This video is called, Are you Starting an E-commerce Business? By Mike Pitt. If you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel, you can . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London.

This post may contain affiliate links, please read our disclosure for more info.

In this video, Mike Pitt discusses, Are you Starting an E-commerce Business?

This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and others who are responsible for marketing a business.

E-commerce

In this video, Mike Pitt discusses, Are you Starting an E-commerce Business? Mike lists his three key considerations for a successful e-commerce business.

During the global pandemic many people launched E-commerce businesses, if you want to follow in their footsteps this video will be very useful for you. It is amazing to think that Amazon was once a small e-commerce business and has grown to become a global business that generated $$469.822B in 2021*. It is important to create the right foundations for your e-commerce business to prosper.  After you’ve watched the video, let me know your views in the comments section.

Take Action

Do you want to get started with video marketing? You could start by booking a Zoom Consultation with Mike Pitt via this page Book a Zoom Consultation with Mike Pitt . Let me know in the comments section below. Also, let me know if you would like my help with anything else.

Visit https://blockfi.com/mikepitt to get started. 

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If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads every week.

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* Source – https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/AMZN/amazon/revenue#:~:text=Amazon%20annual%20revenue%20for%202021,a%2020.45%25%20increase%20from%202018.

The post Are you Starting an E-commerce Business? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

This video is called, What is Linktree? By Mike Pitt. If you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel, you can . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London.

This post may contain affiliate links, please read our disclosure for more info.

In this video, Mike Pitt discusses, What is Linktree?

This video will be of interest to  affiliate marketers, business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and others who want to create online courses.

Linktree

Linktree is a website that allows you to promote a variety of promotional and marketing websites at the same. Why is this necessary? Well, on Instagram or TikTok underneath a user’s bio there is only enough space for one link. This is where Linktree comes in, when you insert your Linktree page,  visitors to your profile can then navigate to multiple offers on your linktree profile as you can see in the picture below. This is particularly useful for affiliate marketers and others who have a variety of promotional offers and online courses for their audience.

In this video, I demonstrate how I use Linktree and insert my link on Instagram and TikTok.

Take Action

Now that you know about Linktree, are you going to start using it? Let me know in the comments section below. Also, let me know if you would like my help.

SEO: Click on the image above and start your free trial today!

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B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Tuesdays and Fridays.

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This is video number 447 and blog post number 608

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However, they’re time-consuming. An authentic infrastructure doesn’t always come simply. You’re tired on the research, the time, and the endless to-do lists.

It’s time to join the age of automation.

Marketing funnel automation is a simplified workflow. It does everything you need, only it does it on its own. You don’t have to be there every step of the way leading the parade. You can let the series run by itself without feeling worried about it not being effective enough.

What is an automated marketing funnel? It’s a workflow you create yourself that leads your prospects through a series of marketing events. It sounds easy because it is easy. In this post, we’ll break down a lot of the misconceptions about marketing automation so you can optimize your entire funnel with the right strategies.

It’s time to stop wasting time doing the same marketing steps again and again. You have more important things to do. Let’s get started so you can watch your agency grow with ease.

Image via Pexels

Why Are Sales Funnels Important For Your Business?

If you’re a long-time marketer, you already have seen how powerful sales funnels can be. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t review why these funnels work so well. In fact, thanks to modern technology and a rapidly changing social media landscape, it’s not uncommon to hear some negativity surrounding sales funnels.

Do they still work? What makes a sales funnel successfully?

These are normal questions to have even if you’ve successfully built sales funnels before. The reality is that sales funnels do work, even with so much noise online today. That being said, it’s not enough to just create a haphazard funnel with touch-and-go follow up and expect sales. You need to be planned, focused, and intentional. For more information on marketing your website successfully, check this blog.

Sales funnels work, here’s why

• Data 1
• Data 2
• Data 3

In fact, nurtured leads make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. When your customers first find your website, they might not know much about you.

They’re not likely to hand over their hard earned cash on first meeting. That’s why sales funnels are so essential for your marketing business. It gives you an opportunity to build trust and establish a relationship with your customers. More importantly, it’s a chance to sell them more.

