn’t matter what email provider you’re working with. You’re entitled to an unlimited number of emails per month.
Evidently, this also results in a tremendous ROI. Even if you’re spending money on email marketing in the form of automation software, mailing list, etc., you’re still going to get a lot more money back. Litmus conducted research back in 2019, which indicated that a company could get a revenue of $42 from an investment of just $1. This ROI is amazing, and there’s practically no other form of marketing that is able to replicate it.
2. No Regulating Body
One of the best parts about marketing via email is that there’s no organization restricting your efforts. Yes, there are some times that an email spam detection algorithm will place your emails in the recipient’s spam folder. Regardless of that, Campaign Monitor tells us that 90% of emails are going to end up in the recipient’s inbox. However, when we talk about Facebook, there are some severe visibility caps being put on your posts. Only 2% of your posts are going to end up in front of your followers. This is due to the platform’s preference for paid advertisements. This means that if you’re not paying Facebook, your followers are not going to see your posts.
3. Enormous Audience
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms have millions of unique monthly visitors. This number is great for marketing departments which is why companies put money into these platforms. However, there are three times more email accounts as compared to Facebook, and Twitter accounts combined. Pretty much everyone has multiple email accounts. You need an account to do pretty much anything on the internet. So, the amount of email account out there is a lot, a lot more than social media accounts.
Closing Thoughts
So, if you’re still under the misconception that the popularity of social media is the final nail in the coffin for email marketing, you’re wrong. This form of marketing continues to be one of the most effective means to get the word out to your customers. If you’ve abandoned the hope of getting customers through email marketing, you should have a talk with your marketing department about investing in it again.
by John Heida | Aug 5, 2021 | Reputation Management, SEO, Social Media
It doesn’t matter what your business does. The entire foundation of a company revolves around how happy your customers are with your product. Keeping them happy is important but not more than making sure customers aren’t unhappy. An unhappy client goes on to Twitter, Yelp, Google My Business, and literally every other platform they can find to bash your company endlessly. Such incidents are bad for your company’s image and require some reputation management. If you’re wondering how you can counter such negative reviews and get out of the situation without looking like a bad guy, you’re at just the right place. Here are three ways to respond to negative feedback.
Start Your Investigations Immediately
One of the worst things you can do to an angry customer is making them wait. So, when you notice that a customer left a negative comment anywhere, start off by replying to them. You don’t need to provide any details. You just need to tell them that you are looking into it. A simple message saying, “We’re sorry. We’re currently looking into your issue and will notify you as soon as we have some news,” goes a long way. Not only does it calm down the frustrated customer, but it also tells your audience that you’re quick at responding to problems whenever they come up.
Admit Your Mistakes
Let’s be honest; mistakes happen. Cyberpunk 2077 is a brilliant example of an amazing company making mistakes. They released an unfinished product with tons of bugs that rendered the video game unplayable. What did the developers do? Well, they started off by releasing a 10-minute apology video explaining that they made a mistake and are currently doing what they can to fix them. It was shallow, and no one really believed it, but it was an apology, nonetheless. If you know someone from your company made a mistake, own up to it. No one likes petty excuses and arguments coming from an organization. If you don’t admit your mistakes thinking that it’s bad PR, the one negative comment is going to turn into a dozen.
Offer Refunds, Exchanges, and Gift Coupons
So, the deed is done. You made a mistake, and you owed up to it. That’s progress, but the customer is still unhappy. They spent money to purchase your product/service and didn’t get their money’s worth. Well, in such a situation, you need to offer refunds, exchanges (where applicable), and gift coupons. These may seem like a waste of company resources, which they somewhat are. However, such measures ensure customer retention and are one of the best reputation management strategies in the market. Tons of fortune 500 companies, especially fast-food chains like McDonald’s, are using this trick to ensure customers keep coming back.
Closing Thoughts
A lot of companies think reputation management is a waste of time. We’re here to tell you it isn’t. Having a bad reputation on the internet is enough to kill your entire business. People go online and research before buying a product. That’s basic consumer behavior. If all they see are angry customers, the probability of them still purchasing from you drops down to zero.
by John Heida | Feb 20, 2021 | Facebook, Instagram, Social Media
While some social media platforms have come and gone, (MySpace, Google+, Vine, and more) the fact is, social media is not going away any time soon.
Businesses that want (and need) new customers need to embrace the current trends. The current trends are social media!
Right now, if you are a business-to-consumer company, you should be on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google My Business. If you are a Business-to-business type of company, you should be on the same platforms as well as LinkedIn. It should be a priority to be where your customers are. And I can promise you, they are not looking through a phone book anymore.
Your future customers need you on social media so they can choose you over your competitors! It is as simple as that.
Here are some other great reasons why you should be on social media and working hard to keep it up to date:
The more you are on social media interacting with your customers, the more visibility you will get. The more you keep your customers happy, the more they will be willing to use their own social media to promote you!
You can properly gauge what your customers think about you
If you are not on social media, you will be living in a bubble…and that bubble will only be with those around you. You cannot properly gauge your customer’s opinions about your product or service if you live in your own little bubble.
With social media, it is real-time. You do not need to wait to send out surveys or postcards to figure out what you are doing right or what you are doing wrong. You can use social media to make immediate changes to address customer concerns if they have them.
You can share customer success stories
Social media is the fastest way to share when you have made a lifelong customer. Not only do people love reading positive reviews of your business, but it is much more likely that they will use your services or buy your product when they see their friends happy that they did.
You can share a new product and/or service
Imagine being a restaurant and having a new menu item. You can share that picture of the beautiful dish and get an immediate response. The same can go for almost any other product or service. Even though we believe websites are key and extremely important in your overall marketing strategy, just simply posting the new item on your website may not be seen by several people for quite some time. Social media bridges that gap in a great way.
It is free!
Print, radio, and television ads cost a lot of money. Most businesses do not even touch those types of media because of the costs. Social media is free to sign-up and use, and if you were to choose to use any of them for paid advertising, the cost is very minimal, and the reach is far and wide. On many platforms, you can specify the demographics of who you are trying to reach as well.
While there is no cost to use the various social media platforms, admittedly the time to engage on social media the right way could be time-consuming. And yes, in business, time is money. There are companies, such as Silo Hill Web, that are experts in social media and can free you of that time commitment and let you run your business as you do best.
In conclusion, if you are not using social media it is time to start! It is as simple as that.
