The document discusses how to transform lead generation through inbound marketing and social media. It covers the shift to inbound marketing, the critical role of content creation, growing social media as a channel, and turning social media into leads and sales. Specifically, it recommends focusing on creating valuable content to earn links and engage customers, spreading quality content on social media to grow reach, offering helpful information during the research phase, and integrating calls-to-action and landing pages into social media posts to convert leads.
Search engine marketing is very much relevant until the day. It has turned into a new dimension. Social media is now on the top of the list as the leading marketing strategy for businesses. It is currently a superior power in marketing. Look into the new era of search engine optimization.
Dole: How we brought social in-house, presented by Amy SummersSocialMedia.org
In her SocialMedia.org case study presentation, Dole's Amy Summers discusses how they transitioned from an agency-managed social program to an in-house operation.
Search engine marketing is very much relevant until the day. It has turned into a new dimension. Social media is now on the top of the list as the leading marketing strategy for businesses. It is currently a superior power in marketing. Look into the new era of search engine optimization.
Dole: How we brought social in-house, presented by Amy SummersSocialMedia.org
In her SocialMedia.org case study presentation, Dole's Amy Summers discusses how they transitioned from an agency-managed social program to an in-house operation.
Our presentation from the 2014 NEFA Funding Symposium in San Antonio, TX. The presentation covered 4 widely used social media platforms and how they can be applied to the equipment leasing / commercial finance industry for business development, brand outreach, consumer research, and traffic generation.
Johnson & Johnson: Elevating employee advocacy: A case study, presented by De...SocialMedia.org
In her SocialMedia.org case study presentation, Johnson & Johnson's Workforce Engagement and Advocacy Leader, Devon Eyer, talks about how they designed and launched a channel and content strategy to change the way they engage with employees.
Live Webinar: Developing a Killer Content Strategy for LinkedIn Lead AcceleratorLinkedIn
This live webcast explores how to develop a content marketing strategy to drive high-impact results using Lead Accelerator.
Sanjay Melwani, marketing automation consultant, walks you through key content and segmentation best practices, including how to:
• Perform a content audit to determine the best offers for your nurture streams
• Segment your target audiences and identify the right content for both known and anonymous contacts
• Optimize content across all ad formats including display ads, LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, and Facebook
How a white labeled social media solution helps agencies growSendible
Learn about white labeling the Sendible social media management tool. Discover why leading agencies all over the world are choosing a fully branded white label social media management solution. Understand how it can substantially grow your business, help you to stand out from your competitors, impress your clients and create a new revenue stream.
Customer Generated Content: Things Marketers Should KnowSysomos
Customer Generated Content campaigns are a topic often talked about when they’re done successfully, but without the context of what it takes to create an effective strategy and execute campaigns and marketing activities off of it. The reality is Customer Generated Content (also known as User Generated Content) is still new territory for many agencies and marketers alike, and their unfamiliarity with it can lead to missed opportunities for great content.
Case study: Instagram, presented by Lauren SalazarSocialMedia.org
In her Brands-Only Summit presentation, Weight Watchers' Lauren Salazar shares a case study on how they're leveraging Instagram.
She goes into detail about their Instagram strategy and talks about their top-performing video campaign, user-generated content, and more.
Live Webinar: Your Tactical Plan for Content Marketing on LinkedInLinkedIn
We’ve put together a quick, tactical webinar for driving ROI with LinkedIn Company Pages, SlideShare, Publishing on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sponsored Updates and LinkedIn Groups.
We’ve tested and iterated for years – and now hear from LinkedIn's content marketing manager, Alexandra Rynne as she shares our insider tips.
In this presentation we uncover:
-What content drives the most engagement on LinkedIn
-Action items and daily time investment needed to succeed with LinkedIn Marketing tools
-Key metrics to measure the success of your strategy
Build a social employee advocacy program, presented by Jason SpencerSocialMedia.org
In his Brands-Only Summit presentation, Humana's Jason Spencer teaches a class on building a social employee advocacy program.
He covers developing, launching, and maintaining an effective program to empower employees as ambassadors in social media.
Social media lunch and learn series, Aug. 24thClaris Networks
In the second week of our social media lunch and learn series, Claris Networks' Bill Piper and Ackermann PR's Katie Allison Granju presented a social media strategy, search engine optimization, and case studies in social media marketing.