Anatomy of Automated Sales Funnels

Now that you know why you need a sales funnel and why they work, it’s time to talk automation. You need to understand the entire funnel anatomy and infrastructure in order to successfully automate There are three main parts of the sales funnel

1. Top of the funnel
2. Middle of the funnel
3. Bottom of the funnel

Top of the funnel – At the top, you’ll find the widest part of the funnel. This is where you find your prospects. They might visit your website. They might have reached out to your directly or perhaps you found them through cold calling.

The top of the funnel will be your lead contact process where you attract leads in the first place. From there, you’ll move them along the funnel until you reach the bottom where you’ll close the sale.

You don’t know much about each other yet, but your prospects are interested enough to agree to continued communication via email. If using email, it’s smart to invest in email parsing to ensure you’re only using real, quality leads.

Middle of the funnel – Next, it’s time to make contact. You’re now introducing your contacts to your products or services as well as your business. You’re sharing key details without sounding like a sales pitch.

Bottom of the funnel – It’s time to close the sale. Give your offer, making sure it’s as enticing as possible. You’ve already established a relationship with your prospects, and hopefully, they’ll convert as a customer.

Content is Still King

As we said before, you can’t just slap together a sales funnel using the infrastructure above and expect it to be a roaring success. You need great content. Despite what some might say, content is still the bread and butter of modern business, especially marketing agencies.

To begin your content strategy, you need to articulate your goal. What do you want the end results to be? Are you trying to sell something? Land more clients? Spread awareness? Whatever your goal is, this will direct your content. From there, consider these factors when writing quality content for your automated series:

Awareness – This is how you attract leads and prospects in the first place. Your user has a problem or a question they need to be answered. You have the solution, and you’ll create content related to this pain point.

Lead Magnet – How do you entice your prospect to join your automation? With a lead magnet. This is a download or product you give away for free to nurture your relationship. It could be an ebook, guide, webinar, or anything else that will encourage your prospect to sign up for your automated sales funnel.

Consideration – Now that your prospects know who you are, it’s time to nurture your email relationship. It’s still not time to go for the sale. You have to earn that. Welcome your prospects with a series of a few emails where you introduce them to your business as well as offer more information.

Soft Offer – Don’t go for the big sale, but it’s now time to offer a soft offer. Share customer stories, results, or other information about how and why a customer could make a purchase.

Questions – Your prospects have questions and you have answers. This is the frequently asked questions email to answer any “objections” your prospects might still have that will keep them from buying for you. Address things like your return policy and who the product/service works for.

Full Offer – We’re now at a place where you can make your sale with confidence. Offer your main product or service along with a special deal or bonus.

Close – This is the decision stage. Your prospect is now ready to buy, so seal the deal with free trials, demos, webinars, or additional discounts. If they’re going to buy, now’s the time.

Image via Pexels

The Right Automation Tools

When it comes to marketing, the early bird gets the worm. If you’re not using the right automation tools for your sales funnel, you run the risk of missing out when your leads are hot.

According to Xant, 30-50% of sales are made by the first vendor or business to respond. While human contact is always great, automation is undoubtedly faster.

So what tools should you use? Any email marketing system will likely have automation tools to create an automated email sequence. Infusionsoft is one of the biggest sales management systems with strong email marketing software. It also includes a contact record management system so you never lose track of any leads.

A simpler, more affordable option if you’re just getting started is Mailchimp. It’s free to use up to 2000 email subscribers, and it comes with many free tools and templates. To get started, use the campaign feature to build an automated campaign. You can time your emails perfectly and use the analytic dashboards to check your progress.

How to Reuse Your Leads

As you can imagine, not every email subscriber who goes through your funnel will make a purchase. This doesn’t mean the entire automation is a failure. If you’re consistently finding success with your automation, you’re doing something right.

However, don’t toss those leads in the unsubscribe folder just now. You can use these leads again as long as you’re smart about it. These individuals might not be ready to buy now, but perhaps they’ll be more interested after an additional webinar or add-on bonus. Maybe they’re waiting for a discount or a product/service that better meets their needs.

Keep these leads warm with continued content and contact. This doesn’t mean you email them every day pestering for a sale. It does mean you send them your latest offers and compelling content on a regular basis. Sales funnels aren’t a sprint but a marathon. Slow and steady really can win the race, and you’re building a real relationship. Some relationships take longer than others.

Final Thoughts

Sales funnels don’t have to take all of your time and energy. The more you can automate for your marketing business, the more you can focus on what matters most: your clients. You don’t have endless hours in the day to keep in touch with leads and prospects, so make sure you’re investing in the right tools to do the heavy lifting for you.

