Lead Nurturing: The Key to Creating Customers Online

[By Sarah Faglio]

Creating customers is the key to success for any business.  With any buying decision, people need to take time (whether it be minutes or months) to contemplate if they are willing to spend money on a particular product or service.  For those people who need more time to decide on whether or not they want to buy from you, it is important for your company to take the right steps in nurturing them so they wind up becoming customers.  If these people who have shown an interest in your company are ignored, they may decide to not buy from you.  Therefore, it is important to nurture qualified leads to guide them and appreciate them so that they turn into customers.

There are a multitude of ways that people can express general interest in your company and what you have to offer.  These actions include but are not limited to: following the company's social media (Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google+ et. al.), subscribing to a company's blog via RSS feeds, signing up for a company's newsletter and providing contact information to access a downloadable document (white paper, case study et. al.) or webinar .  These people who have voluntarily provided their contact information or chose to follow company updates are showing that they are interested in the company and what it has to offer.  These people are considered to be qualified leads since they have the potential to be paying customers for a company.

After a qualified lead voluntarily provides their e-mail address, your company has the authority to send informative e-mail messages, since they are interested in receiving them.  These e-mails could be newsletters, tips, follow-up, updates or other education information that is relevant to your company's product or service.  E-mail messages can remind  prospects of your product or service and sales, which can lead them to making a purchase based on familiarity and trust from being sent informative messages from a company of interest to them.  Various parts of the e-mail body should link to a landing page that expands on a particular topic, such as news, industry, sale, special offers or website updates.

Qualified prospects who follow a company's social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ and RSS blog feeds) are showing that they are interested in company updates.  Since they willingly choose to follow the company, they are welcoming any updates that the company posts.  This is a quick way to share industry news, helpful information, company news, website updates, sales and special promotions to prospects all at the same time.

Consistent blog entries (2-3 times a week) provide opportunity for companies to develop relationships with potential customers as well as lead them directly to a place where they could provide their information or make a purchase.  Feedback from readers through comments allows companies to speak directly with them, answering questions, giving them advice or provide solutions to their problems (which could possibly be solved through a purchase from their company).  Blog entries could end with or consist of links to various parts of a company's website, such as product or service catalogs or descriptions, free demos or other landing pages that require interested prospects to provide their contact information.

By placing call-to-actions in your landing pages, you are raising your chances of gaining contact information for qualified leads who visit your website, opening the door to an opportunity to nurture these qualified leads into sales.  These call-to-actions can request your website visitors to provide their information in exchange for more information on a product or service, downloadable resources, viewing of a company webinar or speech, access to free samples, demos or discounts, to receive your newsletter or to be contacted by someone in your company.

Research has shown that about 50% of qualified leads are not ready to buy after going to a company's website.  This shows the importance of nurturing these leads to guide them to becoming customers in an effort to avoid losing these potential sales.  By showing these leads the appropriate attention and guidance, you are able to create a sense of trust and loyalty to your brand, since they see you as a subject matter expert that helps them to solve their problem or satisfy their desires by purchasing your product or service.  By treating qualified leads as valued customers, you have the opportunity to gain both their business and respect for your company.

Advertising: History of Psychology Attracting Consumers

[By Sarah Faglio]

I am a big proponent of psychology and how it could be used in developing successful marketing strategies.  The main goal of an advertising campaign is to attract and draw in as much attention as possible from potential buyers.  With the multitude of advertisements that we come across everyday, companies need to develop ways to stand out from not only other ads but particularly their competition.  Marketers have been using psychology methods to help develop their advertising campaigns for many years.  With growing competition, it is important that companies learn new ways to attract attention with psychology. 

In 1895, Harlow Gale was the first psychologist to use theory and scientific methods to study advertising and the process of persuasion.  He was the first to develop advertising surveys and experiments that sought to find the effects of advertising on attention and memory.  He was intrigued by how people processed ads "from the time they see the advertisement until they have purchased the article advertised."  He concluded that "attitude toward the ad" consisted of both affective and cognitive aspects, central and peripheral cues, issue involvement, personal influence and unconscious attitude formation.

