Outsourcing Training For Small Businesses Tips

What functions can be outsourced and how does an SME & SEO know whether the person they're hiring is any good?

Many traditional roles that were historically done in-house are now being outsourced, and that can include anything from being a PA to project managing. It's a great way for businesses to keep costs down during the current economic climate and it also helps those who have been made redundant flourish and grow their own businesses. As workforces have become smaller, remaining employees are all pushed for time, and the demands of the business can often mean they lose track of keeping up to date with things such as blogs, newsletters and their website.

It's hard to be a small business owner and keep a hundred different balls juggling at the same time. How can you focus on sales when you're not doing any lead generation activity? What about marketing and social media? A surge in people working from home means that all of these skills can be outsourced. But how does an SME know that the person they're outsourcing to is any good, particularly if they have no testimonials?

Let's look at some of the basics you can research before committing to a further meeting.

1. Google them: Simply type their name and business name into Google and see what results it brings. Ignoring their website and LinkedIn profile for now, look to see if their name appears on any sites related to their industry. This shows that they're not just walking the walk, they're actively involved too.

2. Social proof: This is where LinkedIn, Google+, Facebook and Twitter play their part. What does their LinkedIn profile say? Do they have any recommendations? Do they proactively share content? This is even more important if you're hiring a social media specialist. If they're not sharing their own stuff, how do they know best practice when it comes to sharing yours?

3. Time management: If they are charging you by the hour, will they be providing a time sheet or similar to show the number of hours they have worked? If you're allocated 20 hours per month on various tasks, how are they splitting the time, and more importantly are they doing 20 hours per month?

4. Payment terms: When will you be invoiced and what payment terms do they offer? This can change from freelancer to freelancer, and if they don't bring it up, you should. Don't assume it's 30 days or even that you'll be paying VAT. Get this right from the start so everyone knows where they stand.

5. Sign a contract: Make sure everything is written down and agreed at the start. If an unexpected invoice lands, it can quickly turn a good relationship into a bad one.
Finally, make sure they are doing the work themselves, and not subbing it out to others who you don't know.

So what kind of roles can be outsourced successfully?

PR
To be able to outsource PR you need to be clear about what it actually is. Social media and digital marketing has changed the role that PR plays. Historically for SMEs it has meant press releases, editorial and reputation management. It has always been about telling the story of a business, and never was that more relevant than in today's digital communities. Tweets, Facebook updates and even LinkedIn profiles are all part of the PR role.

Content creation
Since Google changed its algorithm and stopped unscrupulous use of keywords, the emphasis has been on creating high quality, unique content that flows naturally and is in the right context. Any freelance writer worth their salt should be able to create content that's readable, shareable and can trigger a reaction such as a comment on a blog post or driving traffic to a landing page.

Email marketing
Sending a newsletter out once a month is not enough. How do you know if your target audience is engaged? Are they even opening and reading your newsletter? Are you telling everyone everything regardless of where they are in the buying cycle? When looking to outsource this, a freelancer should be able to help you generate content that will deliver a return.

SEO
There is no need to fear SEO. There are a few simple things that every website should have – meta tags, keywords, and a blog or news page just for starters. Think – if someone were to search for my product or service, what words would they use? Once you have a cluster of these, it's time to work on adding them to your website, and this is where the expertise of a freelancer can come in handy.

Telephone skills
Most business people immediately think of cold calling when faced with a telephone but it can be useful in other ways too. If you're organising an event then a follow up call to an e-shot can be very effective. There are plenty of options out there but try to avoid the call centre approach. Attendees are likely to respond to a local accent and more personal call.

Project management
This can be anything from a new product launch to a website redesign. Good freelance project managers will have experience of handling a wide range of projects and will be able

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Want To Increase Your Profit/Sales From Business? You Need Web Research, LinkedIn Lead Generation

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" 2 Effective LinkedIn Strategies to Master B2B Marketing "

 Is at the top in terms of lead generIt was only in 2003 when LinkedIn launched as a tiny professional networking site with only 20 signups a day. Since then it went through numerous transformations and is now considered the number one social media platform for content marketing among 94% of B2B companies. Research also indicates that more and more companies are using social media’s power to generate leads. Despite being a popular strategy, many B2B marketers are not using social media and specifically LinkedIn to their full capacity.

Kristina Jaramillo, chief LinkedIn strategist at GetLinkedInHelp.com argues that CMOs at top organizations only use LinkedIn as a tool for brand awareness instead of revenue generation. While brand awareness is a key marketing goal for B2C companies, B2B organizations focus their marketing goal on lead generation.

