Useful Tips for Creating Effective Banner Ads

No one who spends time on the Internet could fail to notice the small rectangular ads that appear on almost all web pages. These are called banner ads, and they are one of the most popular forms of online advertising. What makes banner ads so effective is that any visitor who clicks on them is taken to the advertiser’s website. Banner ads are actually hypertext links or HTML codes inserted into a webpage. Almost all companies, irrespective of whether they are big or small, use banner ads because they are the easiest and the most affordable means of promoting a product or service. The following are some pointers on creating successful banner ads:

• Since banner ads have limited display area, it is always good to keep it short, simple and to the point. Cluttering it with details can do more harm than good. Advertisers have only a few seconds to attract the attention of visitors, and if the banner ad looks cluttered nobody will read it.
• Avoid wordiness, but the words used should be good enough to create a positive impact.
• Use large fonts and a small file size. Large fonts make it easy to read while a small file size helps banner ads load faster.
• Make changes to banner ads depending on the sites where they will be displayed. Because webpages will also have other banner ads, changing font size, color and, if possible, the message can help your banner ad stand out.
• Advertise banner ads on the right websites. Study the audiences of the websites to ensure that you are targeting the right audience.
• Make the banner ads attractive by using interesting images or animation, catchy phrases and bright colors to grab the attention of readers.
• Always include a strong ‘call to action’ in banner ads.
• Make sure there are no typos or grammatical errors.
• Ensure there is a powerful heading that grabs visitors’ attention.

Most people do not consider banner to be an effective lead management technique but rather a tool that helps enterprises and organizations in getting themselves or their products and services known to the people. That is, they are more of a promotional tool than a lead generation tool. But the fact of the matter is that, if implemented properly, they can be leveraged to generate quality leads. For instance, if by clicking visitors are directed to a query section where they can fill in details to get solutions to their problems, it means a lead is generated.

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Measuring B2B Marketing ROI

One of the key factors for performance measurement while implementing marketing automation software for B2B marketing is Return on Investment (ROI). Whether we like or dismiss it, ROI measurement is a deciding the performance of marketers and marketing agencies. Here are a few reasons on why ROI measurement can actually be a boon for a marketer.

Helps optimize marketing campaign resources
Since B2B marketers use multiple campaigns and multiple channels to promote these campaigns – knowing which campaigns or channels are bringing in the leads or business enquiries can help optimize the company’s resources and spends on those campaigns and channels that are yielding the desired results.

Increases the risk-taking quotient
If marketers can track their performance and the way their efforts yield results, they will become more comfortable taking risks and checking out new avenues and methods of marketing, than the tried and tested formula. By measuring returns marketers can limit the company spending when marketing efforts are not responding as expected.

Improved Budgeting
Investing marketing budget on the right channels can ensure that the company can get maximum out of investments, but deciding on which channels are more popular with target audience can be tough decision to make. During such times, ROI data can show the marketing channels that are most receptive, thereby helping top management to make a quick decision.

Better Prospecting
Measuring the ROI helps companies to predict and prepare for the future. How a company has been performing in the previous years, how much did marketing contribute, what were the pitfalls and achievements, etc. become the ground for estimating and evaluating on what the company can safely expect in future from their marketing activities.

Fodder for marketing collaterals
Measuring marketing ROI will provide enough fodder for the company’s marketing collaterals like, case studies, blogs and whitepapers that can be used for lead generation.

Better strategizing
ROI analysis helps to evaluate and analyze a new marketing strategy or improve the overall marketing strategy, add different elements, make it more dynamic, yet practical. This helps to create a clear roadmap that ensures more productivity and better performance by marketing teams.

Some B2B companies do not measure ROI thinking that it may disclose the faults with a campaign or highlight its pitfalls. On the other hand, the fore sight that ROI measurement provides is invaluable to marketers, which should not be avoided at any cost.