Run a social media training program, presented by Kirsten HamstraSocialMedia.org
In her Brands-Only Summit presentation, SAS Institute's Kirsten Hamstra teaches a class on running a social media training program.
She talks about how to lead a social training program that teaches effective and ethical social media engagement.
How to develop, create and distribute killer content that engages and convertsStickyeyes
In 1996, Bill Gates published his famous ‘content is king’ essay predicting the rise in importance of content marketing. Fast forward nearly 20 years and, whilst there is no disputing the power of content to attract and retain customers, it’s become more challenging than ever to ensure your brand messages cut through the noise.
Not only is time required to develop, create and distribute content from already overstretched teams but, there are also the logistical challenges of ensuring integration across all marketing channels. It’s easy to understand why so many brands fail to maximise their investment and generate irrelevant content ‘just because everyone else is’.
But, with increasing evidence that your content marketing strategy has a direct influence over your online performance what key considerations should you have in place for creating killer content?
For your free whitepaper, templates and checklists to support this presentation visit www.stickyeyes.com/contenttoolkit
Turn around your business from Social MediaAyush Jhawar
This might be the best social media slideshare you have ever com across! You can turn around your business from social media and it is as important as your daily bread and butter.
Start 2021 right! Conducting a Social Media Audit in Four Easy Steps Falcon.io
Need to prove your ROI or want to see if your channels performed the way they were supposed to? Crushing your company's social media performance begins with a complete social media audit. But where to start? By taking stock. Ever heard about the 80/20 rule: the principle that 80% of results come from 20% of our actions or customers? A social media audit is one of your best tactics to coax out that 20%. Not only can you identify gaps but also get more clarity on how your brand performs across your social media networks, your competitors and most importantly, understand the relationship between your brand and your audience. Learn how to position your 2021 social strategy so you come out on top with the help of a tool like Falcon that centralizes, monitors and optimizes all your social media activities in one platform.
In this session you will learn how to maximize your content stream “Steam Marketing”, gain insight into what topics your consumers want to be engaged on “crowd sourced topic trending” and drive relevant content automation. With the growth of Facebook and Twitter continuing brands are allocating more budgets towards social marketing those who harness the stream with measurement and conversion into tangible events will benefit the most from the brands to consumer social graph. Speaker Chase McMichael
Run a social media listening program, presented by Erling AmundsonSocialMedia.org
In his Brands-Only Summit presentation, Symantec Corporation's Erling Amundson teaches a class on running a social media listening program.
He covers how to listen, monitor, and track social media conversations and applying the insights to your social media strategy.
30 Social Media Tips to Increase Your Followers and EngagementBrickfish
Spark ideas for your social media strategy and optimize your content to reach your audience in the ever-changing digital landscape. Here are 30 quick tips including social video on Vine and Instagram, analytics reports, optimizing Facebook promotions to the perfect real-time tweet on Twitter, and driving retail to increasing YouTube views.
This is a presentation I did for the CPMR course in January of 2013, at the University of Texas, Austin.
In this presentation I step independent manufacturer's representatives through the landscape and concepts of Inbound Marketing and appropriate uses of social media tools.
Our presentation from the 2014 NEFA Funding Symposium in San Antonio, TX. The presentation covered 4 widely used social media platforms and how they can be applied to the equipment leasing / commercial finance industry for business development, brand outreach, consumer research, and traffic generation.
Johnson & Johnson: Elevating employee advocacy: A case study, presented by De...SocialMedia.org
In her SocialMedia.org case study presentation, Johnson & Johnson's Workforce Engagement and Advocacy Leader, Devon Eyer, talks about how they designed and launched a channel and content strategy to change the way they engage with employees.
Live Webinar: Developing a Killer Content Strategy for LinkedIn Lead AcceleratorLinkedIn
This live webcast explores how to develop a content marketing strategy to drive high-impact results using Lead Accelerator.
Sanjay Melwani, marketing automation consultant, walks you through key content and segmentation best practices, including how to:
• Perform a content audit to determine the best offers for your nurture streams
• Segment your target audiences and identify the right content for both known and anonymous contacts
• Optimize content across all ad formats including display ads, LinkedIn Sponsored Updates, and Facebook
How a white labeled social media solution helps agencies growSendible
Learn about white labeling the Sendible social media management tool. Discover why leading agencies all over the world are choosing a fully branded white label social media management solution. Understand how it can substantially grow your business, help you to stand out from your competitors, impress your clients and create a new revenue stream.