Jaramillo’s examination of what top CMOs are doing wrong with their LinkedIn strategy should teach all B2B marketers what they need to do right. Instead of just focusing on distributing engaging content to your LinkedIn followers, you need to look at the complete picture. Many CMOs and social media marketers only consider the top of the funnel on LinkedIn. They start with the awareness stage, pull prospects in, then abandon someone moving down the cycle.

Before I give you some great tips, it’s important to realize that LinkedIn does help B2B companies generate leads. In fact, if you look at the image below you’d be happy to know that LinkedInation.

This infographic will break down LinkedIn into real numbers. As you can see, over 10% of leads are generated from posts on B2B company pages!

The underlining point is this: LinkedIn has great potential if you properly nurture leads from initial post to final sale. And here are 4 LinkedIn strategies to help you do just that.

*1. Don’t let your page become an extension of your website, turn it into a lead generating page

If all your company is doing is using LinkedIn to recruit employees and post product updates, then you’re not seeing the bigger picture. LinkedIn should be a place for engagement and building connections.

Stand out from competitors by creating engaging copy and using attractive visuals. The banner image is the first thing prospects see, so it should not only be aesthetically pleasing, it should also add value through compelling text (e.g. having a certain call-to-action, highlighting something that makes you different from similar products, promoting exciting events, celebrating a recent accomplishment etc.). The company description also serves as a pitch. That’s why the first 2-3 lines should cut right to the chase, talking directly to your audience and getting them hooked so they want to click to “see more”.

• Build your company’s thought leadership status in the industry by distributing and sharing relevant content, such as blog posts, infographics, webinars, or other thought leaders’ content. Make sure that your feed is constantly updated with engaging content to show potential customers that you’re more than a profile page with a link to your website.
• Create showcase pages for better advocacy. LinkedIn offers this feature to help B2B companies generate leads by enabling them to present a brand, initiative, or a business unit to specific customer segments. Showcase pages basically help you target the right customers with the right information so you can build long-term relationships with them.

*2Join groups and create your own

Start searching for groups that fit your interests and the industry you work for and actively participate in them. Keep in mind that LinkedIn ranks groups according to their level of activity, so you ideally want to choose groups that are very active. This is a great way to foster relationships with like-minded individuals from the B2B world. Once you become more knowledgeable of a successful group you’re ready to build your own. Having your own group is important to establishing your thought leadership – you can choose whether you want to be in control of who becomes a member (‘Unlisted groups’), or have people join without permission (‘Standard groups’). As long as you approach the group as an expert in the field and not a salesman, you can easily connect and interact with your target audience.

Conclusion

For marketers, LinkedIn is a breeding ground for brand awareness. But they must start thinking beyond this basic tactic and focus on how they can turn leads into customers. This is only made possible if they apply the entire funnel to any social plan and consider how buyers engage on each platform. By taking advantage of the tools LinkedIn has to offer, publishing the right content on a daily basis, and seeking relationship-building opportunities, marketers will begin to see measurable results.

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"Grow Your Business Through LinkedIn"

Do you struggle to generate quality leads consistently?

Are you finding it hard to stand out in the marketplace and get your message in front of key decision-makers?

Or perhaps you’ve tried several marketing strategies such as Google Adwords, Facebook ads or search engine optimization and haven’t yet achieved the return on investment you were hoping for?

These are the common challenges across many small business owners I speak with.
When I first started using LinkedIn back in 2011, I had just sold my previous business and moved back to Sydney to pursue my passion for starting a business advisory firm.

Like you I was on the lookout for a better, faster and more cost-effective method to win more business and increase sales.

After implementing a few marketing initiatives on other channels I quickly realized that the traditional methods of marketing were either too expensive or not effective in today’s social and digital world.

At the time I was very sceptical and maybe a little cynical about the return I could get for the time and money I would need to invest in social media.

With market globalization and so many social media tools out there, I found it easy to get caught up in the noise and hype of the next big thing.

I knew that if I we were going to generate any return through social I would need to choose the platform that offered the best potential for reaching our ideal audience.

As a small business, you simply can’t be amazing on every platform; that takes a huge amount of bandwidth and resources.

Instead of having a sub-par representation in a lot of places, I knew that the key was to be awesome in one.

So how do you decide which platform to choose?

