In the first part of this article, I presented my solutions for finding clients, recruiting better and improving your image (especially online).
Here's the rest of the challenges facing businesses.
4) Comment obtenir des emails de prospects ?
As if it wasn't hard enough to build a database of emails, did you know that your marketing email data is degrading by about 22.5% every year ?
This is called the attrition rate or churn email.
Finding ways to consistently feed your base with new emails is the job of your marketing team.
Buying email lists is not really a good idea given their highly perishable nature.
By using purchased, not self-built, email databases, you take the risk of tarnishing your reputation, while wasting your money !
The numbers speak for themselves, on average the open rate of emails created with inbound marketing is close to 30-35% compared to barely 10% for cold emailing.
As for click-through rates: while we see that it is often around 0.5% to 1% for outbound emails, it is rather close to 6-7% in Inbound type campaigns.
Instead of buying or renting lists, build a opt-in email list yourself made up of subscribers who voluntarily give you their email address. To do this, you'll need to create blog content that piques interest and makes it easy for visitors to subscribe. At the same time, this will help you increase your online presence and increase your "search awareness."
Another problem most businesses face is lead generation, that is, the ability to find enough prospects to keep your sales team in a good mood !
If this is your first concern, know that you are not alone: Only 1 in 10 executives feel their lead generation campaigns are effective.
Generating both high quality and high quantity leads is the most important goal of a marketing team.
A powerful lead generation engine allows you to turn site visitors into potential customers even when you are sleeping !
To make the lead generation process work for your business, you must first optimize your existing website for your leads. Your website is the most important tool you have to turn leads into customers.
Your website, if used properly, will bring in more leads than all your salespeople (whose job it is not), all your contact book, all the trade shows you attend, etc.
The website is the ultimate weapon de la génération de leads !
To make it perform, ask yourself these questions :
After answering these questions, focus on the most visited pages on your website. For most businesses, it's usually certain specific pages that drive the majority of traffic. Often, these are the home page, the "About" page, the "Contact Us" page, and perhaps one or two of your most popular blog posts.
Read this blog post to understand how to determine which pages to focus on and how to optimize them.
Finally, if you want to go further, equip yourself with a true lead generation tool, like Hubspot. By integrating all the functional components of Inbound Marketing to CRM within an integrated platform, you'll make your life easier and, more importantly, your salespeople's life easier (and they'll thank you for it).
Are you familiar with the concept of scalability (scalability in English) ?
It refers to the ability of a product or service to maintain its quality in the event of a sudden increase in demand. For example, if a software product becomes very successful, will it be able to maintain its performance level ?
This is a very important concept from the perspective of growing your business : Will you be able to maintain your level of quality as the orders come in ?
This is a tricky issue, especially since every situation is different. You'll see this issue come up in all areas of business: in product development, content marketing creation, hiring, etc.
For example, you may be looking to improve your company's growth at all costs. But in doing so, you will need to hire quickly. This can cause problems because it takes a while to train some people. And if you don't train them well, it will cause dysfunction.
Unfortunately, there is no ready-made answer to this question.
"Depending on where you are in the life cycle of your business", explains Drizly founder Nick Rellas, ". You'll need both at different times."
This means you shouldn't obsess about all the details, but rather focus on the ones that will make a difference. Focusing on product refinement, for example, may pay off less than focusing your efforts on customer service.
Get over your resistance and launch a product that isn't perfect because you can always update and improve it. After all, once your products are in the hands of your customers, you'll learn much more quickly what works and what doesn't. It's a risk, sure, but often worth it.
Bringing your obsession to customer service, conversely, can also be very profitable. Amazon CEO and founder Jeff Bezos explains it well in his 2016 letter to his shareholders: "There are many ways to drive your business strategy. You can be competitor-focused, product-focused, or obsessed with technology. But in my opinion, a customer obsession is by far the most important element of your survival from day one." (Editor's note : "Day 1 "is what he sees as a period of growth and innovation, while "Day 2" is a period of stagnation, irrelevance, and slow demise.)
I have presented the issues that I believe are most vital to a business, especially in its early years.
Did you find this article relevant ? Are there any other fundamental issues you would like to see addressed ? Tell us in the comments !