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The Benefits of Lead Generation

Posted on September 23, 2022July 4, 2024 by Phil

A lead is a potential customer who has expressed interest in your product or service. Lead generation is the process of attracting and converting strangers and prospects into someone who has indicated an interest in your company.

A successful digital marketing strategy should include some form of lead generation. It will target consumers at every stage of the buyer’s journey, from Awareness (top of the funnel) to Consideration (middle of the funnel) to Decision (bottom of the funnel).

Benefits of lead generation include:

Increased sales: By generating more leads, you’ll have a larger pool of potential customers to sell to.
Cost savings: Lead generation is often more cost-effective than traditional advertising methods like print or TV ads.
Brand awareness: Generating leads can help create brand awareness and name recognition for your business.
Improved customer Service: By generating leads, you can gather valuable information about your target market and their pain points. This information can be used to improve your customer service.

How to Generate Leads

There are a number of ways to generate leads. Here are a few lead generation ideas to get you started:

Create a landing page
A landing page is a special type of website page that’s designed to convert visitors into leads. Landing pages usually have a form that visitors can fill out to request more information or sign up for a newsletter. One thing to note is the importance of relevance and quality of the landing page. Web design and website performance are also important aspects to convert website visitors into leads. If your website sucks it won’t convert!
Run a contest or offer a freebie:
Running a contest or offering a freebie is a great way to generate leads. People love free stuff! Therefore this is an effective way to get people’s attention and get them to give you their contact information. Just make sure that your contest or freebie is relevant to your business and that it’s something that your target market would be interested in.
Use social media:
Social media is a great way to generate leads. You can use social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn to post relevant content that will attract your target market and encourage them to contact you for more information. You can also use social media ads to target specific audiences and generate leads.
Attend or host trade shows and events:
Attending trade shows and events is another great way to generate leads. You’ll have the opportunity to meet face-to-face with potential customers and show them what your company has to offer. Just make sure that you’re attending events that are relevant to your business and that your target market will be in attendance.
Partner with other businesses
partnering with other businesses is a great way to generate leads. You can team up with complementary businesses to co-sponsor events or discounts, which will help you reach new audiences and generate leads. Make sure that you choose partners wisely and that they share the same values as your company.

Where to begin with Lead Generation

Lead generation is a dark art. When it comes to Marketing in the Digital Age, you need to understand your customer, and the issues or problems they may be facing. Sometimes this requires outsourced help – especially if you’re busy. Engaging an Expert in the field of Digital Marketing can pay dividends in the long run. If you choose a marketing agency that is right for your business – they will return you far more than they will cost. Lead generation – like anything in the digital world, when done well it is an investment.

There are many benefits of lead generation, including increased sales, cost savings, brand awareness, improved customer service, etc… If you’re looking for ways to generate leads, there are many options available. The key is to do your research. Make sure any offers or freebies etc are relevant to your business and audience so that you can generate quality leads that convert into customers or clients. Thanks for reading!

NPS – Net Promoter Score – How happy are your customers?

Posted on June 26, 2022May 22, 2025 by Phil

We’ve all heard the team “the squeaky wheel gets the grease.” And although we definitely recommend visiting a mechanic over fixing your car with a can of grease, this expression really does still apply to your customers.

Customer reviews have a lot of power — especially in the internet age, when recommendations and complaints can go viral on social media faster than you can say “the customer is always right.”

Word-of-mouth recommendations, and complaints, are taken incredibly seriously by consumers. Recommendations from friends and family members are the most trusted source of advertising for 83% of respondents, and nearly 100% of customers surveyed said they trusted recommendations from other people — even strangers — more than content from brands.

Conversely, a Harvard Business Review study found 48% of customers who had negative experiences with a company told 10 or more people. And as it turns out, customers like talking about bad customer experiences more than good ones — American Express’s “Global Customer Service Barometer” survey found the average customer in the United State tells 12 other people about good experiences — and 24 people about bad experiences.

If you’re reading this and starting to panic because you have no idea what your customers think of your product or your service, remain calm. You just need a method to start surveying them and analyzing their reviews to determine how loyal and enthusiastic your customers are — or aren’t. That’s where the Net Promoter Score® can help. It’s also why it NPS should be incorporated into your overarching marketing strategy

→ Download Now: Customer Service Metrics Calculator [Free Tool]

What Is Net Promoter Score?

The Net Promoter Score, or NPS, is a simple survey method to help you determine how loyal your customers are. NPS is a customer satisfaction metric that measures, on a scale of 0-10, the degree to which people would recommend your company to others.

Surveying Your Customers

NPS is calculated by surveying customers and asking the question, “on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend to a friend?”

