Matrix Marketing Group

Digital Marketing Agency

Sabine Wolf

15 Hotshot Techniques to Fine Tune Your Digital Sales Process

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When was the last time you looked at your digital sales process?

Are your sales funnels firing on all cylinders?

Boosting digital sales is a common aim shared by small- and large-scale businesses.

And why not? In a world dominated by e-commerce, online sales determine the success and failure of any business. 

Constantly improving the digital sales strategy positively impacts the sales funnel and helps keep old and new customers engaged. However, only a handful of businesses manage to get desirable digital sales.

Getting desired digital sales is easy unless you know the right set of techniques and strategies to amplify your sales process. Here are eight effective techniques that will help you in this respect.  

Use Ad extensions in your digital sales process

If you are looking for the most cost-effective ways to amplify your sales, getting more ad clicks with more ad extensions will do your job. 

With it, you can make your ad more enticing for your potential customers to click. For instance, if you’re selling clothes, offering two options – “Men’s Apparel” and “Women’s Apparel” using ad extensions, you can provide the potential buyers two different places to click.

By sparing people an extra step and making it easier to reach the desired website section, you increase successful sales. 

Add a sense of urgency 

A simple phrase like “right now” can make a big difference. By conjugating a sense of urgency, you compel the potential buyers to hit the buy button without delay. 

Experiment by adding limited-edition products or time-sensitive offers, use a countdown on the limited-time sales or seasonal deals.

Lure the buyers by offering financial incentives, such as a discount or free shipping, to the buyers who hit the buy button right now. This sole trick will work in your favor.

Make the checkout easy

A long and tedious checkout process is the biggest enemy of sales. If numbers are believed, the average cart abandonment rate is an unbelievable 68.81%, and a great portion of it can be accredited to a complicated checkout process. 

Once customers have made up their minds and loaded the shopping cart with their favorite products, they prefer making a quick buy and getting on with other work. If a website keeps them hooked for a longer time, they tend to get irritated and abandon the cart. Hence, it’s crucial to offer a less complicated checkout process. 

Review the checkout steps of your website and remove the unnecessary steps. Eliminate non-essential fields from the form, and create an easy pathway that leads them out quickly with their hands full.  

Provide multiple payment options 

Some customers purchase with cash, while some prefer cards. To keep the interest of every buyer, provide every possible payment option to them, from COD to Google Wallet payment to ApplePay to net banking. 

Stay on top of the game by providing all the latest services that are already gaining shoppers’ fancy. 

Align the landing page with the ad


So, you managed to get the attention of your target audience by creating a compelling ad. Your buyers hit the button and land on a page that is not even remotely similar to the ad. It can make your buyers feel duped. Hence, work on this aspect. 

If you use paid ads to enhance sales, ensure that your ads and landing pages are correlated. You can do it in two ways, either by scent match (i.e., matching the color scheme and layout of your ad and landing page) or by aligning the message (using the same copy as the ad to market the landing page). 

Let your customer testimonials back you


If your existing customers laud your products and services, use their feedback as leverage to enhance your digital sales. 

Make your current customers shell out some sugar-coated words for you and use them to attract more buyers. Post the reviews and testimonials on your home page, landing page, product page, and pricing page. 

Today, before making a purchase, every customer wants to know the opinion of someone who has already used the product or service they are eyeing. Having people rave about your service will drive your digital sales further. 

To further cement your position, include trust signals. It will create a positive image of your brand in the psyche of your potential customers, and they won’t hesitate to buy your products or services. 

The easiest way to accomplish this feat is by adding your professional accreditations to the website. Highlight all the certificates and memberships you have to make it easy for potential buyers to trust you.

Target lookalike audiences

With all the modern tools, it is possible to collect relevant data that demonstrates the behavior of your existing customers. Use the data derived from your existing customers to find out more buyers like them. How can you do it? Through Facebook. 

Facebook allows you to find lookalike audiences, i.e., people who have the same behavior and characteristics as the customers in the database. 

All you need to do is update the data on Facebook. Facebook will then check its data and highlight the audience that shares a resemblance with the attributes of your audience. Once you identify the lookalike audience, entice them in your products or service using highly targeted ads. 

It is an easy and cost-effective way to use already existing data to your benefit. 

Engage your prospects personally

Apart from Facebook, several other social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, or Instagram, offer you the opportunity to connect with your prospects on a more personal level.  Actively engaging with your prospects ensures customer satisfaction, brand awareness, brand recall, and sales. Having a one-on-one conversation with your prospects on social media serves you a double advantage. Firstly, with social media, you enter their personal space and create a personal connection with them. Secondly, responding to them or initiating a conversation makes your customers feel important. It can go a long way in creating a positive perception of your brand. 

 But how do you find the right prospects on social media?


LinkedIn offers a fabulous feature in this respect. The Sales Navigator feature creates a pathway that leads you to the right prospects via search and filter features.
All you need to do is learn how to use Sales Navigator (which is not so difficult) to understand prospects and leads better and engage with your potential audience on a personal level. 

Try Gmail Ads in your digital sales process

Gmail Ads are one the best ways to reach out to your prospects and shoot your sales. The best way to use this effective modality is by targeting competitor keywords. Target the terms your competitors are using and drop messages in the inbox of your prospects. 

Use Opt-In Pop-Up offer

Opt-in offers are robust tools that persuade your potential customers to take a step ahead and sign up for your loyalty program, mailing list, or newsletter. 
You will get more contacts in your database. Gradually, you should see an increase in your call-to-action responses. 
Opt-in pop-ups give a push to your potential customers who are close to buying your product. Any offer, such as 10 percent off on their first order or free shipping, compels them to move ahead and hit the buy button. 
Even if your customers don’t buy your product, their decision to sign up will allow you to add them to your database. However, take care of a few things to make your opt-in pop-up strategy a success. From testing the pop-up position on the screen to the phrasing of the copy, check every element to yield maximum benefit. 

Try tiered pricing 

As a general tendency, most people show their inclination towards mid-range products (remember the ‘most popular’ or ‘bestseller’ tag on the mid-range offers online?).

They tend to avoid the cheapest and the most expensive products. 
A tiered pricing structure, known as ‘decoy pricing,’ can help you fine-tune your digital sales process. Using a tiered pricing structure, you persuade your potential buyers to pick the middle option, the products you want them to buy. 

Include money-back guarantee 

Who doesn’t want to avoid any potential loss? Customers never take financial risks, even if it involves a less expensive product. 

By offering a money-back guarantee, you eliminate the risk factor from the psyche of your potential customer. They consider the purchase safe and move ahead in the funnel. 

Harness the power of quality product images

The quality of images you post on your website influences the decision of your potential buyers. As buyers don’t get to feel the product against their skin, they decide by watching the picture and reading the description. 

While many business owners pay heed to the written content, many don’t fully understand the immense persuasion effect of product images. 

Posting high-quality images of your products on the website can create a win-win situation for you. So stay away from pictures taken in the stock room. Click pictures in a brightly lit area from different angles and post multiple images. 
 

Give freebies in your digital sales process


Who doesn’t love free stuff? The more you give freebies, the more customers you will gain. It is a tried and tested technique to accelerate digital sales. 
Offer free products, free software trials, samples, memberships, or other things to your potential customers. With this, you won’t just get their attention but also get the chance to introduce them to the products and services they should consider buying. 

