Want to grow your IT business?
Today we are going to go over five marketing strategies that can help you get a ton of traffic.
We will also discuss how to convert those visitors into leads and then into customers and share three sales funnels that you can use to do that.
Generate Traffic With These Five Marketing Strategies
Here are five proven marketing strategies that you can use to generate traffic:
Google Search Ads
Google Search ads are the ads displayed at the top of Google’s search results.
This can be a great way to promote specific services because you can target the keywords related to those services.
Do keyword research, identify the most promising keywords, and then start running Google Search ads targeting them.
Social Media Ads
All major social media platforms allow you to run ads on them:
- Facebook.
- Instagram.
- Twitter.
- LinkedIn.
- YouTube.
- TikTok.
Pick the platform that makes the most sense for your business, set up an ad campaign, and start running it with a small daily budget.
Once you figure out how to run ads profitably, you can begin scaling your campaign by gradually increasing its budget.
Then, once you have mastered running ads on that platform and have streamlined your campaigns, you can start expanding to other platforms using the same approach.
Alternatively, you can experiment by creating campaigns on several major platforms, running them all with small daily budgets, and then doubling down on the one that worked best.
Podcast Ads
Podcast advertising can be a great way to reach your target audience:
- Figure out what podcasts your target audience is listening to. Say, if your IT company serves small software startups, then advertising on podcasts like Indie Hackers might be a good idea. Don’t make the mistake of advertising on IT podcasts because people who listen to them probably don’t need your services!
- Reach out to the hosts and work out an ad deal. Agree on three ads over the course of three months, at a frequency of one ad per month. Make sure to create a special link for every podcast you run ads on so that you would know how much traffic each podcast is generating.
- Analyze the data. See if that traffic is converting into leads and then into paying customers. Do the math on whether it makes sense to pay for three more ads.
Once you identify podcasts that can reliably send you high-quality traffic, you might want to work out ongoing partnerships with their hosts.
YouTube Marketing
Starting a YouTube channel where you teach people how to solve various IT problems can be another great way to reach your target audience.
It’s important to target a specific keyword with each video:
- Do keyword research. Type in a general term related to the services you provide into YouTube’s search bar and look at the suggestions that come up. These are related keywords that people are searching for. Pick one.
- Do competitor research. Type in your chosen keyword into YouTube’s search bar, watch the three top-ranking videos and read the comments. You want to figure out how to make your video better than the videos that are currently ranking for that keyword.
- Write the script. You can simply use an outline with bullet points but it might be better to prepare a word-for-word script, provided that you can read it without sounding robotic.
- Shoot the video. Don’t worry too much about production value because it’s the content that matters. That being said, you want to get the basics such as audio, lighting, and camera angles right. Of these three, it’s the audio that is the most important. People will forgive questionable video quality if the content is good but they won’t suffer through terrible audio. It’s okay to film with your smartphone but you might want to consider investing in a professional-grade microphone.
- Edit the video. Attention spans are so short that every second matters. Make sure to edit out any verbal tics, awkwardness, etc.
- Create a thumbnail. Thumbnails are arguably the most important factor when it comes to getting people to click on your videos. That’s why you need to make sure that they grab attention. You also want to have a consistent thumbnail aesthetic (color scheme, fonts, design, etc.) so that they’d be immediately recognizable to your subscribers in their subscription feeds.
- Come up with an intriguing title. Your titles should include your target keyword and describe what the video entails. They also need to pique curiosity, so make sure that every title has that element as well. You need to strike the right balance between informative and intriguing.
Once everything is done, publish your video. Promote it on your social media and to your email subscribers.
You can create engagement under your videos by pinning a question at the top of the comments. Make sure to respond to each viewer comment that you get!
No one knows for sure how YouTube’s algorithm works except for the people who work at the company but it’s probably safe to assume that it rewards quality, consistency, and engagement. So create a content schedule where you post 1-2 high-quality videos per week and adhere to it religiously.
Realistically, it will probably take you at least 12-18 months to get to the point where the algorithm starts showing you some love and your channel starts gaining momentum. It will feel like an uphill battle until then, but once you reach this “escape velocity”, everything will become easier!
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Search engine optimization can help you get organic search traffic from Google.
Consider starting a company blog dedicated to various IT-related topics that your dream customers might be interested in.
Just make sure that each blog post targets a specific keyword:
- Do keyword research to identify a promising keyword.
- Conduct competitive research to see what’s currently ranking on the first page of Google for that keyword.
- Create a piece of SEO content that targets that keyword and is better than everything that’s currently ranking on the first page of Google for it.
- Build backlinks to that piece of content which lets Google know that it’s legit.
- Promote your lead magnet on that page with an opt-in box at the bottom of the article and an exit-intent pop-up.
We can’t emphasize the importance of building backlinks enough.
There’s this idea floating around that all you need to do in order to rank on the first page of search results is create top-quality content. But that’s not the case anymore.
You need to be aggressive about building backlinks. Otherwise, your content will be outranked by articles that are inferior in terms of quality but have more backlinks!
Also, keep in mind that the vast majority of clicks tend to go to the top three search results. So it’s not just about getting on the first page, you also need to get to one of the top spots.