So once you’ve collected the answers to this question, you can categorize customer answers into three groups:

Customers who answer with a 9 or 10 would most likely recommend to a friend, so they are promoters.
Customers who answer with a 7 or 8 are neutral, so they are passives.
Customers who answered between 0 and 6 most likely wouldn’t recommend to a friend, so they are detractors.

Tally up the total number of respondents, and then tally up the number of respondents in each category. Determine the percentage breakdown of each category.

Calculating NPS / Net Promoter Score

Then, to calculate NPS, you subtract the percentage of “detractors” (customers who wouldn’t recommend you) from the percentage of “promoters” (customers who would recommend you). Obviously, the fewer detractors, the better. Regularly surveying and evaluating the NPS for your business allows you to establish benchmarks so you can figure out how to improve the loyalty of your customers — and, hopefully, generate more positive recommendations than negative reviews.

So, if you surveyed 31 customers, and twenty four were promoters and three were detractors, 77% would be promoters, and 10% would be detractors. The formula for your NPS calculation would be:

NPS = 77% – 10% = 68

Net Promoter Score by Industry

Context is important when it comes to most statistics and data, and NPS is no exception. The average NPS varies across industries, so it’s important to consider the context of your industry when evaluating your own company’s NPS. Below are customer experience management company Satmetrix’s calculations for the average NPS, by sector, in the United States:

1. Department/Specialty Stores: 52

2. Tablet Computers: 52

3. Brokerage/Investments: 46

4. Online Entertainment: 43

5. Online Shopping: 43

6. Airlines: 39

7. Auto Insurance: 39

8. Credit Cards: 37

9. Laptop Computers: 36

10. Hotels: 36

11. Home/Contents Insurance: 35

12. Smartphones: 34

13. Banking: 34

14. Grocery/Supermarkets: 32

15. Cell Phone Service: 32

16. Software & Apps: 30

17. Shipping Services: 28

18. Life Insurance: 26

19. Drug Stores/Pharmacies: 26

20. Travel Websites: 18

21. Health Insurance: 14

22. Cable/Satellite TV Service: -6

23. Internet Service: -7

Source: Satmetrix

NPS – The Impact of the Net Promoter Score

Referral Marketing

A high NPS helps companies take advantage of referral marketing. It helps companies harness the enthusiasm of engaged, promoter customers to generate buzz and awareness and attract new customers. Through customer loyalty and brand advocacy, brands can use enthusiastic customers’ word-of-mouth and online recommendations, social media promotion, and event attendance to gain new leads and customers.

Here are a few more convincing stats about the power of referral marketing — if you aren’t already convinced:

Customers are 4X more likely to buy when they’re referred by a friend.
83% of happy and satisfied customers are willing to provide referrals.
New referred customers have 16% higher lifetime value.

The success of referral marketing is a reflection of social proof — the theory that consumers will adapt their behavior according to what other people are doing. If a person knows your company already has hundreds of happy customers, they’ll be more likely to consider purchasing from you.

NPS / Customer Loyalty

It’s easy to focus on how to acquire new customers, but you also want to constantly evaluate how to retain existing customers and keep them happy, too.

Why? Two big reasons:

It’s 5-25X more expensive to acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing one.
Increasing customer retention by 5% can increase profits by 25-95%.

These numbers aren’t anything to scoff at. While marketing and sales teams are hard at work attracting, converting, and closing new customers, customer success teams need to be hustling to retain customers and reduce churn. NPS is a way to measure progress on that front.

Companies should measure NPS results over time — both the overall Net Promoter Score, and the breakdown of scores in each category — to evaluate churn risks and other potential potholes. An increasing number of promoters and a decreasing number of detractors is ideal, but you should also measure how the breakdown changes over time. An increased number of detractors is an obvious red flag, but pay attention to your passive responses, too.

What should you monitor with NPS?

If the number of promoters decreases, and the number of passives decreases, that could mean customers are less satisfied and are at risk of becoming detractors or switching to another brand.

If the number of detractors decreases, and the number of passives increases, that could mean customers are happier with your product, but that they still aren’t completely satisfied enough to promote you.

An abrupt change in the number of promoters or detractors is a clear signal, but stay vigilant of passive respondents, too — they could be on their way to either end of the NPS spectrum.

Now that you’re ready to learn from your customers — and engage them through customer loyalty programs and social media — it’s time to start asking questions.

You can use survey tools to ask your customers the NPS question — “on a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to refer us to a friend?” We also suggest leaving an open form so customers can comment about why they gave the answer they gave so you can analyze your quantitative and qualitative results.

