Lead Generation tools | Which one is really best?!
Lead Generation Tools:
Lead Generation is one of the challenging tasks for marketers today. Lead Generation is the process of identifying potential customers and converting visitors into clients.
In Bolsternow, we have worked with clients who have customers all around the globe. We had been analyzing few lead generation tools by extend our services to one such customer of ours. We have wrapped up the features of the tools as a blog and in particular have discussed about the features available in free plan of every tools which has been analyzed.
Have a look at it to know the best lead generation tool!!!
GetProspect :
GetProspect is a lead generation tool with an email finder. Their simple search form enables efficient lead generation and easy management of these leads. Import your own lists with names and company names to find lead emails, and export your sales leads to XLS file with extracted emails and other info. They have integrations with apps like Salesforce, Pipedrive, Hubspot, and Gmail.
A free plan where they offer up to 100 emails per month is available
Lusha is a powerful chrome extension that allows you to find contact details, such as email addresses and phone numbers through social network profiles. Free plan – 5 free credits per month, (Email Addresses, Phone Numbers)
Features
Can create forms, integrations available, Create lists by adding contacts from linkedin (5 credits/mo)
Domain Search: search of email addresses from a domain name or company name
Email Finder: search of an email address from a first name, a last name and a domain name.
Email Verification: verification of an email address to check if it is deliverable or not.
Free plan –
50 request / month
Features:
Can save leads and create list and do email campaigns, perform domain search, email search and verify emails, can create campaigns by configuring with Gmail
Aids sales professionals to find new prospects, research accounts, and personalize outreach with real-time news tracking. Can monitor what people are saying about your brand, and stay informed on the industry news that impacts your business. Track companies with Owler to get smarter news alerts and gain insight into industry shifts and trends.
Free plan –
10 company data/month, Competitive data – top 3/month, News & alerts – Track 5 companies
Features:
Can monitor data’s from competitive companies and view track it
ZoomInfo offers the most actionable and accurate business insights available today. ZoomInfo collects data about international business people. Information is gathered via web crawling (for biographic data) and email plugins that collect signature information such as name, title, company, direct dial, and email. This information is then available to its customers who use it primarily for sales, marketing, and executive recruitment. Customer use cases include prospecting lists for B2B email and telemarketing campaigns, data hygiene (i.e. confirming you are still at a company and that your contact information is accurate), and call prep prior to telemarketing or recruitment calls.
Free plan –
We will be able to login only if we request for a demo.
ZeroBounce is a great way to protect your sender reputation for email marketing. It detects and removes known abuse and spam trap emails, temporary addresses, invalid, toxic and catch-all domains. It’s not only a powerful tool that boosts deliverability, but it also offers data about your subscribers that you can use when segmenting your lists. ZeroBounce is a fast and easy to use email validator, and it also includes an API.
Free Plan –
Email validation and scoring – 100 Credits, Detailed Status code, IP Address Geo Location, 18 Validation Tools Included
Deliverability Toolkit- 1 Inbox Placement Test,1 Email Server Testing
Features:
Features include Validating single email and bulk emails by uploading file, integration available, API Keys, AI Email scoring system to score the valid email address
Funnelbake is a unique email outreaching tool that goes into the Nth Level of automation to send out emails
Free trial – all plans as 14 day trial
Email marketing – add contacts and customize the fields needed, create templates, create campaigns, send calendar, view analytics, fix meetings, can configure with Gmail, integration available with zapier
Pipedrive is a web-based Sales CRM and pipeline management solution that enables businesses to plan their sales activities and monitor deals. Built using activity-based selling methodology, Pipedrive streamlines every action involved in converting a potential deal into a successful sale.
Free trial – 14 days
Features:
Add/Import Leads, Lead Booster option by turning visitors into leads, automatically schedule a meeting, webforms, create deals, pipedrive mail, can add contacts, explore insights of deals, can configure with Gmail
Drift is as a conversational marketing platform. We can use it for live chat for support but it’s more focused on live chat for capturing and qualifying leads. We can set up a unique profile URL, where leads can chat directly with you or schedule a meeting on calendar.