Address every question or query in your copy

Many businesses assume that their customers know everything about their products or services. These assumptions create a leeway space for questions and queries. If left unanswered, these queries can hamper your sales. 
Address every query and answer every question. Don’t leave any scope for confusion or objections. Think about all the possible questions, queries, and objections regarding your product or service and overcome them in your copy. 
The idea is to give necessary information your potential customers want and to make an informed decision. This will also help you create awesome content that speaks about what’s in store for your customers rather than long praises of the brand. The latter idea might entice you but covering the entire copy mentioning why you are amazing is a sure-fire way of turning off the customers. 
Creating a copy that talks about the benefits they can get in a concise format will serve as a much better way of getting the attention of your potential customers. 
 

Optimize your website for mobiles for your digital sales process

Google has been pushing mobile-friendly sites for years.
Today, every person walking on this planet owns a smartphone. Most people surf the internet on their mobile phones rather than laptops or desktops. Hence, having a website compatible with the mobile phone is a must to fine-tune your digital sales.
Optimize your website in a way that allows your customers to shop from their phones without any difficulty. Consider the idea of designing an entirely different site for mobile. Your mobile website should be easy to navigate and offer an excellent user experience. Remember, a poor user experience can make your customers abandon your website without purchasing anything. 
Furthermore, keep the loading time as short as possible. Do not demand too much information. 
The whole idea is to enhance the shopping experience of your mobile shoppers. 
A well-crafted mobile website is all you need to fine-tune your digital sales process. 

The bottom line for your digital sales process

Increasing online sales is not difficult if you know the right techniques to fuel your ambitions. Using these time-tested techniques will help you fine-tune your digital sales process and initiate tremendous sales. 

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Frequently Asked Questions about the Digital Sales Process

Can social media marketing help me in boosting my digital sales? 

Of course! Social media is the strongest tool that bridges you to a larger audience. If you have an online presence, you will generate more leads and, therefore, more sales. 

How should I use LinkedIn for promoting my business?

LinkedIn gives you a platform to interact with your audience directly. Use LinkedIn groups to spread and amplify your business offerings. Answer any industry-related queries and questions and participate in business discussions. Send connection requests to accounts that may complement your business. 

How will the sales navigator help me? 

Sales Navigator is LinkedIn’s social selling platform that connects you with the right prospects. You can use the search and filter options to find prospects and forge long-lasting relationships. 

Which are the best ad extensions? 

Here’s a list of the best ad extensions you should look for:

  • Location extensions 
  • Price extensions
  • Sitelink extensions
  • Structured snippet extensions
  • Callout extensions 
  • Call extensions 
  • App extensions 
  • Review extensions
  • Offer extensions 
  • Social extensions 

The Unique Benefits of Using Market Analysis Templates in 2021

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Effectively using market analysis templates will help you develop your market analysis quickly.

Market analysis is crucial to the success of your business in 2021. 
It is how you identify the gaps and dynamics in your industry and know where to fill your industry’s needs. 

However, conducting a market analysis isn’t a piece of cake. It takes time, strategic planning, and efforts to create a market analysis that works. 

More so, the market is constantly evolving. This means you can’t stick to one analysis for long, and you have to constantly conduct several market analyses over time.

This eats up your time and prevents you from attending to other aspects of your business that matter. This is where market analysis templates come in.
With a good market analysis template, you can work with the ready-made layout to conduct your market analysis faster and more efficiently.

Are you still wondering how market analysis templates can help your business? This article discusses how a market analysis template can help grow your business. 

What are market analysis templates?

Market analysis templates are the ready-made layouts that guide you through your market analysis research. This means you won’t have to go through the ordeal of crafting market analysis guidelines because there is already a laid-out procedure for you to work with it.

The major components of a market analysis template

Although many market analysis templates are available, only a few of them really help you conduct an effective market analysis.

How, then, do you know a good market analysis template? It’s quite simple. 
A good market analysis template has six major components that guide you to conduct a successful market analysis. 

Check these components out below:

Industry description 

A good market analysis template contains an industry description format. This format guides you through finding out what your industry entails. 

For example, if you are in the food industry niche, your market analysis template should contain a detailed description of what the food industry is about. It should detail the current challenges in your industry, the pace at which it is growing, and what to expect from your industry in the nearest future. 

Target market 

An essential aspect of a market analysis template is your target market. This component is vital because you need to know who your ideal customer is and what they need.

Therefore, the target market segment of your market analysis template should include your customer demographics, such as their age, location, gender, and income rate.

This detail will influence your approach towards your target market. 
For example, if you know your customers’ income rate, you can have an insight into their preferences, the type of product or service they would like, as well as what they can afford. 

Market need 

To succeed in any industry, you need to identify a need and cater to that need. A good market analysis template comes with a segment that enables you to give detailed information on your reasons for providing your product or service. 

Does your business solve your target audience’s problems? Why should your target audience buy from you? What gap does your business fill in the industry? All these questions and more should be on the market need section of your market analysis template. 

Market Trend 

An effective market analysis template should contain a market trend section. This is crucial because you need to be familiar with what is going on in your industry to know how to fit in. 

Is your target audience currently interested in video marketing than text, or is email marketing the way to the heart of your customers?

How exactly does your industry operate? These and more are the core ways to address your market need in your market analysis template.

Competitor analysis 

An effective market analysis needs a competitor analysis section to bring the required results. To succeed in your industry, you must evaluate what your competitors are doing. 

This will entail performing a SWOT analysis to know what your competitors are best at and what they are good at, helping you beat them at their own game.
With a detailed competitive analysis, you can identify exactly what your competitors are doing to succeed. You will also be able to identify the loopholes and strategize to use their weaknesses to your advantage. 

Barriers to entry 

Another core reason for conducting market analysis is to prepare something substantial for your future investors to look into. 

However, your investors would want to invest in a hard-to imitate or destroy a business, which is where the barriers to entry of your market analysis template come in.

Your market analysis template’s barrier to entry segment gives your future investors a detailed analysis of your business’s uniqueness. 

It identifies your Unique Selling Proposition (USP), that is, what you offer that your competitors don’t. A skill or value no one else can imitate, and the rules and regulations you’ve put in place to prevent any form of imitation and protect your business. 

The perks of using a market analysis template for your business 

Vermont marketing agency Matrix Marketing Group

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Why should you use a market analysis template to draft your plan and create your structure by yourself? 

It works for the entire company 

As a business owner, you won’t always be present to conduct market analysis when needed. 

With the help of a market analysis template, your staff can have a set of guidelines to work with. 

Market analysis templates ensure your staff members conduct an effective market analysis without going against the company’s protocols and guidelines.
This way, you can always trust your staff to conduct an effective market analysis that works for your business. 

It guarantees fast turnarounds

The market is constantly evolving, and businesses don’t have to take long periods to get their market analysis done as there is a wide range of resources to use.
When you need to conduct quick market research to attract new investors and a ripe market, a market analysis template comes in handy. 

Your company would always be prepared to face the market dynamics heads on with a market analysis template. This enables your company to maximize opportunities as they come without losing to your competitors. 

Market analysis templates also ensure anyone in your company can conduct a quick and timely market analysis because there is already a laid-out format. No technical experience is required. 

It increases your productivity

Conducting a market analysis is not a one-off thing; instead, it’s a continuous process. This is because market needs are constantly changing, and an old market analysis won’t always be relevant and effective for the current market needs.
For this reason, you would have to continuously conduct and develop new market analyses to be abreast with your customers’ trends and needs. 

However, taking several breaks to conduct your market analysis can hamper the growth of your business. This is because other important aspects of your business may suffer if you are constantly away to conduct your market analysis. 

A market analysis template saves you the time spent developing structures and guidelines for every market analysis you conduct through its ready-made formats to guide you through every process. 

This ensures you spend less time conducting market analysis and more time on other important aspects of your business. 

It saves money

Market analysis templates don’t only help you save time. They also help you save money. 

