Marketing Results Blog: Generate More Inbound Leads Online

Here Is Why You Must Use Content Marketing In Online Lead Generation

January 29, 2020 by Ben Sweetlove

In this video, Digital Strategist Ben Sweetlove explains why all modern lead generation campaigns MUST include content marketing.

Video Transcript

So I’ve had some great conversations with clients recently about the cutting-edge stuff.

What is working now, and what will propel us into 2020 to ensure that our lead generation campaigns are effective. And when you think about it, the Internet is an evolving environment. Platforms are evolving. The way that we interact with digital platforms is evolving. So it’s important as marketers that we make sure that our strategies evolve along with it.

Content marketing is critical, to a modern lead gen campaign. And I want to talk about that. I want to pull that apart in this blog post.

So sadly, gone are the days of rapid short term lead gen campaigns where you take a cold audience and you show them a landing page that contains a bottom of funnel offer. So you show them, a hook that says enquire now or get a strategy session or get a consultation, yes, in isolation, cold traffic, you need cold traffic. And yes, you need a bottom of funnel offer, but now you need something in between.

You need to nurture your prospects, you need to provide value to them and build a bond first before you ask … Read More >>

Online Lead Generation In 2020: Are Strategies Changing?

January 16, 2020 by Ben Sweetlove

In this video, Digital Strategist Ben Sweetlove double-clicks on some of Marketing Results’ best online lead generation strategies for 2020.

Video Transcript

So I’ve had some great conversations with clients recently about the cutting-edge stuff. What is working now, and what will propel us into 2020 to ensure that our lead generation campaigns are effective. And when you think about it, the Internet is an evolving environment. Platforms are evolving. The way that we interact with digital platforms is evolving. So it’s important as marketers that we make sure that our strategies evolve along with it.

Now the fundamentals will remain the same. So the core strategy behind what we do to generate leads, that will remain the same. But we do need to modify it slightly to make sure that we are keeping up with, one, evolving platforms and, two, the evolving mode in which humans interact with the Internet and social media.

So I want to talk about some of those strategies that we are employing at the moment. Hopefully you can use these in your lead gen campaigns.

So, the first one is extended nurturing runways, and gone are the days, sadly, of rapid short-term lead generation. So, 18 months ago, two years, three years ago, it was effective to take a cold audience, so an … Read More >>

Video: How does remarketing help business leaders improve online lead generation campaigns?

December 24, 2019 by Ben Sweetlove

In this video, Digital Strategist Ben Sweetlove explains how Facebook Remarketing helps business leaders and marketers increase the performance of online lead generation campaigns.

Video Transcript

Now, one of the biggest problems faced by digital marketers at the moment is that rapid short term lead generation is losing its effectiveness. So back in the day, maybe 18 months, two, or three years ago, it was quite effective to take a cold audience… an audience that is not familiar with your product or service, show them a landing page containing a bottom of funnel offer. An offer which might be a consultation or a strategy session or some offer involving participation from the prospect, which is really the start of your sales process. So that used to work quite effectively, a cold audience to a bottom of funnel offer. Now, not so much. So I think I have some theories on that. I think the endless scrolling effect in social media is reducing attention spans, which is making it harder for marketers to communicate their message to form that bond with prospects.

And also, I think that people are growing in skepticism. They’re being more skeptical about the ads, the messaging that is put out there by anyone who is marketing themselves online, which means a deeper nurturing is … Read More >>

The Four “Golden Keys” For Unlocking Impactful Marketing Messaging

July 25, 2019 by Ben Sweetlove

The written components of your lead generation campaigns — ie. the words you write on ads and landing pages — are FAR more important than your campaign’s visuals or ‘design execution’.

In online lead generation, the things you write — ie. your messaging — is ultimately what creates the connection between your customers and the value you provide.

Your messaging allows you to demonstrate that you understand your customers’ unwanted problems and desired outcomes. Your messaging allows you to highlight your points of differentiation and articulate irresistible marketing and sales offers. It allows you to showcase social proof and tell a compelling story about the desired end state your brand creates. And deliberate messaging can clearly communicate the unique benefits of working with your brand.

Impactful and persuasive marketing messaging is CRITICAL for any effective lead generation campaign. Weak, misaligned, or non-existent direct-response messaging will provide you with disappointing results… so it’s important to craft your messaging foundations before you create ads, landing pages, and other tactical campaign collateral.

In this article, I want to share with you the four core questions (AKA “keys”) we ask when designing direct-response marketing messaging foundations for our clients… and I’ll also give you some additional questions to help you write sizzling, impactful copy.