Features:
Conversational Marketing – Can Connect to your website visitors with real-time, one-to-one conversations, handles inbox, book meetings from email
Linkedin sales navigator
Can discover leads and manage their pipelines effectively. The platform is useful for B2B sales professionals or founders. But only if you can leverage what you glean from Sales Navigator into your outreach efforts outside LinkedIn’s walled garden
30 day free trial
Final Thoughts:
According to our perspective, Hunter is the best tool among the other tools mentioned here.
Hunter provides options to perform domain search, email search and email verification can also be performed which in turn allows us to generate leads. Hunter provides essential features needed for lead generation in free plan whereas other tools like Funnelbake, Pipedrive provide advanced features in free plan but it has days limit for the free trial.
Bolsternow is always there to help you. We also provide Free Programme to help out our customers.
Feel free to contact us for your digital marketing needs right away via phone – +919894679269 , mail or schedule a meeting.
A Quick view on Salesforce Marketing Cloud
CRM tools have become a preferred platform to be known in digital marketing now-a-days. We analyzed various CRM tools while working for one of our clients in Bolsternow Services. Salesforce Marketing Cloud is one such tool which we explored.
Intro to Salesforce Marketing Cloud:
Salesforce is a business software platform / customer relationship management solution that brings companies and customers together. It’s one integrated CRM platform including marketing, sales, and commerce.
Salesforce has upgraded itself from being a CRM service to a cloud-based platform that connects every customer touch point to create a personalized, one-of-a-kind brand experience.
Salesforce solution for Marketing teams looking to improve their customers’ experience and boost their sales.
Features of Salesforce Marketing Cloud:
The List of Features in Salesforce Marketing Cloud includes Artificial Intelligence, Marketing Automation, Predictive Recommendations, 1 to 1 Journeys, Subscriber Management, Reporting/ Analytics, Event Triggered Mail and more.
The Functionalities in Marketing Cloud especially when generating business reviews and reports add pros to it. It helps in analyzing which areas are successful and which aren’t. We are able to promote our campaigns reach at a faster pace.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud products include Email Studio, Data Studio, Social Studio, Advertising Studio, Interaction Studio, Marketing Automation and more modules. Few modules are explained below.
Email Studio:
Basic Email campaigns to one to one sophisticated messages can be performed. We can do segmentation as a part of target audience to build email campaigns. Salesforce Marketing Cloud delivers messages to active subscribers more often and inactive subscribers less often. Creating dynamic content can be done using Email Studio.
Audience Studio:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to create complete data profiles by capturing customer data and segment it. Data signals needs to be analyzed to develop new target audience.
Social Studio:
The important role of social studio is to gain feedback with reporting tied to social accounts. Social Studio allows deploying a single platform for social media engagement and social reviews across every department
Social posts can be routed to CRM Platform, streamline brand sentiment and prioritize posts. This helps us to understand effectiveness and analytics of our activity with detailed reporting like response rates. We can create workspaces, collaborate on campaigns by drafting, sharing, scheduling content. Salesforce Marketing cloud boosts high-performing social posts with built-in social advertising. We can track analytics like campaign results, brand health, customer interactions
Customer Data Platform:
Customer Data Platform brings all data together by connecting every source of audience together. Customer Data Platform allows us to create single, consistent customer IDs by connecting them across your CRM and other data sources, like marketing clouds, commerce systems, data warehouses. Customer Segments can be built by segmenting audience and activation of customer data can be done across every advertising channel
With unified customer profiles, we can deliver the right content to the right customer on the right channel.
Digital Advertising:
Target/ build audience on their preferred channels like Facebook, Google and Instagram. Synchronizing customer records instantly from any digital channel can be done. Effectively identify and reconnecting with customers who are no longer interacting with your brand, on their preferred channel helps us to re-engage customers. Salesforce Marketing Cloud can coordinate advertising with email to reach more of your audience. We can increase purchase intent by sharing your message with customers in both channels.
Bolsternow is always there to help you. We also provide Free Programme to help out our customers. Feel free to contact us at any time via phone, mail / socialmedia or schedule a meeting.
Reference:
Comparison on Google Analytics, Webtrends, Netinsight, Omniture:
Google Analytics Vs Webtrends Vs Net insight Vs Omniture:
Recently we saw many of our clients are using and asking for other digital analytics and metrics tools like Web trends, Net insight, Omniture other than Google analytics. We went on exploring the same and we came to a conclusion that what is best for you and what you could start using according to the type of the company. Here we are comparing these tools with Google Analytics premium ie Google Analytics 360.
