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People don't always associate Twitter with marketing. If you're not using Twitter to improve your business, you're making a big mistake. Every year, about 200 billion tweets are sent out. This number is astonishing. With so much competition in the social media space, people may assume that Twitter's best days are in the past. That's incorrect. Twitter has never been more popular than it is today. Check out these numbers: Twitter has about 328 million users across the world. That may not seem like a lot compared to the 2 billionmonthly active Facebook users. Still, 328 million isn't a number you can ignore. There are plenty of opportunities for you to generate leads and improve conversions on Twitter. If you're not actively using Twitter for business, it's not too late to change. Fortunately for you, I'm an expert in this space. I've helped companies increase their Twitter engagementby over 300%. In this post, I'll show you how to generate leads on this powerful social media platform. Recognize why consumers are on TwitterBefore you can start marketing, you have to determine whom you need to target. Are you trying to engage with every single user with a Twitter account? That's not an effective strategy. Instead, focus on your current customers and target audience. Find out who is:
Market to these people if you want higher conversions. Roughly 80% of Twitter usershave tweeted about a brand. After seeing the name of a company mentioned on Twitter, 54% of people searched for the business, retweeted the content, or visited the company website. Why do you think so many people talk about companies in their tweets? Twitter is a great way for customers to communicate with their favorite brands. That's why a third of Twitter users voice their opinionsabout products and businesses. As a marketer, you need to embrace this engagement. Recognize that it's an incredible opportunity for brand exposure and growth. When someone tweets at your brand, you've got to respond-fast. According to Sprout Social, it takes an average of 10 hours for brands to reply to users on social media. You've got to do better than that becausecustomers will wait only 4 hours for a response. If you don't have time to respond to tweets, delegate this task to someone on your marketing team. This person can easily respond to people on Twitter within minutes, directly from their smartphone. Knowing this information is especially important if your target market consists of millennials and baby boomers. Nearly half of them follow brands on social media. Based on all the information I've discussed so far, it's obvious that Twitter users want to engage with businesses on this platform. Now that we've established this, it's time to use this information to generate leads for your company. Learn how to use Twitter advanced search queryEarlier I mentioned there are over 328 million users on Twitter and 200 billion annual tweets. Not all these users and tweets are relevant to your business. The key is filtering out the useless ones to generate leads. This is my favorite way to get the most useful and significantsource of leads: Twitter's advanced search queries. Here's how you do it. Step #1: Navigate to the Advanced search menuI'm sure you're familiar with the regular search bar on Twitter. From your search menu, look at the left side of the screen under Search filters. Click on the Advanced search button to proceed. Step #2: Add keywords relevant to your companyThis search field will give you much more accurate results than the generic search bar you've been using. Add words and phrases based on your marketing insights, industry, and target audience. For example, let's say you run a website specializing in outdoor sports equipment. You could add words like hiking, biking, backpack, tent, mountain trails, or surfing to the search bar. It all depends on the goal of your marketing campaign to generate leads. If it's winter, you may want to include terms such as snowboard boots, skis, snowboard goggles, etc. Don't go crazy.Stick to a few specific words and phrases to start. Step #3: Look for relevant usernames (accounts)Adding accounts to your query can give you even more specific results. Not sure what to put in these fields? Here are some suggestions:
Adding your profile to the search may be the only obvious suggestion on this list. But maybe not many people are mentioning your company by name on Twitter. That's why the other ones are just as important. Are people tweeting about your competitors? Those users are your prospective customers. What about an industry expert? Let's continue with the example about an outdoor sports store. You could add Sean White's twitter accountto this search query. He's a professional snowboarder, so it's not unreasonable to think that users tweeting about him are interested in snowboarding equipment. The possibilities are endless. You've just got to get creative to find the most accurate and relevant results to generate leads. Step #4: Turn on your locationBy default, your location services will be turned off for the advanced search query. Turn it on to enable more relevant results. For simplicity, I'll continue using the sports store example. Let's say the shop is located in my city of Seattle, WA. You have an ecommerce store, but you don't deliver outside the northwest region. Tweets about hiking equipment in Florida won't be relevant to your lead-generation strategy. It's easier to narrow your search by adding a location now than having to filter through bad leads later. However, if you have an ecommerce shop with global distribution, you may decide to disable the location feature in the search. It's up to you. However, I'd still recommend focusing on a particular country or region. That way you can segment these leadsand market to them accordingly. Step #5: Filter the datesIf someone tweeted about your company 3 years ago, it's probably a little too late to consider that user as a lead. You want to make sure your search results are recentas well as relevant. Start with the last few months.If you want more results, you can always expand that to the last six months or to the previous year. These 5 steps are super easy to follow. Next time you're trying to generate leads on Twitter, start with the advanced search query. Use hashtags to promote your brandHashtags are a great way to get your company name out there. If you can get enough users to use your hashtag, it could potentially go viral and start trending. Here's what's trending in Seattle today: Come up