Drafting an effective content marketing plan from scratch requires the help of an expert, majorly because it requires following processes and technicalities.
However, using a market analysis template saves you from spending more money on outsourcing an expert to draft the structure and guidelines for you because you already have a ready-made template to work with.

This way, you can use the money that you could have spent on consistently outsourcing an expert to attend to other aspects of your business.

It produces results

Opting for an effective market analysis template ensures all conducted market analyses are effective. Without adequate experience, creating a market analysis from scratch on your own can be a waste of time. 

However, excellent market analysis templates are created by experts, so they can provide you with the right results when you make use of them to conduct your market analysis.

FAQs about market analysis templates

What are the basic components of market analysis templates? 

A good market analysis template has six major components. This includes industry description, target market, market trends, market needs, competitor analysis, and barriers to entry.

Are there any advantages of using a market analysis template? 

Yes. Using a market analysis template comes with many advantages. Among other benefits, the market analysis template saves you time, lets you delegate market analysis roles among your staff, and saves you money. 

Can market analysis templates really help my business?

Yes, market analysis templates can grow your business in several ways. It increases your productivity, increases your organizational efficiency, and helps you cut costs as a business. 

What factors should I look out for when choosing market analysis templates?

The most important thing to look out for when choosing market analysis templates is if your market analysis template contains the six basic components we earlier discussed. A good market analysis template should also be straightforward and easy to use.

Conclusion 

Market analysis templates are effective in helping your business succeed in 2021. In this article, we explored five main ways a market analysis template can benefit your business.

Lydia Iseh is a writer with years of experience writing SEO content that provides value to the reader. As someone who believes in the power of SEO to transform businesses, she enjoys being part of the process that helps websites rank high on search engines.

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Five Ways To Get Organic Traffic Without Ranking Your Website

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Five Ways To Get Organic Traffic Without Ranking Your Website - Matrix Marketing Group

If your website is not ranking, try these proven 5 ways to get organic traffic without ranking your website

It takes hard work to get organic traffic but you can get traffic without ranking your website. This is important for startups and new websites.


SEO is a long-term game, and it is a very dynamic industry. To get more traffic to your website, you should know about the emerging technologies and latest trends. SEO will help you to turn the tables and enhance your reach and business. Also, it is almost impossible to attract traffic to your website without SEO. 


The whole idea behind SEO or Search Engine Optimization is to attract organic traffic to a website. Various strategies will help you to boost your SEO score organically. In this post, we will discuss five such ways, so make sure that you keep scrolling.

What is SEO and How it Relates to Organic Traffic?

boost organic traffic

Search Engine Optimization or SEO can be explained as the process of improvising a website to improve its visibility for related searches. The more the website is visible, the more traffic will be profitable for your business. 

“Good SEO work only gets better over time. It’s only search engine tricks that need to keep changing when the ranking algorithms change.” – Jill Whalen.

SEO is an essential component of digital marketing because millions of people use Google every minute to search for something. Search is one of the primary sources of digital traffic. The search results have evolved to give more direct information to the users.

This ensures that the viewers stick to your website for a longer period rather than shifting to other sites. To understand the meaning of SEO properly, it is important to break down its definition:

The first thing concerned with SEO is the quality of the traffic. It is easy to attract all viewers to your website, but getting the right quality of viewers is more important. Therefore, one should focus on attracting such viewers who can become your customers. Only when you attract quality customers to your site will it become more profitable to your business.

The next thing to focus on is the quantity of the traffic. The more traffic, the better it is. One of the most important factors is the organic results. Although ads account for many Search Engine Results Pages or SERPs, it is unnecessary to pay. With correct strategies, one can gain traffic organically.

Thus, once you figure out how to draw traffic organically, you will benefit from it. But you should know that consistency is the key here. No matter which strategy you choose, you should have patience and remain consistent.

Why is SEO important?

increasing website traffic seo programs


If you are still wondering why SEO is so important, let me break it down for you. Visitors click on 70% of organic traffic vs paid search traffic.

While most business owners go for paid ads to attract more traffic, it is not a necessity. Moreover, websites that organically drive more traffic appear more credible and attract more people. According to research, merely 2.8% of viewers in the United States click on the ads.

SEO is one of the most effective marketing channels that will prove fruitful for a longer period. If you are using the right strategies, you gain 20 times more traffic opportunities than the PPC on desktop and mobile.

Organic searches attract around 51% of the total web traffic and 40% of the total revenue. Thus, optimizing the website helps give better content on the search engines to be displayed and indexed on the search results.

Key Takeaways for Gaining more Organic Traffic

Here are some key takeaways before we move on to the strategies of gaining organic traffic to the website:

  • The first thing you should keep in your mind is that SEO is an ongoing process. It never stops; therefore, you will have to work on the strategies for better results continuously.
  • The content on the website is very crucial. After all, it is the content on your website that you will be optimizing. Therefore it is important to have high-quality content. It would help if you did not focus on the quantity of the content but the quality. Have few but valuable and high-quality contents. This practice will help your website in the longer run.
  • Consistency is also an important factor that you should focus on. You will have to keep creating and uploading content regularly; however, make sure to not compromise on the quality of the content.

Now let’s move to 5 unique strategies to gain organic traffic on your website:

Know The Non-performing Content 

“Google only loves you when everyone else loves you first.” – Wendy Piersall.
Non-performing contents are those content that does not help the website achieve its marketing objectives. The marketing objectives of the website are generally gaining organic traffic. Non-performing content can reduce the chances of getting traffic to your site. 

If your website has too much non-performing content, the search engines will abandon the site. Thus the very first thing you should do is to identify this non-performing content and then eliminate it. Good content will rank better in the SERPS, and the chances of getting more organic clicks will increase.
This brings us to a fundamental question on how to identify and eliminate these non-performing content.

The best way to identify non-performing content is to run a content audit.
After identifying the non-performing content, you can choose to follow any method:

  • Refresh the on-page SEO of low-performing but high-quality blogs. You can optimize the image ALTs and meta tag SEO to rank better in SERPs. 
  • Redirect the traffic to related high converting pages from low converting ones.

You can run a content audit once in a few months to ensure that non-performing content is not swaying away traffic from your site.

Keyword Opportunities for Ranking Better on Google

If you think that you have a very good keyword strategy, think again. Even a very good keyword strategy has flaws in it. Relevant keywords emerge every time. Inserting the product features gives new keyword opportunities.

However, incorporating the keyword opportunities into the strategy is time-consuming.
However, you should not only accept this keyword strategy. Thus it is essential to identify the opportunities and then convert them into keyword strategy iterations. This will help to improve the website’s visibility and traffic.

The key lies in finding the keyword opportunities. This can be done using complex tools. You can plug the relevant keyword into the difficulty keyword. This will help in pulling the relevant keyword opportunities. You can then sort it to get the popular words.
After that, you should filter the words that are out of your website’s competitive power. Then it would help if you mapped the keyword opportunities’ search intent. You can do this by simply Googling it and then analyze which content ranks better.

Optimization For Higher CTR and Organic Rankings

The third strategy on our list is optimizing the higher CTR. You will win the battle of organic searches only when you will lure the viewers into clicking on your site rather than your competitors’. 

CTR or click-through rate has a twin benefit. You will first lure the viewers away from your competitors’ site to your site. Competitive traffic will naturally increase the traffic to your website. Next, search engines will receive positive signals from your site. 
Thus this strategy focuses on improving the CTR. Before moving any further, you should know that one action will not boost your CTR. Instead, you should have a holistic approach and then follow these steps:
Firstly you will have to identify those content that has a low CTR. You can find this using the Google search console. Keep in mind that pages with high performance but low CTR represent the best opportunity for optimization. 
As per the priority list, build SEO-friendly meta titles. Your keyword list can be made by making the title more engaging or using the target keywords earlier. One of the most influential factors in the Click Through Rate is the meta descriptions. You will have to include the exact keywords and the clear call to action. Besides, match the search intents as well. Once the optimization is done, track as well as monitor the changes in the click-through rate. 