Google Analytics: Google is the market leader in web analytics and the fact that Google Analytics is free to use makes it especially appealing to small businesses.
Omniture: Now called as Adobe Analytics provides marketers with the insights and analytics data that they need to make better decisions.
Web trends: It is the leading analytics solution for SharePoint, delivering user-specific metrics to assess ROI & drive adoption.
Net insight: It is a web analytics application that utilizes an Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) methodology to populate a database that can then be queried using a browser-based interface.
Quick Insights on Google Analytics & Web Trends
Google Analytics and Web Trends Analytics both offer attractive features to customers, but some stand out for each based on their use-case. Web trends Analytics is an excellent tool for businesses looking to measure their Microsoft SharePoint usage and performance. Users can collect insights such as newsfeed post frequency and data from likes, shares, and replies. User data can also be collected based on how users interact with lists and list components.
In the free version of Google Analytics, users are only able to see sampled data from Google. This means users will not be able to see all the data Google Analytics collects about their website, but they can still see enough to make decisions and forecast outcomes. Google Analytics does not allow capturing data in a way that allows reporting at the user-level. Google Analytics also limits data exports to only 5,000 rows.
Google Analytics is free whereas Web trends Analytics offers a free trial option upon request
Features of Net Insight, Web Trends and Omniture(Adobe Analytics)
Net insight is an analytical tool to understand website traffic in a simple way. It is considered a very advanced tool that allows companies to conduct website analysis on internal products behind their firewalls. Reporting options is one of the pros of Netinsight as it provides flexible and customizable options.
Web Trends and Omniture do not have that Terms of Service (ToS) limitation, and both of them enable access to that data through add-on production. Both Omniture and Web trends enable the uploading of meta data into the system. The most common use of this is with campaign tracking — you use a simple ID for the campaign tracking parameter, and then use a backend files to map that ID to a specific campaign name, channel, description, etc.
Google Analytics does not have a way to push meta data into the system and then use it to report natively within the Google Analytics environment.
Omniture has more flexibility meaning you can extend it and do custom things with greater ease than you can in Web trends. Google Analytics or Omniture are really the only two options right.
What they offer really?
Both the platforms Google Analytics and Omniture have the ability to capture and report the eight critical web metrics that include
Visits, visitors, time on page, time on site, bounce rate, exit rate, conversion rate, and engagement.
Beyond the critical eight, when creating multiple goals, customer paths and sales funnels, the platform chosen is probably going to be less critical than the personnel we choose to run/monitor it. Google Analytics does not allow for CRM integration whereas Omniture does. Both platforms allow for real time traffic reporting.
Conclusion
All the web analytical tools have unique features. If Omniture installed for free, it is the best analytical tool. But since small sized businesses have to watch the costs like a hawk. Fortunately, good old Google Analytics does everything they really need.
References:
https://www.adpushup.com/blog/web-analytics-tools-google-analytics-alternatives/
Know why email markerting is best tool for your business
Email marketing is one of the highly effective digital marketing strategies which is used to convert prospects into customers. Email is one of the most widely used forms of communication we have today on the web. The reason why the decades-old technology is still one of the most effective marketing strategies is that people use emails more than other platforms.
Still, there are many small business owners who find email marketing or mailing to be an outdated or an old-fashioned method. Social media is the new cool kid on the block and it is hogging all the attention. While social media marketing has its own place, it is yet to catch up with email in terms of marketing power especially if you are dealing with global clients.
Reports show email has the highest Return on Investment (ROI) of any marketing channel available and you’re probably keen to start using it to drive sales and revenue for your business.
Also according to neil patel’s data, email marketing is still ranked as the most effective marketing channel, beating out social media, SEO, and affiliate marketing. Data from 2017 shows that most people are on email – 85% of adult internet users in the US.
In Bolsternow we have worked with clients who have customers all around the globe . We have derived solutions that rather than social media, response rate of the clients has become more high over an email.
While taking the leads for email marketing, we use specific tools like email checker or mellisa according to the domain, validate, data cleanse it and send making sure it doesn’t hit the spam, social or promotions.