Below are three reasons why I’ve chosen LinkedIn as my preferred social media platform and why I recommend others to the same.

1. Media

In today’s business world consumers buy more into people than they do in companies and products.

Sure having a good company reputation is important and you have to have a great product/service but all of this is irrelevant if they don’t like the people behind the company.

You may have the best product or service in the world but if nobody knows who you are or where to find you then what good is that?

This is why personal branding and online reputation is so important. And one great way to build your reputation and expertise in the marketplace is “Media Exposure.”

But getting noticed can be an expensive and time-consuming exercise. Hiring a traditional PR agency can cost you thousands, and whether or not their campaign will result in increased sales is another story.

For far too long the traditional methods of getting media coverage has either been too expensive, difficult or just too time consuming.

But thanks to LinkedIn you can now start connecting and building relationships with hundreds of journalists and editors from around the world.

According to a survey by Arketi media group, over 94.2 percent of journalists and editors are on LinkedIn and 62 percent rate it as their preferred professional networking tool!

2. Lead Generation

The second reason why I’ve chosen LinkedIn as our preferred social media site is because of its lead generation capabilities.

Regardless of what product you sell, where your company is located or what industry you’re in, ultimately we are all in the business of Marketing.

And the sole purpose of why we market our business is to get our message in front of key decision makers.

When it comes to marketing your business, I believe that it’s 10% what you say, 90% how you say it. Therefore, it’s hard to stand out if you’re marketing your business like every other competitor is in your industry.

With two new members joining every second in across 130 industries and 200 countries it’s never been easier to search, find and connect with thousands of potential clients without burning a hole in your marketing budget.

Think about it, where else would you have access to over 400 million decision-makers for free?
LinkedIn is the ONLY online platform that provides access to their database of decision makers, and they do this through their advanced search functionality.

So why spend thousands of dollars using traditional marketing methods to promote you’re businesses, when you can access a network of decision makers using LinkedIn.

Over the past few years, we’ve managed to use LinkedIn to fill events, secure 100’s of new clients and increase our database through online seminars.

3. Partnerships

And finally, the third reason why I’ve chosen LinkedIn is its ability to help you connect and secure partnerships.

Fostering strategic partnerships is a powerful way to grow a business.

With the right partner, you can refer clients to each other, leverage the power of offering complimentary products or services, and help grow each others email list.

Let’s face it, in today’s business world the customer sales cycle is a lot longer than it used to be 5-10 years ago.

Nowadays you need a minimum of 7-10 touch points to build up rapport and trust before you can pitch your product or business.

Why waste precious resources developing this trust when you can partner with someone else who has already established this trust.

And by doing so rather then getting your message in front of one potential client, you can broadcast your message in front of hundreds if not thousands of targeted contacts who have already built trust with the business or person you are partnering with.

However finding the right joint venture and alliance partners can be challenging. 
So where do you go to find joint venture partners, for instance, if you’re a social media consultant focused on helping chiropractors improve their marketing?

LinkedIn of course!

With 49% of LinkedIn members being key decision-makers, you will never have to cold call or run telemarketing campaigns to reach out and connect with key potential partners!

In the past 12 months, we’ve managed to secure over 50 partnerships through LinkedIn helping us grow our database from 50 subscribers to over 13,800.

share it with your network so they too can benefit.

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Lead Generation Secrets

Lead generation is the process of raising buyer interest and gathering inquiries from prospective purchasers, often in the form of names and contact information.

These leads are then qualified for their ability and desire to purchase your products and services.

While generally the focus of B2B marketing organizations, lead generation also applies to B2C companies, especially where high price, high consideration products are involved.

57% of a typical purchase decision is made before a prospect ever talks to a supplier based on a Corporate Executive Board study of over 1,400 B2B customers across industries.

For marketers, lead generation is a tradeoff between quality and quantity. Specifically without a sufficient number of leads, you can’t achieve your sales conversion goals.

By contrast, too many leads often translate to unqualified buyers who need lots of persuasions to convert or they’ll never buy.

1. Global Social Media

Ensure that the content is the right type of content for the community that it’s presented to and the right place in the customer journey. Be cognizant of the many steps in your customer’s journey. Make sure that awareness content is used in social channels. Consideration type content can be used for paid targeted audience buys.

2.  Find and Convert

Experiment with owned earned and paid campaigns. Try something you’ve never tried before. Be willing to fail small and fast.

