Lead Generation: Is It a Matter of Quantity or Quality?

When it comes to lead generation for your business, you have two options: focus on getting numerous new leads or get only the best, high quality leads. Simply put, you either go for quantity or quality. But which is the right way to go when you are looking to advance online marketing? There are certain factors that come into play and are mostly based on your goals of the campaign, the product/service as well as the time and resources that you have to support your lead generation efforts. Here's a quick snapshot of what to consider for the success of your business.

Quantity vs Quality

Some companies believe that quality is better than quantity when it comes to lead generation. Others go for quantity, saying that it results in higher return of investment. What’s your goal for the lead generation? This should be the first question you should ask yourself. If your main effort is brand awareness, reaching or sharing, or selling products with low-touch model at discounted prices, your focus should be on generating as many leads as possible. Whether you seek to get more Twitter followers, blog subscribers, or webinar participants; driving high volume leads is the focus.

On the other hand, if your goal is reaching specific, niche buyers, or if you seek to sell higher priced products with a long sales cycle, your focus should be prioritizing or getting high quality leads into your funnel. You can achieve this with more specific tracking/intelligence, targeting, and of course a good process. This gives you an opportunity to put more focus on the best leads that give you better chances of converting into sales. When you choose to go quality over quantity, you avoid time and energy spent to reach people who have a low likelihood of converting.

Best of both worlds

Yes, you want to have more lead generation by casting your net more. But then you need quality leads that you can easily convert into sales. In this case, and where all factors come into play, your company may do well utilizing both quality and quantity lead generation. Think of it this way: your company decides to consider both programs, with one focusing on quantity and the other quality. The first one generates more leads in a short span of time, but you get more sales rejection percentage and low conversion rate overall. Now, quality strategy will come into play, generating smaller, yet good leads that have higher conversion rates.

Both quantity and quality lead generation programs can work depending on your goals. Marketing experts usually support quality lead generation plans. This is because they provide a higher conversion rate and sales. You will save time from managing a lot of leads that are unqualified. The process of generating these leads may involve more time and effort to focus targeting, evaluate metrics, qualify and nurture inquires. However, you'll start to benefit from increased revenue growth for your  business.

Using Yahoo Answers for Free Advertising and Backlinks

One of the main activities of any blog or website is, wherever possible, to take advantage of free targeted traffic; this is why webmasters spend so much time trying to find ways of improving their position in the Google search results. However, there is one very simple method of getting free traffic which is often overlooked by webmasters: Yahoo Answers. The bottom line is that Yahoo Answers is the largest community of knowledge sharing on the Web and getting some of this huge audience interested in your products or services can yield huge benefits.

Not only is Yahoo Answers a great method of generating targeted traffic, it is also a terrific source of free advertising. If you add this free publicity technique to your marketing strategies, you will soon discover how incredibly powerful it is.

One of the key aspects of this strategy is that it is all about participation; so, the first step you need to take is to sign up (by visiting answers.yahoo.com) and to complete your profile, adding as much information to it as you are happy to share. It is also a good idea to upload an avatar; probably not your logo; perhaps your photo; or some other friendly graphic associated with your brand.

Next, you need to familiarize yourself with the Yahoo Answers platform: browse through the categories of question which are relevant to your niche; and decide which types of question you are interested in answering.

Before you begin to answer any questions, however, you should have a clear idea of what you want to promote. This way you can home in on those topics that will be relevant to the site you want to promote via Yahoo Answers.

Your first public activity will be to answer lots and lots of questions; try and aim for the maximum allowed, which is twenty questions per day. The reason for this is that Yahoo operate a system of points and levels: when you sign up, you are a level one user and Yahoo allocates you 100 points; in order to reach level 2, you need 250 points; and, until you reach level 2, you will not be able to include backlinks in your answers.

You are assigned 2 points for every question you answer; so, if you answer the maximum of 20 questions, you will earn 40 points daily; and, in four days, you will have reached level 2 status. However, if any of your answers is picked as the best answer, you are awarded an extra 10 points; and also, every time you yourself vote for answer, you are awarded an extra point. So, as you can see, achieving level 2 status is not a tall order, and it is definitely worth the effort.

Once you have reached level 2, whenever you reply to a question, you have the possibility of including a website link in the "Source" box accompanying your answer. This is an easy way to get some free advertising and to encourage visitors to find more information on the subject discussed in the question.

Even after you have reached the coveted level 2, it is still beneficial to supply the best answers you can. Answers which are picked as best answers will achieve a higher rating in the Yahoo search results and will inevitably bring more traffic to your website or to your affiliate offer. So spend some time studying those answers, which have been picked as best answers and try to analyze what made them appeal to the person asking the question.

Due to the large number of people who may reply to questions, it is also important to be the quickest to respond to questions, which are still open for answer. You should also do your best to answer each question as thoroughly as possible and be sure to address the person who sent the question by his or her first name (if possible). This will increase your chances of being chosen as provider of the best answer.