Blogs For Improving Ranking Keywords 

One of the quickest methods to increase the keywords is blogging. Blogging allows representing your product or services to people who are searching for relevant information.
Blogging is also beneficial for the B2B marketing and marketing funnel. Blogging is very effective in drawing organic traffic to your website. However, drawing traffic to your site through blogging is not that easy. It requires a lot of time and effort. Besides, it also gives slower results as compared to other strategies. 
If you have a list of targeted keywords, divide them into transactional and informational search intent. In case you don’t have any keywords, you should spend some time doing keyword research. Now categorize your keywords by. A buyer persona, pain point, or volume.
Finally, create a content calendar based on the keywords you have found earlier.

Dominate The Featured Snippets for More Organic Traffic 

A few years ago, Google introduced something called the ‘featured snippets. There is a focus to answer the question of the searcher on the results page itself. In short, the viewers will not have to leave Google to get the information they want.

Small content and structure are essential to get organic traffic with the featured snippets. By doing so, you can even push your competitors down, thus allowing you to gain more brand exposure.
However, it all boils down to one question- how to feature in the featured snippets? There is no way that one can request to get featured. However, you can follow these tricks to increase your chances of getting featured:

  • Insert high-quality and SEO-optimized pictures in your website.
  • Identify those keywords that will generate featured snippet results. It would help if you emphasized snippet-friendly keywords—these keywords questions related to how, when, and why. The content in your site must answer the questions earlier. It is also important to structure the content properly. Repeat the question in the subheading. Then try to answer the question directly under the question. 
  • The next thing that you can do is to drive clicks by formatting the steps into steps. 

Although it will take some time, this strategy will help your website in the long run.

Afterword for Organic Traffic and Website Ranking

There isn’t one solution that will magically draw traffic to your website. You have to work on a couple of strategies and see what works the best for you. All of these strategies will help you in the long term, provided you are following them correctly. You will have to experiment a bit. 
Remember that every website or business has its tactics on how they can gain traffic. However, it is not necessarily what works for everybody works for you as well. After some trial and error, you will indeed find your grounds and gain growth, stable and continuous traffic to your website.
Meghna Lal is a successful digital marketer with expertise in search engine optimization, creative writing, and content marketing. She has helped many small and medium-sized businesses craft digital marketing strategies that are cost-effective and deliver outstanding results. Currently, she is doing freelance writing for SEO Experts India, a leading SEO Services Company in India.
 

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO): Building a Business Foundation for Growth Companies

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Business process outsourcing (BPO) is essential for any business that in a growth cycle

Many people are a little unclear about what Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) means. And even more, they aren’t quite sure how Business Process Outsourcing could add value to their business.

Every successful business can adapt, problem-solve, and find more efficient ways of conducting its daily operations. However, it’s not enough to fix problems when they come up it is also important that businesses work to improve business processes before problems develop.

Be able to see trends and either mitigate or capitalize on the trend. Companies want growth and improvement within their company, not just to maintain a status quo.

Adopting a Business Process Outsourcing Model for select functions is one of the most popular and effective methods of streamlining a business. 
It is not surprising to come across several start-ups and firms that start with much promise and end up running out of steam in a few years. In most cases, they run out of cash or have inconsistent revenue. While the merit of a business idea and value proposition of products or services matters, entrepreneurs simply run out of time in many cases. One of the key reasons is failing to focus on core competence.
Many businesses attempt to do everything at once in their initial years. Even before a company has reached profitability, it could have swanky offices swarming with dozens of people to manage functions like human resources, marketing, bookkeeping, sales, and customer support.  

What BPO is used for?

Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) is used to outsource front-office administrative tasks like property listing and back-office tasks like research, accounting, and marketing. BPO allows business people the freedom to spend their productive time with the work for which they’re specialized, rather than being constrained by administrative duties.

Benefits of BPO

  • Lower costs. One of the main reasons organizations outsource is cost reduction.
  • Higher efficiency.
  • Focus on core business functions. 
  • Global expansion. 
  • Security issues. 
  • Over-dependence on the Business Process Outsourcing company. 
  • Communication problems. 
  • Unforeseen or hidden costs.

Challenges in Building Expertise In-house

Rapidly developing expertise in multiple areas is a challenge for any growing business. For small businesses and start-ups typically lack the experience and budget to build knowledgeable teams. 
Let’s take the example of building an in-house customer support team. While the task may seem rather simple, all you need to do is bring on a few hires to answer phone calls and emails; it can become an unending challenge if not handled properly.
For starters, as a start-up, you are unlikely to have a training manager to help the customer support team with etiquettes and best practices. 
Add to that. You would have to explain all your products and services to the team and even build up different test cases and answer templates. 
Even after doing so, you will have to monitor them closely or deploy senior resources.
Now imagine you are a Consumer Products Company with seasonal variance in sales. 
During the holiday season, your orders may peak by several folds, and you will need to hire additional customer support executives to handle the overload. 
You might even need to extend office space to house the new resources. However, when the lean season comes, you remain stuck with extra resources and associated costs.
In contrast, if you had hired a Business Process Outsourcing firm to manage your customer support, you could avoid costs associated with insurance and other benefits, save on office space, and scale up and down whenever you need. 
But more importantly, you would have access to a trained team with the formidable customer support expertise and multiple layers of supervision.

Key Advantage of Outsourcing for Small and Midsize Businesses

It is a common misconception amongst several owners of small businesses that outsourcing is best suited for enterprises. 
Of course, enterprises have been taking advantage of outsourcing for ages, and they are reaping rich rewards. However, the advancement in technology has made it possible for small businesses to approach outsourcing with equal fervor. 
Add to that. It is now possible to come across specialized firms offering outsourcing services tailored towards small businesses. Let’s look at some of the key advantages of choosing to work with BPO firms.

How does BPO work?

how bpo works

Tap into Existing Expertise

When you are looking to build a successful business, it is critical to gain a competitive advantage over your peers. You are unlikely to achieve the same with a second-rate team. 
However, building a team of experts in every field is next to impossible for most small firms. Choosing to work with an outsourcing partner allows you to immediately secure the services of an expert team in their domain. For example, suppose you choose to work with online bookkeeping services. 
In that case, you will immediately gain access to consultants who are adept at negotiating complex tax compliance issues and even take advice from financial planners and IRS experts who are typically part of such teams.
Most reputed BPO firms specializing in any vertical would have a significant talent pool at their disposal. Add to it they would also have the training and managerial staff to ensure optimum service delivery.

Technology Advantage

If you secure the services of a reputed Business Process Outsourcing firm, you can instantly benefit from the technology prowess built up by the firm over time. 
They would also use the latest in communication and data management technologies. They are also likely to have several tools related to their specialization readily available with them.
For example, a customer support Business Process Outsourcing would have call routing, recording, compliance, and feedback tools readily available with them, which can be deployed for your business. 
Similarly, reputed bookkeeping services can quickly set up an online accounting platform suited for your needs, which can generate pay slips, generate invoices and do a host of related stuff.

Enter New Markets with Ease

With outsourced teams at your disposal, you can quickly enter new markets without going through a tiring setup process. 
For example, suppose you are selling your products in Texas and wish to open a new outlet in California. In that case, an outsourced business team can take care of market surveys, discovering rental properties, etc. 
Simultaneously, an online bookkeeping service can immediately help you meet local compliance requirements, say issues related to double taxation in California, without you bothering to read through several pages of the local tax code.