3. B2B Marketing Insider

The most effective way for marketing to drive stellar leads for sales is to deliver the right content to the right prospect at the right time. Mapping content to the buyer journey and then delivering it to the right prospects is the best way to drive effective sales-ready leads without wasting your sales’ teams time and your company’s money.

5.Actionable Marketing Guide

Today’s customers are social media and content marketing savvy. Whether they’re making a purchase for themselves or their business, they’ve at least started their research before they ever contact you.

*Understand your potential customers including their influencers, end-users and social media community. To this end, create a marketing persona.

*Provide your market with the information they need to make an informed decision (i.e. the 5 basic content types). If you don’t offer it, your competitors and/or near substitutes might and you may lose a prospect.

*Incorporate a contextually relevant call-to-action. Don’t assume that potential customers will automatically contact you. Help them to buy from you.

*Ensure that your purchase process is easy-to-use. Keep your branding consistent as prospects move from your content on one site into your purchase funnel. Use tailored landing pages and ensure that your buying process is streamlined.

*Continually test each step of your lead generation and purchase process. Since your marketing is a dynamic process, test every step on a regular basis to ensure that your content and related marketing as performing as well as possible. This means that you must track your results!

6. Social Media B2B

You must include calls-to-action on blog posts to give visitors the opportunity to raise their hand and express interest in your company and its ideas. Too many blogs do nothing to try to convert their hard-earned blog visitors to leads.

7.  Social Marketology

Borrow a notion from Lean Manufacturing, and think about the world through the customers’ eyes. Each single one of us is inundated daily by marketing messages that are irrelevant. Those microseconds of attention are fundamentally without value; they’re waste. Eliminate waste, and create marketing that adds value to the lives of your audience.

8. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

Be smart about your content creation. The mantra for content marketers should be not to create more content but create more relevant content. Relevance is everything.

9.  Lead Generation for Dummies

Don’t forget about nurturing your leads once you have them in your database! Many marketers think that lead generation ends after the lead acquisition, however, what are you doing to move leads through your funnel?  Just because someone downloaded a whitepaper doesn’t mean they are ready to buy. Once they are in your system you have to use strategies like lead nurturing to educate them throughout their buying journey. That way, new leads become familiar with your company over time, and once they are ready to be sent to sales you will have much better luck closing the deal.

10.  Strategic Objectives

To generate leads, Strategic Objectives has created a cross-channel model: PESOF

P – Paid amplification of your content

E – Earned media through public relations

S – Shared content – that is both owned content that others share, and found content that you share with your audience

O – Owned content like websites, blogs, social connections, etc.

F – Found – use a Search Engine Optimization strategy to identify the keywords your audience is searching for, and then utilize these keywords in your content creation strategy and web copy.

Leads will be knocking down your door looking to hire your company if you properly align lead generation efforts across PESOF.

Lead generation, especially in a connected, content-rich world, is a multi-step process. While prospects may be 60% or more of the way through the process before they contact you, don’t expect them to buy from you immediately.

Be prepared to coax prospects through the purchase process by providing them with the 5 basic content types they need, giving them the ability to gather more information and to get their questions answered, and allowing them to purchase when, where and how they wish to do so.

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LinkedIn Tips for Lead Generation

LinkedIn has become "the most effective social network for prospecting by a wide margin"

In addition, almost 50% of the respondents said they were using LinkedIn more for research and prospecting that a year before. Here is a good visual of what this looks like when compared to Twitter and Facebook:

It’s Time to Get LinkedIn to LinkedIn – Here’s HowWhile anyone can setup a p

rofile on Twitter and add connections there are ways to set yourself and your company ahead of the pack and to become lead mean lead gen machines on LinkedIn. Here are my top 10 recommendations that are free and have proven to be effective:

1. Add the Twitter LinkedIn application- We can’t have a LinkedIn post where we don’t talk about Twitter. This is the power of social media — all the tools are very interrelated. In the LinkedIn application area (bottom right of the home page or in the nav bar), you can add the Twitter application, which at the outset doesn’t look that much different from the twitter feed in other Twitter tools like Tweetdeck, but there are two cool features:

• You can easily follow your LinkedIn connections in Twitter (if they’ve provided their twitter address). Click on “Connections” and then on “Not following” and start selecting the people in Twitter you want to follow.

• You can create a Twitter List from your LinkedIn contacts. This allows you to easily interact with your LinkedIn contacts on Twitter. In addition, the list is dynamic and LinkedIn will keep updating the list as your network grows.

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