with a clever and creative hashtag for your company. Look at the sponsored hashtag at the top of this image from Papa John's. #NationalPizzaMonth is much easier to read than #nationalpizzamonth. Granted, if a user types this hashtag without any capital letters, it will still work. But you should utilize this capitalization strategy in all of your tweets. It's easier to read, plus it can help you avoid potential embarrassment. Back in 2012, a British singer named Susan Boyleused a hashtag to promote her new album. She tweeted #susanalbumparty to promote it. It's harmless, but the combination of certain letters without any spaces or capitalization could appear inappropriate. #SusanAlbumParty looks much better and prevents confusion. But who knows, maybe you want to be sneaky with your hashtags, hoping one of them goes viral. I just wouldn't encourage or recommend that. Tweets with hashtags also have a greater chance of being retweeted. Retweets will obviously expose your brand to a wider audience. The more people use the tag, the more likely it'll go viral or trend on Twitter. See who used your hashtag.Engage with these people. It's an effective lead-generation strategy. Use Twitter as a customer service resourceIf your customers have questions, complaints, or other inquiries, encourage them to contact you on Twitter. Why? Because other people will see how responsive your brand is. It creates exposure and increases your chances of getting more leads. Customer service interactionsare trending upward on social media. This means customers know they can contact their favorite brands via Twitter and expect brands to respond. If other businesses are responding to their tweets, your customers will assume you're going to do the same. Ignoring your customers' tweets could end up giving you a bad reputation for customer service. However, responding to them in a timely fashion can have the opposite effect. Customers are going to complain.These things happen. Don't let a negative tweet throw you off your game.Respond politely, and try to rectify the situation.Do not get defensive or make excuses. Remember that everyone will see this interaction, so keep it professional at all times. Look at what happens when a person experiences a positive customer service response: The customer is likely to do two things:
If this interaction happens on Twitter, it's even easier for the customer to do both of these things. Providing amazing customer service can do much more than just generate leads. It could potentially double your revenue. Using Twitter for customer service can reduce the chances of the customer getting frustrated. A recent study suggests that Twitter is the least frustratingcustomer service channel. So you already have an advantage there. Engage with your customersNow that you know how to find leads on Twitter, it's time to make sure you're turning those leads into conversions. If someone's tweeting about your brand, products, or industry, reach out to them directly. Let them know you can help. Think back to our advanced search query. You may find some users who don't even know your brand exists. How do you change that? Here are a few tips:
If they didn't know about you before, they will definitely know about you now. Make sure your profile is active. Give your prospective leads a reason to follow your brand. Getting a discount is the top reason why consumers follow a company on Twitter. They also want to receive:
If your Twitter account isn't doing these things, your lead-generation strategy won't be nearly as effective. ConclusionContent consumptionhas grown by 25% on Twitter over the last 2 years. Users want to interact and engage with their favorite brands on Twitter. People all over the world are tweeting about things relevant to your business. The trick is learning how to filter those results to generate leads. Use the Twitter advanced search queries to do this. It's a great way to customize a search based on:
This information will give you the most updated and accurate results. Once you find a prospective lead, reach out to them directly.Follow their profile, and try to get them to follow you back. Run promotions, and offer exclusive content on your feed.This will entice users to interact with your page. Twitter is also an excellent platform to provide customer service.If a customer has a positive customer service experience with your company on Twitter, they are more likely to share their story and recommend your brand. Use hashtags as a creative way to get exposure for your business. All of these tips will help you improve your lead-generation strategy on Twitter. What hashtag will you create to generate leads via Twitter? It's important for you to always try to improve your email marketing strategy. The trends continue to change each year, and you need to adapt. If you're still sending out the same boring newsletter or promotional offer you used 5 years ago, it's time for you to make some improvements and adjustments. But where do you start? You may want to try testing a couple of different templates or designs to see which one is the most effective. A/B testing is not strictly for people who want to update their old email strategies. It's great for business owners and marketers who are actively trying to keep up with the new trends as well. Making minor changes to your subject lines, color scheme, CTA buttons, and design could drastically improve your conversions. If you've never attempted to A/B test your marketing emails, I'll show you how to get started. Test only one hypothesis at a timeFirst, decide what you want to test. Once you decide what you're testing, come up with a hypothesis. Next, design the test to check that hypothesis. For example, you may want to start by testing your call to action. Let's look at how Optimizelytested their CTA button. These two messages are identical. The only thing that changed was the wording of their call to action. They didn't change the color, design, heading, or text of the message. Optimizely simply tested Watch Webinar against View Presentations & Slides. The results were drastically different. Subscribers clicked on the variation nearly 50% more than the control group. You may want to run further tests on other components of the message. So, now that Optimizely knows which variation produces the most clicks, they can proceed with testing different subject lines that can increase open rates. Where do you start? Before you can come up with a valid hypothesis, you may need to do some research. Decide which component of your subject line you want to