Customer Generated Content: Things Marketers Should KnowSysomos
Customer Generated Content campaigns are a topic often talked about when they’re done successfully, but without the context of what it takes to create an effective strategy and execute campaigns and marketing activities off of it. The reality is Customer Generated Content (also known as User Generated Content) is still new territory for many agencies and marketers alike, and their unfamiliarity with it can lead to missed opportunities for great content.
Case study: Instagram, presented by Lauren SalazarSocialMedia.org
In her Brands-Only Summit presentation, Weight Watchers' Lauren Salazar shares a case study on how they're leveraging Instagram.
She goes into detail about their Instagram strategy and talks about their top-performing video campaign, user-generated content, and more.
Live Webinar: Your Tactical Plan for Content Marketing on LinkedInLinkedIn
We’ve put together a quick, tactical webinar for driving ROI with LinkedIn Company Pages, SlideShare, Publishing on LinkedIn, LinkedIn Sponsored Updates and LinkedIn Groups.
We’ve tested and iterated for years – and now hear from LinkedIn's content marketing manager, Alexandra Rynne as she shares our insider tips.
In this presentation we uncover:
-What content drives the most engagement on LinkedIn
-Action items and daily time investment needed to succeed with LinkedIn Marketing tools
-Key metrics to measure the success of your strategy
Build a social employee advocacy program, presented by Jason SpencerSocialMedia.org
In his Brands-Only Summit presentation, Humana's Jason Spencer teaches a class on building a social employee advocacy program.
He covers developing, launching, and maintaining an effective program to empower employees as ambassadors in social media.
Social media lunch and learn series, Aug. 24thClaris Networks
In the second week of our social media lunch and learn series, Claris Networks' Bill Piper and Ackermann PR's Katie Allison Granju presented a social media strategy, search engine optimization, and case studies in social media marketing.
Run a social media training program, presented by Kirsten HamstraSocialMedia.org
In her Brands-Only Summit presentation, SAS Institute's Kirsten Hamstra teaches a class on running a social media training program.
She talks about how to lead a social training program that teaches effective and ethical social media engagement.
How to develop, create and distribute killer content that engages and convertsStickyeyes
In 1996, Bill Gates published his famous ‘content is king’ essay predicting the rise in importance of content marketing. Fast forward nearly 20 years and, whilst there is no disputing the power of content to attract and retain customers, it’s become more challenging than ever to ensure your brand messages cut through the noise.
Not only is time required to develop, create and distribute content from already overstretched teams but, there are also the logistical challenges of ensuring integration across all marketing channels. It’s easy to understand why so many brands fail to maximise their investment and generate irrelevant content ‘just because everyone else is’.
But, with increasing evidence that your content marketing strategy has a direct influence over your online performance what key considerations should you have in place for creating killer content?
For your free whitepaper, templates and checklists to support this presentation visit www.stickyeyes.com/contenttoolkit
Turn around your business from Social MediaAyush Jhawar
This might be the best social media slideshare you have ever com across! You can turn around your business from social media and it is as important as your daily bread and butter.
Start 2021 right! Conducting a Social Media Audit in Four Easy Steps Falcon.io
Need to prove your ROI or want to see if your channels performed the way they were supposed to? Crushing your company's social media performance begins with a complete social media audit. But where to start? By taking stock. Ever heard about the 80/20 rule: the principle that 80% of results come from 20% of our actions or customers? A social media audit is one of your best tactics to coax out that 20%. Not only can you identify gaps but also get more clarity on how your brand performs across your social media networks, your competitors and most importantly, understand the relationship between your brand and your audience. Learn how to position your 2021 social strategy so you come out on top with the help of a tool like Falcon that centralizes, monitors and optimizes all your social media activities in one platform.
In this session you will learn how to maximize your content stream “Steam Marketing”, gain insight into what topics your consumers want to be engaged on “crowd sourced topic trending” and drive relevant content automation. With the growth of Facebook and Twitter continuing brands are allocating more budgets towards social marketing those who harness the stream with measurement and conversion into tangible events will benefit the most from the brands to consumer social graph. Speaker Chase McMichael
Run a social media listening program, presented by Erling AmundsonSocialMedia.org
In his Brands-Only Summit presentation, Symantec Corporation's Erling Amundson teaches a class on running a social media listening program.
