What Education Technology (EdTech) firm CEO, President, or Management Director doesn’t want to see a growth in their profits? In a competitive market, with long sales cycles, one of the best ways to increase revenue growth is by using a new marketing and sales method called ‘Inbound’. According to Hubspot, 49.7% of business utilizing Inbound marketing and sales boost their sales within 7 months! Traditional marketing and sales methods like print advertisements, website pop-ups, self-promotional email e-newsletters and blasts, trade shows, cold-calling, and generic product demos mean presenting your brand to individuals that may or may not have any interest in your Education Technology (EdTech) business. However, Inbound pulls in qualified leads using educational content that addresses clients’ specific needs. Inbound strategies help generate qualified traffic to your website, increase brand recognition, improve sales processes, and increase your revenue. Below are 6 elements that can influence your revenue growth in the Education Technology (EdTech) industry:
Ideal customers are different for every industry. A buyer persona is an imaginary personality that represents your Education Technology (EdTech) firm’s ideal customer. A better understanding of your buyer personas will help your marketing and sales team develop content that is relevant to your personas’ needs, which will draw in more potential customers and increase the customer closure rate. According to Salesforce, it’s vital to think about the following problems when developing Buyer Personas: Success Factors – What concrete or intangible incentives does the prospect associate to success? Perceived barriers – What organization or individual obstacles would cause the prospect to choose your competitor? Change drivers – What might trigger a change in a prospect’s behavior, and need for change? Buyer’s journey – What questions does the prospect ask throughout their whole purchasing process? Priority initiative – How does the prospect spend their money and time? Decision Criteria – What is the prospect’s process of decision-making?
After gathering contact information, your sales team needs to take time to nurture your potential customers through email until they convert to consumers. You can use tools like Marketo, Eloqua, Customer.io, Constant Contact, and Hubspot to automate your lead nurturing campaigns. To maximize click-through rates, make sure that emails are customized with ‘From’ fields that have your salesperson’s name and email address. The subject lines must produce a feeling of enjoyment and urgency. Remember to include a clear call-to-action (CTA) in all of the emails. The CTA should show up clearly in the lead nurturing emails to increase chances of getting clicked. To reach an even larger audience, your emails must include social sharing buttons. Most email marketing tools include options for integrated social sharing buttons. One of the most crucial things to keep in mind is to provide value. Sending out blogs and free premium content that directly relates to the buyer persona getting the email is an excellent way to engage them on a regular basis.
According to ComScore, individuals invest approximately 69% of their media time on their smartphones. Therefore, it is essential to maximize your website style for mobile phones just as you do for computers and tablets. Your website development team should make sure that the CTAs are big enough to click and placed above the fold, making them noticeable on mobile phone browsers. The content should be kept brief and not cluttered with pictures. Text on mobile devices should be large enough for customers to read without hurting their eyes. Pop-ups and flash should be disabled since they will distract site visitors from your content, and the navigation must be simple and intuitive.
To maximize your return on investment (ROI), make sure to keep track of marketing metrics like total site visits, channel-specific traffic, bounce rates, overall conversions, lead-to-close ratios, customer retention rates, and customer acquisition costa. Evaluating these metrics will give you an idea of what needs to be improved or changed in order to increase revenue. Tools like Mixpanel, Heap Analytics, Kissmetrics, and Kapost’s Content Scoring are great for measuring different metrics and efforts.
As crucial as it is to any kind of organization, revenue growth doesn’t happen overnight. Unless you concentrate your marketing and sales efforts on the appropriate target market, it will be extremely tough to close any sales and have considerable profits. Nevertheless, with Inbound Marketing and Sales you will be able to bring in qualified leads, nurture them to become your consumers, and transform them into advocates of your Education Technology (EdTech) product and services. We’ve helped several company leaders boost their marketing and sales processes by implementing an Inbound strategy. Do not hesitate to schedule your free strategy session now to help you review your assets and gain free insights and recommendations to increase your revenue!