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jeannereames · 4 years ago

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Hi Dr. Reames, thanks so much for relaying all these fascinating analyses (I have to say, I find myself back on your blog multiple times a week just to check out more cool bits of information). I actually have two questions, but please feel free to only look at one! My first is, what was Alexander’s relationship with Parmenion initially? We know he was loyal to Philip, he served somewhat as an advisor to Alexander too, and then Alexander killed him because of the Philotas plot. I mean, he was a senior officer and had served the Macedonian court for so long—might Alexander and Parmenion have had a decent relationship at some point? And my second question is, how come absolutely nothing survives from the time of Alexander? Did his “successors” try to destroy things related to him (they did kill his son and his mother) so they could protect their own ambitions? I really appreciate your time, thanks for checking out my questions! Again, please feel free to just look at one and not the other :D

First, I’m glad people are actually reading these. LOL.

The biggest problem with discerning Alexander’s true relationship with Parmenion prior to the downfall of Philotas are the inserted “Alexander vs. Parmenion” conversations. You’ve heard them, if you think about it. “If I were Alexander,” Parmenion says, “I would …” “So would I,” Alexander replies, “if I were Parmenion.” Meant as a put down. Parmenion is repeatedly shown as overly cautious and a bit of a fuddy-duddy. It’s a deliberate motif, and most modern scholars recognize these as later insertions.

They seem to have several purposes: first, they showcase Alexander’s dashing bravery and brilliance as opposed to Parmenion’s plodding traditional approaches. Second, they backset conflict between the two. Third, they suggest Alexander didn’t really need Parmenion’s advice; he could have won all those battles by himself.

We suspect this is the work of Kallisthenes (the official court historian) before his own fall from grace. The Page’s Conspiracy happened after the Philotas Affair. Ergo, it appears in a number of the later histories. Some (esp. Badian) have suggested that Alexander was just looking for a way to get rid of Parmenion, and either seized on Philotas’s culpability, or even set up Philotas in order to get rid of Parmenion (Badian’s article on the Philotas Affair suggest Alexander was keeping some sort of FBI-style file on Parmenion and his family.) They’ve point out that he left him behind in Ekbatana when taking off to Baktria, but that was a damn important position! And Parmenion was c.70, by then. I suspect he was moving him towards administrative positions, out of active combat. Phiilotas’s stupidly forced his hand. Philotas was his last living son (Hektor had died in Egypt, Nikanor at Gaugamela). He couldn’t trust that Parmenion wouldn’t feel honor-bound to retaliate for his death (it was a matter of timē). And Parmenion was sitting on Alexander’s all-important supply lines; he could cut off the entire army and leave them to starve. (This, btw, doesn’t justify murder, but does explain it.)

After that, he almost had to inflict a hatchet-job on Parmenion’s reputation. Murdering Parmenion would look even worse if everyone could read how much he owed him.

If one takes those A vs. P conversations with a grain of salt and looks more widely, it’s clear that Alexander owed his kingship to Parmenion—and Parmenion was compensated (so to speak) by the high appointments of his sons, at least the elder two, and his other family members. Although Philotas was older than Alexander, he wasn’t a senior general, yet he got the plumb assignment of commander of the Companion Cavalry. His younger brother commanded the Hypaspists—the whole thing, not just the royal unit. Parmenion’s brother, Asander held high positions, as did another relative (another Nikanor) in the navy. The boys, at least, leapfrogged over older men who may have been more deserving. And Philotas seems to have flaunted his position and relations. We’re told in a couple places that, while his father was beloved, he was not. Certainly Krateros couldn’t stand him, although being an enemy of Krateros may not have required more than being in Krateros’s way. Ha. Krateros was kinda-sorta Parmenion’s understudy.

Alexander often took a good deal of Parmenion’s advice. For instance, there are actually TWO verions of the Battle of Granikos, and they’re almost mutually exclusive. One appears to be a rewrite for drama…and to get in a dig at Parmenion. It’s the better-known version, where the battle takes place in the afternoon, at the end of a long march, and is a cavalry-heavy battle because not all the infantry had arrived. It’s one of the first A vs. P exchanges, where Parmenion advises Alexander to wait for the rest of the army, then attack at night or at least in the morning. Alexander tells him he “won’t steal a march” and brashly attacks the Persians before they’re ready. And wins (after a significant loss of Companions).

The other version is more or less exactly what Parmenion advised: he waited till morning. It was still mostly a cavalry battle and much of what happened is similar…but he did what Parmenion suggested. Yet in that version, he looks less heroic…but more level-headed.

Guess which one is probably the true version. 😉

Philotas, btw, got himself in trouble for asserting that Alexander’s big wins weren’t really his, but Parmenion’s (and Philotas’s). Philotas may have been a blowhard, but at least part of that was true. Alexander consistently gave Parmenion the difficult but absolutely crucial positions at Issos and Gaugamela. He knew damn well that if Parmenion fell on the left, it didn’t matter what he did. That’s WHY he didn’t chase Darius either time, but especially at Gaugamela.

However difficult Philotas was, we’re told that Alexander was close to Hektor, the youngest of Parmenion’s sons. When Hektor died accidentally in Egypt, Alexander was heartbroken and threw him a huge funeral. Hektor is among the boys I had with Alexander at Mieza in the novels.

As for what Parmenion thought of Alexander, I expect he saw him as his best friend’s son, and therefore felt some responsibility for him, after Philip’s untimely death. Parmenion and Philip appear to have been real friends. Philip and Antipatros, not so much. Antipatros had been a friend to Philip’s older brother, Perdikkas, who apparently had a more philosophic turn of mind. And indeed, Antipatros and Aristotle later were fast friends. There’s a funny story of Philip and Parmenion playing draughts (and drinking), when Antipatros entered the room. Immediately Philip shoved the game board under his chair, like some naughty boy caught skivving off. It’s hysterical (the anecdote comes from either Plutarch’s Moralia or, more likely, Athenaeus’s Supper Party). Parmenion was older than Philip, but closer to him in age than Antipatros. Also, Antipatros and Parmenion didn’t really like each other. And there’s Philip’s famous quip that the Athenians should count themselves lucky if they could find 10 good generals every year (their custom of electing generals is what he’s referring to). In his time as king, he’d found only one. Parmenion. (It’s obviously a dig at Athens for poor generals; in Philip’s day they had only a couple decent ones, Phokion being the best.)

Anyway, given Parmenion’s closeness to Philip, I’ve always assumed that he would have backed the candidate Philip wanted on the throne, and that was Alexander. As I noted elsewhere, Philip’s last child was a girl, not a boy. So Attalos had no skin the game anymore. Ergo, even if Parmenion had married his own daughter to Attalos, when push came to shove, he shoved him under the bus (had him executed) when Alexander asked him to. I expect he didn’t do it for “free.” That’s why Philotas and Nikanor had their positions. He could always marry his daughter to someone else, and did: Koinos/Coenus, which is why Koinos was so eager to help “question” Philotas, his brother-in-law: to prove his loyalty to Alexander.

As for why we don’t still have the original histories of Alexader, written by contemporaries? Simple loss over time. I seem to recall reading stats somewhere that only a quarter to a third of (known) texts from antiquity have survived. No, I don’t remember where, but the percentage doesn’t surprise me. How do we know about missing texts? From “testamonia” in surviving ones, especially collections, or books like Diogenes Laertus which contains the lives of famous philosophers and their bibliography. D.L. is how we know Aristotle wrote 4 books of letters to ATG, 1 each to Hephaistion and Olympias, as well as letters to Antipatros.