Final Thoughts:
Email marketing is delivering huge returns for businesses willing to get started with it. It doesn’t have to be too complicated and if you’re looking for such bespoke solutions , Bolsternow is always with you to help you on the same.
LinkedIn – A vital tool for Marketing and Lead Generation
Over the last several years, LinkedIn has grown far beyond than just job site. It has evolved into the best content marketing platform for B2B businesses. LinkedIn now provides us an opportunity to find potential clients.
Marketers know that marketing on LinkedIn is vital tool and a perfect platform for generating leads, promoting thought leadership content and driving traffic to company websites. On LinkedIn, B2B marketers can find their next business partner, introduce their company to potential customers, and attract star talent to join their companies as employees.
LinkedIn now drives over half of all social traffic to B2B blogs and websites. Source: Foundation
The relationships you build as an individual on LinkedIn are strategic right from the moment you send or accept that request to connect. For a business, these connections are like partnerships.
There are few points to be taken into account while setting up a business page in LinkedIn
Firstly, A strategy and objective for every channel is an essential thing in order to define the audience. LinkedIn is no different. Defining goals and target audience helps us identify potential customers.
Secondly, Optimization of the page plays an important role. Usage of keywords in profile description and listing your company’s specialties can help target audience reach the page easily when they’re actively searching for. Create a clear and compelling pitch in the company description. Another important aspect of optimization is page promotion. Using header image gets attention or creates interest.
Thirdly, create a showcase page. Showcase pages are the perfect way to segment your inbound LinkedIn traffic. If you can create a business unit that is directly connected to a specific target audience, then you are in a position to create a Showcase page.
Then, use options such as advanced search, saved search. LinkedIn’s advanced search gives you an incredible way of identifying the exact type of people you are targeting. Saved searches create a way to stay active in your prospecting. When you create a saved search, not only do you get to find that exact search again, but you can also set up alerts.
LinkedIn Analytics:
LinkedIn analytics is an added advantage when peeping into the process of ideal clients and B2B Interactions & meetings.
Tracking analytics is critical when determining what content resonates with the target audience. In that case, LinkedIn Analytics are a selection of metrics that capture the performance of the LinkedIn Company Page
LinkedIn Analytics of a page can be viewed by an admin and has the authority to view the page analytics. Much of the data LinkedIn uses for ad targeting is sourced directly from their users. If used the right way, this precise, actionable, real-time, first-person data will get the company in front of your most valuable audiences.
LinkedIn Analytics provides three useful metrics: Visitors, Updates and Followers.
LinkedIn analytics provides various data to be tracked like Visitors, Traffic metrics, Demographics, Engagement metrics, Followers, Updates, Measure Conversions and a lot more.
The 5 most important metrics to track are:
Impressions
CTR (Click through Rate)
Engagement Rate
Follower Demographics
Followers
LinkedIn B2B marketing campaigns
From text ads and Sponsored InMail to LinkedIn video ads, the platform offers a diverse range of advertising opportunities for marketers, all accessible via the LinkedIn Campaign Manager. This platform also offers a range of highly powerful targeting and analytics processes, transforming LinkedIn into a formidable marketing tool.
Final Thoughts:
It is essential to realize that like any marketing undertaking, the process of B2B marketing on LinkedIn takes time to develop, settle in and deliver returns on your investment.
Based upon the particular interest and goals, there are specific data available from the metrics which may or may not be useful.
LinkedIn is responsible for 97% of a business’s social media leads! LinkedIn works for B2B lead generation. Source: Neilpatel
References:
digitalmarketinginstitute.com
business.linkedin.com
agencyanalytics.com
falcon.io
vendedigital.com
foundationinc.co
neilpatel.com
How to increase sales using Digital Marketing
Here we will discuss top 8 important factors which will help you to increase your sales!
1) Start by giving Value
Have you ever heard this quote?
‘Your brand is what other people say about you when you’re not in the room.’ Jeff Bezos, the Founder of Amazon said that to emphasize the importance of branding.
No matter what you do, create value for your customers. There are some ways to offer them something valuable through digital marketing like Social Media Marketing(SMM), Content marketing etc
In short you know what value your products/services bring value to your customer but make them aware of the same.