Significant Cost Savings

One of the biggest advantages of building a business foundation that exploits the power of business process outsourcing is the significant cost savings you can make. 
Outsourcing comes across as a boon for small businesses, from saving costs on costly office space to drastically reducing costs associated with insurance and other benefits.
There are several costs associated with setting up a new office which many entrepreneurs take time to figure out. 
For example, if you are looking to set up a ten-member in-house team, you need to shell out hardware and software costs. 
Some software such as commercial graphic packages and accounting software can set you back by significant amounts. 
Maintenance and power cost too can prove quite a handful for small businesses employing several people and occupying large office spaces. In contrast, choosing to outsource can save you from expending precious finances on such costs. 

Scalability

BPOs allow you the flexibility to scale up or scale down your business at will without bothering about associated costs and related issues. 
There are costs associated with hiring, including charges you pay to recruitment firms, job portals, etc. Even more critical is the time you will expend on getting an in-house team up and running. 
For functions such as sales and marketing, building effective teams can turn into weeks of ongoing interviews and evaluations.
In the case of slack in business performance, the decision to fire employees can come with their associated challenges. 
These may include absorbing costs associated with the notice period, which can be steep if you are covered under the WARN Act in the USA, to dealing with possible frivolous lawsuits filed by disgruntled employees. 
Most likely, with an outsourced team, all you would need to do is send your Business Process Outsourcing partner an email to reduce headcount from the next billing cycle, and you are done. 

Types of BPO (Business Process Outsourcing)


Because companies around the world provide BPO services to other organizations, Business Process Outsourcing can be divided into different types based on the service provider’s location:

  • Offshore outsourcing occurs when an organization contracts for services provided with a company in a foreign country.
  • Onshore outsourcing happens when an organization contracts for services provided by a company that operates in the same country as the hiring organization.
  • Nearshore outsourcing is when an organization contracts for services provided by companies based in neighboring countries.

Popular Business Functions That Can be Easily Outsourced

A host of business functions are immensely suitable for outsourcing. While customer service and tech support are often the default functions that most firms outsource at the first opportunity, increasingly more crucial business functions are getting outsourced. Let’s look at some popular outsourced functions. Why do companies outsource marketing?

Marketing Services

Typically most firms used to manage marketing functions in-house if they could afford it. However, with digital marketing overshadowing traditional forms of marketing, much technical expertise is needed today. 
Firms are increasingly looking to outsource marketing tasks like Content Marketing, Lead Generation, Digital PR, Social Media management, etc., to specialized teams or completely outsource the marketing function to agencies offering end-to-end marketing solutions. 
Outsourced marketing teams can quickly build up the scale of your marketing efforts and produce content elements like e-books, video collaterals, etc., which are difficult to produce in-house.

Bookkeeping Services

Organizations can completely outsource their bookkeeping services, including payroll process, tax compliance, financial planning, and other elements. 
Outsourced virtual bookkeeping services offer the best mix of technology and experts. Such firms are exceptionally good at handling tax intricacies, especially for entities planning to undertake business across different states or frequently engage in international transactions.

Product Development

Some companies are actively engaged in outsourcing its project development tasks. 
Especially in digital products and platforms, it is quite easy to engage an IT development team to develop products at a fraction of the cost than what one would expend in developing the product in-house. 
Even physical products like gadgets, apparel, and accessories are getting outsourced, with entrepreneurs focusing on product design and building revenue streams.  

Sales Functions

Small businesses are warming up to the idea of engaging the services of BPO firms specializing in Lead Generation tools and techniques, sales support, and even closing sales. 
In many cases, outsourced sales teams can complement the business development efforts of founders or in-house sales teams.

Building a Business Foundation Based on Outsourcing

benefits from business process outsourcing


Just deciding to outsource several business functions is unlikely to help you build a competitive advantage unless you plan it out properly. 
A proper outsourcing blueprint that considers salient aspects of your business can set you up on a path of success. Let’s look at some key steps you should take.

Segregate Core and Non-Core Functions

At the very outset, you should segregate your core and non-core functions based on your business idea and value proposition. 
For example, if you plan to develop a cutting-edge app with unique IP, you are better off keeping product development in-house. 
In such a case, you can look to outsource non-core items like bookkeeping, customer services, and even marketing functions at the very outset.
In contrast, if you are planning to launch a niche variation of an established product or service model, it would make sense for you to outsource product development and even service delivery through third-party BPO players. 
For example, someone looking to launch an e-commerce store for bespoke winter jackets can outsource everything from product development, marketing, customer service, accounting and just focus on achieving sales in their local area. 
alDepending on your business requirements and cost-benefit analysis, you may choose to outsource most of your non-core business functions.

Decide When you Wish to Outsource

Once you have figured out the business functions you plan to outsource, you need to decide when to outsource specific functions. 
The timing will most likely be linked to the business stage and how individual functions are panning out. 
For example, if you have just a couple of customers, securing the services of a customer support team may not be ideal. It is better to handle few customers yourself to understand the queries and challenges your product solution is throwing up. 
As your sales function ramps up, you can immediately sign up with a customer service BPO firm. In contrast, signing up with an online bookkeeping firm may be something you wish to explore when you have registered your business entity. 
For small businesses already in operation for some time, the opportune time to outsource business functions maybe when they expect sharp growth or when planning to enter new territory. 

Prepare your Ideal Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

When you engage a BPO partner, you need to typically sign a service level agreement that lays down your expectations and commitments from the Business Process Outsourcing provider. 
For example, a customer support Business Process Outsourcing firm may agree to a 95 percent uptime for a 24 X 7 operation. 
It is advisable to prepare a service level agreement beforehand based on your exact requirements and business expectations. 
It would provide you with a starting point to convey what you expect from the BPO provider and allow negotiations to be conducted in a structured manner.

BPO Market Size

According to the BPO Services Global Industry Almanac 2013-2022, released in May 2018 and the most recent almanac available, the overall BPO services sector generated revenues of $144.9 billion in 2017. That represents a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3.3% between 2013 and 2017. The market is expected to reach $140.3 billion by 2022.
According to the report, the BPO services counted include the customer relationship management (CRM) function, KPO, finance and accounting, HR, procurement and vertical-specific processes.

The Risks of Business Process Outsourcing


The global market size of services outsourced from the United States was $88.9 billion in 2017 and is expected to hit $140.3 billion by 2022, as Statista and The BPO Services Global Industry Almanac 2017 Company Report reported. 
For U.S. companies, India and the Philippines perform a large portion of the outsourcing services. India, in particular, is a leader in Business Process Outsourcing for the United States because its labor force is highly skilled, educated, English-speaking, and economical.

Final Thoughts on Business Process Outsourcing (BPO)

Increasingly small businesses are harnessing the power of Business Process Outsourcing to build key structures for their businesses. 
With remote work becoming the new normal, the impetus for outsourcing is gaining credence. 


As most customer interactions have moved to digital touchpoints, it’s probably the best time to explore new opportunities in outsourcing and develop a competitive advantage. 

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Have something to say about your thoughts on the BPO process? 
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5 Definitive Ways to Find Leads on Clubhouse App

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The Clubhouse App is the booming news social media app where CEOs and everyday entrepreneurs speak in real-time.

Though surprising people with anything new in the social media world seemed impossible, 2020 brought a promising newbie – Clubhouse – to the center stage. 

The sweetest about this new online communication space is the revival of a good old chat, without edited photos, well-thought and proofread the text and professionally assembled videos. 

Though being a modest startup, Clubhouse app quickly gained traction and exceeded $1 billion in capitalization by the end of 2020. 