From understanding sales funnel anatomy to mastering your content, you too can create automated sales funnels that convert. Just because your funnels are automated doesn’t mean they can’t be personal, authentic, and ideal for your client. Don’t believe this stigma around automation.

In reality, automation is more than just a time saver. It lets you strike while the lead’s hot to make more of every email. Are you ready to automate? What’s holding you back? It’s time to join the new era of sales funnel marketing to take your business to new heights.

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If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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This is blog post number 510.

The post Sales Funnel Automation Strategies to Optimize Your Marketing appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

This post may contain affiliate links please read our disclosure for more info.

This video is called, Which is Better? Twitter Followers or YouTube Subscribers? By Mike Pitt. If you want to subscribe to our YouTube channel, you can . Mike Pitt is the Founder of Marketing Fundamentals Ltd, a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London.

In this video, Mike Pitt discusses, Which is Better? Twitter Followers or YouTube Subscribers?

This video will be of interest to business owners, B2B marketing managers, Content Marketing professionals, Social Media Managers and others who use Social Media to promote their businesses.

Twitter Followers or YouTube Subscribers

As Social Media Managers for B2B businesses, you will be responsible for tracking a number of Social media metrics. Twitter Followers and YouTube Subscribers are likely to be among those that you are tracking. In this video, I discuss the relative merits of both and give my assessment as to which is of greater value to your business. Your objective if you are growing your followings on these platforms should not be to simply increase your number of followers; you should also track the behaviour of those followers and what actions they take. Watch the video for more details.

1000 True Fans

It was Kevin Kelly who first introduced the concept of 1000 True Fans in a blog post published in 2008. In this post, he explained that creative professionals do not need huge audiences to be successful. If they had an audience of 1000 True Fans and could sell them $100 dollars worth of products or services per year that would equate to a salary of $100,000. This article led to many discussions within the creative community, some doubted that it was as straightforward to achieve as Kelly implied.

What is now abundantly clear in 2019 is that the 1000 True Fans paradigm works perfectly for online businesses or businesses with an online element when you consider how online courses, membership sites and subscription services are sold to a select groupf of hardcore fans. YouTube is a particularly good platform for attracting True Fans.

Have you embraced the concept of 1000 True Fans in your marketing?  If so, let me know in the comments section below. If this is the first time you have heard of it, let me know that in the comments section.

It has taken us a while to find the right email partner but we believe that Constant Contact has the flexibility to meet our email needs and yours too.

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Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Mike Pitt

Founder, Marketing Fundamentals Ltd

Follow Mike on Twitter 

Subscribe to

Follow us on LinkedIn

Follow Mike on Pinterest

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This is video number 269 and blog post number 509.

The post Which is Better? Twitter Followers or YouTube Subscribers? appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

What was once a small aspect of promoting a business, online marketing is now the predominant way to connect with leads and customers. Many businesses are opting to follow the Amazon business model, selling products exclusively online rather than investing in a brick and mortar store.

Unfortunately, the internet is a hectic place with lots of noise, so businesses often struggle to effectively push their products. Here are some tips to overcome that barrier and see success when pushing products online.

Partner and Cross-Promote

There’s something about having someone else promote a product that works wonders for businesses. Businesses should look for interactive advertising options and partnerships that will highlight their products in places other than expected advertising hotspots (such as social media) or the business’s home website. For example, working with a deal site to promote sales and coupons for a music business (see these fantastic guitar center coupons by Deal News). Alternatively, working with a complementary business to cross-promote products, like a partnership between Mr. Clean and Bounty.

By having someone else push their products, a business improves their customers’ trust levels and audience reach.

Build Hype

For a product to do well at the launch, it’s important to build hype. Consider the Marvel Cinematic Universe. About a decade ago, a movie preview usually came out about six months before a movie with maybe one or two versions. Marvel changed everything and revolutionized the movie marketing business.

Starting with their post-credit clips (traditional “trailers” by classic movie industry terms) and moving on to micro-releases in the year leading up to the release date, and finally releasing two or three full-sized trailers as the release date gets closer.

While few businesses can hope to have the same success with a product release as Marvel does with their movies, building hype has a profound psychological impact in the minds of consumers. This build-up time also gives the business room to educate customers about the product before launch– an essential part of business success. Businesses need to start pushing products months before they become available to be successful.