test. Here's some great data from Marketing Charts. Based on this information, you could A/B test the number of characters in your subject line. You already know that subjects with 1-20 characters produce the most opens. Take that one step further. Your hypothesis could be that 11-20 characters will produce more opens than 1-10 characters. There's your variation. Let's say the first thing you tested was a CTA button, like in the Optimizely example. Now, you can move on to the subject line. If you tested the CTA and subject line at the same time, you wouldn't know which one was the biggest factor in your results. You can't effectively test a hypothesis with multiple variables. Testing one thing at a time will ultimately help you create the most efficient message. How to set up your A/B email testsAll right, now that you know what to test, it's time to create your email. How do you do this? It depends on your email marketing service. Not all platforms give you this option. If your current provider doesn't have this feature, you may want to consider finding an alternative service. I'll show you the step-by-step process of running an A/B test throughHubSpot's platform. Step #1: Select Email from the Content tab of your Marketing Dashboard Your marketing dashboard is pretty much the home page for the HubSpot account. Just navigate to the content tab and select Email to proceed. Step #2: Click Create email Look for the Create email button in the top right corner of your page. Step #3: Create your A/B test Once you name your email campaign and select a template, next you'll see the editing tab. Click on the blue Create A/B Test button on the left side of your screen. Step #4: Name the variation By default, this popup will have the name of your campaign with (Variation) after it. But you can name it something more specific based on what you're testing. For example, you can name it September News CTA Button Placement instead. Step #5: Change the variation based on your hypothesis Now you can edit the two messages. Remember, the content should be identical. Change only the one thing you're testing. Step #6: Choose the distribution size of the test groups 50/50 is the best distribution. But if you want to modify it, drag the slide bar to change the distribution ratio. Step #7: Analyze the results After you send out the test, HubSpot's software automatically generates a report. Based on the test we ran, Version B had a higher open rate. So, that must be the clear winner, right? Not so fast. It was higher by less than 1% compared to the control group. The difference isn't significant enough to declare a definitive winner. It's an inconclusive test. That's OK. These things happen. If the results are within 1% like in the example above, it's pretty clear they are inconclusive. But what about 5%? 10%? Or 15%? Where do you draw the line? You need to determine your natural variance. Run an A/A test email to determine this. Here's an exampleof an A/A test on a website: The pages are the same. But the one on the right saw 15% higher conversions. So that's the natural variance. Use this same concept for your email campaign. Send identical emails to see what the open rates and click-through rates are. Compare that number against your A/B test results to see if your variance results were meaningful. Test the send time of each messageSometimes you need to think outside the box when you're running these tests. Your subject line and CTA button may not be the problem. What time of day are you sending your messages? What day of the week do your emails go out? You may think Monday morning is a great time because people are starting the week ready to go through emails. But doing further researchsuggests otherwise. It appears more people open emails in the middle of the week. You can run a split test between Wednesday and Thursday or Tuesday and Thursday to see which days are the best. Take your test one step further. Hypothesize what time you think your subscribers will open and click in your message. Studies showpeople are more likely to open an email in the afternoon. Between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM is the time when you'll probably see the most activity. Take this information into consideration when you're running an A/B test. Your opening lines are essentialEarlier we identified the importance of testing your subject line. Let's take that a step further. Focus on the first few lines of your message. Most email platforms give the recipient a preview of the message underneath the subject. Here's what it looks like on a user's phone in their Gmail account: Play around with the opening lines of your message. It's a great opportunity to run an A/B test. Look at some of the examples above. Banana Republicdoesn't mention the offer in the first few lines. Why? Because it's written in the subject line. It would be redundant if they included that information again in the first sentence. But if you keep reading, there's probably room for improvement. The next part of the message tells you that you can see all the images on their mobile site. That may not be the most efficient use of their preview space. There's one way we can find out for sure. Run an A/B test. Changing your opening lines can help improve open ratesby up to 45%. Manually running an A/B testAs I mentioned earlier, not every email marketing platform has an A/B test option built into their service. Other sites besides HubSpot that have an A/B test feature include: But if you're happy with your current provider and don't want to switch for just one additional feature, you can still manually run an A/B test. Split your list into two groups, and run the test that way. It's possible you already have your contacts segmentedby other metrics. This can help increase open rates and conversions. But it's also an effective method for analyzing your hypothesis. You'll have to create two separate campaigns and compare the results, which is completely fine. You just won't see the comparison side by side on the same page as we saw in the earlier example. If you're doing this manually, always run your tests simultaneously. Running tests on separate occasions could impact the results based on time, which plays a major factor in the analysis. Test a large sample size. This will help ensure your results are more accurate before you jump to definitive conclusions. Running a manual testdoes notmean you should test more than one variable at the same time. Stick to what we outlined earlier, picking a single variation for each test. Experiment with the design