Many marketing experts used to be skeptical about the B2B and B2C potential of the Clubhouse app for businesses. Yet, their opinions changed with the app’s quick rise to popularity. Here I discuss the key features enabling Clubhouse to generate leads, which may become a unique competitive advantage for your business. 

What Is the Clubhouse App? 

clubhouse app new social media channel

Clubhouse emerged as an invite-only, audio-only platform for communication in 2020. With only 1,500 users in May 2020, the medium already hosted rooms where such celebs as Oprah and Drake spoke with their followers. 

Users quickly bought into a unique invite-only format and audio-only content sharing, which seems so outdated and, at the same time, so innovative in the 21st century. 

In its early days of operation, the Clubhouse app was quite a mess, with users listening to chaotic selections of audios broadcast in numerous chat rooms. Upon receiving an invitation, a user could get into the room. They were invited to listen to the room’s owner’s audio, also acting as its moderator. 

Active Clubhouse users can visit numerous available rooms and join the conversations held in real-time; they announce the starting live conversations via the app notifications. 

Indeed, the app was initially planned to serve as a certain kind of podcast, though with an innovative twist. While you’re listening to the radio or a podcast, you are a passive consumer of audio information. But in Clubhouse, you can both consume and take the stage in a chat room to speak out. 

If you “raise your hand,” the room’s owner can give you a word, welcoming you to join in and contribute to the conversation. This is what made Clubhouse genuinely unique, giving users a whole new experience of listening to conversations of people they’re interested in with an ability to step in.

Who uses Clubhouse App? 

Clubhouse is big with celebrities. Float around the app and you might hear folks like Oprah, Kevin Hart, Drake, Chris Rock, or Ashton Kutcher. 

They might even host chats. In some ways, that’s part of Clubhouse’s appeal. You get the chance to hear and even participate in, unvarnished conversations with famous and powerful people. 

Other than celebrities, the app is seemingly focused on people it considers an elite clientele. 

It became a status symbol of sorts for Silicon Valley types after its launch last year. The whole invite-only thing was apparently taken pretty seriously. But it’s now growing. 

What Is a Lead? 

So, why is the discussion of the Clubhouse app so closely related to the marketing concept of lead generation? The thing is that marketers and businesses have already adjusted all social media platforms in this or that way for reaching their potential customers and transforming those interested in their services and products into active buyers. 

Thus, in marketing terms, a ‘lead’ means any sales contact, be it a person or a business entity. Such contacts are carefully planned, with the business looking for leads to present valuable business information and convince the potential buyers that their business offer is the best. 

Looking at lead generation from a marketing perspective, one would typically imagine a carefully planned, visually appealing message (photo or video) with key business offer information and a call to action. 

The standard model of business slogan delivery is unavailable for Clubhouse marketers as they have no option of sharing videos or photos with their followers. 

All they have is voice, and can voice be considered a capable marketing medium? Overall, yes, and recent successes of businesses pioneering on the Clubhouse app have proven that. Let’s sneak a peek at how leads can be generated in this new, unusual social space. 

Secrets to Effective Lead Generation on the Clubhouse App

who uses clubhouse app

Social media users are tired of aggressive marketing and advertising content with which they’re bombarded every day. 

The Clubhouse app is an alternative medium offering intimacy of communication in various chatrooms, so the value of small-group sharing can become the guiding principle of Clubhouse’s rising popularity. How can marketers navigate in this new space to attract leads? 

The answer is simple – they need to embrace this platform’s uniqueness and build a fundamentally new marketing approach for this digital space. Here’s how this can work out. 

#1 Client Exchange / Mutual Referral 

At first glance, Clubhouse chats’ format seems unsuitable for building a sustainable lead generation funnel. There is no common thread that you can attack with repeated commercial baits, attracting target customers to join in and explore your brand. 

Yet, there are some other methods for building an audience and getting new clients, even from sources you don’t count on. 

A simple yet highly workable system of lead generation on the Clubhouse app involves participation in professional communities and chatrooms. Let’s suppose you are a real estate agent or a fitness coach in Texas. 

You can join professional conversations of other real estate agents or fitness coaches in your location to exchange professional experiences and share your insights. You can also participate in U.S.-wide or even global chatrooms in your professional niche and talk to people from other locations. 

Besides a super-helpful expertise exchange or discussion of pressing issues within your industry, you can set up a client exchange initiative with colleagues. 

For instance, if one of your chatroom colleagues lives in New York but has a client who wants to consider real estate acquisitions in Texas, they can refer that client to you. In return for that favor, you will also refer clients wishing to buy property in other states to colleagues from those locations. 

The same principle works well with fitness coaching. Most people want to have a personal trainer offline, so referring each other to client’s inappropriate locations can work very effectively as a client exchange program inside your professional Clubhouse room. 

Many users are highly skeptical about such lead generation opportunities, but keep in mind that mutual trust and community building can do magic. You never know where the initiative will go and what scale it will reach. So, trying out some referral system can become an unexpectedly fruitful source of new clients and relevant business contacts. 

#2 Partnership for Community Development 

Another area for lead generation with high potential is the involvement in community development. This works incredibly well for local chatrooms uniting people from one location – a city, a district, or a state. 

It is also a promising option for those united by a single aim, such as planting trees or battling the plastic crisis by introducing eco-friendly, sustainable living initiatives. 

In any of these cases, you can build a community of like-minded people from the same or related background as you do, thus developing a network within which your services will be in demand. 

A community development initiative is promising in terms of lead generation in some other ways, too. If you create and expand a community-building initiative or organization effectively, it is likely to become famous and widely known across your location. 

In this case, the local followers will be more interested in participating in your chatroom’s discussions and planning as they will be personally interested in your undertakings’ positive outcomes. The increasing level of familiarity with your initiative also inevitably leads to your name becoming more widely known and recognized in your location. 

Such audacity is sure to have an indirect but positive contribution to your business success, with people knowing you as a community-oriented activist, which instills trust in them. As a result, whatever your primary business specialization is, you’re sure to get more clients among your community fellows because of the positive image and trust you have built. 

#3 Offering Your Expertise 

Mentorship, coaching, training – these are the buzzwords of the past decade, especially with the boom of online education and the worship of the lifelong learning philosophy today. Another contributor to self-paced homeschooling is COVID-19. This pandemic locked billions of people inside their homes, leaving them with no options other than working and studying from home. 

Though the pandemic’s overall situation has been dramatic for many, the Clubhouse app has become a new trusted medium for education and inspiration amid the massive panic and despair. 

The core advantage it offered was an ability to tune in to the conversations or lectures of famous professors, learn something new from popular influencers, and join the discussions of pressing current topics and issues. 

In this way, Clubhouse has managed to give people intimacy of real-life communication they have started to forget amid the visually rich but distractive content of traditional social media. 

Besides the audio-only communication experience, the Clubhouse app has also managed to add a unique educational component. It’s like listening to your favorite writer’s audiobook, but with a unique chance to step in and ask a question to debate some statement. 

Just fancy a chance to discuss the actions of Holden with Mr. Salinger! Or debating the ending of Deathly Hallows with Mrs. Rawling! While the former is already impossible, the latter is entirely doable, and that’s what Clubhouse brings to life. 

Even if you’re not a celebrity coach or writer, you can build followers’ loyalty by sharing your expertise and engaging in meaningful discussions with your colleagues, students, or simply interested people. 

As a business owner or a marketer promoting some business, you need to figure out the unique value your business can offer to people, focusing your audio content on those valuable things. 

Once the users see how meaningful and valuable your offer is, they are likely to become loyal customers, attracting new leads to your account by spreading word of mouth about you. 

#4 Monetizing the Exclusivity 

5 Definitive Ways to Find Leads on Clubhouse App - Matrix Marketing Group

Despite the seemingly moneyless format of Clubhouse chatting, the app still has much to offer to those seeking monetization of their efforts. 