 In 1903, Walter Dill Scott wrote The Theory and Practice of Advertising, where he asserted that people were highly suggestible and obedient.  He believed in two advertising techniques, which involved commands and coupons: 1) stating a direct command such as "use such and such product" and 2) asking consumers to complete a coupon and mail it into the company.

Harry Hollingworth was a psychologist who worked to understand what was behind the use of effective advertising.  He believed that advertising needed to accomplish four things in order to be successful: 1) attract a consumer's attention, 2) focus the attention onto the message, 3) make the consumer remember the message and 4) cause the consumer to take the desired action. 

As the psychology of advertising got more popular, other psychologists started conducting experiments that would be the stepping stones for successful advertisements.  Starting in the 1960s, Madison Avenue became the hub of advertising agencies where many companies would make great strides in the advertising world.


Psychology has had a huge impact on the effectiveness of advertisements.  Once people become consciously aware of a particular advertisement, they need to store the message in their memories long enough to provoke a purchase.  The advertisement needs to convince or show a target audience that they need or want the item, which may lead to a potential purchase or impulse buy.  Many studies show the effectiveness of advertisements through the use of psychological factors that affect behavior or buying decisions.  Psychology has a huge impact on the advertising industry by providing new research discoveries of what motivates people to buy.

Blogging: How Your Company Can Benefit

[By Sarah Faglio]

Many companies do not realize the benefits that blogging could have on their online marketing campaigns.  It has the potential to have a significant impact on a company's popularity and subsequently its discovery of potential customers.  Blogging also contributes to a company website's search engine optimization (SEO) value, which affects its search engine result ranking, therefore driving more traffic to your website.  The more traffic to your website, the greater your chance of attracting qualified leads and potential customers.

Companies that blog on their websites have already seen significant benefits to their marketing campaigns.  According to recent data, the average company that blogs generates 55% more website visitors, 97% more inbound links and 434% more indexed pages.  As you may already assume, the greater the number of visitors to your website, the more popular your pages and subsequently your business.  Inbound links are when other websites reference to your link on their own site, which can direct their visitors to your website.  Indexed pages are how many of your pages are sorted by search engines, which allow them to be found in search results by users. 

In a recent study on ROI, HubSpot found that 69% of businesses attributed their lead generation success to blogging.  Lead generation consists of nurturing qualified leads into paying customers.  Blogging is a great opportunity to provide information to readers that is relative to what your company sells.  This helps to guide them along the path to trusting your company and gain an interest in what you could provide them.  In addition, 57% of businesses claimed to have acquired a customer through their company blog.  Not only are companies seeing more traffic to their website from blogging but also an increase in sales.  Information from blogging content helps readers to find answers to their problems or come across a product or service that they could benefit from.