Yahoo Answers includes a spell checker; so be sure to use it whenever possible to minimize errors; or type your answer in Microsoft Word, check the grammar there and copy and paste into Yahoo Answers when you are happy with it. Take your time to get it right; do not forget that your ultimate goal is to be selected as the best answer.

Once you are up and running with Yahoo Answers, it simply becomes a question of optimizing your efforts to ensure you get the best results possible.  Here are the key points you should keep in mind.

• When choosing which questions to answer, look for recently posted questions with either no answers or only one or two.
• Ensure that the URL you post in the source box contains the topic mentioned in the question: for example, if the question was about "acne cures", your URL might be something like "mysite.com/acne-cures.html".
• Try to include your niche keyword within the body of your answer; this is useful for search engine optimization.
• You can even include a backlink within the body of the answer (using an HTML a tag with an href attribute); but do this sparingly and make sure that it appears totally relevant to the topic being discussed.

Compared with many advertising techniques, using Yahoo Answers may seem like hard work. However, the rewards can be huge: it is not only the Yahoo search engine, which will pick up your answers (and links). Google can also index your answers; so be sure to answer as many questions as you can every day.

Top Five Tips for Using Google AdSense

Monetizing your website traffic can be a tricky business, but with an intermediary like Google AdSense, it doesn’t have to be.  For large corporations, this usually means hiring an entire department to manage ad revenue, but for a small business or your own personal blog, using a service like Google AdSense is the most efficient way to connect you with the advertisers who want to give you money.  Like anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to go about this, so here’s a list of the top five ways to make the most of your partnership with AdSense.

1. Getting Started

The AdSense website has plenty of information on getting your account up and running, but some simple things might get lost in the shuffle.  You can have up to three ads on your page, so you might as well have all three.  Link units are also a good option.  And, as a general rule, use the most open settings you can for selecting ads.  Having both images and text enabled, as well as sticking to the standard sizes – 160x600, 728x90, and 300x250 – gives you and AdSense the most options to draw from.

2. Learn the Art of Placement

Your website is your very own piece of two-dimensional real estate, so know where on it users are most likely to look and most likely to click.  Content on the left of the page is usually viewed first, so ads there are more likely to draw attention, and in general, ads above the fold (at the top of the page) are viewed more.  However, be careful to avoid separating the ads from the content, such as with a banner at the very top of the site – as soon as your reader scrolls down, a top edge banner is out of sight and out of mind.  You can even try your hand at “omnipresent” ads, which follow users as they navigate your site so they’re never missed, although this is a somewhat risky move as some users find omnipresent ads an insufferable nuisance.

3. Make Sure the Advertisements Fit with the Theme of your Website

AdSense allows you to control certain aspects of the ads that are put up on your website.  For text/link ads, you can change the color and font size of the ads to fit with the overall look of your site and avoid being overly distracting to your users.  With picture, video, and interactive type ads, you can choose where on the page they are placed, and you always have the right to say no to an ad you don’t find visually pleasing.  People (your users) are visual creatures, so having a good-looking site ruined by intrusive ads is a major problem.

4. Don't Neglect Mobile Users

Mobile users are a rapidly growing percentage of almost every website’s total traffic, so you can’t afford to have ads that won’t perform on a small screen.  Make sure load speed is AdSense’s top priority to avoid bogging down your ads and your whole site.  One especially useful option with AdSense is responsive ads, which allows your site to automatically adjust ad sizes to fit different mobile screen sizes.

5. Don't Get Lazy
You've put a lot of time and effort into making sure Adsense is working for you, and now that you have optimized you might be tempted to kick back and relax. However, AdSense is always adding new features, tweaking options, and bringing you advertisers who might be willing to pay you more than what you're currently getting. The official AdSense site is a good place to keep up with updates and new features, and after you've gained some experience you can join AdSenseExperts.com to learn some more advanced monetization strategies. In the long run, keeping your advertising strategy dynamic will pay huge dividends.

9 Tips for Startups Using Google Adwords

How Good Business Practices Can Help You Improve Your Golf Game

In this busy age, effective time management is critical for business. Just as with work, so too with play. An avid and competitive golf player, I’ve come to learn how proper time management can also help you improve your golf game. Using your time before a round just a little more effectively can lower your scores without any additional practice.

The first tee mulligan is not permitted under the rules of golf, but is used by a large percentage of recreational golfers. Stiff from the drive to the course, or from a bad night’s sleep, golfers start to play stiff and unfocused. Their first shot is wasted and the entire round starts badly.

Poor early play is the result of poor time management. Too many rounds of golf begin with players pulling into the lot and dashing into the clubhouse minutes ahead of their tee time. There, they tap their feet nervously as they wait for the checkout, then rush back to the cart and, from there, on to the first tee. There is no time for stretching, no time for visiting the putting green, no time to hit a bucket of balls on the practice tee. All that is there for the players is tension and stiffness.

With proper time management, players should schedule their alarms to give themselves plenty of time before a round. A player should arrive at least half an hour before the scheduled tee time. In an ideal world, arriving 45 minutes early would be even better. That will leave you with the time to be properly prepared.