Design is important too…

As a quick caveat, please don’t get me wrong regarding design — your campaign’s visuals and ‘look and feel’ are very important too. Design conveys quality. Design contains hidden persuasion strategies. And colour choice, image … Read More >>

The Top Five Problems I Find When Troubleshooting Online Lead Generation Campaigns

July 15, 2019 by Ben Sweetlove

In this video, Digital Strategist Ben Sweetlove explains five common problems found in existing, underperforming lead generation campaigns.

Video Transcript

Ben: In my position as strategist, I am in the fortunate situation where I get to peer under the hood of plenty of existing lead generation campaigns. So when a client comes on board with us, most times they will bring along with them the campaigns that they’ve been running in the past, whether that’s on their own, whether that’s via another agency or another consultant, I get the chance to take a look at them and troubleshoot them. So the clients come on board because they’re obviously not getting the results that they’re looking for and it’s now on to us to diagnose, troubleshoot, and then create those campaigns that do create those results.

And over the years, and I have looked inside of dozens and dozens, probably hundreds of campaigns and that’s things like Facebook campaigns, Google Ads campaigns, sometimes LinkedIn campaigns as well, to just troubleshoot them and work out what’s going on. Over the years and via all of those campaigns, I’ve noticed a set of patterns or a pattern or a series of common problems that I find when I do troubleshoot those campaigns. And there are five and that’s what I’m going to … Read More >>

11 Ways To Use Video In Your Online Lead Generation Campaigns

July 4, 2019 by Ben Sweetlove

11 Ways To Use Video In Your Online Lead Generation Campaigns In this video, Digital Strategist Ben Sweetlove explains eleven smart ways to use video to increase the effectiveness of your online lead generation campaigns.

In the above video, I’ll discuss the following 11 ways to leverage video in your online lead generation campaigns:

Offer Explainer Videos, on your landing pages
Video testimonials
Videos on your thank you pages, to promote the next step in your sequence
Value-rich videos for your email nurturing sequences
Animated gifs for emails (to give a preview of your video)
Video blog posts
Apps like “Bonjoro” to nurture prospects
Indoctrination videos
Animated explainer videos
Email footers – containing link to a video(s)
Webinars

Video Transcript

Ben: Hi there guys. It’s Ben here. Now in this video blog post, I’m going to talk about 11 ways you can use video in your online lead generation campaigns. Now a quick caveat, I’m definitely not going to talk about recording techniques or camera types or software to use. I’m not going to talk about that sort of stuff. I am going to talk about how you can actually use the videos that you record in your marketing, in your digital marketing. So I mean, look there’s plenty of blog posts out there, just you know, run Google searches if you need video editing software, that sort of stuff. I’m not going to talk about that. I’m going to talk about how you can actually use it and leverage it to get better performance and better results from your Lead … Read More >>

21 Mobile Landing Page Optimisation Best Practices For 2019 (With Free Wireframes)

March 21, 2019 by Will Swayne

What’s the best way to optimise mobile landing pages like a boss in 2019?

Most marketers used to treat mobile traffic as an afterthought… but those days are long gone.

As much as 52% of global website traffic now comes from mobile devices, as this graph shows:

Percentage of mobile device website traffic worldwide

But here’s the thing:

Even though mobile traffic may account for more than half of your total visitors, optimising your website for mobile visitors rarely gets enough attention.

So if you’re looking for ways to convert mobile visitors into paying customers, you’ll love this post.

I’m going to share 21 best practices to help you generate more leads from mobile visitors.

Why Mobile Matters

Mobile devices have changed the way customers behave online. Just check out these mobile trends:

In 2014, mobile accounted for 34% of Google searches.
This year, mobile searches are above 60%+
65% of Google Ad clicks come from a mobile device
The average click through rate (CTR) for mobile users is almost a full percentage point higher than desktop users

These trends are having a real impact on businesses like yours…

Check out how visitor device usage has increased for these two Marketing Results clients.

Both have seen mobile visitors go from their secondary to primary traffic source:

Mobile has now overtaken desktop as the primary platform for web visits

So if mobile traffic is a big deal, now let’s look at what NOT to do, before discussing how to do it right…

Common Mobile Landing Page Mistakes, With Examples

Let’s take a look at some real-world examples…

Here are … Read More >>

5 Killer “Above The Fold” Teardowns You Can Use To Convert More Clients

March 13, 2019 by Will Swayne

Above The Fold Optimisation Feature Image

You already know first impressions are important. And there’s nowhere more important than the “above the fold” area on your homepage.