of your email campaignsOnce you have your subject line, opening sentences, and calls to action mastered, it's time to think about your existing template. You can keep all your content the same, but change the layout. Here are some examples of different templates from MailChimp: What do all of these templates have in common? The word count. None of these templates give you space to write long paragraphs because it's not effective. Keep your message short. Research from Boomerangsuggests that your email should be between 50 and 125 words. The messages in their test sample got at least a 50% response rate. While you're experimenting with template designs, you can also try different images. Try one large background image with text written over it. Another option is to include a picture within the content. Your A/B template test can help determine which method is more effective. Swapping out one image for another is something else you can test. For example, if you're using a picture of a person, test the difference between a male and female. ConclusionA/B testingworks. If you used these tests to successfully optimize conversions on your website, the same concept could be applied to your email marketing strategy. Before you get started, come up with a valid hypothesis. Don't start changing things without a plan. Test onlyone variationat a time. After you've come up with conclusive results for your first test, you can move on to something else. Try testing your:
The email marketing service you're currently using may have an option for you to run and analyze the results from an A/B test. If not, it's no problem. You can manually run an A/B test by creating two separate groups and two different campaigns. This is still an effective method. A/B tests will help increase opens, clicks, and conversions. Ultimately, this can generate more revenue for your business. How will you modify the call to action in the first variation of your A/B test? People don't always associate Twitter with marketing. If you're not using Twitter to improve your business, you're making a big mistake. Every year, about 200 billion tweets are sent out. This number is astonishing. With so much competition in the social media space, people may assume that Twitter's best days are in the past. That's incorrect. Twitter has never been more popular than it is today. Check out these numbers: Twitter has about 328 million users across the world. That may not seem like a lot compared to the 2 billionmonthly active Facebook users. Still, 328 million isn't a number you can ignore. There are plenty of opportunities for you to generate leads and improve conversions on Twitter. If you're not actively using Twitter for business, it's not too late to change. Fortunately for you, I'm an expert in this space. I've helped companies increase their Twitter engagementby over 300%. In this post, I'll show you how to generate leads on this powerful social media platform. Recognize why consumers are on TwitterBefore you can start marketing, you have to determine whom you need to target. Are you trying to engage with every single user with a Twitter account? That's not an effective strategy. Instead, focus on your current customers and target audience. Find out who is:
Market to these people if you want higher conversions. Roughly 80% of Twitter usershave tweeted about a brand. After seeing the name of a company mentioned on Twitter, 54% of people searched for the business, retweeted the content, or visited the company website. Why do you think so many people talk about companies in their tweets? Twitter is a great way for customers to communicate with their favorite brands. That's why a third of Twitter users voice their opinionsabout products and businesses. As a marketer, you need to embrace this engagement. Recognize that it's an incredible opportunity for brand exposure and growth. When someone tweets at your brand, you've got to respond-fast. According to Sprout Social, it takes an average of 10 hours for brands to reply to users on social media. You've got to do better than that becausecustomers will wait only 4 hours for a response. If you don't have time to respond to tweets, delegate this task to someone on your marketing team. This person can easily respond to people on Twitter within minutes, directly from their smartphone. Knowing this information is especially important if your target market consists of millennials and baby boomers. Nearly half of them follow brands on social media. Based on all the information I've discussed so far, it's obvious that Twitter users want to engage with businesses on this platform. Now that we've established this, it's time to use this information to generate leads for your company. Learn how to use Twitter advanced search queryEarlier I mentioned there are over 328 million users on Twitter and 200 billion annual tweets. Not all these users and tweets are relevant to your business. The key is filtering out the useless ones to generate leads. This is my favorite way to get the most useful and significantsource of leads: Twitter's advanced search queries. Here's how you do it. Step #1: Navigate to the Advanced search menuI'm sure you're familiar with the regular search bar on Twitter. From your search menu, look at the left side of the screen under Search filters. Click on the Advanced search button to proceed. Step #2: Add keywords relevant to your companyThis search field will give you much more accurate results than the generic search bar you've been using. Add words and phrases based on your marketing insights, industry, and target audience. For example, let's say you run a website specializing in outdoor sports equipment. You could add words like hiking, biking, backpack, tent, mountain trails, or surfing to the search bar. It all depends on the goal of your marketing campaign to generate leads. If it's winter, you may want to include terms such as snowboard boots, skis, snowboard goggles, etc. Don't go crazy.Stick to a few specific words and phrases to start. Step #3: Look for relevant usernames (accounts)Adding accounts to your query can give you even more specific results. Not sure what to put in these fields? Here are some suggestions:
