Tag: Lead Generation

Using Review Websites as Your New Lead Generation Strategy

Posted on by admin

As a CMO, sometimes nothing seems worse than your business receiving scrutiny on a review site. But don’t review site pages with only stellar, positive reviews also seem suspicious? The reality is that even negative reviews serve an absolutely vital role in how authentic and genuine your business comes across to potential customers. Not only can they create a well-rounded story around your brand, but review sites can even be a  major lead generation source. Now that sounds like a strategy that every marketer should take into account!

From her experience as GM of Capterra, a leading online review platform, Claire Alexander shares her expertise in everything from lead generation to turning a bad review into a marketing win. Claire drives everything she does at Capterra with the motto, “Do the right thing and the right results will follow.” Throughout this episode, you’ll learn Claire’s advice on how you can best engage with your audience on review sites and optimize every dollar of your marketing budget to get the best results.

Listen here to catch the full story about this new form of word of mouth marketing.

                               Subscribe on Apple Podcasts – Stitcher – or Podsearch

What You’ll Learn

Why are review websites so important to your business?

Everyone knows that word of mouth marketing is the best form of marketing. For modern businesses, this type of marketing can be found digitally through review sites. Buyers are starting their purchase journeys online, and resources such as Capterra allow them to evaluate their needs and compare software programs. Buyers take online reviews very seriously, and the way your company responds to reviews describes a lot about your company’s leadership, culture, customer care, and products.

Using review websites as a lead generation strategy can work wonders for your business

One avenue for success that many CMOs aren’t aware of is the ability to combine a lead generation strategy with review sites. For example, if a buyer can find a highly-searched for review site on Google, then find your business on the review site, you can use that site’s organic traffic to drive leads to your site. Potential buyers that click through a review site onto your web pages can be captured as buyers with a higher level of interest than those who simply stumbled upon your site by accident.

Claire’s best advice for handling reviews left on your business, products, and services

Review sites can not only serve as a great lead generation strategy, but they can also be a new avenue for connecting with your audience. Drew explains that there are 2 facts in modern marketing: reviews will be given and therefore, you must seek to provide the best customer experience you can. Claire outlines a few key steps to follow when monitoring reviews:

  1. Decide which review sites matter to you (consider the ones with the highest volume of traffic)
  2. Monitor review (just as you would comments on social platforms)
  3. Invite people into the conversation
  4. Incorporate review collection into your closing/follow up process
  5. Graciously embrace the negative reviews (but closely monitor for incorrect or bot-driven reviews)

Claire’s #1 key to success for using review sites as a lead generation tool is to allow and encourage both positive and negative reviews. Having a mix increases your buyer’s trust with your company, and results in higher conversion rates for your products/services. Interacting with customer reviews isn’t always simple and easy, but it is 100% worth it.

Timeline

  • [0:30] Claire shares how she became involved at Capterra
  • [9:09] Claire’s biggest challenges as she transitioned from marketing to GM
  • [13:22] Your biggest outcomes come from having great processes
  • [19:54] Why are review sites so important?
  • [26:39] Claire’s best advice for approaching reviews left on your services and products
  • [32:30] Using review sites as a lead generation tool
  • [35:53] The best way to optimize your marketing dollars spent on review sites
  • [47:25] 2 do’s and 1 don’t for review site marketing strategies

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Using a Refined Marketing Technology Stack as a Revenue Generator

Posted on by Drew Neisser

When Drew recently asked a crowd of CMOs how much revenue marketing should directly generate, most said 5-15%. However, Eric Eden, expert CMO of Receipt Bank, claimed that marketing should be a company’s main revenue generator, bringing in 80% of all sales.

This uncommon point of view is explained and detailed on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite. Eric and Drew talk through the first two main steps of how to turn your marketing efforts into a revenue machine. They discuss the importance of having a solid foundation marketing technology stack, all of the details behind why evidence-based marketing is the norm, and how to secure a substantial marketing budget for your team. You can listen to part 2 of this interview here. 

You’ll learn a lot from part one of this conversation, so give it your full attention. Click here to listen.

Why a CRM is a foundational basis needed for any successful marketing or revenue-generating campaign

Eric explains on this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite that without a functional and clean customer relationship management technology piece, your marketing will never turn into a revenue generator. He continues by saying that, “If you don’t have a good marketing technology stack that enables your demand generation engine, everything falls apart.” A solid CRM piece allows you to track leads, understand what is encouraging or hindering contract success, improves integration between marketing and sales teams, and is necessary when putting together a budget proposal. If a CMO is looking at upgrading a single piece of their marketing strategy, having a bombproof CRM platform needs to be at the top of the list. To hear why CRM technology is so critical, and to understand why Eric is so adamant about this piece of technology, be sure to give this episode a listen.

The importance of understanding evidence-based marketing to secure a substantial budget

Gone are the days where the phrase, “it’s complicated, just trust me!” can be successful in budget meetings with company executives. In order to secure the funds marketing teams need, CMOs need to understand how to articulate their marketing in in terms of data and evidence of success. The burden of proof lies with the CMO to persuade others why marketing as a revenue generator can work for the company. You have to determine how to frame things in such a way that makes people comfortable with spending dollars on marketing, build a common language that all teams and levels of employees understand, and prevent any misconceptions. Once you have set the stage and brought people over to your side of the budget debate, you can then begin to determine what percentage of the budget should be spent on each potential customer, and the ROI that would come from each prospective contract. This framing turns marketing into an investment, not a cost, and is the key to massive success. To hear Drew and Eric’s conversation surrounding evidence-based marketing and how it can ultimately be used to generate revenue, don’t miss this episode.

Transform your ordinary marketing campaigns into a massive revenue generator through automation

After a functional CRM piece, the next step to generate revenue is marketing automation –  the second most popular piece of a technology stack. Eric urges listeners of this episode of Renegade Thinkers Unite to understand that automation cannot and does not happen overnight, or even within 90 days. A truly successful marketing automation plan can take upwards of 6 months to design and implement. But the time investment is 100% worth it. By hiring talented sales people and allowing them to actually sell your company, without getting bogged down by monotonous tasks, you are ultimately generating more revenue for the company. Automation allows more integration between the marketing and sales teams and setting the correct timeline expectations upfront will prevent mishaps later on down the line. Drew and Eric have a great conversation about marketing automation and the connections it has to revenue generation on this episode, CMOs in every industry need to hear it.

What You’ll Learn

  • [0:29] Drew introduces his guest for this episode, Eric Eden
  • [3:05] How to lay the foundation for marketing to become a revenue generator
  • [6:00] Why the burden of proof for success lies with the marketer
  • [8:27] What exactly is evidence-based marketing, and how do you define your strategy?
  • [13:57] Eric walks through his process for securing a substantial marketing budget
  • [22:02] The essentials for your company’s tech stack and additional layers to consider
  • [28:22] What’s the next step after creating a solid CRM piece?
  • [33:39] Why isn’t it more common to combine the first two layers of your marketing stack?

Connect With Eric:

Resources & People Mentioned

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