You should not only concentrate and spend on high-quality products or services but also on valuable content. These strategies will make your brand a valuable one and help you increase sales. So, start to think about it!
2) Know Your Customers and their interests
In order to increase sales with Digital Marketing, it’s essential to know your audience first. They have specific habits and preferences that should guide your entire strategy and the actions you create in the digital environment.
The first step to achieve this understanding is to conduct surveys, collecting your data, and studying your preferences.
From the results, it’s possible to create a buyer persona that portrays in a certain way the customer you want to impact using Digital Marketing.
From this, you’ll understand some key points, such as:
- what tone of voice to use in communication;
- in what products your audience is most interested;
- what advantages they expect in their relationship with a company;
- on what channels they are.
This will allow you to build a powerful structure for your digital marketing campaigns and get better results in terms of sales conversions.
You can also use Facebook Ads to find the data you need and target audiences with similar interests. Try the Facebook Ads Manager to explore much more about your target audience.
3) List/Group Your Email Campaigns
You should segment your email campaigns to customize your emails for your users.
According to a survey done by MailChimp:
- Segmented emails will be opened 14.31% more frequently
- They will have a 100.95% higher click-through rate
- They offer a nearly 4% decrease in abuse reports.
You may create some lists based on location, business, experience, vendors etc.
By doing that, you’ll prevent inaccurate targeting and after a while, you’ll see actual results!
4) Do A/B testing in your email and Ad strategies
A/B tests allow you to study what strategy options generate the most conversion rates, resulting in sales.
These tests are designed to compare two versions of whatever needs to be tested:
For Ex: CTAs, landing pages, different ad creatives ,colors used in a page, headers, email heading, email content, different format etc
So, the two versions can be tested separately for a specified period.The critical point is the measurement of results.
The one that performed better should be chosen as the final version, running as the final one.
Yep, it’s pretty simple and highly possible to increase sales with Digital Marketing in a precise and proven way.
5) Use Marketing Automation To Reach Customers At The Right Moment
In this effort, it’s also necessary to track the reception and how the leads have been engaged.
These emails should carry information about products, discounts, content offers, discount coupons, among other things. The idea is to approach and generate frequent contacts.
From this strategy, it’s possible to feed these leads and bring them to the deeper stages of the sales funnel.
In this natural way, the results are, besides the engagement, the increase of conversions.
6) Optimize your site based on SEO
Website optimization work is geared towards making adjustments that make them more suitable to what search engine algorithms — such as Google — require.
As a result, you’ll achieve a better ranking, with the sites appearing at the top of the SERPs.
This greater prominence will generate higher interest in the user. In a Google search, it’s natural that we’re more likely to access first page sites, especially those at the top.
In general, most of users do not access the second page of results, which says a lot.
An optimized site ranks better, appears on this first page, and is more visible in the eyes of those who performed the search. The chances of receiving clicks are higher, generating more traffic and conversion, with sales being a consequence.
Besides that, having a site with good speed performance can increase your page ranking and, in consequence, your sales.
7) Build Remarketing Strategies
Remarketing is the strategy that reminds these buyers about their interests. For that, banners are positioned with the offers left behind, appearing in the Google Display network.
To increase sales, remarketing is essential. You can run a remarketing campaign for an abandoned cart. You may remarket with a video on Youtube or Facebook. To track them, you should connect an account to an AdWords account. You may develop some email marketing strategies to reach them again such as using better abandoned cart email subject lines. It’s all up to you. As a bottom of the funnel strategy, this effort will work if the consumer is about to buy.
Besides the banners on websites, remarketing can be done by email marketing, taking the product link to that consumer.
In some cases, incentives such as discount coupons or free shipping can help to close the sale more quickly.
8. Measure Your Content
After creating the best content for your target audience, you should track your data to understand the most popular content on your website. It’s an effective way to see what people are looking for on your website.
Furthermore, you can see the amount of time people spent on a particular page of your website. These results will be helpful for your future posts and will increase sales.
In this case, we highly recommend that you use Google Analytics to track your data and get insights on how to grow your business.
Also, tracking the metrics and managing everything at the same time can be overwhelming. You should get help from the automation system providers to provide your customers with the right solutions.