Net Promoter, Net Promoter System, Net Promoter Score, NPS, and the NPS-related emoticons are registered trademarks of Bain & Company, Inc., Fred Reichheld, and Satmetrix Systems, Inc.

11 Stats about Landing Pages for Marketing

Posted on June 21, 2022March 9, 2023 by Phil

A landing page (LP) is a standalone website page dedicated to a specific marketing campaign. The primary function is to convert site visitors into leads. Landing pages typically offer visitors something that they may be interested in. For example, this may be an Ebook or a free trial, in exchange for contact information. Getting this information then gives businesses the tools they need to further nurture leads and urge them down the purchasing funnel.

Since landing pages are tailored to customer interests, using them in your marketing strategy can help you convert a significant number of qualified prospects since you can assume that they’re ending up on a landing page because its content interests them.

If you’ve yet to consider using them or you want to update your current LP strategy, this piece will go over 11 stats that make a case for using landing pages as a means to increase your conversion rates and generate more leads.

11 Stats That Make a Case for Landing Pages

1. The average Landing Page conversion rate across all industries is 9.7%.

Given that 10% is a benchmark for a good conversion rate, taking the time to create a LP that carefully considers the interests of your target audience will benefit your business. Whether you sell SaaS or clothing, or recuitment, a higher conversion rate from landing pages means a longer list of leads to nurture into paying customers.

2. Landing pages are the least popular type of sign-up form, but they have the highest conversion rate (23%), and 62.6% of leading landing pages already use them.

Using LP’s to obtain customer contact information for lead nurturing is likely to bring higher conversions. If you decide to use forms, the highest-converting number of fields is 3, with an average conversion rate of 10%. The most popular combinations use email address and name (7%) and email address and birthdate (5.7%).

3. Businesses using optimisation software for their LP’s see an average conversion lift of 30%.

Optimisation is always an essential factor for generating traffic anyway. Using optimisation tools to perfect your landing page strategy is valuable for increasing conversions.

4. Addressing buyer fears on LP’s can increase conversion rates by 80%.

Marcus Sheridan, a popular keynote speaker at Inbound, ran an experiment where he found that addressing customer fears, like email spam or personal date use, on his LP increased his form conversion rate. Be upfront with consumers about what will come from completing forms on your landing pages.

5. Personalised CTAs convert 202% better than default versions.

Consumers prefer personalisation because it ensures that they aren’t overloaded with irrelevant information that doesn’t pertain to their interests. Given this, using personalized and targeted CTAs in your landing pages will likely increase your conversion rates.

6. 48% of top LP’s ranked in Google Maps and organic search query results

Ensuring that your landing pages are SEO optimised is key. Optimising for both Google search and Maps increases the likelihood of showing in search queries. This increasies exposure and the possibility of generating more leads. If you also link landing page CTAs in email ads, you’re ensuring exposure and visibility from three different channels.

7. 65% of top LP’s have their business name in the title tag.

Customers value transparency. Using a recognisable brand name and logo shows them that you’re not running a scam or being deceitful. You’re claiming ownership of the CTAs and personal information you’re asking for. Therefore, Including your business name on your landing page is a simple step you can take that can help you increase conversions.

8. 30% of top LP’s use video content.

If you already use video as a part of your marketing, great work! Incorporating video into your LP strategy can help you increase conversion rates. In fact, relevant embedded video content can increase conversions by 86%. And, furthermore, 80% of video marketers say that video has directly increased sales.

9. 36% of top LP’s have testimonials, 11% have reviews.

You likely already solicit reviews and testimonials from current customers. Repurposing them to use on your landing pages can increase customer trust and higher conversion rates, especially considering that 60% of consumers think that user-generated content (UGC), like reviews, are the most authentic form of content a brand can use.

10. 55% of top LP’s submissions on the HubSpot blog came from Ebook offers.

If you have a blog or website that wants to distribute long-form instructional content, offering Ebooks in your landing pages can help increase your business conversion rates.

11. 49% of marketers report that increasing customer acquisition is their primary objective in 2020, and a top priority for marketers was generating leads.

If you fall into either of these categories, LP’s can be a valuable element of your marketing strategy to generate leads and increase customer acquisition.

Landing pages are a valuable piece of your marketing strategy.

Considering the above stats, we can see that marketers who create landing pages that build trust with page visitors, provide valuable information, and use different content types see higher conversion rates.

Whether you already use them and aren’t obtaining the results you desire or you’re new to landing pages in general, using them will likely help you draw in new customers and drive revenue.