Adding your profile to the search may be the only obvious suggestion on this list. But maybe not many people are mentioning your company by name on Twitter. That's why the other ones are just as important. Are people tweeting about your competitors? Those users are your prospective customers. What about an industry expert? Let's continue with the example about an outdoor sports store. You could add Sean White's twitter accountto this search query. He's a professional snowboarder, so it's not unreasonable to think that users tweeting about him are interested in snowboarding equipment. The possibilities are endless. You've just got to get creative to find the most accurate and relevant results to generate leads. Step #4: Turn on your locationBy default, your location services will be turned off for the advanced search query. Turn it on to enable more relevant results. For simplicity, I'll continue using the sports store example. Let's say the shop is located in my city of Seattle, WA. You have an ecommerce store, but you don't deliver outside the northwest region. Tweets about hiking equipment in Florida won't be relevant to your lead-generation strategy. It's easier to narrow your search by adding a location now than having to filter through bad leads later. However, if you have an ecommerce shop with global distribution, you may decide to disable the location feature in the search. It's up to you. However, I'd still recommend focusing on a particular country or region. That way you can segment these leadsand market to them accordingly. Step #5: Filter the datesIf someone tweeted about your company 3 years ago, it's probably a little too late to consider that user as a lead. You want to make sure your search results are recentas well as relevant. Start with the last few months.If you want more results, you can always expand that to the last six months or to the previous year. These 5 steps are super easy to follow. Next time you're trying to generate leads on Twitter, start with the advanced search query. Use hashtags to promote your brandHashtags are a great way to get your company name out there. If you can get enough users to use your hashtag, it could potentially go viral and start trending. Here's what's trending in Seattle today: Come up with a clever and creative hashtag for your company. Look at the sponsored hashtag at the top of this image from Papa John's. #NationalPizzaMonth is much easier to read than #nationalpizzamonth. Granted, if a user types this hashtag without any capital letters, it will still work. But you should utilize this capitalization strategy in all of your tweets. It's easier to read, plus it can help you avoid potential embarrassment. Back in 2012, a British singer named Susan Boyleused a hashtag to promote her new album. She tweeted #susanalbumparty to promote it. It's harmless, but the combination of certain letters without any spaces or capitalization could appear inappropriate. #SusanAlbumParty looks much better and prevents confusion. But who knows, maybe you want to be sneaky with your hashtags, hoping one of them goes viral. I just wouldn't encourage or recommend that. Tweets with hashtags also have a greater chance of being retweeted. Retweets will obviously expose your brand to a wider audience. The more people use the tag, the more likely it'll go viral or trend on Twitter. See who used your hashtag.Engage with these people. It's an effective lead-generation strategy. Use Twitter as a customer service resourceIf your customers have questions, complaints, or other inquiries, encourage them to contact you on Twitter. Why? Because other people will see how responsive your brand is. It creates exposure and increases your chances of getting more leads. Customer service interactionsare trending upward on social media. This means customers know they can contact their favorite brands via Twitter and expect brands to respond. If other businesses are responding to their tweets, your customers will assume you're going to do the same. Ignoring your customers' tweets could end up giving you a bad reputation for customer service. However, responding to them in a timely fashion can have the opposite effect. Customers are going to complain.These things happen. Don't let a negative tweet throw you off your game.Respond politely, and try to rectify the situation.Do not get defensive or make excuses. Remember that everyone will see this interaction, so keep it professional at all times. Look at what happens when a person experiences a positive customer service response: The customer is likely to do two things:
If this interaction happens on Twitter, it's even easier for the customer to do both of these things. Providing amazing customer service can do much more than just generate leads. It could potentially double your revenue. Using Twitter for customer service can reduce the chances of the customer getting frustrated. A recent study suggests that Twitter is the least frustratingcustomer service channel. So you already have an advantage there. Engage with your customersNow that you know how to find leads on Twitter, it's time to make sure you're turning those leads into conversions. If someone's tweeting about your brand, products, or industry, reach out to them directly. Let them know you can help. Think back to our advanced search query. You may find some users who don't even know your brand exists. How do you change that? Here are a few tips:
If they didn't know about you before, they will definitely know about you now. Make sure your profile is active. Give your prospective leads a reason to follow your brand. Getting a discount is the top reason why consumers follow a company on Twitter. They also want to receive:
If your Twitter account isn't doing these things, your lead-generation strategy won't be nearly as effective. ConclusionContent consumptionhas grown by 25% on Twitter over the last 2 years. Users want to interact and engage with their favorite brands on Twitter. People all over the world are tweeting about things relevant to your business. The trick is learning how to filter those results to generate leads. Use the Twitter advanced search queries to do this. It's a great way to customize a search based on:
This information will give you the most updated and accurate results. Once you find a prospective lead, reach out to them directly.Follow their profile, and try to get them to follow you back. Run promotions, and offer exclusive content on your feed.This will entice users to interact with your page. Twitter is also an excellent platform to provide customer service.If a customer has a positive customer service experience with your company on Twitter, they are more likely to share their story and recommend your brand. Use hashtags as a creative way to get exposure for your business. All of these tips will help you improve your lead-generation strategy on Twitter. What hashtag will you create to generate leads via Twitter?