Some quick terminology: “extant” means “still existing.” So an “extant” text is one we still have. A “testamonium” is mention of a text or author in another text. And a “fragmentum” is a quoted section from another text, or a paraphrasing. Keep in mind that while ancient memories were generally better than ours, fragmenta (when we can compare) often contain slight errors and rephrasings. The major collection of these in Greek was compiled by Felix Jacoby, Fragmente der griechischen Historiker, often referred to as FGrH or just “Jacoby.” The original 1923 version was just in Greek, but New Jacoby is translated, and now available as Jacoby Online!

Another super important source of information on ancient texts, people, and places unavailable elsewhere now is the Suda [Suidae Lexicon], a mid-Byzantine “encyclopedia” of the ancient Mediterranean world. It has LOADS of info otherwise unattested in our extant sources. Visit the Suda Online.

Anyway, back to our texts. Popularity is one reason certain texts make it. The fact we have FIVE different histories of Alexander (however varying in quality) is actually extraordinary, the most we have for any single individual from antiquity. And it’s not only popularity in antiquity, but popularity later. Plutarch was very popular in the medieval and Renaissance, so we have a lot of Plutarch surviving. More copies…more likely something will make it.

So no, what we lack isn’t from any concerted effort to erase a text. The Successors penned their own histories (buffing their own reputations and skewering their rivals), but they didn’t try to systematically get rid of other’s writings. To do so would have been very difficult, if not impossible. Most of the contemporary histories were still available down into the early Byzantine era and probably beyond. We just don’t have them now.

#Parmenion #Parmenio #Alexander the Great #Alexander historians #Philotas #Nikanor #Nicanor #Antipatros #Antipater #Philip of Macedon #Philip II of Macedon #ancient Macedonia #Philotas Affair #Alexander's campaigns #asks #survival of ancient texts #Classics #Jacoby #The Suda

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fimflamfilosophy · 4 years ago

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“Is DnD Still Popular?”

To some of you giant nerds, the question, “Is DnD still popular,” is probably one of the stranger things you’ll read today, but within a specific context it makes a lot of sense. Speaking of, the show “Stranger Things” presented a popular, physical look at what DnD beasties might feel like, even if it didn’t present an honest view of what DnD games really play like. Along with more online media referencing the game and sites like Roll20 making it easier to join a group, it makes sense. Is this a temporary boom or has the roleplaying community seen a lot of permanent additions to its nerdy hobby?

I wouldn’t have numbers to say, myself, but for what it’s worth, roleplaying is always a very personal experience. And for a few of us, the question isn’t, “Are people still playing DnD?” Of course they are - it’s all anyone plays! The question is, “Can you get anyone to play anything else?”

What Is DnD?

For some people, Dungeons & Dragons has become so intertwined with the concept of roleplaying that people think DnD and roleplaying are synonymous. If you roleplay, you play DnD. Originally, this had a kernel of truth. There are articles about the history of the system, and during its inception the game had a hard time taking off. Fundamentally it was asking people to play make-believe, but with a system of mathematical rules and designs. We know now that this type of thing is like catnip to massive dork-faced neckbeards, but at the time it wasn’t expected to have much appeal.

Eventually it did get off the ground, and it became the standard for the entire concept of a roleplaying game. And as with all “firsts to the market”, there have been many competitors and copycats, but it’s difficult to pry the audience away when you need everyone to use the same system. In economics they call this “network utility value” - that is, a fax machine is useless if only one person owns one. You can only send faxes to other people with fax machines, so if another company tries to invent their own offshoot of the fax machine, they’ll never get anyone to adopt it because everyone is already using the existing fax machine network. Everybody knows DnD, which means that if you go to a convention or look for games online, you know you’re going to find more players for that system than any other.

Why Does DnD Continue to Work?

In early editions of DnD, there were a lot more rules, and as a result more freedom to design your characters. When I first started roleplaying, it was during the 3rd edition of the system, where you could still allocate skill points to become better or worse at specific skills like lying, climbing, forgery, or crafting. This meant that with good planning, you could play a sub-optimal wizard and make up for it somewhat by investing a lot in your “persuasion” skills to rely on talk more than magic.

But being the system that everyone has to learn isn’t enough to stay on top forever. Other systems like GURPS have taken hold by now, and some types of popular nerd media have introduced their own completely unique systems designed to simulate their specific media universes. The owners of DnD had two choices: either make the game more open and try to eat the lunch of other companies, or make all of DnD easier to play in general to capture a broader audience.

So they released 4th edition! We don’t talk about 4th edition. And then they quickly released 5th edition (and a few mumbled apologies), which streamlined a lot of things about the game to the extent I’m not sure why they even let you control your character stats at all now. Skills became baked in with your level, and most of the game is about choosing abilities when you level up. It’s become very similar to playing an MMO, and I believe that’s the point.

One of the big things you always see in a complicated roleplaying system is players spending hours putting together a character. For your experienced player, this is a labor of love. You really care about the small details and want to make sure you get it right, or you’re a Win-At-All-Costs type who wants to make sure you’re rolling the biggest numbers. Either way you’re familiar and know what you’re doing, but it presents a hurdle to new players, and that hurdle has been largely done away with in 5th edition.

No matter how old you are, how experienced you are, how creative you are (or aren’t), or how much you know about any aspect of the game, you can play 5e DnD. I think you could play as young as seven years old and have minimal problems, because all you have to do is choose a job and virtually everything else is filled in for you, as if by a program, as if a video game. An experienced player can help a new one whip up a character within fifteen minutes, and that new guy will be rolling dice at the dragon about as well as everyone else.

DnD is the Worst System

But DnD’s accessibility is also its greatest downfall. Because everything is sort of programmed out, you find a lot of players eventually growing bored with the same-old, and they try to find ways to inject new life into the system. They invent new races, new classes, new abilities, and so on - they call this “homebrew”. yet many people are bad at creating balance and fairness for something they personally intend to play, and DnD recognizes this problem. It has a lot of supplemental books telling you all you need to know about other races and classes you might want to play, and in theory they are as fair and powerful as anything in the base system.

Yet no amount of homebrew or supplementary material will solve DnD’s core problem: it’s rigid. If you want to play, you need a battle mat, because every spell, every action, can travel or act within a certain number of squares and you always need to know exactly where you’re standing. Players are expected to be able to take a certain number of actions per turn based on their level, and do an expected amount of damage. Monster encounters are built loosely around the concept of “Challenge Rating”, which is meant to imply a group of four players will find a CR of 5 suitably challenging if they are all level five. Basically it plays like “X-Com”.

And as you lock people in these mechanical, video game-styled designs, you find people champing at the bit. Not everyone wants to choose their abilities at level up or have their skill proficiencies dictated by what level they are. Some people want to express truly outlandish concepts, or play something that isn’t specifically designed around the idea of walking room to room blasting monsters. You’ll see people in roleplaying communities often asking, “Does anyone have any good ideas to homebrew [this idea] and make it work?”

Fans of DnD argue the homebrew approach works. Yes, it’s complicated and frustrating to invent entirely new classes and races for a single game where you don’t know how long you’ll play or what level you’ll reach, but DnD’s strict rules and design philosophy is a perk to those people, not a drawback.

Yet a fact of note is that a quote from a game I run got into a popular “Out of Context DnD” blog. The quote was, “ Mecha-Jesus unleashes a barrage of flames from his palms, but the train-snake martially dodges out of the way!”

It received 337 notes, and I was a little surprised by that. The game is a post-apocalyptic Road Warrior setting where the team boss decided to kill God as revenge for one of the gang members dying. Also featured in that day’s session was a battle between two men operating bucket cranes in a duel to the death above a giant grain silo, among eight other equally implausible events based loosely on Dante’s Inferno. For me, Mecha-Jesus is not a 300 notes event - it’s literally every other Friday.

What Do You Want to Play?