B2B Marketing: The Business Behind the Business

Posted on May 5, 2022September 12, 2023 by Phil

As a business owner, you’re always looking for the most efficient ways to market. Whether that be constructing your messaging, or attracting new customers. If your primary target customers are businesses and you’re not already doing B2B marketing, now is the time to start! It stands for “business-to-business” marketing. And it’s an incredibly powerful tool that can help you reach your target audience quickly and effectively. Let’s take a look at why B2B marketing is so important. And how you can use it to grow your business

What Is B2B Marketing?

At its core, B2B marketing is the process of promoting your products or services to other businesses rather than directly to consumers. It involves finding potential partners in related industries and leveraging their contacts to create mutually beneficial relationships. In terms of digital strategies, business-to-business marketing typically involves creating content that appeals to decision-makers at other companies. These include things such as blog posts, white papers, infographics, case studies, webinars, and more

The Benefits of B2B Marketing

There are several key benefits to using B2B marketing strategies

Increased visibility – By targeting businesses in related industries, you can expand your reach beyond traditional consumer markets. This will give you more opportunities to make connections with potential customers who may not have heard of your company before.
Cost savings – Compared to traditional mass advertising methods like TV or print ads, b2b marketing is usually more cost-effective. This is because it doesn’t require large upfront investments or ongoing costs. Plus, by targeting specific audiences with tailored messages instead of a broad one-size-fits-all approach, you can maximize the return on investment for each dollar spent on advertising
Higher conversions – When done correctly, business-to-business marketing campaigns tend to have higher conversion rates than those aimed at consumers since they are tailored toward decision-makers who have more authority over purchasing decisions.

In conclusion, b2b marketing is an incredibly powerful tool that can help businesses expand their reach beyond traditional consumer markets and increase their visibility online. With the right strategies in place—such as creating engaging content tailored towards decision makers—you can generate leads that convert into paying customers faster and save money in the process! Ready to get started with b2b marketing? Contact us today for personalized advice on how best to leverage this strategy for maximum success!

Using Landing Pages For Recruitment

Posted on March 21, 2022April 11, 2025 by Phil

A landing page for recruitment or any other campaign is a standalone website page dedicated to a specific marketing campaign. Its key purpose is to convert site visitors into leads. Landing pages typically offer visitors something that they may be interested in. This could be an Ebook of company culture, or information about the role. in exchange for contact information. Getting this information then gives businesses the tools they need to further nurture leads and urge them down the purchasing funnel.

In the field of recruitment marketing, the theory remains the same. Whilst you’re not trying to get someone to physically purchase from you, you are still selling them something -Your company. One of the primary goals is to convert prospective candidates into leads (applicants) within the talent network. From a conversion point of view, one strategy that works exceptionally well for recruitment teams includes customised landing pages.

Landing Pages for a recruitment website

The role of a recruitment landing page is to establish a connection between your company and the potential candidate. Your landing page will become an integral part of the job-seeking journey for candidates. A thought-out, well-crafted, and well-designed landing page can help hard-to-fill roles get applicants by hyper-focusing and catering to certain groups of candidates and locations.

Landing pages essentially exist independent of your main website. They can focus on specific functions, campaigns, or other hiring efforts. When you create the perfect landing pages for your initiatives, they will become indispensable assets in your recruitment marketing strategy.

Benefits of Creating Custom landing pages for recruitment

Some of the benefits of customized landing pages include:

Since landing pages have a single focus and target a particular audience, they can deliver more leads and higher conversion rates.
With a customized landing page, you can create targeted content for particular audiences. This gives you the ability to specialise in the imagery, messaging, and offers included. This helps in ensuring that the landing page speaks directly to the audience you’re targeting.
Provide your team with insightful and actionable data. You can design and refine landing pages for multiple referral sources and campaigns. When you review the analytics data, you can observe the channels that drive maximum traffic as well as conversions.

Best Practices for Creating Landing Pages for Recruitment

While there are several ways to launch a successful recruitment landing page, there are core concepts on page design, information that should be included, and the placement of visual elements (including photographs and videos) to enhance user experience. Here are some of the important concepts we identified that have to do with the content in an overall sense:

Maintain Consistency with Brand Identity

One of the best ways of convincing candidates to apply to work for your company is by telling them about your brand. The career page in your recruitment website should have consistent and clear messaging. It should communicate the uniqueness of the corporate culture of your company.

Inconsistency throughout your landing pages and website can confuse and ultimately turn away interested candidates. While the landing page messaging should be concise, it should convey your corporate culture at least to some extent. Additionally, it should be designed with building your brand in mind.