There is no advertising on the Clubhouse app – and people love it. More and more users are coming to join the app every day, relaxing from the aggressive, unavoidable apps at every corner of other social media threads. Thus, a skilled marketer can count on the ever-increasing target audience with low dilution and outstanding outreach characteristics of the app, which is a good start. 

The more people join Clubhouse, the greater the scope of marketing activities, with the most experienced and intelligent businesspeople reaping immense benefits of a new and dynamically developing medium.   

Another aspect of monetization is the invite-only nature of Clubhouse, which creates a sense of exclusivity, status, and elitism. People love to receive special attention at closed, exclusive events, and Clubhouse enables such experiences on a day-to-day basis. 

The feeling of being chosen and invited contributes to much greater loyalty than regular social media use does. 

So, marketers establishing some brand’s identity on Clubhouse app may capitalize on giving people the sense of being selected as a few privileged customers of a closed, private club. 

With such a marketing perspective, the users are likelier to get involved with the brand, buy its products, and participate in its events to preserve that selected status. 

Experts note that such a focus on exclusivity on the Clubhouse app can be effectively used by luxury brands, the philosophy of which is limited-edition, premium product range. 

The elitist nature of Clubhouse communities is entirely consistent with the private-only membership philosophy of numerous prestige brands, which get new relationship management and customer management tool in the form of Clubhouse chatrooms. 

Thus, such companies’ marketing efforts can work quite well in the Clubhouse space, aligning with the broader brand identity and customer identification. 

Finally, the source of monetization and lead generation on Clubhouse app is the limitless community it nurtures. 

Many celebrities and political figures are there, so the app is exciting as a fundamentally new venue for people’s communication with their idols.

Those coming for meaningful interaction with their favorite singers or writers can still look around and join other chatrooms, mostly the ones related to their interests.

Hence, as soon as intelligent Clubhouse user analytics is available, marketers will gain valuable insights into user preferences, becoming able to offer them related products, relevant services, and interesting information. 

#5 Making It Reciprocal

The final point on my list is the ability of the Clubhouse app to generate meaningful, reciprocal communication among celebrity users and their followers. 

I intentionally left it for the icing on the cake as I believe it is the most critical competitive advantage of Clubhouse over other social media platforms today. 

Businesses, celebrities, politicians, opinion leaders, community leaders, etc. – all these people receive an excellent platform for connecting to their followers at any level, from local to global, to talk and discuss things that matter to all of them. 

Unlike the existing social media, where people have thousands (even millions) of followers and never exchange even a couple of words with any of them, Clubhouse is not only about keeping in touch. It is about creating and sustaining meaningful relationships based on common interests and activities. 

Clubhouse’s unique format mimicking real-life human interaction is a great starting ground for people from all grounds and locations. They come together, discuss issues of importance, share and compare their perspectives, and arrive at some joint conclusions. 

So, Clubhouse has moved the concept of social networking to a whole new level, downplaying the number of likes, follows, or comments for the sake of fueling real-time, real-life human talk. 

So, this unique quality of the Clubhouse app gives rise to a conceptually new form of marketing and lead generation, probably possible only on this platform. 

It is brand storytelling – a unique genre absent on other platforms, giving the brand representatives a voice (literally) to present the brand, tell stories about its ups and downs, production plans, the pressing production issues, or the philosophy behind a new collection. 

Tech companies can present their new technologies to the broader public, giving their followers a voice to vote for a logo design, a game’s name, some new app or program features, etc. 

At Clubhouse, everybody can speak out, and this innovative form of voice democracy drives customer loyalty due to being heard and, accordingly, the feeling of being valued. 

Such activities are sure to result in higher conversions and more plentiful leads as companies genuinely concerned with their client’s needs and interests are rewarded by loyal, returning fans.  

So, Is Clubhouse a Lead Generation Powerhouse? 

new social media app club house

As you can see, Clubhouse indeed offers immense potential for lead generation, though the principles of marketing work a bit differently here. 

To succeed in Clubhouse and get new clients there, you need to be community-oriented, reciprocal in communication and goals, and sincerely directed at partnerships. 

Most of the app’s success is attributed to the users’ saturation with the traditional social media, where communication has transformed into keeping in touch. 

Annoying marketing slogans crowd most channels of information sharing and delivery. 

Thus, Clubhouse can be regarded as a breath of fresh air, a medium with frank person-to-person talks and no commercials. While the Clubhouse app is exciting today, it can become an invaluable source of new contacts and acquaintances; the key to monetizing this advantage is to be responsive, authentic, and client-oriented. 

Good luck!  

We’re listening.

Have something to say about your thoughts on the Clubhouse app? 

Share it with us on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.


Jilian Woods is a freelance journalist and a contributing writer with more than four years of writing experience. Being a team member of the essay writer service at Grademiners, she sees her purpose in producing and sharing relevant content with people who are willing to expand their knowledge base and learn something new.

What is the clubhouse app?

Unlike Twitter, Clubhouse is a closed, hierarchical platform: A moderator oversees discussions and can let someone chime in or kick out the unruly. In addition to the “clubs” sorted by topic, two or more users can join together and start their chat room.

Why use the clubhouse app?

The clubhouse app is an audio-based social media app. The company describes itself as a new type of social product based on voice [that] allows people everywhere to talk, tell stories, develop ideas, deepen friendships, and meet interesting new people worldwide.

Can you advertise on the clubhouse app?

The clubhouse does not offer any in-app advertising functionality, as the company doubles down on its platform’s growth and user experience. However, that doesn’t mean that you can’t advertise on Clubhouse. 

How do you promote on the Clubhouse App?

The easiest way to get an invite is to reach out to your network. Hop onto Facebook, LinkedIn, or Instagram and let people know you want in. If you’re coming up empty-handed, some users are selling their Clubhouse invites. There are even websites dedicated to selling access to the app.

Are Content Clusters Relevant to SEO?

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Content Clusters are critical to SEO, often pillar content.

If you’re engaging in any content strategy and content planning, then you probably know what content clusters are. Content clusters are instrumental, even more so if your content is part of the core SEO techniques you use – as it should be.

(Source)

Since organic results are the main “provider” of traffic, the fact that there’s an increasing need for brands and companies to boost their SEO game is evident – even more so since marketers know that consumers won’t move past the first page of the SERPs.

The first step is benchmark your competition and your current state. Here’s an example of a recent site traffic for a new client of Matrix Marketing Group’s.

website traffic increase through seo
Matrix Marketing Group

Competition is fierce, which makes SEO a priority. And SEO is now being leveraged through a content cluster model. But what is that, exactly?

What is a content cluster: A Definition

The main idea of content clusters is the following: A brand decides on the pillar content. A content cluster is a subject that encompasses all of the content pieces present on the website. The content created after that is content that is relevant to the pillar content.

In general, your pillar content needs to be relevant to – or focused on – the keyword that best describes your brand and has a discernible search volume. The topic clusters focused around your pillar content need to be built around relevant keywords that are more specific and reachable regarding their search volumes.

Let’s assume that you’d like to focus your efforts on email marketing. You will create your pillar content with the keyword “email marketing” in mind.

Now, you will need to have topic clusters that will be talking about smaller keywords related to email marketing, like “email marketing for beginners,” “A comprehensive guide for eCommerce email marketing,” or “how to build your email list” and so on. The idea is to have the topic clusters link back to your pillar content, thus creating a trustworthy – by SERP standards – “network” for your content.

All in all, the piece of “pillar content” is pretty much the hub that links to – and is linked to – all of the other pieces of content.

In Google’s eyes, this technique creates a neat, tidy, organized model that is easy to crawl – for its machines – and easy to use – from a UX perspective.