He covers how to listen, monitor, and track social media conversations and applying the insights to your social media strategy.
30 Social Media Tips to Increase Your Followers and EngagementBrickfish
Spark ideas for your social media strategy and optimize your content to reach your audience in the ever-changing digital landscape. Here are 30 quick tips including social video on Vine and Instagram, analytics reports, optimizing Facebook promotions to the perfect real-time tweet on Twitter, and driving retail to increasing YouTube views.
This is a presentation I did for the CPMR course in January of 2013, at the University of Texas, Austin.
In this presentation I step independent manufacturer's representatives through the landscape and concepts of Inbound Marketing and appropriate uses of social media tools.
The Role Of Social Newletters In The Age of Content MarketingG3 Communications
The boundaries differentiating B2C and B2B marketing strategies are starting to blur. In fact, the instant gratification that comes with online search, social media, email and other web-based tools have offered buyers instant access to a plethora of information on potential solutions and services, as well as business trends.
While vendors and their partner networks are recognizing that social media and content marketing are the new must haves for sales and marketing success, there is a clear disconnect between channel-wide goals, and overall training and capabilities to drive engagement and sales via these channels.
Social newsletters, however, allow organizations to connect the dots between social media and blogs, creating a new opportunity for channel engagement.
Register for the webinar titled: The Role of Social Newsletters In The Age Of Content Marketing to learn how organizations across the channel can optimize social engagement and blogging with social newsletters.
Social media, blogging, and content marketingFrank Dale
Marketing has always required you to inform or entertain (hopefully both) to earn attention, but the way information is consumed has changed. This shift creates new opportunities to engage customers at a lower cost than ever before. Learn about blogging, content marketing, social media, and the new influencers and what it means for you.
How to Integrate Influencer Marketing into your Marketing Mix – Business Case...Onalytica
Influencer marketing has grown massively in popularity over the last few years. You might have read that 70% of marketers are actively planning influencer marketing campaigns. However, many are still unsure as to how to connect with influencers, how to drive engagement, how measure the impact, or, crucially, how to secure internal buy-in.
This presentation will address those questions and provide a clear and logical framework for your influencer marketing programme.
Learn how to:
Translate your business objectives into influencer marketing objectives through case studies and engagement models.
Engage influencers organically (without paying them).
Effectively measure success.
6 big differences between good & great social media marketersFalcon.io
If your idea of marketing entails dropping the occasional blog post and hoping it makes a splash, you may need to rethink your strategy. Taking your social marketing from good to great means always being on your A-game.
In this webinar you'll discover:
- How to get organized and save hours of work
- How to grow an audience, regardless of budget
- What great marketers focus on beyond just metrics and numbers
How to Manage a Weibo Business Account?
Managing Sina Weibo accounts is a task that should be given the same amount of energy and care that your company gives their Facebook and Twitter. To truly succeed in the world of Weibo, you need enthusiastic staff members creating interesting content, engaging with followers actively and measuring the results of your campaigns carefully so you know what was successful and what can be improved.
http://www.b2bmarketinginsider.com/content-marketing/content-marketing-that-converts
How Do You Create Content Marketing That Converts?
There’s been a fundamental shift in the way marketers and customers create, consume, and share content. Every day, billions of photos are uploaded, tweets are posted, snapchats are sent, and pieces of content are shared.
As marketers, we need to consider how our customers are consuming content and where, when, and how to engage them.
A content marketing strategy should be designed to engage your audience throughout the buyer’s journey. Producing relevant content for each lifecycle stage and delivering it at the right time and place is crucial to successful content marketing.
The session includes a brief history of the evolution of search before diving into the roles technology, content, and links play in developing a powerful SEO strategy in a world of Generative AI and social search. Discover how to optimize for TikTok searches, Google's Gemini, and Search Generative Experience while developing a powerful arsenal of tools and templates to help maximize the effectiveness of your SEO initiatives.
Key Takeaways:
Understand how search engines work
Be able to find out where your users search
Know what is required for each discipline of SEO
Feel confident creating an SEO Plan
Confidently measure SEO performance
Unleash the power of UK SEO with Brand Highlighters! Our guide delves into the unique search landscape of Britain, equipping you with targeted strategies to dominate UK search engine results. Discover local SEO tactics, keyword magic for UK audiences, and mobile optimization secrets. Get your website seen by the right people and propel your brand to the top of UK searches.