Leverage Media to Boost Personal Connection

Testimonials from workers, videos highlighting your work environment, and photographs of employees are methods that allow candidates to visualize themselves working for your company. This is particularly important when recruiting members of diverse groups. When people see other people who look like them represented as flourishing workers within your organisation, it is much easier to see themselves working there. And ultimately of course, for them to make an emotional connection.

Furthermore, visual media can help in highlighting any awards of recognition for your company. This is because they help in conveying critical information in an easy-to-remember and attractive manner. Infographics can be really useful in this regard.

Help Candidates Form a Connection with Your Organisation

Consider that the first thing prospective candidates see on a landing or career page shouldn’t necessarily be a list of open positions. Launching into a story about your company and its culture can draw the attention of visitors and make them excited to see more. The introduction shouldn’t be too long, however — two short paragraphs are usually sufficient.

One thing that’s of particular importance in recruiting these days is fostering diversity and inclusion. You will probably already know that communicating the aspect of your organisation’s culture is important. Any recruitment pages that you create should not only reflect this, and as such should be crafted to attract the demographic you’re targeting. For example you may include such things as bilingual landing pages, as well as verbiage that fosters a sense of inclusion for diverse candidates.

Craft Job Postings That Sell Your Company

Once you’ve gained the applicant’s interest on the landing page, the job descriptions on your website should boost the overall energy and interest that you have built. Effective descriptions should offer visitors an overview of the given role. If you’ve done your job right, it will also have them excited to apply. Ensure that the postings are informative, concise and engaging.

Landing Pages can be a valuable piece of your recruitment marketing strategy.

Considering the landing page stats, we can that businesses that create landing pages that build trust with page visitors, provide valuable information, and use different content types see higher conversion rates.

Whether you already use them and aren’t obtaining the results you desire or you’re new to landing pages for recruitment, or in general, using them will likely help you draw in potential candidates and attract talent to you your team. In fact, our very own Chloë, who applied and moved all the way from Auckland to little old Invercargill, came from a recruitment landing page on our website!

What is Hubspot? [VIDEO]

Posted on December 21, 2021September 6, 2023 by Phil

The HubSpot CRM platform is a full suite of software built to power an inbound strategy approach to help you — and your customers — grow better. There are many alternatives to HubSpot so it is still worth doing your research, but this article will help you understand more about it.

Sounds complicated if you haven’t used a CRM before. But honestly, it’s not! If you’re using spreadsheets – or worse – a notebook or diary – or worse still – nothing at all to keep track of your customer interactions, then HubSpot could be a game-changer for you and your business!

You may have heard the term (or read it on our website) “inbound” before — but what is it, exactly? Inbound is a methodology for growing your organisation.

It’s based on building meaningful, lasting relationships with your prospects and customers through valuable content and experiences, and empowering people to reach their goals at any stage in their journey with you. Because when your customers succeed, you succeed.

Let’s look at how your marketing, sales, service, and operations teams can leverage the HubSpot platform to achieve their goals.

Hubspot: Marketing, sales, service and operations teams collaborate to remove friction in the buyer’s journey.

Hubspot Marketing

Generate qualified leads.

Create and manage content, capture leads, and nurture them until they’re qualified and sales-ready.

Hubspot Sales

Turn leads into customers.

Engage potential buyers, demonstrate the value of your offering and close deals.

Hubspot Service

Convert customers into promoters.

Resolve customer issues and deliver an experience that turns customers into promoters.

Hubspot Operations

Make your systems work better together.

Connect apps, automate processes, and align teams around one source of truth for customer data.

Funnel to Flywheel: The Buyer’s Journey Is Now a Circle

The flywheel is a model adapted by HubSpot to explain the momentum you gain when you align your entire organization around delivering a remarkable customer experience. With the flywheel, you use the momentum of your happy customers to drive referrals and repeat sales. Basically, your business keeps spinning, you align your entire organization around delivering a remarkable customer experience and continuously produce happy customers. When you use the inbound methodology as a foundation, the three phases of your flywheel are; attract, engage, and delight. By applying force to these three phases, you can provide an amazing customer experience.

Hubspot has changed our business

As a HubSpot Solution Partner here at back9 we may admittedly be a little bit biased, but we truly love Hubspot. We trialed around 6-8 different CRM systems or what claimed to be – back before we tried Hubspot. They were all clunky and had one or two good points but never quite gelled. After using Hubspot Freemium for around 2 years we jumped onboard a paid subscription and became a solutions partner – the only one in Southland (at the time of writing this article).

The price is offputting to a lot of smaller organisations, but the time and energy using Hubspot effectively can save is far greater than the price of the subscription.

If you’re interested in finding out more and would like some guidance, please fill out the form and contact us first before signing up, so we can help you understand and get you onboard.