In my view, DnD often poses the question, “Are you even roleplaying?” I mean really. A lot of players feel like they are because they do an accent and come up with a backstory, but if you set yourself next to another player who has the same character stats and you’re playing together in the same game, has the system really given you the tools to solve problems all that differently? And the answer is is broadly, no.

I understand the counter-argument. Every player is unique. But in their way each Paladin in “World of Warcraft” is unique too. They have different gear, different competencies of player, and may take different abilities, but fundamentally they’re expected to crash dungeons and use what they’re given to kill monsters. The only advantage DnD has is that the GM can allow his players to interact with scenery items or talk to things, and you’ll see debate on exactly how much leniency a GM should give his players to act outside DnD’s base mechanics.

That’s a mentality. Some people like the safety of the system. They like to know what all the monsters are, what the risks are, what the rewards are, and have it all neatly lined up where you can see it. They want to join an Adventuring Guild that will bureaucratically assign a dungeon for them to attack so they always have something to do and a sure reward for doing it. The GM went through the trouble of drawing that dungeon out, after all. DnD is extremely safe.

And then there’s the alternative. I actually learned to roleplay among theater nerds who were already big into the concept of improv and narrative. One of them used to joke, “If you think DnD is the best system for the game, you know it’s not character-driven,” because any time you’re fine with trying to build an actual human around a set of level-up choices, you’re probably not designing the strongest possible personality.

Going back to media making DnD more popular, the first televised introduction to DnD I can personally recall is an episode of “Dexter’s Lab” where they address exactly this conflict. In it, Dexter runs a game where he forces his friends to play by his rules, where he wins. When Dexter rolls poorly, he turns the dice over to a better number and declares his evil wizard “fried” the team of adventurers. Then his sister, Dee Dee, takes over, and with no knowledge of the game’s rules at all, embarks on an improvised session of pure roleplaying where the guys tell her what they do and she tells them what happens. The sheets are just guidelines for them, and if they say they can do something Dee Dee accepts it.

Dee Dee’s roleplaying is open. It’s a void, and for some people, when you look into the void it looks back. How do you control everyone when they can do anything? It requires a certain level of trust that some players have a difficult time not abusing, yet weirdly everyone I’ve ever known who would lie and cheat during a roleplaying game actually preferred DnD, and I think I know why.

Rules Can Be Broken, but the Suspension of Disbelief is Immutable

The grognards that break the rules in DnD do so because the rules are so strict that they ironically can be easily broken. If the system says people take a certain amount of damage when they fall, and you find a way to throw to them that elevation consistently, by gum they’ll damn well take that damage. It’s in the rules! A friend I know combats this by saying if his players exploit the rules, then the monsters will start exploiting them too, to discourage arms races of bullshit.

What I’m describing is often called “rules lawyering”. So named because it involves finding a rules passage, interpreting the rule so the wording sounds like it favors an exploit, and then leveraging that into a powerful ability players were not meant to have. Because DnD requires you to know absolutely everything about your relative locations and words like “Attack” can have important diverging meanings depending on context, it’s a system extremely vulnerable to lawyering.

But with a more open system based on narrative and characters, it becomes harder to lawyer something you shouldn’t. In an open system, you build what the game calls for without consulting a bunch of charts and level guides. If you’re super heroes, you build super heroes. Cyborgs are cyborgs, Orcs are orcs - it’s whatever, and if you try to do anything outside the believability of the game, the GM tells you no. He has more authority in a more narrative game because the GM leads the narrative.

I’m personally fond of the Hero System, which ascribes massive ranges to all forms of weapons (a gun or eye laser can reach you down a long hallway) so the only general questions that need to be asked are, “Are you close enough to punch a guy?” and “Are you bunched up close enough to all be hit by this grenade?” You don’t need battle mats and the games play a lot more intuitively. There are two books of rules in Hero and they can be specific, but most of the rules revolve around character design rather than how to play, and fiddly things like physics or bursting through walls are meant to be decided depending on the type of game, at the GM’s discretion. There are guidelines, but they’re only that.

So if someone tells you they can punch through a wall in your noir investigator game, you tell them no, because the rules are just guidelines and in this game you can’t just drive your fist through a concrete brick even if you can find figures in the book that say maybe you can, because the book also says maybe you can’t - you’re expected to play the narrative, not the game. You can punch through walls in the super hero game where that’s typical, but not in this one.

From DnD to Anything Else

Of course, the open systems also present an opportunity for players to be very different in skill sets and abilities. You could imagine DnD is like “Power Rangers”, where everyone’s a different color and has different weapons but they’re basically all pretty much on the same level. An open system will wind up more like “Avatar the Last Airbender”, where one player is going to be Toph and someone else is going to be playing Sokka.

It’s important in DnD that everyone be the same, because a lot of the game is spent in a 20ft x 20ft room full of skeletons (or Putties) - Toph would single-handedly dominate every challenge. Whereas in a narrative-driven game the ability to crush everything with a rock doesn’t actually solve half your problems and whoever’s playing Sokka probably winds up more active than the person playing Toph.

At the end of it all, that’s why the question for me is whether you can take the players out of DnD and take DnD out of the players. Everyone plays DnD, but can you get people to play Sokka and have a good time if Toph is in the party? Personally I think it helps to start people on systems other than DnD, and then they can go into DnD if they like being in small rooms full of skeletons.

Of course, trying to start people on anything but DnD is usually defeated by the network utility! Everyone knows DnD! It’s THE system synonymous with the hobby! A few too many times I’ve seen people play a DnD game and say roleplaying just isn’t for them because it’s boring. All you do is wait for your turn and then roll dice at goblins.

But all I can say to that is, you never roleplayed, man. You joined a pen-and-paper video game. I agree, throwing dice at goblins sucks. I used to have a friend who would compulsively roll dice when he got bored waiting for turns in games like that, and when asked what he was rolling for, he’d joke, “I’m killing the dragon! I’m killing the dragon!” Him, enjoying the experience of DnD combat in between other people’s turns.

In many groups that’s all DnD is, silly accents and go-nowhere backstories aside. Acting is hard. But if you’re very lucky, and you know just the right people, it’s possible to land in a game that is pure story and character, and those things are a rare treasure and a real blast.

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annaxkeating · 5 years ago

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Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

While growth is excellent news, it also means that your competition is getting stronger. SaaS companies need to keep up if they want to stand out, and one of the best ways to stay ahead is to tap into marketing practices that are sometimes overlooked by your competition.

Surprisingly, content marketing is one of the most popular marketing strategies in the wider world, but it often gets disregarded or—worse—is done haphazardly in the SaaS space. This shouldn’t be the case.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

In this article, I’ll suggest a few types of content that are efficient in different stages of the customer journey, starting with interactive content. We’ll also focus on one SaaS marketing technique that has been somewhat forgotten in the digital sphere: direct sales.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Creating interactive content (like quizzes, surveys, polls, and calculators) is one of the best ways to attract new customers and engage them in a conversation. According to Kapost, interactive content generates twice as many conversions as passive content. And around 88% of marketers who use it say that interactive content helps them stand out from competitors.

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

And this, in turn, enables you to learn more about your customers (about, for instance, any problems and issues they might be facing or goals they’re looking to achieve). Then you can offer them a personalized solution that will cater to their specific individual needs. After all, your software already solves a particular problem—be it organizing employees, setting up an accounting system, or helping someone lose weight.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

LeadQuizzes is marketing automation software that started off as a marketing agency. After repeated success with using quizzes to build our clients’ email lists, we decided to turn quizzes into a business in its own right. And what better way to advertise quiz software than to use it to reach potential customers among the target group of professional marketers and small business owners.