Upon arriving at the course, take the time to check and double check the contents of your bag to ensure you have everything you might require.  Nothing can create more tension than having to dash back to the car just before teeing off to get something you forgot.

Stretching is good use of time...

  

Once you have paid your greens fee, take a few minutes to stretch. Whether it is a morning round, or one after a day of work, your body will not be ready for the rotation needed to create an effective golf swing. Your bed and your office chair are the enemies of the golf swing. Even the drive to the course in those bucket seats will work against you. Stretching is time worth spending.

There are a large number of resources in golf magazines, books and on the Internet on golf stretching routines, so there is no need to detail them here. Suffice it to say that you can do some very effective stretching exercises with just the tools in your golf bag particularly your clubs and your bag. You might even want to toss a small and lightweight latex stretching band in your bag.

After stretching, hit a small bucket of balls to loosen up. Make loosening up your only goal. Trying to fix your swing faults before a round will only mess up your game later. Try to get your feel grooved. Work on your rhythm. Be sure to rotate properly. Start with the short irons and work your way up to driver. Try half swings, then move on to full ones. Don’t swing violently; you risk hurting yourself. Similarly, don’t try for distance; you risk losing your rhythm. You want to use this time to develop a flow.

Stop at the putting green...

Next, stop at the putting green. On most courses, the speeds on the putting green are indicative of the speed on the playing greens. Do not worry about getting the ball in the hole. You will not learn anything about any one hole’s breaks on the practice green. Instead, just try to get it close. Imagine a two-foot circle around the hole and try to get the ball inside the circumference.

The goal of your time on the putting green is to develop a feel for the speed of the greens. If you can get your ball inside “gimmie” range from a variety of distances on the practice putting green, you will be more relaxed and confident when you get to the real thing.

Finally, as you get set to tee off, talk to the starter. Often the starter has valuable information as to course conditions. In particular, ask about hole locations. He should be able to tell you in what zone of the greens the pins are located. This is really useful information on those visually deceptive holes. Knowing flag locations will keep you from leaving a ball short, or going long.

If you follow these tips to manage your time before a round, you are guaranteed to play better golf.  You’ll be relaxed, loose, confident and informed.

4 Key Marketing Factors that Even Experts Forget

As a marketing consultant, I have worked with a lot of different businesses. Both with past employers and my own company, I have developed many business-marketing strategies.  One thing I’ve experienced when it comes to marketing is that companies (from small to high-profile) can get in their own way of their success by being so locked into the “driving home” of what they want to push to their customers; and in the way they want to do it.  They can forget the basic crucial elements that drive success.

Here are a 4 key factors that are important to building your marketing strategies and should not be overlooked:

Listen to Customers

Many companies see marketing as a one-way street. They put their message out for customers, and then stop before an exchange can occur. They talk to consumers without listening themselves.

Proactive listening, however, can do wonders for a company’s marketing campaign. This means listening to current customers and their responses to the company’s marketing and products. This also means listening for potential new customers expressing a need that the company can fill. Online social media makes this listening easier than ever.

Connect as a Human

Successful companies are massive organizations with lives of their own. As such, it’s easy at times for marketers to present the company as a hive mind. But consumers are all individual people. Connecting with them as such means a better chance for a company to actually get heard.

For marketers, this often means approaching campaigns with authentic, simple messaging.  Do not talk over your customers’ heads with your promotional language and positioning. Talking to customers frankly about a product and what it does is what will get results.

This also means remembering that consumers have lives and commitments outside of consuming. However much they love a brand, they are not thinking about it constantly. Businesses shouldn’t expect them to. Instead, marketers should focus on making the brand relevant to daily life in regular conversation. This requires approaching customers as one group of humans to another.

Action over Argument

Marketing is a creative endeavor that requires a constant influx of ideas. Some of these ideas will work better than others. However, marketing teams can often disagree within themselves on the value of any given idea. There are two ways to go about this disagreement.

The inefficient way is for marketers to argue with one another over ideas. Even polite and relevant debate gets a marketing campaign nowhere.

The better method is to test the idea empirically for its effectiveness. This shows the whole team just how good or bad an idea really is. Argument then becomes unnecessary. Instead, marketers can move right on to implementing the idea or brainstorming a new one.

Content is King

Content makes up the bulk of any marketing vehicle, from advertisements to homepages. Marketing is often represented in terms of a funnel. At the top of the funnel is simple brand awareness. The bottom is where responses from customers occur. In the middle is the content of the marketing campaign.

Many companies focus their attention on the top and bottom of the funnel. They pour resources into spreading brand awareness. They optimize feedback avenues for customers to get in touch with them. But they neglect the middle of the funnel, which is where the real work happens. Content is where hooked customers come to learn more before responding to a campaign.

A flashy homepage with no information on it tells consumers nothing. Neither does plastering a brand everywhere without saying anything about why consumers should care. This is why good content is absolutely vital to a marketing campaign.

For more on content marketing strategies, check out 5 Quick Tips for Great Content Marketing.