Source – Pexels

Leverage Social Media

At one time, companies thought that Facebook was the be-all-end-all for online marketing. However, Instagram largely dominated marketing for 2018 and Pinterest is hot on its tail. It’s important for companies to take time to understand the different social media platforms and leverage them accordingly. Knowing where the customers are and how to connect with them is key.

That’s not to say that YouTube and Facebook aren’t viable options. Many businesses still have success pushing product on both, and YouTube videos can improve SEO when embedded in a website, improving a business’s website reach as well.

Photos Matter

Consumers are visual creatures. This is especially true when it comes to purchasing products online, as the consumer lacks the opportunity to have a tangible experience with the product before purchasing. As such, it’s absolutely critical to have great photos.

For those with a knack for photography, capturing professional-looking product photos isn’t overly difficult. For businesses or entrepreneurs who either lack that particular skill set, outsourcing to a skilled product photographer is the way to go. Having various angles of the product taken in neutral light vs. having one photo that doesn’t tell a story can be the difference between making the sale and a customer moving onto a competitor.

Source – Pexels

Email Marketing Sales Funnel

One of the most effective ways that businesses attract customers and sell products is by creating an email marketing sales funnel. By offering a lead-magnet or opt-in for free, companies collect valuable email addresses. Then, they start to send an automated or carefully crafted series of emails meant to build a rapport and trust with the customer. Then the product sales start.

Adding Value

Whether a business is selling goods in-store or online, success comes down to one key element: value. Customers want to know that a product will help them in some way before they make the purchase, beyond the base function. For example, perfume brands don’t sell perfume; they sell the value of attraction.

To successfully push products online, businesses must find the value customers seek, and sell it through building customer excitement, trust, and knowledge.

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Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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This is blog post number 496.

The post Marketing Tips for Pushing Your Products Online appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.

The world of online shopping offers so many possibilities to so many people. In this day and age, just about anyone can set up their own e-commerce store online and get selling. However, with the sheer amount of choice that comes with online retail, how do the smaller online businesses get themselves noticed? They’re facing more challenges than ever, but if they overcome them, the reward is bigger than ever.

e-Commerce Challenges

Crowded Market

More and more people are shopping online and as a result, the online market place is more crowded than ever. Even the big retailers are trying harder to get themselves noticed.  Lesser-known online businesses can struggle to get customer attention amongst increasing number of competitors, both big and small. Thankfully there are number of things they can to get their site found by potential customers. They can offer unique products, competitive rates and have a strong social media presence. The latter can potentially be helped with the help of online influencers.

Social Media

Moving on from the last point, social media itself is another challenge smaller e-Commerce will face. It is vital for online businesses to have an online presence in order to keep up with the crowd. This can make for some great customer engagement and grow a larger consumer base. However, it does come with its own challenges. Social media is 24/7 so online businesses have to make themselves available all the time to deal with customers, rather than the standard working day.

Keeping Products Secure

Once the e-Commerce site has managed to sell their product to a customer, the challenge doesn’t end there. A huge problem they will face is making sure the products remains safe until it gets delivered to the customer. With the help of a professional delivery company – such as Whistl– they can ensure any products will be handled safely and effectively. It takes the stress away from the business and the e-Commerce can focus on selling rather than sending.

Keeping Up With Demand

The best outcome for a small online business is for them to keep growing. Once this begins to happen, it’s fantastic but also presents the business with another challenge: keeping up with the demand. What could have started as selling a few parcels a week could escalate, and they’ve got to keep up to keep the customers happy. By employing more staff or using a third party delivery service a smaller e-Commerce can keep growing and maintaining a profit.

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B2B Content Marketing Agency London

Marketing Fundamentals Ltd is a B2B Content Marketing Agency in London that creates Content and manages Social Media for Professional Services firms. We hope you find this information useful.

If you would like our help creating and executing a Content Marketing Plan for your business or organisation give us a call on +44 (0) 845 2264 247. You can also email us via mail@marketingfundamentals.com

On our YouTube channel you will find marketing advice, business advice & inspiration. Subscribe if you work in Marketing for Professional Services or are a business owner or solo-preneur trying to grow your business. New uploads on Wednesdays.

Best regards,

Marketing Fundamentals Team

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This is blog post number 471.

The post Important Challenges all International e-Commerce SMEs Will Face appeared first on Marketing Fundamentals.