How Marketing Automation Helps
Marketing ROI can largely be enhanced if prospect intent is deduced early in the sales funnel. By introducing marketing automation software for lead generation, marketers can:

·         For Lead Generation - Track visitor behavior and measure their intent and interest levels.
·         For Lead Management - Empower the sales team with superior lead intelligence and ample prospect information that can help close deals faster and shorten the sales cycle.
·         Easily measure ROI using integration and analytics features

Also read on - Lead nurturing best practices, lead scoring

Effective Lead Nurturing Best Practices – Raw Lead to Being Sales Ready

Lead Nurturing is a discipline that helps businesses maintain a healthy relationship with their customer, delivering content of relevant value to them so that they remain consistently engaged, thus helping convert prospective leads into sales ready customers. Almost 95% of the prospects visiting your website today are there for research, most of them may not buy at all, but as many as 70% of them will eventually buy maybe from you or your competitors. Lead nurturing helps you to track these leads and move them down your funnel, so that when they are ready to buy they purchase your solution.

Lead nurturing software allows leads to be tracked and content delivery to be automated through various marketing channels and helps convert prospective leads into sales-ready customers. It also addresses the challenge that marketing and sales teams face in establishing a strong bond with their customers. The biggest advantage of lead nurturing is that, it builds the brand and product preferences moving them gently along the path of becoming a customer, long before they are ready to buy.  

Here are a few effective lead nurturing best practices that needs to be followed at each phase of the sales cycle to ensure a successful sales conversion.

1.    Understand the Needs of the Customer and Map out a Strategy – You need to clearly map out your typical buyers buying cycle with an interesting and attractive introduction. It is the basis of any good lead nurturing campaign.  Plan out the kinds of content that you want your leads to receive, keeping in mind their interests. The kinds of content that can be sent include white papers/articles, case studies, data sheets, videos, podcasts, webinars, links to specific industry news/resources and interviews with experts/executives.

2.    Personalize Your communication – Start building relationship by personalizing emails. Send relevant content based on the interest in the prospect. Provide information they want rather than filling their inbox with information that is irrelevant to their need. You have a much higher chance of keeping your prospect in the fold if you provide information they want.

3.       Build and Reinforce Brand/Product – Brand building is absolutely necessary today. If you are a known brand, lead generation will work better. With information in abundance online buyers are not dearth of information and choice. Web 2.0 has changed the brand building scenario. If the prospect has shown interest in your product, it is up to you to keep his attention with timely messages. Share white papers, videos or demos about your brand or product. Develop case studies and share success stories with clients. In this way you will be able to create an image about your brand.

4·         Create a Thought Leadership –By engaging prospects early, you build awareness and increase your chances that the prospect will respond to future demand generation efforts.  Develop a schedule for sending out information to the prospect. This helps you keep track of where you are in the lead nurturing funnel.

5.       Strengthen Relationship – Once the brand is built, you need to strengthen it and maintain that interest further. You now need to send a controlled communication to influence the prospect’s buying decision. This helps your prospects learn more about you and your background and helps build the foundations of a healthy relationship.  Use whitepapers, eBooks, demos, case studies and let loose yourself in the social media. Remember the first eight seconds are very important to get their attention, so be precise to the point, short forms and definitely no external navigation.    

6.   Close the Deal – Once the prospect is ready, it is time to pass them on to the sales team to close the deal.

Marketing is a dynamic job and you need to be malleable, ready to automate building and managing lead generation and lead nurturing best practices.  By nurturing your prospects database, it is easy to identify your most qualified leads that are sales ready. The ones who are not, regular follow up and regular consistent nurturing can help them move up in the pipeline.

Also read on - Marketing automation

Creating a Marketing Revolution with Lead Generation Software

Lead generation always takes precedence for marketers despite the fact that businesses have to deal with limited resources and time constraints. To connect with customers, a large part of today’s businesses are using a number of contemporary methods and techniques. Marketing teams are under tremendous pressure to come up with strategies to generate effective and qualified leads. And this can be successfully achieved only when there is collaboration and harmony with between the sales and the marketing teams. Lead generation needs to be all about quality and not quantity, and many companies have revamped their lead generating tactics.

For companies to be successful, lead generation needs to be the focus of business. Effective planning and maintaining a consistent marketing automation tool effort are the two biggest challenges of any promotion, and by adopting the right lead generation plan with helpful tools, there can be a significant difference.  If you do not have a workable lead generation system, then your attempts at lead generation can get difficult. It is therefore necessary to have a complete set of sales lead generation tools at your fingertips to reach your sales prospects.