Not to mention that breaking down a high search volume keyword into smaller clusters that link back to a centerpiece shows Google that you’ve got authority on the subject matter – especially if we’re talking about well-written, no-fluff content.

Why Content Clusters Help With SEO

Let’s go into a little more detail here. Your pillar content is what your brand is all about, which you need search engines and prospects to know.

Therefore, your pillar content should make your value super clear to both bots and humans and be present every step of the way, from building your content calendar to its implementation.

For example, when you’ve got a super lengthy and detailed blog post that talks about digital marketing, you need your Facebook marketing, Instagram growth, social media growth, and email marketing blog posts to be linking back to this centerpiece.

Make sure to frequently update your centerpiece and the supporting blog posts with new data and information. The more you do that, the easier it is for Google to know that you’re an expert on the field and urge users to look at your content by pushing it to the SERPs’ top positions.

What About User Intent?

Understanding user intent and creating content that corresponds with it and works to your advantage might be one of the hardest things to do when it comes to SEO. And it’s hard because it’s common to misinterpret what user intent is.

A marketer’s objective is to give the users what they want in just a few clicks – or one. This means that they need a firm grasp on the search terms people enter in search engines that have to do with their pillar content or brand.

So, let’s see what questions people are asking when it comes to email marketing: 

As you see, most people want to know more about what email marketing is, how to do email marketing properly, why email marketing is important, and so on. And since our pillar content revolves around email marketing, these are some of the questions to answer. These will create content clusters that revolve around your pillar content.

That way, you will satisfy the user, whose intent is to learn more about email marketing, and Google will reward you for that.

Why Keywords Just Won’t Cut It Anymore

It all comes down, again, to user intent. Nowadays, users search for “the best pr plan ideas for 2021”, not just “pr plans” or “pr plan tips,” as they used to some years ago.

And since the users are looking for something as detailed as that, they’ll need to find content that contains more than just keywords that can rank. Not to mention that most people may not be searching for something as specific as “best Netflix movies.” They may be in for a “What should I watch tonight?” kind of question. They may not be asking Google, even, but a voice assistant.

Still, Google aims to give the most relevant results, which means that it will search for content that will answer both a detailed and a vague question. And this is why content clusters that lead to a pillar content piece are needed. Thin, keyword-packed content can’t answer either question, as the first is way too specific, while the second one is way too vague.

How to Create Your Content Cluster Strategy

Content clusters are the topics that will be linking back to your pillar content. Your pillar content helps define and bind everything together. So, how are you going to create your content clusters in a way that will benefit your SEO efforts?

Establish Your Goals

Content is king when it comes to SEO because it helps brands reach their marketing goals. This is where marketers need to establish the goals their content will help them achieve and find a way to align with their goals and metrics.

Before you begin creating your clusters, think of what you need to achieve when changing your SEO approach – especially since it’s not an easy task. Are you hoping for more exposure? Better customer engagement? What are the goals you’d like to reach, and what is good conversion in that context? What are the keywords you’d like to focus on to get that conversion?

Answering the questions above will help you understand your goals a little bit better and have more clarity regarding the marketing strategy you will follow.

And it will make the next couple of steps easier to comprehend.

Define Your Buyer Personas

You can’t know the intent of your users if you don’t know your users. And you can’t understand your users if you don’t create buyer personas.

Your buyer personas – or customer personas – are a representation of your ideal prospect or customer. 

You can create a buyer persona by studying your customers’ journey through your data or surveys to help you understand your strengths and weaknesses, according to your audience.

Be as specific as possible:

  • Are your personas married?
  • What is their level of education?
  • What are their problems?
  • What do they want from life?
  • What are their pain points?
  • How are you going to help them achieve their goals?

The answers to the questions above are the basis of your content clusters. So, next off, you will need to conduct a keyword search that will answer those questions. 

Look for keywords that will be relevant to the general umbrella term that can best describe you. This will allow search engines to understand everything about the topics you will use, from small clusters to the pillar content itself.

If, for example, you want to talk about online payments, and your buyer personas are small business owners, you can’t possibly skip the “online payments for small businesses” keyword.

Create a list with keywords that will help you create the content that can answer all of your prospects’ questions – since it can answer those of your personas. 

Use long-tail keywords, and make sure to study the keywords your competitors rank for, as it will give you an excellent idea about the things your audience is looking for in a brand.

Define Your Existing Content

Suppose you’re not a newbie and you’re trying to remodel your website and utilize all the SEO benefits content clusters can give you. In that case, you will need to define your existing content in a way that will correspond with your content clusters.

First of all, split your existing content into topics and categories. This will help you figure out what keywords you’ve already used and the ones you can use to create content in the future.

Next, make sure to see if there’s duplicate content, thin content, irrelevant content, or anything that could harm your content strategy and throw you off track.

Each piece of content needs to be reviewed very closely; otherwise, you won’t be able to remove content that is no longer valuable or changes and enrich content that doesn’t rank or has outdated information.

Once you get a good grasp of your content covers, you will know what content clusters you’ve already created.

Create Your Pillar Page

The pillar page is the centerpiece that binds all content clusters together. The main idea is for your content to look like this:

cluster vs pillar content

Of course, there is no pillar page if you don’t identify and create your clusters first, and there are no clusters if they cannot be tied to the hub that is your pillar page.

Your pillar page needs to be broad enough to link to all of your clusters, as well as be linked. But how are you going to create it?

First of all, you’ll need to find the core content of your pillar page. Here are the characteristics of the keyword that will be the basis of your core content:

  • It is broad and industry-specific
  • It can be educational
  • It’s not long-tail
  • It is on par with your product or service

If you’re starting your blog or website, you’re going to create your pillar page from scratch. But if you’ve already got some material to work with, you can choose an existing piece as a pillar page. Like so:

  • Find the best performing post that has a broader topic
  • Create internal links between your clusters and the post you decide to use as your pillar page

Your cluster content pieces should have internal links and be connected to your pillar page as well. Like a puzzle, you will need to create a picture that feels natural and leaves no piece behind.

Google’s algorithm will see that you’ve got various content that can all be traced back to one “mother” topic, in the form of internal links and backlinks. And since the clusters are good, Google will be sure that the pillar content is good – and easy to find and crawl.

Which will make Google think that you know your stuff very well – in other words, it will consider you to be an authority in your niche.

The Final Step for Content Cluster

Before we proceed with the final step of creating a content cluster that will amaze Google, let’s see the steps so far:

  • You’ve established your goals
  • You’ve studied your buyer personas
  • You’ve audited your content
  • You’ve identified your content clusters
  • You’ve created your pillar page and created links to that page

Now, for the final step: You will need to find a way to maintain that structure. This practice will benefit you in the long run, as it will make sure your clusters and your pillar content are always relevant.

Your content will need to be updated and a/b regularly tested since the content is a living organism that changes according to user intent. So, each time you create new content, make sure to review what you already have and keep it properly linked, fresh, and full of new data.

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General FAQs

What is a content cluster?

Content clusters are a newer concept in SEO content strategy that goes beyond merely inserting keywords in content and hoping Google will rank. 

What is pillar content?

Pillar content is content that provides a complete answer to any question a user may be searching for on a given topic.

Are buyer personas that important?

Buyer personas can help you with every marketing endeavor, and content clusters are no exception. Study your data, create segments and find the patterns that emerge. These patterns will help you find your personas’ pain points – and by extension, your customers’ pain points. Finding solutions to your personas’ questions will help you create and organize the topics your content clusters will cover.

Why use content clusters?

A content cluster strategy not only helps boost your search engine visibility — it helps you come up with fresh ideas for future content. 

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