To learn more: https://brandhighlighters.co.uk/blog/top-seo-agencies-uk/
Short video marketing has sweeped the nation and is the fastest way to build an online brand on social media in 2024. In this session you will learn:- What is short video marketing- Which platforms work best for your business- Content strategies that are on brand for your business- How to sell organically without paying for ads.
What’s “In” and “Out” for ABM in 2024: Plays That Help You Grow and Ones to L...Demandbase
Delve into essential ABM ‘plays' that propel success while identifying and leaving behind tactics that no longer yield results. Led by ABM Experts, Jon Barcellos, Head of Solutions at Postal and Tom Keefe, Principal GTM Expert at Demandbase.
Is AI-Generated Content the Future of Content Creation?Cut-the-SaaS
Discover the transformative power of AI in content creation with our presentation, "Is AI-Generated Content the Future of Content Creation?" by Puran Parsani, CEO & Editor of Cut-The-SaaS. Learn how AI-generated content is revolutionizing marketing, publishing, education, healthcare, and finance by offering unprecedented efficiency, creativity, and scalability.
Understanding
AI-Generated Content:
AI-generated content includes text, images, videos, and audio produced by AI without direct human involvement. This technology leverages large datasets to create contextually relevant and coherent material, streamlining content production.
Key Benefits:
Content Creation: Rapidly generate high-quality content for blogs, articles, and social media.
Brainstorming: AI simulates conversations to inspire creative ideas.
Research Assistance: Efficiently summarize and research information.
Market Insights:
The content marketing industry is projected to grow to $17.6 billion by 2032, with AI-generated content expected to dominate over 55% of the market.
Case Study: CNET’s AI Content Controversy:
CNET’s use of AI for news articles led to public scrutiny due to factual inaccuracies, highlighting the need for transparency and human oversight.
Benefits Across Industries:
Marketing: Personalize content at scale and optimize engagement with predictive analytics.
Publishing: Automate content creation for faster publication cycles.
Education: Efficiently generate educational materials.
Healthcare: Create accurate content for patients and professionals.
Finance: Produce timely financial content for decision-making.
Challenges and Ethical Considerations:
Transparency: Disclose AI use to maintain trust.
Bias: Address potential AI biases with diverse datasets.
SEO: Ensure AI content meets SEO standards.
Quality: Maintain high standards to prevent misinformation.
Conclusion:
AI-generated content offers significant benefits in efficiency, personalization, and scalability. However, ethical considerations and quality assurance are crucial for responsible use. Explore the future of content creation with us and see how AI is transforming various industries.
Connect with Us:
Follow Cut-The-SaaS on LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, and Medium. Visit cut-the-saas.com for more insights and resources.
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
SMM Cheap - No. 1 SMM panel in the worldsmmpanel567
Boost your social media marketing with our SMM Panel services offering SMM Cheap services! Get cost-effective services for your business and increase followers, likes, and engagement across all social media platforms. Get affordable services perfect for businesses and influencers looking to increase their social proof. See how cheap SMM strategies can help improve your social media presence and be a pro at the social media game.
Google Ads Vs Social Media Ads-A comparative analysisakashrawdot
Explore the differences, advantages, and strategies of using Google Ads vs Social Media Ads for online advertising. This presentation will provide insights into how each platform operates, their unique features, and how they can be leveraged to achieve marketing goals.
The What, Why & How of 3D and AR in Digital CommercePushON Ltd
Vladimir Mulhem has over 20 years of experience in commercialising cutting edge creative technology across construction, marketing and retail.
Previously the founder and Tech and Innovation Director of Creative Content Works working with the likes of Next, John Lewis and JD Sport, he now helps retailers, brands and agencies solve challenges of applying the emerging technologies 3D, AR, VR and Gen AI to real-world problems.
In this webinar, Vladimir will be covering the following topics:
Applications of 3D and AR in Digital Commerce,
Benefits of 3D and AR,
Tools to create, manage and publish 3D and AR in Digital Commerce.