People don't always associate Twitter with marketing. If you're not using Twitter to improve your business, you're making a big mistake. Every year, about 200 billion tweets are sent out. This number is astonishing. With so much competition in the social media space, people may assume that Twitter's best days are in the past. That's incorrect. Twitter has never been more popular than it is today. Check out these numbers: Twitter has about 328 million users across the world. That may not seem like a lot compared to the 2 billionmonthly active Facebook users. Still, 328 million isn't a number you can ignore. There are plenty of opportunities for you to generate leads and improve conversions on Twitter. If you're not actively using Twitter for business, it's not too late to change. Fortunately for you, I'm an expert in this space. I've helped companies increase their Twitter engagementby over 300%. In this post, I'll show you how to generate leads on this powerful social media platform. Recognize why consumers are on TwitterBefore you can start marketing, you have to determine whom you need to target. Are you trying to engage with every single user with a Twitter account? That's not an effective strategy. Instead, focus on your current customers and target audience. Find out who is:
Market to these people if you want higher conversions. Roughly 80% of Twitter usershave tweeted about a brand. After seeing the name of a company mentioned on Twitter, 54% of people searched for the business, retweeted the content, or visited the company website. Why do you think so many people talk about companies in their tweets? Twitter is a great way for customers to communicate with their favorite brands. That's why a third of Twitter users voice their opinionsabout products and businesses. As a marketer, you need to embrace this engagement. Recognize that it's an incredible opportunity for brand exposure and growth. When someone tweets at your brand, you've got to respond-fast. According to Sprout Social, it takes an average of 10 hours for brands to reply to users on social media. You've got to do better than that becausecustomers will wait only 4 hours for a response. If you don't have time to respond to tweets, delegate this task to someone on your marketing team. This person can easily respond to people on Twitter within minutes, directly from their smartphone. Knowing this information is especially important if your target market consists of millennials and baby boomers. Nearly half of them follow brands on social media. Based on all the information I've discussed so far, it's obvious that Twitter users want to engage with businesses on this platform. Now that we've established this, it's time to use this information to generate leads for your company. Learn how to use Twitter advanced search queryEarlier I mentioned there are over 328 million users on Twitter and 200 billion annual tweets. Not all these users and tweets are relevant to your business. The key is filtering out the useless ones to generate leads. This is my favorite way to get the most useful and significantsource of leads: Twitter's advanced search queries. Here's how you do it. Step #1: Navigate to the Advanced search menuI'm sure you're familiar with the regular search bar on Twitter. From your search menu, look at the left side of the screen under Search filters. Click on the Advanced search button to proceed. Step #2: Add keywords relevant to your companyThis search field will give you much more accurate results than the generic search bar you've been using. Add words and phrases based on your marketing insights, industry, and target audience. For example, let's say you run a website specializing in outdoor sports equipment. You could add words like hiking, biking, backpack, tent, mountain trails, or surfing to the search bar. It all depends on the goal of your marketing campaign to generate leads. If it's winter, you may want to include terms such as snowboard boots, skis, snowboard goggles, etc. Don't go crazy.Stick to a few specific words and phrases to start. Step #3: Look for relevant usernames (accounts)Adding accounts to your query can give you even more specific results. Not sure what to put in these fields? Here are some suggestions:
Adding your profile to the search may be the only obvious suggestion on this list. But maybe not many people are mentioning your company by name on Twitter. That's why the other ones are just as important. Are people tweeting about your competitors? Those users are your prospective customers. What about an industry expert? Let's continue with the example about an outdoor sports store. You could add Sean White's twitter accountto this search query. He's a professional snowboarder, so it's not unreasonable to think that users tweeting about him are interested in snowboarding equipment. The possibilities are endless. You've just got to get creative to find the most accurate and relevant results to generate leads. Step #4: Turn on your locationBy default, your location services will be turned off for the advanced search query. Turn it on to enable more relevant results. For simplicity, I'll continue using the sports store example. Let's say the shop is located in my city of Seattle, WA. You have an ecommerce store, but you don't deliver outside the northwest region. Tweets about hiking equipment in Florida won't be relevant to your lead-generation strategy. It's easier to narrow your search by adding a location now than having to filter through bad leads later. However, if you have an ecommerce shop with global distribution, you may decide to disable the location feature in the search. It's up to you. However, I'd still recommend focusing on a particular country or region. That way you can segment these leadsand market to them accordingly. Step #5: Filter the datesIf someone tweeted about your company 3 years ago, it's probably a little too late to consider that user as a lead. You want to make sure your search results are recentas well as relevant. Start with the last few months.If you want more results, you can always expand that to the last six months or to the previous year. These 5 steps are super easy to follow. Next time you're trying to generate leads on Twitter, start with the advanced search query. Use hashtags to promote your brandHashtags are a great way to get your company name out there. If you can get enough users to use your hashtag, it could potentially go viral and start trending. Here's what's trending in Seattle today: Come up with a clever and creative hashtag for your company. Look at the sponsored hashtag at the top of this image from Papa John's. #NationalPizzaMonth is much easier to read than #nationalpizzamonth. Granted, if a user types this hashtag without any capital letters, it will still work. But you should utilize this capitalization strategy in all of your tweets. It's easier to read, plus it can help you avoid potential embarrassment. Back in 2012, a British singer named Susan Boyleused a hashtag to promote her new album. She tweeted #susanalbumparty to promote it. It's harmless, but the combination of certain letters without any spaces or capitalization could appear inappropriate. #SusanAlbumParty