With this in mind, we created a quiz that sought to address one of the most common challenges in the digital marketing world: generating leads and sales. The quiz targeted marketers and small business owners in the form of the Facebook quiz ad.

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

Before they got the answers, they had to fill out an opt-in form asking for their name, email, and number. And based on the respondent’s answers, we offered personalized solutions in the form of the quiz results.

In the first quiz, results led to a Calendly page where a potential customer could schedule a consultation because the goal was to acquire as many early adopters as possible. (Today, a similar quiz on the website leads customers to the landing page that includes useful marketing tips, an industry leader’s testimonial, and an offer to sign up.)

This is what worked for us, but if you feel that personalized results aren’t enough of an incentive for people to share their contact info, you can always use a lead magnet, such as a free ebook or discount, in combination with the quiz.

What’s the lesson here?

Based on the buyer’s needs and readiness, as well as your ultimate goal, the results can differ greatly. That’s why your landing page is a crucial detail that can make or break your user’s interactive experience. This is where your goal and their need should ideally meet.

Median conversion rates for classic PPC ads are between 3-6%, according to Unbounce’s Conversion Benchmark Report. Interactive content can double this percentage, while an effective landing page can boost it to 27%.

Using interactive content along with optimized landing pages, LeadQuizzes went on to close 189 clients in 2 years and generate $720,000 in annual revenue. But the road to that number took more than two steps.

Inevitably, however, some people who engage with your interactive content and landing page simply won’t sign up for your software. That’s life. The reasons may vary: they don’t need it at the moment, or it doesn’t entirely meet their requirements. So how do you keep them coming back?

Build and launch campaigns quickly. As Jeremy says, using landing pages in combination with interactive content can produce remarkable results. Unbounce’s drag-and-drop builder lets you create high-converting landing pages without developer bottlenecks. Read more about how we power your SaaS marketing here.

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

Around 70% of people who leave your website will never come back. Collecting their email addresses using interactive content is an insurance policy against this problem—and a way to stay in touch. If they’re not interested in your product, of course, they’re likely to unsubscribe. As long as they remain on your list, though, you keep the opportunity to offer them the right answer at the right time.

Having access to your potential and existing customer’s inbox is a perfect opportunity to build and nurture a good relationship. High-quality, personalized blog content enables you to assert yourself as an industry authority and a friendly partner to your customers.

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Using interactive content allows you to understand the level of customer’s buyer readiness, which dictates how “sales-y” your content should be. For example, if you sparked a customer’s interest but they didn’t purchase your product yet, you may want to use content to educate them. You can start with basic guides and 101-themed posts, and slowly build up their knowledge to more specific topics.

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

It’s a good example because they’re setting the expectations in terms of the follow-up emails that are to come (so they won’t seem too spammy), while the content of those emails is expected to educate you about the tool and convince you it’s valuable enough to make a purchase.

Personalizing content

Personalization comes in different forms. It starts with basic things, like using a personalized subject line that addresses the person by name. This small detail increases your open rate by as much as 50%. It’s also important to email your leads according to their time zone and location.

But personalization also means crafting content that responds to the person’s specific needs. A small business owner and manager in a large corporation may use your software. But they probably use it differently, face separate challenges, and have different goals and benchmarks.

Here’s an example of an email I got from a content aggregation platform Zest. One of their projects is creating an algorithm that will display super personalized content for each user inside the browser. This is one part of the experiment.

Social Media Lab (from social media management software Agorapulse) provides another good example of SaaS marketing at work. They seek to educate their customers through engaging experiments. While this email is fairly rudimentary (and lacks a simple personalization tweak: my name!) its content manages to be straightforward while arousing curiosity.

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

The great thing about generating leads using interactive content is that it allows you to take the guesswork out of this personalization. By asking the right questions, you can understand your target customer’s varying needs and problems, and write content accordingly.

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Once your email list grows to a certain point, using automation becomes a must. Marketing automation allows you to analyze your leads’ interaction with emails and your content, and optimize them for maximum effect.

Most importantly, automation enables you to forward the right messages to the right people at the desired time, without having to waste a lot of time doing everything manually. There’s a wide variety of available marketing automation tools that can help you scale your lead qualification and nurturing efforts.

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

While white papers and case studies are one type of classical passive content, they deserve special attention in SaaS marketing. In B2B SaaS, in particular, you’re going to engage with people who are professionals in their industry. And wowing them takes more than a good ad copy or engaging blog post. They want to see credibility and authority.

White papers

White papers are used in numerous fields, but the general definition is an authoritative report that addresses certain issues and offers solutions for them. In terms of SaaS marketing, a white paper represents a theory behind your product or technology. Just like with blog posts, its main purpose is to educate customers and help them make a decision.

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

The white paper’s main purpose is to assert yourself as a credible, authoritative solution and source of guidance. More than half of business-to-business marketers consider white papers effective marketing tools, and we agree. (Check out this sample of Google’s white paper for a little inspiration.)

Case studies

Case studies can also take a long time, although they are easier to assemble than a white paper. While they can be written in an informal style, and require only essential information, they still demand serious research.

But it’s worth the hard work: case studies help convert and accelerate leads, according to Marketing Charts. A case study can give a huge boost to your credibility—people automatically feel more confident about your software if they see you are working with big brands they already know and trust.

The case study requires your client or customer to be ready to reveal their specific, detailed business strategy, show you and the rest of the world their numbers, and prove that it was your software that helped them reach great results.

But how can you produce case studies if you’re just a beginner in the industry? Apart from approaching your existing customers, it’s also possible to approach the industry leaders with fine-tuned cold outreach. But these users have to be incentivized to share their business secrets with you—whether it’s going to be a discount, free subscription, mutual marketing arrangement, etc.

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

It’s all too easy to forget the power of 1-on-1 conversation in the world of digital solutions. But sales are a marketing technique in their own right and doing them like in “the good old days” may be just what makes your SaaS business stand out.

Of course, we’re not talking about the annoying telemarketer calls. We are talking about reaching out to the customers who are ready and highly likely to buy your product. Engaging them with each type of content we’ve mentioned so far will give you a fairly clear picture of their readiness over time.

Remember that we mentioned in the first section that LeadQuizzes led some quiz takers directly to a Calendly page? Alternatively, some were contacted after a lead nurturing email sequence. But in both cases, the phone calls were incredibly successful and the investment paid off.

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

They help you close a mutually satisfying deal. Sure, you can list all of your software’s features on the landing page. But presenting them to a client personally, explaining how each feature plays into their specific goals, is much more effective. It enables you to improve retention and reduce churn early on because you are making sure the customers get everything they need in their subscription plan.

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

Making your name in the crowded SaaS world isn’t easy, but it becomes easier when you realize that your marketing strategy stems from the specific nature of your product. As you’re building software, build it with the user in mind. You want to make things simpler and more effective for them. SaaS marketing is all about communicating these thoughts to the customers.

Content marketing and direct sales are a fantastic way to truly empathize and connect with your customer. Once that happens, you build a mutually beneficial relationship in which enables you to develop your product and stay ahead.

from Digital https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#digital marketing

0 notes

itsjessicaisreal · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

josephkchoi · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked) published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

0 notes

jjonassevilla · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#SEO

0 notes

samanthasmeyers · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#Digital Marketing

0 notes

kennethmontiveros · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked) published first on http://nickpontemktg.blogspot.com/

0 notes

roypstickney · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

0 notes

reviewandbonuss · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/

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howtoloseweightfastsafely · 6 years ago

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Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Good news.

You're not imagining things.

Some people have it way easier when it comes to weight loss. And some people have it way easier when it comes to muscle building, or maintaining weight.

Some people are naturally skinny, naturally heavier and naturally muscular, and some have naturally fast metabolisms.