The digital marketing industry is changing faster than ever and those who don’t adapt with the times are losing market share. Where should marketers be focusing their efforts? What strategies are the experts seeing get the best results? Get up-to-speed with the latest industry insights, trends and predictions for the future in this panel discussion with some leading digital marketing experts.
In today's digital world, customers are just a click away. "Grow Your Business Online: Introduction to Digital Marketing" dives into the exciting world of digital marketing, equipping you with the tools and strategies to reach new audiences, expand your reach, and ultimately grow your business.
website = https://digitaldiscovery.institute/
address = C 210 A Industrial Area, Phase 8B, Sahibzada Ajit Singh Nagar, Punjab 140308
For too many years marketing and sales have operated in silos...while in some forward thinking companies, the two organizations work together to drive new opportunity development and revenue. This session will explore the lessons learned in that beautiful dance that can occur when marketing and sales work together...to drive new opportunity development, account expansion and customer satisfaction.
No, this is not a conversation about MQLs and SQLs. Instead we will focus on a framework that allows the two organizations to drive company success together.
Most small businesses struggle to see marketing results. In this session, we will eliminate any confusion about what to do next, solving your marketing problems so your business can thrive. You’ll learn how to create a foundational marketing OS (operating system) based on neuroscience and backed by real-world results. You’ll be taught how to develop deep customer connections, and how to have your CRM dynamically segment and sell at any stage in the customer’s journey. By the end of the session, you’ll remove confusion and chaos and replace it with clarity and confidence for long-term marketing success.
Key Takeaways:
• Uncover the power of a foundational marketing system that dynamically communicates with prospects and customers on autopilot.
• Harness neuroscience and Tribal Alignment to transform your communication strategies, turning potential clients into fans and those fans into loyal customers.
• Discover the art of automated segmentation, pinpointing your most lucrative customers and identifying the optimal moments for successful conversions.
• Streamline your business with a content production plan that eliminates guesswork, wasted time, and money.
A.I. (artificial intelligence) platforms are popping up all the time, and many of them can and should be used to help grow your brand, increase your sales and decrease your marketing costs.In this presentation:We will review some of the best AI platforms that are available for you to use.We will interact with some of the platforms in real-time, so attendees can see how they work.We will also look at some current brands that are using AI to help them create marketing messages, saving them time and money in the process. Lastly, we will discuss the pros and cons of using AI in marketing & branding and have a lively conversation that includes comments from the audience.
Key Takeaways:
Attendees will learn about LLM platforms, like ChatGPT, and how they work, with preset examples and real time interactions with the platform. Attendees will learn about other AI platforms that are creating graphic design elements at the push of a button...pre-set examples and real-time interactions.Attendees will discuss the pros & cons of AI in marketing + branding and share their perspectives with one another. Attendees will learn about the cost savings and the time savings associated with using AI, should they choose to.
Come learn how YOU can Animate and Illuminate the World with Generative AI's Explosive Power. Come sit in the driver's seat and learn to harness this great technology.
Who here has changed a key piece of their marketing strategy in the past 5 years?
Technology, the buying process, expectations of potential customers, how people look for products or services has all completely changed. And because of that, they way we have been doing marketing for decades isn’t going to work anymore.
And what do these all have in common? Their purposes is to push messages onto people, with the hope that 1% of the people you contacted might want your product. But guess what? Instead of focusing on that 1%, think about that 99% who you just annoyed. Are you building a good relationship with them that could lead to future purchases? No – absolutely not. Because today, we the marketers don’t drive the buyingprocess. The consumer does.
But don’tworry. There IS an answer – itjustrequires us to think about marketing a little bit differently. Wecan’tthink about how wecansendour messages out, and hopethatat least one person cares.
Instead, weneed to think … okay, what DOES mytargetcustomer care about? Whatdoeshe or sheneed to know? How can I help her (not necessarilywithmyproduct, but in general). And by havingthatmentality – reallyfocusing on givingconsumerswhattheywant. Helpingthem. Givingthemsomethingtheywill love, youwillnaturallyattractcustomers to you. You’re the honeynow.
So what IS inbound? It’s holistic, meaning it takes the whole buying process into consideration. It’s data-driven, because we want to collect information about the person, that makes it easier to serve them. If you come to me looking for beach front properties, than damn it, I better not waste your time with areas in the mountains. And because you’re focusing on value. You can first attract them to you business, and then convert them from an anonomoys person, to a unique person with a name, email, phone number who you can do business with.