Realistically, it will probably take you at least 18-24 months to start generating a decent amount of search traffic, possibly longer if you have no previous experience with SEO.
Building a popular niche blog is a difficult endeavor that takes a lot of hard work, consistency, and patience, so if you want to succeed at it, you need to be in it for the long haul!
Convert Visitors Into Leads and Then Into Customers With These Three Sales Funnels
The aforementioned marketing strategies can help you generate traffic. But that’s just the first step!
You then need to convert those visitors into paying customers. What is the best way to do that?
We believe that the most effective approach is converting them into leads first by obtaining their email addresses and then converting them into customers by pitching them your products and services via email.
Here are three sales funnels that you might want to experiment with:
The Quote Funnel
The quote funnel is a sales funnel where you use a custom quote as a lead magnet.
Its structure looks like this:
Page 1: A survey where you ask lead-qualifying questions.
Page 2: A squeeze page where you ask the potential customer for their email address so that you can send them a quote based on their survey answers. You can either create this quote manually or generate it automatically.
Page 3: A thank you page where you thank the potential customer for filling out the survey and let them know when they should expect their quote.
When you send them their quote, end the email by encouraging them to book a free 30-minute call with you and direct them to your appointment calendar.
This sales funnel can work really well for selling expensive services, especially if you offer custom pricing based on the project’s scope.
The Squeeze Page Funnel
The squeeze page funnel is the most popular sales funnel out there. Later in this article, we will explain how to build it.
Its structure looks like this:
Page 1: A squeeze page where you present your lead magnet and ask the potential customer for their email address in exchange for it.
Page 2: A thank you page where you thank the potential customer and provide instructions on how to access your lead magnet.
This funnel is incredibly versatile and can work well both for promoting your business in general and for promoting specific IT services that you provide.
The Webinar Funnel
The webinar funnel is a sales funnel where you use a webinar as your lead magnet.
Its structure looks like this:
Page 1: A webinar registration page where you explain what your webinar is about and encourage the potential customer to register for it by providing their email address.
Page 2: A thank you page where you thank the potential customer for registering for the webinar and let them know that you will be sending them email reminders 24 hours, 1 hour, and 15 minutes before the event and then the last reminder once the webinar is live.
Page 3: A webinar page where they can either watch the webinar live or watch the recording if they can’t make it to the live event.
The webinar should be a 45-60 minute presentation that provides a solution to a problem that your dream customers are struggling with followed by a sales pitch for one of your services.
You can end the webinar either by encouraging the attendees to order that service and directing them to its sales page or by encouraging them to book a free 30-minute consultation with you and directing them to your appointment booking page.
The webinar funnel can work really well for selling expensive IT services!
Build a Squeeze Page Funnel For Your IT Business
Okay, so now you understand how these sales funnels are structured, but how can you build one for your business?
Here’s how to build a squeeze page funnel in just three steps:
Step #1: Create a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a freebie that you offer to the potential customer in exchange for their email address.
It can be anything that they can either download to their device or access online:
- A voucher.
- An ebook.
- A video class.
- A video course.
- An email course.
…etc.
Alex Hormozi, an entrepreneur who reached $100M+ net worth by his early 30s, argues that a lead magnet should provide a complete solution to a narrowly defined problem.
That way, the potential customer will be able to implement that solution and solve that narrowly defined problem. This is real value. And providing real value builds trust!
Alex shares his 7-step process for creating an effective lead magnet in this video:
Step #2: Set Up Your Squeeze Page Funnel
Our software, ClickFunnels 2.0, includes a squeeze page funnel template that you can customize according to your needs with our visual editor. Simple!
Step #3: Set Up This Six-Email Welcome Sequence
We don’t recommend hitting the potential customer with a sales pitch the moment you get their email address. You need to build more trust!
Send them this six-email welcome sequence instead:
- Email #1: Who Are You? Introduce yourself to the new subscriber.
- Email #2: Where Did You Come From? Share your origin story. How did you get into IT?
- Email #3: What Do You Do? Explain in more detail what it is that you do.
- Email #4: How Did You Gain This Expertise? Explain what makes you qualified to do what you do. Share relevant experience, credentials, and accomplishments.
- Email #5: Who Do You Do This For? Explain who your dream customers are + share a case study on how you helped such a person get the results that they wanted.
- Email #6: How Can You Do It For Me? Either pitch your most popular IT service and provide a link to its sales page or present a bullet point list with all your services, short descriptions of what each service entails, and links to their sales pages.
The email frequency should be one email per day so that the entire sequence would take six days to complete.
Build Your First Sales Funnel In Just Five Days!
Let’s keep it real:
Building a sales funnel from scratch can seem like a daunting task.
That’s why we created our 5 Day Lead Challenge where our co-founder Russel walks you through it step-by-step.
You will:
- Create your first lead magnet.
- Build your first squeeze page funnel.
- Set up a six-email welcome sequence.
…and launch your funnel in just five days!
So don’t hesitate. Take action now. It can change your life!
Join Our 5 Day Lead Challenge Today!
P.S. This challenge is completely FREE!