looks much better and prevents confusion. But who knows, maybe you want to be sneaky with your hashtags, hoping one of them goes viral. I just wouldn't encourage or recommend that. Tweets with hashtags also have a greater chance of being retweeted. Retweets will obviously expose your brand to a wider audience. The more people use the tag, the more likely it'll go viral or trend on Twitter. See who used your hashtag.Engage with these people. It's an effective lead-generation strategy. Use Twitter as a customer service resourceIf your customers have questions, complaints, or other inquiries, encourage them to contact you on Twitter. Why? Because other people will see how responsive your brand is. It creates exposure and increases your chances of getting more leads. Customer service interactionsare trending upward on social media. This means customers know they can contact their favorite brands via Twitter and expect brands to respond. If other businesses are responding to their tweets, your customers will assume you're going to do the same. Ignoring your customers' tweets could end up giving you a bad reputation for customer service. However, responding to them in a timely fashion can have the opposite effect. Customers are going to complain.These things happen. Don't let a negative tweet throw you off your game.Respond politely, and try to rectify the situation.Do not get defensive or make excuses. Remember that everyone will see this interaction, so keep it professional at all times. Look at what happens when a person experiences a positive customer service response: The customer is likely to do two things:
If this interaction happens on Twitter, it's even easier for the customer to do both of these things. Providing amazing customer service can do much more than just generate leads. It could potentially double your revenue. Using Twitter for customer service can reduce the chances of the customer getting frustrated. A recent study suggests that Twitter is the least frustratingcustomer service channel. So you already have an advantage there. Engage with your customersNow that you know how to find leads on Twitter, it's time to make sure you're turning those leads into conversions. If someone's tweeting about your brand, products, or industry, reach out to them directly. Let them know you can help. Think back to our advanced search query. You may find some users who don't even know your brand exists. How do you change that? Here are a few tips:
If they didn't know about you before, they will definitely know about you now. Make sure your profile is active. Give your prospective leads a reason to follow your brand. Getting a discount is the top reason why consumers follow a company on Twitter. They also want to receive:
If your Twitter account isn't doing these things, your lead-generation strategy won't be nearly as effective. ConclusionContent consumptionhas grown by 25% on Twitter over the last 2 years. Users want to interact and engage with their favorite brands on Twitter. People all over the world are tweeting about things relevant to your business. The trick is learning how to filter those results to generate leads. Use the Twitter advanced search queries to do this. It's a great way to customize a search based on:
This information will give you the most updated and accurate results. Once you find a prospective lead, reach out to them directly.Follow their profile, and try to get them to follow you back. Run promotions, and offer exclusive content on your feed.This will entice users to interact with your page. Twitter is also an excellent platform to provide customer service.If a customer has a positive customer service experience with your company on Twitter, they are more likely to share their story and recommend your brand. Use hashtags as a creative way to get exposure for your business. All of these tips will help you improve your lead-generation strategy on Twitter. What hashtag will you create to generate leads via Twitter? It's important for you to always try to improve your email marketing strategy. The trends continue to change each year, and you need to adapt. If you're still sending out the same boring newsletter or promotional offer you used 5 years ago, it's time for you to make some improvements and adjustments. But where do you start? You may want to try testing a couple of different templates or designs to see which one is the most effective. A/B testing is not strictly for people who want to update their old email strategies. It's great for business owners and marketers who are actively trying to keep up with the new trends as well. Making minor changes to your subject lines, color scheme, CTA buttons, and design could drastically improve your conversions. If you've never attempted to A/B test your marketing emails, I'll show you how to get started. Test only one hypothesis at a timeFirst, decide what you want to test. Once you decide what you're testing, come up with a hypothesis. Next, design the test to check that hypothesis. For example, you may want to start by testing your call to action. Let's look at how Optimizelytested their CTA button. These two messages are identical. The only thing that changed was the wording of their call to action. They didn't change the color, design, heading, or text of the message. Optimizely simply tested Watch Webinar against View Presentations & Slides. The results were drastically different. Subscribers clicked on the variation nearly 50% more than the control group. You may want to run further tests on other components of the message. So, now that Optimizely knows which variation produces the most clicks, they can proceed with testing different subject lines that can increase open rates. Where do you start? Before you can come up with a valid hypothesis, you may need to do some research. Decide which component of your subject line you want to test. Here's some great data from Marketing Charts. Based on this information, you could A/B test the number of characters in your subject line. You already know that subjects with 1-20 characters produce the most opens. Take that one step further. Your hypothesis could be that 11-20 characters will produce more opens than 1-10 characters. There's your variation. Let's say the first thing you tested was a CTA button, like in the Optimizely example. Now, you can move on to the subject line. If you tested the CTA and subject line at the same time, you wouldn't know which one was the biggest factor in your results. You can't effectively test a hypothesis with multiple variables. Testing one thing at a time will ultimately help you create the most efficient message. How to set up your A/B email testsAll right, now that you know what to test, it's time to create your email. How do you do this? It depends on your email marketing service. Not all platforms give you this option. If your current provider doesn't have this feature, you may want to consider finding an alternative service. I'll show you the step-by-step process of running an A/B test throughHubSpot's platform. Step #1: Select Email from the Content tab of your Marketing Dashboard Your marketing dashboard is pretty much the home page for the HubSpot account. Just