You see, there are actually 3 distinct human body types, and there are various genetics that play a role in our body's shapes and processes.

These varying body types and genetic backgrounds end up playing a major role in whether it's difficult or easy to lose fat and gain muscle.

Here are the 3 types:

Type 1 - Ectomorphs: We've all met someone like this. Ectomorphs are naturally thin, agile and often tall, lanky people. These are the guys and gals who, no matter how much or little they eat, seem to gain no weight at all.

Type 2 - Endomorphs: These are the guys and girls whose bodies are extraordinarily skilled at storing fat, and have the hardest time keeping weight off. (Most overweight/obese types, myself included, are natural endomorphs.)

Type 3 - Mesomorphs: Mesomorphs naturally maintain a larger muscle mass. For these "blessed" types, fat loss is easy, and muscle gain is quick. They tend to be more athletic than the majority of people, but not necessarily thin.

The good news is that no one is "stuck" because of their body type.

Endomorphs can become thin, and ectomorphs can become muscular. The best thing we can do for ourselves is to learn/understand our body type. In doing so, we can help custom tailor a diet and exercise routine that provide the best results in the shortest amount of time.

If You're an Ectomorph (Carb Type):

A lot of people think being an ectomorph is a great thing due to the fast metabolism and natural "skinny-ness". But if you're an actual ectomorph, you know you have tons of trouble gaining weight and building muscle.

Anyone who eats an excess of calories can gain weight (and build muscle when the diet is complemented by exercise), but ectomorphs often have to eat specific high-calorie foods (generally starchy carbs) or their body just won't stay hungry enough to be able to ingest a substantial amount of calories.

Due to their higher carb tolerance, ectomorphs are often called "carb types".

The genetic elements that make ectomorphs thin are the same that make weight-gain and musclebuilding difficult. As a result, the genetic makeup severely limits the amount of muscle your body can maintain. So you can build muscle, but you're unlikely to ever look like Arnold Schwarzenegger (unless you are rigorous with your dietary intake, day in and day out, year after year).

Ectomorph Stats:

Best results when eating higher carbs, moderate protein, and low fat

55% Carbs, 25% Protein, 20% Fat

Start at these numbers, and decrease calories gradually to burn fat.

If fat loss is slowing, reduce calories by 5% every two weeks. It's best to reduce this percentage from carbs, but reducing from protein or fat usually works just as well for ectomorphs

Never go below 15% or above 35% of fat as a percentage of calories.

If You're an Endomorph (Protein Type):

Endomorphs are naturally heavier people who will always be a little bit thicker and "pudgier" than ectomorphs or mesomorphs. This is generally attributed to their sluggish metabolism.

BUT, that doesn't mean they can't be sexy! Some of the most famous - and beautiful - people in the world are endomorphs.

Russell Crowe, Jennifer Lopez and Beyonce are all physically fit natural endomorphs, and there's nothing wrong with the way they look. (Seriously, we all know "Jlo" and Beyonce are HOT, and the little extra junk in the trunk definitely doesn't hurt!). If anything, they've just had to work a little harder than their counterparts to maintain a body size/shape that they're happy with.

If your goal is to have a low body fat percentage, you can definitely do it, but you've got your work cut out for you.

Endomorphs are often called "protein types" due to their lower carb tolerance and higher protein needs for successful body re-composition.

Endomorph Stats:

25% Carbs, 25-35% Protein, 40-50% Fat

Start with a much lower level of carbs. The 25% mentioned is a great "maintenance" point, once insulin resistance/leptin resistance/inflammation and other issues are handled.

I recommend starting at 50-75 grams of carbs per day - this will be low carb, but above the ketogenic threshold. When combined with adequate protein, your body will have a sufficient amount of natural glucose.

Do not stay in the 50-75 carb range for more than 12 weeks at a time, without a 2-week break with higher carb intake.

In the long-term, for maintenance and/or during heavy exercise phases, I would keep around 25% (and a maximum of 30%) of carbs as a percentage of calories.

If You're a Mesomorph (Mixed Type):

Congratulations! You swim in the deeper end of the gene pool. You have the body type of the best fitness models and bodybuilders in the world.

You have a great metabolism, great bones, you're naturally lean (not skinny, like an ectomorph) and naturally muscular (not "thick" like an endomorph.)

If you're a mesomorph, you're probably not reading too many books on how to lose weight - after all, if you keep up even a modicum of exercise and diet, you've got a body most of the rest of us would kill for.

However, there are, in fact, mesomorphs out there struggling with their weight because of the typical American diet. Take this to heart. You don't have to work anywhere near as hard as ectomorphs and endomorphs to get the body of your dreams, but if you're a few pounds above where you want to be, you'll have to put in some effort!

Mesomorph Stats

Body shape - Wide shoulders, narrow hips, muscular body/low body fat, square jaw

Examples - Michael Jordan, Madonna, George Clooney, Halle Berry

Dietary/Hormonal Points - fast metabolism and great nutrient partitioning; strong levels of testosterone and growth hormone; unhealthy foods may not cause subcutaneous (visible/under the skin fat), but can quickly cause visceral, "hidden" fat surrounding the vital organs

When decreasing calories, start by cutting carbs. In the long-run, though, mesomorphs can get by with cutting calories from any source.

Interested in losing weight? Then click below to see the exact steps I took to lose weight and keep it off for good...

Read the previous article about "How to beat your mental roadblocks and why it can be the difference between a happy, satisfying life and a sad, fearful existence (these strategies will reduce stress, increase productivity"

Read the next article about "If you want maximum results in minimum time you're going to have to work out (and workout hard, at that)"

Moving forward, there are several other articles/topics I'll share so you can lose weight even faster, and feel great doing it.

Below is a list of these topics and you can use this Table of Contents to jump to the part that interests you the most.

Topic 1: How I Lost 30 Pounds In 90 Days - And How You Can Too

Topic 2: How I Lost Weight By Not Following The Mainstream Media And Health Guru's Advice - Why The Health Industry Is Broken And How We Can Fix It

Topic 3: The #1 Ridiculous Diet Myth Pushed By 95% Of Doctors And "experts" That Is Keeping You From The Body Of Your Dreams

Topic 4: The Dangers of Low-Carb and Other "No Calorie Counting" Diets

Topic 5: Why Red Meat May Be Good For You And Eggs Won't Kill You

Topic 6: Two Critical Hormones That Are Quietly Making Americans Sicker and Heavier Than Ever Before

Topic 7: Everything Popular Is Wrong: The Real Key To Long-Term Weight Loss

Topic 8: Why That New Miracle Diet Isn't So Much of a Miracle After All (And Why You're Guaranteed To Hate Yourself On It Sooner or Later)

Topic 9: A Nutrition Crash Course To Build A Healthy Body and Happy Mind

Topic 10: How Much You Really Need To Eat For Steady Fat Loss (The Truth About Calories and Macronutrients)

Topic 11: The Easy Way To Determining Your Calorie Intake

Topic 12: Calculating A Weight Loss Deficit

Topic 13: How To Determine Your Optimal "Macros" (And How The Skinny On The 3-Phase Extreme Fat Loss Formula)

Topic 14: Two Dangerous "Invisible Thorn" Foods Masquerading as "Heart Healthy Super Nutrients"

Topic 15: The Truth About Whole Grains And Beans: What Traditional Cultures Know About These So-called "Healthy Foods" That Most Americans Don't

Topic 16: The Inflammation-Reducing, Immune-Fortifying Secret of All Long-Living Cultures (This 3-Step Process Can Reduce Chronic Pain and Heal Your Gut in Less Than 24 Hours)

Topic 17: The Foolproof Immune-enhancing Plan That Cleanses And Purifies Your Body, While "patching Up" Holes, Gaps, And Inefficiencies In Your Digestive System (And How To Do It Without Wasting $10+ Per "meal" On Ridiculous Juice Cleanses)