And as you can imagine, the tools are completely different! In order to be more attraction-based, you need to have a completely different mindset too. >> Go thru each of the items in the list.
We also believe there are two primary ingredients to really solid inbound marketing, first, most obviously being content, (and we’ll have a whole section on content today.) Content is so important, because that most likely will be the vehicle that you use to drive value for your potential customers in order to attract them. >> GO through each one.
And here’s the second ingredient: context. This is often the piece that marketers have the most difficult time with – but I’ll explain it through an example. Say one day a potential rental prospect comes to your website, looking for those beach properties again. She comes to your website because one of your blog posts on 10 of the most beautiful beach homes ranks well. She reads the post and clicks through to a few other beach-related articles, but in this instance, she doesn’t request for more information on rental properties or to have a sales call. But what she does is download an ebook of yours called “Rental Guide: Five up-and-coming beach front areas” You now have her email which she opted-in to give you. In two weeks, a lot of properties in one of the features beach front areas opens up. You send her an email to let her know. Boom, she’s in and she is THANKFUL for the help.”
But that isn’t the only formula for how inbound marketing can work! There are many tools and channels that can be used to build a full inbound marketing campaign. >> Go through options.
But at the end of the day, this is the marketing funnel you will build. >> Go through each stageTRANSITION>> So I’m asking a lot of you. I’m asking you to flip your marketing on its head. I’m asking you to listen a bit closer to your customers’ buying experience, I’m asking you to create content! And this also takes time. But there’s good news …
This will help you generate more business. That means if you get 100 leads a month today using traditional marketing, after building an inbound strategy you could potentially see 154 leads per month. That’s huge. And if the potential business increase along wasn’t worth it …
It costs less too. And if you think about it, it makes sense. All those traditional marketing tools cost some serious money. If you are creating direct mail pieces that can be thousands of dollars for a single campaign– and for what? For people to throw it into the recycling bin? That’s a shame! Why inbound is especially so phenomenal is it just takes some thoughtful ideas and good old fashioned effort to make it work. And this is even better for smaller businesses. Previously, you needed some serious cash even to get noticed. Now it’s not about cash – it’s about your ideas and the value you’re able to drive for your target customes.
How you doing, you with me? Great. Well enough with the theoretical. I want to make sure you can turn around and start executing on some of this stuff as soon as you get back to your offices. So the next few sections are all going to be able the critical things you need to apply this to your own work. And the first is something that makes the inbound marketing world go round – it’s your content.
This is how marketers used to look at content. They used to look at it as stuff that other people wrote – not them, like news reporters, eventually bloggers, etc. And then, if we were lucky (and had some money), we could see if we could put something around that content. That way, when someone comes to read this interesting article that someone else wrote, they might see something about my product. Well guess what! They aren’t here to learn about you. They’re here to read the article. So here’s an idea for you all …
What if it was YOU who wrote the article. And I don’t even mean it needs to be content you give the NYT Bits blog to be published on their website. I mean, imagine a world where your writing, your writing on your own website and your own blog, is so valued that people choose to come to it on their own. And now, you don’t need to put ads on someone elses’ content. You ARE the content. And now, because they have directly come to you, it’s easier to make a more natural progression to your own products. Because most likely, the reader will be curious and wonder .. “Who is this organization that wrote this helpful information”
And then what you can do, when you are the content, is you can put your own little mini ads – or calls to action images on your content. Except now it doesn’t cost anything, because the content is yours!
So what that means is you need to start thinking about yourself as a publisher. Build a blog if you don’t have one. You can have it be yourwebsite.com/blog whatever you want – but make sure it’s on your domain (we’ll explain why in a minute), and think about if you became an amazing publication for your target audience, what would you write about? How could you help them, teach them, or entertain them.
The best way to answer these questions for yourself, is to think about what your current and prospective customers are already asking you. If these are things they want to know – don’t limit to telling them in person or on the phone only. Educate and help a larger audience by writing it in blog form. I’ll give another example: I was recently at a fisheries conference, talking about this very concept. And the fisheries' target market were fishermen! And as we discussed the concept of blogging, a gentleman in the front excitedly got up and said: I have been doing this for years, and it’s worked great! And what he was working to build was the best “fisherman magazine” possible. And he wrote about water conditions, fishing tricks, fish prices – all these things that really mattered to fishermen. And he was incredibly successful.