Making the best of a lead generation software
Having the right lead generation software can be a game changer for any business. Lead Generation Software can add new dimensions without affecting your existing sales. It is a  powerful tool that captures the names and contact information of your prospects from online directories. It is an effective technique that can dramatically lower your lead costs. As it is automated, it facilitates a database of your own out of the generated business contacts and is one of the many lead generation techniques that can help in increasing your traffic and advertising. Lead generation software can manage any kind of leads and do wonders with your lead generation efforts. As lead generation software helps in sorting out the leads, it also helps in distributing them to the sales department. Installing leads generation software is an effective option as they identify your target customer and make all the right decisions for you. Software as a service will help you acquire your customers’ confidence.

With the right system, you can make the most of your lead generation software. With qualified lead generation leveraging efficiencies, marketers can determine their ideal prospects and create the perfect formula for generating leads to drive that population and control your ROI destiny with lead generation software.

Also read on - Lead management

Bridging the Sales-Marketing Gap

Every company which has marketing and sales departments has at some point witnessed the famous – sales and marketing fight and blame game – more commonly known as the sales and marketing misalignment.

One of the most significant reasons for the sales and marketing divide is the difference in objectives and their measurement of success in closing the sales deal. In a B2B set up these differences are more glaring as compared to a B2C company.

In B2C, both marketing and sales are measured by the sales and market share the company enjoys for its products. In such a scenario, marketing invariably assumes the role of assisting sales and propelling the company’s revenue share in the marketplace.

However, in most B2B companies, the primary objective of marketing is to generate quality business leads and of sales to convert these into closed deals. Both these departments are also measured based on the number of leads generated and the number of sales closed, respectively.

In reality the role of marketing in a B2B company is relationship building and that of sales to use this relationship and help prospects make a rational buying decision based on business value offered by the company’s solutions.

Irrespective of how companies want to position their marketing and sales objectives, the truth is marketing and sales are two sides of the same coin.

Selling starts the very minute the company goes out into the world and talks about its offering. Companies spend on marketing activities because they want to attract people who can buy their offerings. So what really differentiates marketing from sales is the point of their entry in the relationship building process.

Hence it is essential for companies to create a common ground or process for marketing and sales teams to work together in the in-between stages of qualifying and nurturing Leads.

Define Lead Profile

Defining a good Lead is the first step in this direction. It starts by putting down a definite list of attributes and a score for each attribute; this process helps in scoring the Leads and qualifying them. These pre-defined Lead attributes should be arrived at after doing ample research on how the Leads in the company’s Lead funnel behaved in the past, this requires an in-depth study of both Leads closed and opportunities lost. Also, this should be an ongoing process, where the Lead behavior is watched and the common definition accordingly developed over a period of time.

Automate Processes

Use of technology like marketing automation solutions can help in easing and automating the process of scoring and qualifying leads if the primary source of Lead generation is Internet.

Just this one process can go a long way in bridging the sales-marketing divide, at least in settling the blame game.

Setting up such a process not only helps in bringing clarity to the end objectives of both, but also equates the success metric. The Lead definition becomes the base measurement value for both the departments. Marketing is measured not on the basis of Leads generated but on the basis of qualified Leads generated in accordance with the common definition. Sales get measured on how many of these qualified Leads it managed to close.

Marketing automation solutions allow sales and marketing to have a common free-flowing communication channel through a common “Lead view”, even if they fail to fit the pre-defined criteria.

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Top 2 Lead Generation Facts B2B Companies Must Know

Fact 1 - Marketing qualified leads are baselines to measure marketing efficiency.

The Marketing funnel is a measure of investment versus return and defines the stages and processes involved in this journey of translating effort to results. The Sales Funnel shows how large volumes of leads entering the system get narrowed down as time goes on.

In the traditional Sales Funnel, which is basic and is focused on showing the transformation of leads to customers, a company drives various marketing campaigns to bring in interested Leads. Then, Sales takes over to find opportunities (purchase intent). The Leads which show interest are sent proposals and quotes and if the offerings meet their needs, the prospects, who have so far traversed the funnel, become the new customers for the company.