Topic 18: The Great Soy Myth (and The Truth About Soy in Eastern Asia)

Topic 19: How Chemicals In Food Make Us Fat (Plus 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply)

Topic 20: 10 Banned Chemicals Still in the U.S. Food Supply

Topic 21: How To Protect Yourself Against Chronic Inflammation (What Time Magazine Calls A "Secret Killer")

Topic 22: The Truth About Buying Organic: Secrets The Health Food Industry Doesn't Want You To Know

Topic 23: Choosing High Quality Foods

Topic 24: A Recipe For Rapid Aging: The "Hidden" Compounds Stealing Your Youth, Minute by Minute

Topic 25: 7 Steps To Reduce AGEs and Slow Aging

Topic 26: The 10-second Trick That Can Slash Your Risk Of Cardiovascular Mortality By 37% (Most Traditional Cultures Have Done This For Centuries, But The Pharmaceutical Industry Would Be Up In Arms If More Modern-day Americans Knew About It)

Topic 27: How To Clean Up Your Liver and Vital Organs

Topic 28: The Simple Detox 'Cheat Sheet': How To Easily and Properly Cleanse, Nourish, and Rid Your Body of Dangerous Toxins (and Build a Lean Well-Oiled "Machine" in the Process)

Topic 29: How To Deal With the "Stress Hormone" Before It Deals With You

Topic 30: 7 Common Sense Ways to Have Uncommon Peace of Mind (or How To Stop Your "Stress Hormone" In Its Tracks)

Topic 31: How To Sleep Like A Baby (And Wake Up Feeling Like A Boss)

Topic 32: The 8-step Formula That Finally "fixes" Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested (If You Ever Find Yourself Hitting The Snooze Every Morning Or Dozing Off At Work, These Steps Will Change Your Life Forever)

Topic 33: For Even Better Leg Up And/or See Faster Results In Fixing Years Of Poor Sleep, Including Trouble Falling Asleep, Staying Asleep, And Waking Up Rested, Do The Following:

Topic 34: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 35: Part 1 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 36: Part 2 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 37: Part 3 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 38: Part 4 of 4: Solution To Overcoming Your Mental Barriers and Cultivating A Winner's Mentality

Topic 39: How To Beat Your Mental Roadblocks And Why It Can Be The Difference Between A Happy, Satisfying Life And A Sad, Fearful Existence (These Strategies Will Reduce Stress, Increase Productivity And Show You How To Fulfill All Your Dreams)

Topic 40: Maximum Fat Loss in Minimum Time: The Body Type Solution To Quick, Lasting Results

Topic 41: If You Want Maximum Results In Minimum Time You're Going To Have To Work Out (And Workout Hard, At That)

Topic 42: Food Planning For Maximum Fat Loss In Minimum Time

Topic 43: How To Lose Weight Fast If You're in Chronic Pain

Topic 44: Nutrition Basics for Fast Pain Relief (and Weight Loss)

Topic 45: How To Track Results (And Not Fall Into the Trap That Ruins 95% of Well-Thought Out Diets)

Topic 46: Advanced Fat Loss - Calorie Cycling, Carb Cycling and Intermittent Fasting

Topic 47: Advanced Fat Loss - Part I: Calorie Cycling

Topic 48: Advanced Fat Loss - Part II: Carb Cycling

Topic 49: Advanced Fat Loss - Part III: Intermittent Fasting

Topic 50: Putting It All Together

Learn more by visiting our website here: invigoratenow.com

#weightloss #diet

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pushbuttontraffic · 4 years ago

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How to Come Up With Content Ideas That Drive Traffic

There's so many topics that you can be blogging on. But how can you pick blog post topics that consistently generate more traffic? Hey everyone I'm Neil Patel and today I'm going to break down how to come up with blog topic, ideas that consistently generate traffic ( upbeat music ) Before we get started, make sure you subscribe to this channel and if you're on YouTube click the alert notification. Now. First, off what I want you to do is go to Ubersuggest, So neilpatel Com/Ubersuggest - and I want you to put in your domain name If you don't get a lot of traffic well, you can put in one of the competitor domain names see what they're blogging on, But I recommend that you first start off by putting in your own domain Name And when you put in your own domain name it'll, look something like this. This breaks down all the other, similar websites that are related to yours. So when you put in your URL it'll allow you to analyze your competitors And you'll see a list here at the top. You see, I see Forbes Word Stream, Neil Patel, which is mine, Searching Journal, HubSpot, Hootsuite And there's many many more options. What I want you to do is cross off the ones. Click the X buttons to the ones that aren't that related See Forbes, I'm a marketing blog. They talk about many more things than just marketing. So I'm going to X that one out - And this right here is pretty good. So what I want to do now is scroll down and you want to look at key word gaps. Keyword gaps shows you all the keywords that your competitors rank for, that you don't rank for, And you want to go through the list. So let me start off with WordStream, So if I click view all under WordStream, this will show me the keyword gaps for WordStream Now. Some of these keywords don't get tons of traffic. Some of themdo And you know presentations So presentations marketing. They go well together. Podcasts advertising look at the CPC on that one. So I'll! Look at podcasts advertising here And then I want you to do - is Google for podcast advertising You'll see if you rank, I look my buddy Eric ranks high up Our WordStream rank's there Marketing land - I don't see neilpatel.com, And it doesn't mean that I don't have a blog post on podcasts advertising. This is why I'm scrolling a little bit just to make sure to see if I have a post on podcast advertising. Because if I don't, I can then write a article on podcast advertising. Next you'll want to go into your own WordPress back end or your blogging back end and search for posts with that term. So I'm going to search for podcast advertising and I have tons of content here, as you can see, 7,100 Podcasts through paid ads How to promote your podcast to pay ads. That'S not on podcast, I don't know how to get podcast sponsors, As you can see here, based on the titles, there's nothing that really focuses just on podcast advertising, such as how podcasts advertising works or how to advertise on podcasts. Those are all examples of podcasts advertising. So if I go back to page one, I can then look at podcast advertising. The number one ranking site is Midroll, the world's largest podcast advertising network, The Single Grain, one is podcast advertising. What you need to know - And this URL here gets around 33,792 visits. I can click that and it'll load up all the other keywords that the URL ranks for In many cases it can be a lot and lot of URLs . So then, that way, once it loads up, you can see it All right: advertise podcast, podcasts advertising, podcast marketing, podcast advertisers, podcast ad. I can keep clicking next and it'll. Give me more and more suggestions. What you'll want to do is export these keywords and it'll. Take you to neilpatel.com, where you can export'em And once you export'em you'll have a list of keywords that you can include in your blog posts. So now I know, look Eric's getting a lot of traffic for podcast advertising, This one's getting 15,000 And it's not all about. If you rank at the top, you get the most traffic. As you can see here, this one ranks higher gets 15,000 This one ranks here: second, it gets 33,000. The reason being is the second one is going after more keywords: more than just podcasts advertising. Ex, as I showed you here, podcast ad or podcasting marketing, These are all other variations that can also drive traffic as well, And then what I want you to do, if you actually don't have this actually a quick step you can take. Is you just google Ubersuggest Chrome extension It'S the first result here You can install it and then that way, whenever you do, Google searches like I did you'll end up getting the traffic estimation right here, which is the estimated visits for that specific URL And the WordStream one as you can see, which is Where I got the idea from gets 5,700, So you can go through a few of them and it'll, give you ideas And then I'll also want you to load up the actual blog post. So this one is on Single Grain, I'll load it up. Let me load up the WordStream one, Let's see who else gets decent traffic? Some of these don't get much traffic 2,000. 1,000. This one gets 15,000 And the reason you want to load up, the bigger ones is, keep in mind. You may not always rank as high as other people. Sadly, no matter how good you are at SEO. A lot of it has to do with content, quality and factors that you can't control. Such as relevancy, how much authority your site has in the niche, But what you'll want to do is you'll want to load up a few of the blog posts. So here's a Single Grain, one podcast advertising, what you need to know. And it's pretty thorough. I would take much much more time reading it to see what they're doing really well And then I can end up trying to create a better version of it And then let me go to the WordStream one podcasts advertise 101. 4 tips to get you started. Similar, I would just go through the whole process. See what they're doing that's unique and just try to create a better version, The Midroll one. This is more so like a landing page that just talks about that they're, a podcast advertising network. So I wouldn't copy this one, And even these I wouldn't copy'em. I would try to create better versions of it. So you want to poke holes. What is their content not covering? Is it up-to-date? Do they talk about networks where you can advertise on podcasts? Do they talk about what you should be paying The more end-up you can get, the better you can be The better. You can separate yourself from the other competitors, the more likely you are to rank. So when I go through the process of writing content for neilpatel.com part of the content that we create is advanced expert content. For example, the other day I published a piece of content that is on the new way of blogging. And I'll load it up really quickly, so you can see - And with this piece of content, this piece of content wasn't meant to get Google traffic. It was meant to get social traffic and back-links, And I broke down stats here where, if you write advance content with a lot of stats and data - And I use stats like I'm not going to break down all of them that you can see here in the Charts And I talk about how advanced content gets less SEO traffic, but it gets more social shares and it gets more back-links per post And I also break that down for other blogs. That'S not Neil Patel, but more Facebook shares more back-links per post. I even have a little stat here for content with graphs and data. They tend to get more back-links versus content without And a portion of my time, roughly 10 % of the time which I break down in this post. I write advanced content, But 40 % of the time. What we do is we use this process that I broke down in Ubersuggest, where Let me go back to Ubersuggest. I can't find the tab Either way where we use a keyword gaps like I showed you to write content on stuff. That gets a lot of search traffic Like how to's how to change a toilet. How podcast advertising works? And then 20 % of the time we update our old content, because that way Google wants to rank fresh content. So anything, that's outdated, just make sure you're updating it. If it has any outdated information change it, If there's anything irrelevant change it. If that topic's no longer relevant EX talking about how MySpace is a popular social network, You can either delete the posts and 301 redirect it to maybe a post on Facebook, And then you would want to try to make your content better over time. When I say update it, maybe there's images that you can include. Maybe there's videos that you can include to get your message across better And then the other 30 % of the time I promote the content, As I mentioned, don't forget the marketing in content marketing. So that's how I create content that drives traffic I really go and dig deep see what my competitors are ranking for that I'm not That's what the keyword gaps is all about, And then I create content around that topic. Read more : Free Traffic Source For Affiliate Marketing In 2021 – Secret Method Revealed! Read the full article

