Business Growth Blog

Company newsletters are a staple in many organizations, especially in the digital age. And with so many of us working remotely, it’s an excellent way to share information about what’s happening within the company without assembling a large staff meeting. Employee spotlights are a common element, but a poorly crafted one can do more harm than good. If done correctly, employee spotlights can be a useful tool for building trust within the ranks and with prospects and customers. Here’s a guide to get you started!

The way you present your company online directly impacts your ability to get found by your target audience, pique their interest, build trust, engage with them, and help them. In this video, I share a real-life example of how to build a digital content strategy to build your brand.

Most biotech companies regularly create marketing content such as webinars, presentations, publications, posters…the list goes on (press releases, web pages, blog articles, social posts). Creating and promoting content is essential for advancing growth. Getting the right content in front of the right people increases awareness, builds trust and credibility, and generates opportunities.

The hardest part of implementing a content marketing plan is figuring out what to write about. Companies usually begin in the self-promotional phase: they write about upcoming trade shows, new hires, case studies, and press releases. The content is very company-centric.

While it’s great to showcase the company culture, products, and services, it’s kind of boring stuff. It’s not likely to pique the interest of many new potential customers.

The most successful content marketing strategies are customer-centric. The content is written to teach, inspire, and motivate. Prospects find it interesting and helpful and become followers and evangelists for the brand. Good content helps companies build a following, generate leads, and increase sales efficiency.

Here are eight steps to help you start developing a list of relevant, highly valuable topics for your content strategy.

When I evaluate an organization's blog, I scan through their titles, topics, and articles to find out what they think is important to discuss or share. It's easy to spot company-centric content, which is information about the organization (who they are and what they do), vs. customer-centric content, which pertains directly to the concerns of the target buyer. Here is an overview of each approach, and how they relate to the sales process.

Here’s an analogy: The main reason you go to a networking event is to meet people and get to know them. You don’t sit in a corner by yourself checking emails on your phone with your head down (at least you shouldn’t be!). You’re working the room, introducing yourself to people and getting to know them by asking thought-provoking questions.

Sales and marketing content is vital for communicating your value to potential customers. However, creating it can be arduous: and bad content is worse than no content, so it has to be good.

When I first started inbound marketing, I was trying to create everything by myself. I quickly realized that was inefficient and expensive. That may sound counter-intuitive: how can it be MORE expensive to do it yourself vs. hiring someone? That's easy - if I'm doing jobs that I'm really not skilled for, it takes me longer and doesn't turn out as well, so I don't get the best results over time.

One of the biggest problems businesses face is figuring out what to say to take a prospect from “Who the heck are you?” to “I want to do business with you!”

How do you get on your prospects’ radars and capture their interest? The first step is to clearly understand your buyer journey. The second step is to create and promote the type of information prospects need at each stage.

A landing page is a lead capture web page. It has a form that a website visitor has to fill out in order to get a special offer, like a coupon, discount, ebook, video, or some other type of valuable content.

The landing page conversion rate is the percentage of people that fill out the form.

Here's the most important part: Once a website visitor fills out the form, they get entered into your database and can be followed up on by a salesperson or furthered nurtured until they're ready for a sales call.

Landing pages are the lifeblood of online lead generation.

Here's an example of what a landing page looks like:

One of the main reasons to have a website is to get people "into your world." By that, I mean they’re actively engaged with your company at some level: they’re on your email list, connected with you on social media, or are in conversations with your sales team.

The only way to get someone into your world is to get them to willingly give you their contact information. It’s a little counter-intuitive: we usually think of prospects running away from salespeople as fast as possible, and yet here I am saying that they need to self-select into the sales process.

How in the world does that happen?