navigate to the content tab and select Email to proceed. Step #2: Click Create email Look for the Create email button in the top right corner of your page. Step #3: Create your A/B test Once you name your email campaign and select a template, next you'll see the editing tab. Click on the blue Create A/B Test button on the left side of your screen. Step #4: Name the variation By default, this popup will have the name of your campaign with (Variation) after it. But you can name it something more specific based on what you're testing. For example, you can name it September News CTA Button Placement instead. Step #5: Change the variation based on your hypothesis Now you can edit the two messages. Remember, the content should be identical. Change only the one thing you're testing. Step #6: Choose the distribution size of the test groups 50/50 is the best distribution. But if you want to modify it, drag the slide bar to change the distribution ratio. Step #7: Analyze the results After you send out the test, HubSpot's software automatically generates a report. Based on the test we ran, Version B had a higher open rate. So, that must be the clear winner, right? Not so fast. It was higher by less than 1% compared to the control group. The difference isn't significant enough to declare a definitive winner. It's an inconclusive test. That's OK. These things happen. If the results are within 1% like in the example above, it's pretty clear they are inconclusive. But what about 5%? 10%? Or 15%? Where do you draw the line? You need to determine your natural variance. Run an A/A test email to determine this. Here's an exampleof an A/A test on a website: The pages are the same. But the one on the right saw 15% higher conversions. So that's the natural variance. Use this same concept for your email campaign. Send identical emails to see what the open rates and click-through rates are. Compare that number against your A/B test results to see if your variance results were meaningful. Test the send time of each messageSometimes you need to think outside the box when you're running these tests. Your subject line and CTA button may not be the problem. What time of day are you sending your messages? What day of the week do your emails go out? You may think Monday morning is a great time because people are starting the week ready to go through emails. But doing further researchsuggests otherwise. It appears more people open emails in the middle of the week. You can run a split test between Wednesday and Thursday or Tuesday and Thursday to see which days are the best. Take your test one step further. Hypothesize what time you think your subscribers will open and click in your message. Studies showpeople are more likely to open an email in the afternoon. Between 2:00 PM and 5:00 PM is the time when you'll probably see the most activity. Take this information into consideration when you're running an A/B test. Your opening lines are essentialEarlier we identified the importance of testing your subject line. Let's take that a step further. Focus on the first few lines of your message. Most email platforms give the recipient a preview of the message underneath the subject. Here's what it looks like on a user's phone in their Gmail account: Play around with the opening lines of your message. It's a great opportunity to run an A/B test. Look at some of the examples above. Banana Republicdoesn't mention the offer in the first few lines. Why? Because it's written in the subject line. It would be redundant if they included that information again in the first sentence. But if you keep reading, there's probably room for improvement. The next part of the message tells you that you can see all the images on their mobile site. That may not be the most efficient use of their preview space. There's one way we can find out for sure. Run an A/B test. Changing your opening lines can help improve open ratesby up to 45%. Manually running an A/B testAs I mentioned earlier, not every email marketing platform has an A/B test option built into their service. Other sites besides HubSpot that have an A/B test feature include: But if you're happy with your current provider and don't want to switch for just one additional feature, you can still manually run an A/B test. Split your list into two groups, and run the test that way. It's possible you already have your contacts segmentedby other metrics. This can help increase open rates and conversions. But it's also an effective method for analyzing your hypothesis. You'll have to create two separate campaigns and compare the results, which is completely fine. You just won't see the comparison side by side on the same page as we saw in the earlier example. If you're doing this manually, always run your tests simultaneously. Running tests on separate occasions could impact the results based on time, which plays a major factor in the analysis. Test a large sample size. This will help ensure your results are more accurate before you jump to definitive conclusions. Running a manual testdoes notmean you should test more than one variable at the same time. Stick to what we outlined earlier, picking a single variation for each test. Experiment with the design of your email campaignsOnce you have your subject line, opening sentences, and calls to action mastered, it's time to think about your existing template. You can keep all your content the same, but change the layout. Here are some examples of different templates from MailChimp: What do all of these templates have in common? The word count. None of these templates give you space to write long paragraphs because it's not effective. Keep your message short. Research from Boomerangsuggests that your email should be between 50 and 125 words. The messages in their test sample got at least a 50% response rate. While you're experimenting with template designs, you can also try different images. Try one large background image with text written over it. Another option is to include a picture within the content. Your A/B template test can help determine which method is more effective. Swapping out one image for another is something else you can test. For example, if you're using a picture of a person, test the difference between a male and female. ConclusionA/B testingworks. If you used these tests to successfully optimize conversions on your website, the same concept could be applied to your email marketing strategy. Before you get started, come up with a valid hypothesis. Don't start changing things without a plan. Test onlyone variationat a time. After you've come up with conclusive results for your first test, you can move on to something else. Try testing your:
The email marketing service you're currently using may have an option for you to run and analyze the results from an A/B test. If not, it's no problem. You can manually run an A/B test by creating two separate groups and two different campaigns. This is still an effective method. A/B tests will help increase opens, clicks, and conversions. Ultimately, this can generate more revenue for your business. How will you modify the call to action in the first variation of your A/B test?
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