Scroll Tracking Heat Map — *According to eye-tracking studies by Jakob Nielsen, visitors spend 80% of their time above the fold.*

Above the fold is the area that is most likely to get read. Also, the most likely to grab the user’s attention. In fact, an eye-tracking study by Jakob Nielsen suggested that up to 80% of visitor time is spent above the fold.

That’s why simply optimising your User Experience (UX) above the fold can be so impactful.

In this article we’ll look at some above the fold website examples from some recent projects, plus share the underlying principles you can use to optimise this super-valuable real estate on your own site.

Try This Quick Above The Fold Audit

Open up your homepage – no scrolling. Now put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client, and ask these 3 questions:

Where am I? (What sort of business / website is this?)
What can I do here? (How can I get value?)
Why should I do it? (Why should I act?)

If you struggle to come up with compelling answers to any of these questions, chances are you’re leaking customers… and sitting on a golden opportunity.

Let’s dig down further with a few concrete examples…

5 “Above The Fold” Website Examples (And Why They Work)

I’ve applied the same three-question exercise to five recent Marketing Results clients so you can see how this applies to various … Read More >>

Growth Hacking: How I Improve The Performance Of A Lead Attraction & Nurturing Funnel

March 6, 2019 by Ben Sweetlove

In this video, Digital Strategist Ben Sweetlove explains his process for identifying and improving the effectiveness of a multi-step lead generation funnel. If you’re responsible for lead generation in your organisation (or you’re the one paying for Facebook or Google Ads), this video is for you.

Video Transcript

Ben: Hi there guys, it’s Ben here. Now, in this quick session, I’m going to talk about the growth hacking process or the process I follow when I want to improve the performance of a lead attraction and nurturing funnel. So if you’re using Facebook advertising or Google Ads, formerly Google Adwords, to send traffic through to a landing page then this will hopefully provide value to you. So this is the process that I go through with most of our new clients if they are advertising already when they come on board, just to make sure that they’re getting the best performance from their advertising budget. I know you’re probably busy, so I’ll get right into it.

Now, this growth hacking process, really, there’s two goals: One is to review and improve the performance of a page traffic campaign, ultimately to improve a campaign’s return on adspend. There’s two core parts to this process, one is a page traffic source. For example, Google Ads or Facebook ads, but this could also be relevant to Twitter advertising or Instagram or any other LinkedIn Ads, something like that. It’s the same theory, and hopefully you’ll understand what I mean by that. And then … Read More >>

Lead Generation Campaign Pre-Mortem: How To Ensure Your Campaign Is A Success

February 21, 2019 by Ben Sweetlove

If you’re spending money on Facebook or Google (or any paid traffic platform, for that matter) to generate leads, let me explain an in-depth process to make sure your campaign doesn’t end up in an early grave.

Step One: High-Level Campaign Requirements

Before we begin, let’s clarify a few key things you need to consider when planning your lead generation campaign.

From a psychological perspective, your prospects will enquire with you when they feel comfortable that:

you UNDERSTAND their situation in-depth
you can solve their problem or achieve their desired outcome, better than anyone else available to them
the value you’ll provide will outweigh their investment in time and money (they’ll feel you’re ‘worth it’)
you’ve solved their problem before, and can do it again for them
they like and trust you

An effective lead generation campaign will create ALL of the above situations, via ad creative and landing pages.

Make sure the following things are occurring to ensure your ads and landing pages convert your traffic:

You have a strong and unique offering in your market… and your “Unique Value Proposition” (explained in the next section) is carefully communicated
Your offers are compelling, and you’re using them at the right parts of your buyer’s journey (also explained below)
You’re using the strongest/most appropriate emotional triggers
Your landing pages provide enough information to cater for your prospect’s level of awareness
You are catering for prospects who want to engage you NOW and prospects who aren’t ready yet (Hint: this

Video Transcript

Video Transcript

Video Transcript

Design is important too…

Video Transcript

Video Transcript

Why Mobile Matters

Common Mobile Landing Page Mistakes, With Examples

Try This Quick Above The Fold Audit

5 “Above The Fold” Website Examples (And Why They Work)

Video Transcript

Step One: High-Level Campaign Requirements

“Double Your LeadsIn 30 Days”

“FREE DOWNLOAD: The Financial Services Lead Generation Guide”

“FREE DOWNLOAD: The Property Services Lead Generation Guide”

“FREE DOWNLOAD: The Education & Training Lead Generation Guide”

“Double Your Leads
In 30 Days”

“FREE DOWNLOAD:
The Financial Services
Lead Generation Guide”

“FREE DOWNLOAD:
The Property Services
Lead Generation Guide”

“FREE DOWNLOAD:
The Education & Training
Lead Generation Guide”