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imapplied · 6 years ago

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How to Get High-Quality B2B Leads with Facebook Ads

Allen Finn already wrote the definitive piece for WordStream on why Facebook ads can be great for B2B.

But at the time I write this, only 39% of marketers say they’ve even tried using Facebook ads to create conversations with B2B prospects, according to Zoominfo.

If Finn’s piece wasn’t enough to convince you, I’m going to share my own experience about why I think it’s insane that Facebook is so underrated for B2B, and I’ll tell you three ways to generate high-quality B2B leads.

The Case for B2B Facebook Ads

According to Marketing Charts‘ summary of a Hubspot report, the average cost-per-B2B-lead for agencies in 2017, from all channels, was $172.72.

By contrast, when we run Facebook campaigns for our agency clients, it’s not unusual to see it as low as $50. In fact, here’s a screenshot from a real campaign we’re running for an agency client.

(And, as I’ll explain below, we’re excluding a lot of the cheaper leads because we focus on quality.)

What’s more, the average cost per click on LinkedIn, the most popular social channel for B2B (the source of over 80% of B2B leads) was $6.50 in 2017. On Facebook, those same clicks are available for $1-$2.

So it’s clear there’s a gap between Facebook’s utility as a source of bargain B2B leads and how business owners and marketers perceive the platform.

Facebook’s reputation as a recreational network – in contrast to LinkedIn’s as a place where “serious business people” congregate – is doubtless responsible for some of the misunderstanding.

But I’ve also spoken to plenty of small businesses who have tried Facebook, and many believe it simply doesn’t work.

“We can drive clicks all day,” they’ll tell me, “but we never close any of them. They’ll almost all unqualified.”

One business owner I spoke to had gotten more than 50 leads in the last month, and only one was qualified.

Again, that contrasts with the results we’ve seen firsthand. For instance, here are some stats for a client campaign from the last ten days: 18 leads* for a total of $691.73 in ad spend. After an audit, we determined that seven of them appeared “qualified” (full-time entrepreneurs, legitimate websites).

That’s just under $100 per qualified lead.

All of which begs the question: if many business owners and marketers are only generating unqualified leads, what are the successful marketers doing differently?

In the remainder of this article, my goal is to share with you the things we know for sure moved the needle to improve the quality of B2B leads – as opposed to untested theories, or things that might have had an effect but we can’t isolate it – so that you can apply them in your B2B lead generation strategies and skip past the part where most businesses get stuck.

*The reason we get fewer leads overall – although many more qualified leads than some campaigns – is that we introduce friction in the funnel, by requiring people to certify they are full-time business owners, and/or meet a certain income level, before they can book-a-call.

Use Proof

Think about the last time you made a big procurement decision for your business.

Did you look at lots of options, compare a number of features, seek the opinions of others, and approach the decision deliberately and carefully?

Or did you immediately hire the first sponsored result that came up after a 15-second Google search?

If you said option two, then I’ve got a bridge to sell you.

In all seriousness, your clients likely arrive at decisions the same way. If you cater to million-dollar businesses with marketing departments, they don’t take lightly the decision to hire an agency. The most qualified prospects are efficient and forthcoming, and they respect your time.

But, I’m sure you’ll agree, most don’t make knee-jerk decisions

That’s why using proof in your Facebook ads is one of the best ways to ensure that qualified prospects will fill out your contact forms and call you on the phone.

To illustrate the magic of proof, we ran the following split test:

We were already using proof in one client’s ad:

But we decided to pull out all the stops. We removed all the numerical proof from both the ad and the landing page of one ad, and we doubled down on another, punching up the headline with even more proof:

Here’s the sub-headline of the landing page from the “Uber-Proof” version:

And here’s the landing page with the sub-headline removed:

Then we let the test run for two weeks to collect data.

The results?

Caveats first: a split test expert will tell you this is by no means statistically significant. You’d need thousands of conversions.

But it’s strongly suggestive that the data underpins what makes sense to us intuitively when we put ourselves in the shoes of a business owner considering hiring the business running the ad: proof works.

Let the Algorithm Work

Most of the articles I’ve read on B2B lead generation on the Facebook ads platform mention the multiple ways you can slice-and-dice your audience.

And many mention defining a client avatar really specifically…

Are they a CEO or a CMO?

Are they male or female?

Do they like apple pie or cherry pie?

Okay, maybe not the last one. But most articles do go on to suggest making a fine-grained uber-audience, with tons of cross-referenced targeting parameters.

There’s just one problem: we’ve tested these “smart” audiences against “dumb” audiences, and they’ve got a pretty poor track record.

Here’s how a “dumb” audience, with just three interests and little else, performed in a recent campaign:

Here’s how a “smart” one, with seven total parameters – two demographic and five interests – performed in the same campaign (fewer impressions because we shut it down once it got blown away):

Zilch.