Websites started playing a crucial role in lead generation when Internet marketing became popular. Determining the source of the visitors, their level of engagement with the content on the site, their reaction to different calls to action on the site and their interaction with the company (via form fill or request form before the sale is made) became qualifiers which decide if a Lead is worthy of entering the Sales Funnel.
Marketing until now has always been considered as a cost centre, not playing an active role in primary lead generation efforts.  However, the entry of Marketing Automation platforms have ensured that companies are able to measure the ROI for their marketing activities, and marketing can stake a claim on part of the revenue.  ‘Marketing Qualified lead Rate’ will become a relevant measure for marketing efficiency and success, both from a marketing initiative perspective and from marketing’s ability to effectively screen out low potential contacts.

Fact 2 – Lead Generation is a Marathon; Marketing Automation makes it a Sprint.

A key reason for the Sales-Marketing disconnect is that companies are losing huge amounts of money because of a misalignment within their organizations. Today, there is a huge increase in the number of channels marketing uses for creating brand awareness and for generating leads.  Despite this, there is a visible shortfall in the number of quality leads generated by the marketing team. A difference in perceptions is where the divide between Sales and Marketing starts.

The Sales and Marketing disconnect largely reduces the effectiveness of the marketing campaigns and the efficiency of Sales’ efforts to pursue and close deals. Therefore, Marketing Automation makes lead management a real-time collaborative process. Here, the communication process is two-way where Sales provides input to help Marketing optimize its campaigns and, Marketing runs targeted campaigns to drive quality leads.

Marketing automation software platforms provide a solution for resolving the sales and marketing split and keeps both happy by ensuring a sales funnel full with qualified leads.

Used optimally, marketing automation can actually deliver extraordinary results in a short time-frame. Also, it significantly shortens the time between lead generation and lead closure because it recognizes the buying process as a group activity and hence takes into account all activities by an enterprise at different times before qualifying them as a ‘sales ready lead’.

Also read on - Lead nurturing software

Using Free Trials for Effective B2B Marketing

The popular ‘Call to Actions’ is mostly associated with free trials and offers and, is widely used in both the B2C and B2B industries. It is a universal rule followed by most customers around the world in any industry; that if they want to get the maximum returns for their investments, they allow the customer to test it in his own environment.

Here are some important considerations for B2B clients before using “Free Trials” on your webpage.


Placement effectiveness of ‘Free Trial’
Free trial generally is the primary call to action and gets the top billing in terms of placement – above fold along with the key value proposition or image. Sometimes it is even repeated twice in a smaller print below the fold or on the top along with the login.


Give away for ‘Free Trials’  
Free trial remains most comprehensive form of evaluation for any product or offering.


Ideal time for a ‘Free Trial’ offer
From a sales perspective, it ideal to offer the shortest time and then on an individual case to case basis, make exceptions where required.


Urgency around ‘Free Trial’
By indicating the free trial is available for a limited time in a subscript, one can create a sense of urgency around the call to action. You can also mention “No credit card data required” in the subscript which would emphasise – “no obligations for taking the trial”.


Information around ‘Free Trial’ tabs
Providing links to video, demo, tutorials or other resources may result in more click-through for these links as prospects would like to read more about the product and the value proposition before engaging in a trial.


Is dummy data in a sandbox better than ‘Free Trial’?
Using dummy data in a sandbox depends on whether the product produces data in a free trial which can show the prospects true value and new perspectives which they would find difficult to associate otherwise.

Overall, offering free trials is a practical proposition and works wonders from a prospect’s perspective, because it is an opportunity to go beyond the marketing automation collateral and jargon and check if the product or service being marketed matches the claims made.


Free trial is great option for B2B companies, if data produced during the trial period highlights the value of the product and provides with a strong motivation to buy.
The free product trial experience goes a step further than making available dummy data in a sandbox environment, as it shows how valuable the product is in the prospect’s own environment, thus reinforcing the value proposition.


Free trials help a prospect gain familiarity with the product, its features; not just in a sandbox environment, but right in the production environment. If the prospect does not like something in the promo run, he can voice his opinion and feedback, which can find its way back to the vendor company, who may just be able to accommodate the suggestions in the paid version.


Since most B2B decisions are taken by a group of individuals, going with a certain vendor becomes easier if there is data to showcase the merits of the solution offered by them. Free trials help put together such convincing data.


Also, a free trial allows you to make your first contact with the buyer, it allows you to present your case and build a relationship with the decision makers, which can affect the final purchase decision. So, ultimately it serves the purpose for effective Lead generation and lead nurturing.

