Inbound lead generation via website

Research problem, objective and methods The buyer changes the buying process which relies heavily on digital channels. Inbound methodology is the online customer-oriented approach which is able to pull the potential customer in, instead of chasing them. In detail, the Inbound lead generation is the process of attracting the active buyer in early stage of buying journey and converting them into prospect by some sorts of engagement The purpose of this paper is to introduce the fundamental of Inbound methodology as well as the benchmarks of lead generation campaign in practice. The goal of the thesis is to help the target readers which are marketing manager, sales manager and business owner to change the mindset into customer-oriented approach (Inbound) and to understand the implementation process of lead generation campaign in practice. The theoretical part presents the Inbound lead generation concept in general. Then the qualitative research method is applied to gain the insight of concept based on the experiences of the experts and to develop the theory with more detail and practical information. Finding and conclusions: Inbound methodology is the value-added mindset applying for not only marketing but also sales and whole business. In order to have a successful lead generation campaign, it requires the sales and marketing alignment as well as the specific benchmarks in each stage of the campaign. However, the result of the lead generation is only the first stage of Inbound methodology. Therefore, the further research suggestion is the lead nurturing process to turn lead into paid customer

Study of the online funnel conversion of strategic consulting companies in Spain

The funnel conversion is the journey of an internet user from web surfer to loyal client, through intermediate stages. It consists of: 1. Acquisition → Convert visits into leads 2. Activation → Convert leads into prospects 3. Monetization → Convert prospects into Loyal clients The objective of the research is to study funnel conversion applied by consulting companies online, define alternative strategies and test them to understand how we could possibly improve the results. The results will be on both the funnel conversion techniques and tools that the companies examined could use. We will analyse each step of the funnel separately because, despite overlapping aspects, we cannot act on the three steps simultaneously. “You don’t turn cold prospects into leads, customers and multi-buyers all at once. A solid conversion funnel anticipates each step necessary to lead the prospect to the conversion.“ (Lindner, 2015) The actions performed to convert a prospect into a client are not the same, rather a good action in the wrong stage could reduce the effectiveness of our work. The existent research had only focused on products or services directly purchasable online. The aim of this research is to focus on a niche which is not directly sold online: Consulting services. Usually in the consulting activities the negotiation takes place in face-to-face meetings due to the complexity of the projects and the high value of the transactions, but the process of evaluating, or how a client decides, to go for a specific firm is not studied in depth in the literature, we will focus more on this topic. How consulting companies are attracting clients online, driving prospects to become clients and shape their online reputation between stakeholders, and how they could improve their process by using other techniques from different businesses

Mesofaunal Recolonisation of Degraded Soils

The degradation of soil quality due to anthropogenic causes is globally important, both in terms of ecosystem services and ecological biodiversity. Soil quality reduction is stated to be detrimental for population densities and species diversity of soil invertebrates, including the mesofauna (Acari and Collembola). Within the soil food web, mesofauna occupy several trophic levels and as such facilitate nutrient turnover, fulfilling vital ecosystem functions and services. Understanding soil invertebrate population dynamics not only during degradation, but equally upon ecosystem restoration, is vital to identify possible losses or benefits to healthy ecosystem functioning. Prior to this investigation the Highfield site, Rothamsted Research, had been divided and maintained as grassland, arable cropping or bare fallow for 50 years. The latter resulted in a soil that had low soil organic matter levels, poor structure, low bacterial biomass and virtually no invertebrate population. Investigations into the invertebrate population changes, within both the experimental plots and surrounding land, upon alteration of the existing management strategies was completed over a two year period. Changes to mesofaunal populations were detected across all treatments following conversion. Generally, new fallow and arable management strategies produced low density fluctuating populations affected by the physical disturbance of ploughing and lack of soil organic matter as a basal food resource. Grassland management produced increased species diversity and abundance within a more stable soil food web. Each of the new management strategies developed towards its equivalent management strategy within the control treatments. Although it was apparent that the mesofaunal populations were re-establishing under more favourable environmental conditions, there was no definitive conclusion as to the source of the population increases. An attempt to identify the physical mode of invertebrate movement was completed, utilising a prototype mesocosm to act as a physical barrier, this showed promise for future use in such studies.Rothamsted Researc

Optimizing Airbnb Search Journey with Multi-task Learning

At Airbnb, an online marketplace for stays and experiences, guests often spend weeks exploring and comparing multiple items before making a final reservation request. Each reservation request may then potentially be rejected or cancelled by the host prior to check-in. The long and exploratory nature of the search journey, as well as the need to balance both guest and host preferences, present unique challenges for Airbnb search ranking. In this paper, we present Journey Ranker, a new multi-task deep learning model architecture that addresses these challenges. Journey Ranker leverages intermediate guest actions as milestones, both positive and negative, to better progress the guest towards a successful booking. It also uses contextual information such as guest state and search query to balance guest and host preferences. Its modular and extensible design, consisting of four modules with clear separation of concerns, allows for easy application to use cases beyond the Airbnb search ranking context. We conducted offline and online testing of the Journey Ranker and successfully deployed it in production to four different Airbnb products with significant business metrics improvements.Comment: Search Ranking, Recommender Systems, User Search Journey, Multi-task learning, Two-sided marketplac

Multimedia information technology and the annotation of video

The state of the art in multimedia information technology has not progressed to the point where a single solution is available to meet all reasonable needs of documentalists and users of video archives. In general, we do not have an optimistic view of the usability of new technology in this domain, but digitization and digital power can be expected to cause a small revolution in the area of video archiving. The volume of data leads to two views of the future: on the pessimistic side, overload of data will cause lack of annotation capacity, and on the optimistic side, there will be enough data from which to learn selected concepts that can be deployed to support automatic annotation. At the threshold of this interesting era, we make an attempt to describe the state of the art in technology. We sample the progress in text, sound, and image processing, as well as in machine learning

Developing And Implementing A Social Media Program While Optimizing Return On Investment - An MBA Program Case Study

Over the past decade, Web 2.0 has brought a wealth of opportunities for improving marketing effectiveness; social media platforms, in particular, have proven to be exceptional tools for realizing growth potential.  The big question for businesses used to be how to measure and report financial return on investment (ROI) for social media ad spend to show that it is impactful as a marketing media tool.  The focus has now shifted to how much traditional media spend should be reallocated to social or online media.  The current paper is a Social Media case study of a large MBA program which has developed and implemented a comprehensive Social Media program with a focus on two “ROI” issues - financial Return on Investment and Reallocation of Investment.  Social media plan development and implementation, integrated marketing/sales funnel development, and social media platform ROI results are discussed and evaluated.  Lessons learned and next steps are also posited

A closer look at ecommerce actractiveness and how to market it

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