Top 5 Tips to Creating a Successful Company Blog

1. Remarkable content.  Unique content stands out among the rest of the information on the Internet.  By creating useful, remarkable blog posts, you are attracting an audience that is looking for information that they do not already know.  Repeated information is boring and less likely to garner interest if it is the same as what everyone else is writing about.  Be sure to post information that is related to your industry as opposed to just your company.  You are trying to provide valuable information that helps position yourself as a subject matter expert in your industry.  You want users to come to you for advice and value your blog content information as opposed to feeling they are just being sold to.  Proper blog content consists of information that is of interest to your target audience, such as industry updates, news and important general information related to products or service that your company offers.  The information needs to matter to your audience and not bore nor interest them.  Content links can also direct to call-to-action landing pages, previous blog posts, free demos, newsletter sign up, product or service descriptions etc.
2. Social media.  After posting a new blog entry, it is important to update your other social media accounts, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn with a direct link to the post.  This updates remind your followers, people who are interested in your company or industry, of new entries and drives additional traffic to your blog.  Also, by placing social media share links at the conclusion of your blog post, you are making it easier for readers to share your entry on their own social media accounts, which spreads your post to their followers as well.
3. Comment box.  Leaving the comment box option open allows readers to give feedback on what you wrote.  Many companies are hesitant to leave this option available due to negative feedback that could arise.  However, this gives you the perfect opportunity to speak directly to this person to quell any negatives and offer suggestions.  When people reply back with problems or questions, you are able to reply back with suggestions and advice that may lead them to your product or service to help solve their problems or make an informed decision about a potential purchase. Be sure to reply directly, by addressing them by name, to those who comment to show that you valuable their opinion or feedback.  In the case of unsolicited or inappropriate comment replies, you have the option to moderate comments before they are posted publicly, allowing you to delete if you deem necessary.
4. Keywords.  Posts including proper keywords help your blog entry get found in search engine results by users searching for that topic.  Be sure to develop a list of keywords relevant to your industry, product or service, company or location and try to use those words as often as you could without making the entry seem awkward.  Proper keyword placement and usage attributes to the SEO value of your blog, and subsequently your website.  This helps your website rank higher on search engine results, get found by qualified search users looking for that information and increasing traffic from organic searches, to your website.
5. Updating.  In order for your blog to be successful, it is vital to publish posts about 2-3 times a week.  Stale content does not draw interest to your website or add to your SEO as well as new content does.  By continuously updating your blog, you are showing your audience that you are a subject matter expert who stays keen to updates or alerts in your industry.  Maintaining an active blog allows you to generate a following as well as general interest in your blog.  By allowing readers to subscribe to your blog, by adding the RSS feed option, they are able to receive direct updates of when new content is added so they know to go to your website to view them.

Blogging is very important to a company's website and has a large impact on how it gets found by qualified leads.  A multitude of important factors of a website's SEO value that blogging can attribute to are keyword placement, updated content as well as how valuable its content is to users.  This would help your company's website rank higher in search engine results, therefore driving more traffic to your website.  By looking at the analytics of your blog posts and determining which gain the most views, you will learn which topics are most popular and are of interest to your readers.  This information could help you to determine what you could write about in future posts in an effort to gain more traffic.  More traffic means more interest and subsequently more qualified leads that can turn into valued, paying customers.

Digital Marketing: Would Your Business Benefit?

[By Sarah Faglio]

As technology advances, so does our means of communications with others and the public.  The radio and television were two technological mediums that companies used to advertise to their target audience.  However, since the mid-1990s, the Internet has drastically changed the way we share information.  It has turned into a new way for businesses to market their products or services directly to their target audience.  Online platforms, such as websites and social media, offer a lot to companies such as higher ROI on their marketing campaigns and more business.

Research shows that more than half of all U.S. residents and more that 3/4 of all U.S. adults are online.  A recent survey found that 92% of online adults use search engines to find information on the Internet, with 59% who do so on a typical day.  Of these daily searches, 46% are for information on products or services.  89% of U.S. Internet users search online before they make a purchase, even when the purchase is made at a local business.  With an astounding amount of people and potential customers online, it is important for companies to have an online presence so they do not miss out on opportunities and business that could be found on the Internet.