How to Deal with Not-Yet-Sales-Ready Leads

Till recently B2B marketers focused all their lead generation efforts only on those who have shown interest – companies who have been qualified ‘prospect’, ‘sales-ready’ or ‘marketing-qualified-lead’. However, there is a segment that has been left unattended and ignoring them means that more than three-fourths of the carefully collected lead information is going down the drain.

Ignoring not-yet-sales qualified leads is like having ammunition but not knowing how to shoot. It is the responsibility of the Marketing team to keep in touch with such people to develop a ‘relationship’ first. Also, Marketing will end up spending more time and money to capture lead information on the unqualified ones if they are let off without any action.

Mostly, it is during the interest building stage that these un-qualified ones leak out of the Sales funnel. A simple lack of communication will prevent Sales from working on un-qualified leads because their focus does not deviate from the qualified ones at all. 

Continual communication programs specifically designed for the unqualified ones can be executed to keep them informed, irrespective of whether they are responding.Another main reason for not adequately addressing the not-yet-qualified leads is because of the age old divide between Sales and Marketing.

So, most of the time no action is taken on these leads because there are not enough marketing campaigns targeted by Marketing, and Sales refuses to pick them because they are unqualified.

Keeping a process in place within the lead management system to address such leads will surely go a long way in bringing in more leads for the company.

Since lead generation is a process oriented effort requires to be measured consistently so that process improvements can be implemented at every milestone. Here, milestones of lead generation would ideally mean the transition points of prospects.

The following analytics can be drawn from lead generation efforts.

• Number of Indentified Leads vs. Total Visited
• Number of Qualified Leads vs. Total Identified Leads
• Number of Sale-ready vs. Number of Qualified Leads
• Cost of campaign per lead
• Success rate of Lead Conversion to Customer

Apart from this, companies need to constantly monitor metrics, using robust lead management software, related to the geographical background of leads, behavioral aspects, visitor intent identification parameters, etc. Simultaneously, it is vital to regularly follow-up with leads, whether they have been qualified or not.

Know more -  marketing automation software & lead generation software

Choose the Best Process for Success in Lead Management

The secret to any B2B success lies in the process. In marketing automation, it’s not about creativity or conducting a better lead generation campaign. Leveraging the conversions of inquiries into qualified leads and leads into qualified sales is what is important. Prospective leads originate in a wide range of different ways, and there needs be a process in place to manage all those leads. And Lead Management begins with the ability to hit revenue targets in your sales pipeline.

The intent of lead management software is to build a relationship with each prospective customer in a way that their interest develops into opportunities for sales. It is therefore important to choose the best process to ensure success. For example, a marketer places certain ads with the intention that readers will respond and perhaps make a purchase. There may be many inquiries resulting from paid ads, which carry calls to action including  a web site or toll-free number. For this there needs to be a process in place to handle all enquiries. Without investing much, a company can create a great inquiry management process by optimizing each step in the inquiry management chain.

• Plan a response

In the campaign development process, it is important to plan a response. It is necessary to have a specific code to identify the responses from all outbound communication. Offer multiple response media, like phone, Web, BRC, fax, e-mail, etc. This way there is a wide set of options for a prospective customer to get back to you.

• Efficient response capture

It is necessary to put together a cross-functional team as the response capture process will work well if it is designed by the people who manage the inbound responses. By considering the best strategy you can ensure that the enquiries do not get mixed up with daily business communications.

• Fulfilling enquiries

The secret to inquiry fulfillment is speed. Most B2B companies make enquiries asking for more information, and the faster they get that information, the faster they will respond. Matching the fulfillment material to the need and the value of the prospect quickly indicates the value the best companies put on fast delivery.

• Lead nurturing

Move a lead into the lead nurturing process when the prospect is not yet ready to see a sales person, but may be ready soon. You can use a number of lead nurturing methods like catalogs, newsletters, surveys, white papers and/or birthday cards. With a series of ongoing communications, you can build awareness and maintain trust and contact until the prospect is ready to buy.

By choosing the best practice in your lead management process you can optimize your inquiry management process and greatly increase your revenue from lead generation campaigns.

Know More - lead management system ,  b2b lead scoring