Of course, we’re cherry-picking here (even though there are dozens of other examples I could include if I weren’t conscientious of taking your time).

But it only takes one counterexample to disprove a theory – that complex audiences and “pre-defined” avatars always perform better – and we’ve got countless such examples.

In fact, we’re hard-pressed to find a “smart” audience that does outperform a dumb one.

I’ve got two hypotheses for why this is: one theoretical and one grounded in Facebook ads theory.

First, if you’re a fellow fan of Nassim Taleb’s books The Black Swan and Antifragile, you’re familiar with his theories on “teaching birds to fly.”

Simply put, human beings have a pretty garbage track record of predicting the future (see the ‘08 financial crash) or determining in advance what people will buy and what they won’t (see practically any business case study).

A “smart” audience in Facebook does just that: tries to predict in advance the exact characteristics of buyers, subscribers, clickers, or leads.

The more effective way to tell?

Trial and error.

That’s why, for every campaign, we put up to 100 potential interests in a spreadsheet and test at least five of them in parallel at all times.

We let the results tell us which targeting parameters work best.

My second theory is really just a Facebook fact: as long as you’re tracking the right conversion parameter, the algorithm will figure out who to show the ad to in order to get the lowest conversion costs. (It’s worth shouting out another important point of Allen Finn’s article: make sure you know how to use the tracking pixel!)

When it comes to how much audience you give Facebook to “play with,” there’s a balance. Make your audience too broad, and you’ll run out of budget showing your ad to everybody in the universe before you get any conversions. But narrow your audience too much, and you’re limiting the algorithm’s ability to find potentially qualified prospects.

And a lot of the “smart audiences” do just that: exclude people Facebook could potentially identify as good prospects.

Get SUPER Specific with Your Copy

There’s a marketing saying that goes “Google is where people go to make a decision; Facebook is where they go to avoid making a decision.”

And yet, as I’ve shown, some of the cheapest qualified B2B leads are not on Google ads but rather on Facebook.

So what gives?

Well, there’s less competition, for one, as long as most business owners continue to believe Facebook “doesn’t work” for B2B.

And it’s also harder to create bidding wars of the type you see on Google ads, because Facebook’s platform is audience-based rather than keyword-search-based.

But the above axiom does get one thing right: You don’t have the luxury of just being the-thing-somebody’s-searching-for:

That’s an advantage if you don’t want to be commoditized and comparison-shopped, like the mowers above.

But it requires getting your prospect’s attention while she’s on Facebook to do something other than search for solutions to her business problems…

…and that requires specific copy.

First, a self-evident example:

Say you’re fed up with your inventory software.

You wish it pushed real-time updates to all the handsets. That way your employees wouldn’t have to waste time logging on to one of the core computers to check their inventory.

Now, say there was a software company who made just that.

Do you think you might click on an ad that said “Finally – an inventory software that pushes updates in real-time,” with a headline that said, “Stop Wasting Time Logging on and Get Back to Business”?

I sure would, in this obviously completely hypothetical example.

What if instead it said, “Acme Inventory Software, for all your inventory needs”?

You might, if you were bored. Or desperate.

But hopefully you see my point. Specificity matters when you’re getting people’s attention while they’re looking at baby pictures on Facebook.

Want to Try Facebook Ads for Your Business, But Scared of Unqualified Leads?

When businesses see crappy results from Facebook ads, it usually takes on of the following forms:

Part-timers/”wantrapreneurs”

People who want something-for-free

Time wasters

But, as we’ve shown, qualified prospects are out there, and they will respond to your company. You need to:

Show them proof you really do what you say you do

Define your campaign goals carefully, and find the right balance with targeting

Get ultra-specific with your copy

Unqualified leads will waste your time. Apply these tactics to your Facebook ads account, and I guarantee you’ll not only have fewer of those but also attract more of those high-quality B2B leads you’re looking for.

About the author

Nathaniel Smith is a direct response marketing strategist who specializes in Facebook ads for B2B.

Original Article

from https://www.imapplied.co.za/social-media/how-to-get-high-quality-b2b-leads-with-facebook-ads/

0 notes

annaxkeating · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

from Digital https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

#digital marketing

0 notes

itsjessicaisreal · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

from Marketing https://unbounce.com/content-marketing/saas-marketing-techniques/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

0 notes

josephkchoi · 5 years ago

Text

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked)

The Software as a Service (SaaS) industry is growing at a rapid rate. According to Statista, this year its value is predicted to reach around $124.53 billion worldwide.

Given its efficiency at attracting new leads and nurturing existing ones, content marketing is a perfect opportunity for you to respond to your prospects’ needs in a unique way.

Let’s dive in.

1. Use Interactive Content to Offer Personalized Solutions

Why? Interactive content is solution-oriented. It taps into the primary need of an average SaaS customer.

Put simply, when you start off creating interactive content, you’ll want to think about the following questions:

Who is my customer?

What problem am I trying to solve?

Which solutions and features do I offer?

An Example of Interactive SaaS Marketing

This interactive quiz offered personalized solutions for digital marketers based on their answers to a few questions.

The questions we asked focused on the potential client’s existing website traffic, budget, and marketing objectives. Here are a few examples:

How much website traffic do you receive per month?

0 – 5,000 visitors per month

5,001 – 10,000 visitors per month

10,001+ visitors per month

How many leads are you getting each month?

0 – 500 leads per month

501 – 1,000 leads per month

1,001+ leads per month

Do you offer a discount as an opt-in on your website?

Yes

What’s the lesson here?

2. Use “Passive” Content to Nurture Leads

But what does make a high-quality blog content? According to Single Grain, some of the most important lead nurturing content practices include:

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

Personalizing your content

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

Let’s look at how each one of these practices builds upon the data you can gather using interactive content.

Adjusting content to your sales funnel

For example, this is the welcome email I got after I subscribed for the lead generation tool. In it, the Oxyleads team outlines our future communication:

Mia’s email here sets expectations (and reassures the recipient that they won’t get hit with spam).

Personalizing content

Finally, here’s an amazing example from Grammarly of personalizing content in a less formal way. Every week, they inform me about my writing stats:

But apart from inspiring a sense of accomplishment with personalized insights, this email also sneaks in a call to action to upgrade my plan:

Know a SaaS marketer who’d benefit from this advice? Share this post with your followers on Twitter.

Using marketing automation

Doing follow-ups

How often you’re going to follow-up depends on your customer’s current position in the sales funnel. The “hotter” the lead, the more information they need.

For example, here’s the follow-up email I got from Oxyleads a few days after I spent my free credits:

This follow-up email from Oxyleads reminds the lead about the features they’ll gain from choosing a Professional or Premium plan.

3. Gain Credibility with White Papers and Case Studies

White papers

A high-quality white paper typically includes:

Structure and length. While a white paper is longer than a blog post, it’s still shorter than an ebook. It has at least six pages and can take between a few weeks and a few months to write.

Format and style. A white paper is formal, detailed, and informative, often written in an “academic” style (i.e., it shouldn’t sound like marketing, even if it is).

Good design. Even though the tone might be academic, that doesn’t mean your white paper should look like a college essay. Compelling design is a must!

Case studies

Editor’s note. Seeing is believing. Here are some examples of how Unbounce uses customer stories and case studies to highlight the effectiveness of landing pages, popups, and sticky bars.

4. Use Traditional Sales (No, Really)

Why are traditional sales so effective in SaaS?

Don’t worry that this technique will come across as aggressive—remember, this is the sales part reserved for leads who are genuinely interested in your software.

Conclusion

Four SaaS Marketing Techniques (That You Might Have Overlooked) published first on https://nickpontemrktg.wordpress.com/

0 notes