Top 5 Ways to Create Strong Online Presence

1. Website - This allows companies to post valuable information about their company and their products or services.  It is a centralized location where users can learn about what the company has to offer.  60% of all organic clicks go to the top three organic search results.  With correct SEO and keyword placement and number of indexed pages, websites are able to rank on search engine results - helping them get found by users who are searching for topics related to their company. 
2. Blogging - 65% of daily internet users read a blog.  By keeping a frequent blog, 2-3 times a week, you are contributing to your website's SEO and are generating traffic to your site.  B2B companies that blog generate 67% more leads per month than those that do not.  Businesses that blog at least 20 times a month generate 5 times more traffic and 4 times more leads than those who only blog a few times a month.  Blog posts need to be valuable and remarkable content and need to be of interest to your target audience.  Instead of solely company news, you should write about industry updates or other information that is of value to your target audience.  By continuously updating your blog with industry updates and information you are positioning yourself as a subject matter expert.  Also, by opening up the comment box, you are allowing direct communication between you and your potential customer - a place where you can offer advice and suggestions. 
3. Facebook - 93% of U.S. adult Internet users are on Facebook.  As of date, there are more than 800 million active users on Facebook.  When users "like" company pages get updates made to the business's profile, such as new wall posts (blog and industry news updates), pictures, videos, discussion questions and more.  Facebook allows companies to easily provide updates to followers as well as interact with users via comments.
4. Twitter -  There are 100 million monthly active users on Twitter with over 250 million daily tweets.  Companies with over 1,000 Twitter followers get 6 times more traffic.  70% of U.S. Twitter users are more likely to recommend the brands that they follow.  Twitter accounts allow companies to share quick industry or company news, as well as blog posts to followers.  Since posts are only allowed to be 140 characters, they are read quickly by followers, allowing them to easily decide if the topic is of interest to them.  These updates can link back to your website or blog to drive traffic to updates you have made.  With more than 1/2 of active Twitter users following companies, brands or products, it is important to make sure your company creates a continuously updated page for them to engage with. 
5. LinkedIn - As of date, there are over 135 million professionals on LinkedIn.  Company profiles allow businesses to connect with other professionals and establish themselves in a professional setting.  They are also able to provide status updates on industry or company news as well as blog and Twitter updates to its followers.  It grants companies the opportunity to network with others in their industry as well as become members in groups consisting of other members that may be of interest to them.

Establishing your company on the Internet allows your business to develop its online presence and reach towards potential customers.  Websites provide information to help users make an informed decision about their buying purchases.  Social media platforms keep users updated on the company and industry.  Actually, 71% of Internet users are more likely to purchase based on social media referrals.  By making use of what the Internet can offer your company, you have the opportunity to boost your sales and business.

Direct Mail Marketing: Does It Really Get Past The Front Door?

[By Sarah Faglio]

It seems logical that sending mail directly to someone's doorstep would be an effective means of direct marketing.  However, recent technological advances and the inundation of advertisements sent directly to people's homes has made them ineffective.  Junk mail or advertising mail is often thrown away by its recipients who do not bother to read what service or product the advertisement has to offer.  Also, with the rising costs of postage and cost of printing the advertisement, this direct mailing method is more expensive than its technological alternative. 

Junk mail makes up a large assortment of advertisements sent directly to peoples' home or business.  It consists of advertising circulars, catalogs, postcards, coupons, applications and other promotional items sent to homes or businesses.  However, it costs a company money to print the advertisements, develop address lists, purchase postage and develop the advertisement.

Not only is junk mail costly for marketers, but it is also very unproductive with many of the advertisements not even being read by recipients.  The average American adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, about 44% of junk mail is throw away without being opened or read.  People have become so inundated with advertising mail that they cannot or care to go through all of the pieces of junk mail that they receive, which leads them to just throw most of it out.

Junk mail recipients have become so annoyed and irritated by unwanted advertisements that laws have been put into place that allow them to opt-out.  In response to the U.S. Supreme Court ruling Rowan vs. Post Office Department, applicants have the opportunity to obtain a Prohibitory Order issued by the United States Postal Service.  This allows people to stop non-governmental organizations from sending them mail and demands that these organizations remove the consumers' information from their mailing lists.  This order blocks marketers from sending advertising mail directly to peoples' home or business.


Direct mail marketing seems like a practical idea, since you are putting advertisements directly into a recipient's hands by sending it straight to their home or business location.  However, new technology, such as e-mail seems to be more productive than direct mail for many reasons.  These reasons include it being cheaper, analytics that allow you to track if an e-mail is opened or if they click on included links and people who volunteer their e-mail addresses are looking forward to your advertisements and welcome them.  With direct mail, you are unable to measure ROI since you do not know, in most cases, if the recipient bought your product or service because of the advertisement.  Also, with e-mail being free to send and with many people using the Internet to research a product or service, direct mail seems to be an ancient way to get a potential customer's attention.