The other piece to blogging is frequency. Because as you can imagine, if that fishieries marketer posted one helpful article, and then waited 2 months to post another, the fishermen are going to forget about it. A magazine would never do that! Especially because many people like to subscribe to blogs, knowing the frequency you’re subscribing to is important to drive that momentum. This data shows that 82% of those who blog daily see positive results from their overall inbound efforts. That’s HUGE!
So why are those people blogging daily seeing such strong value? Well frequency helps with another key channel within inbound marketing – SEO. Each post you publish is piece of content that is added to the sea of websites Google collects. Think of it like the lottery – the most tickets you have in there the higher likelihood that you’ll be picked. But fortunately, there’s a lot more than just luck that goes into performing well in search engines and ranking near the top.
Google use two primary things to decide where to rank a post in it’s search engine results, and those are context and authority. Context is the topic of the post, and is used to decide where in google to categorize an article. For example, to go back to the beach house story, a post about the best beach house properties should probably be categorized under beach house properties, not mountain view homes. Marketers can help Google categorize the post in the right place by using the key words that the article is about and a searcher will use to find the post.
The other component Google to use to decide where to rank a post, is it’s post’s authority, and authority is mostly determined by the number of links in a post. I like to compare this to a thesis paper. A grad student’s thesis will most likely reference many other articles in his or her work to make the thesis stronger, and the student only wants to use credible and helpful sources Now, imagine an entire class of grad students all writing about marine biology. There’s a good chance that many of them will reference the same article, because it was so helpful and said exactly what the students needed. -- Now let’s take it a step further. The school’s librarian starts to notice that so many students are using and referencing this article. She wants to make sure as a library, they are being as helpful as possible – so she put the article on display in the section! Now it’s even easier for more people to find.
That’s how SEO works, in the simplest of terms. And at the end of the day when you’re building your SEO strategy, it’s more important to work on being that amazing resource so you can grow your authority than to maniacally focus on your keywords and thus categorization of your post. Authority is much more important.
And it turns out, blogs get 97% more links than a simple website. And it makes sense! Blog articles offer specific helpful information that is more likely to be referenced by someone. A homepage doesn’t change, by nature isn’t as valuable to others, and thus wouldn’t.
First, focus on being helpful. And there’s a key piece I really want to drive hope – most often being helpful means answering important questions, offering information that either helps your potential customer do their job better, learn something new. What helpful often is not, is talking about yourself. Writing about your product is only valuable to people who want your product already. But guess what – we want people to care about you who might not want your product yet, because we’re working off their schedule, their buyer path. In that case, you need to write about what they care about now: their jobs, their careers, their lives, their industry.
In order to rank well in search engines, you need to generate links. And in order to get links, you have to be the MOST helpful person on the block. This is another reason why you should make sure you’re not just blabbing on about yourself. Who wants to link to a post of the 10 reasons why your product is awesome. Probably not as many people who might link to “10 Ways to Get the Apartment Rental Price You Need in the Area You Want.” Am I right?
Next - really make sure you’re blogging frequently and consistently, like a solid publication would do. Remember, you want people to anticipate your next big post – so give it to them! Use your frequency to build momentum.
And finally, turn anonymous visitors to your content into a list of people with names and email addresses. Make sure each piece of content has some sort of next step that allows potential buyers to guide themselves through the buying process, and make sure it fits contextually to the topic of the content where it lives. Now everytime someone visits your post, you have a chance to lead them to a landing page where they can become a potential lead.
Awesome – so we discussed the concept of inbound, and how we need to build a strategy that focuses on giving value than pushing your messages out. Then we discussed how to be content creators and bloggers, and use our blog content as vehicles to offer that value. Now it’s talk about how that fits into social media and generating leads who you potentially can do business with.
And let’s begin by answering the age-old question: Is my audience using social media? To help me answer this question, I dug into Pew research and found this great chat that is looking at social adoption over time by age group. And there’s a few really interesting things you can see here. First, social usage across all age groups is increasing. In 2005, it was very low.Reference:http://pewinternet.org/Commentary/2012/March/Pew-Internet-Social-Networking-full-detail.aspx
So what are they using? Well, a large portion of that social media consumption comes from Facebook. Facebook is the largest of the social networks considering active users. 71% of online adults are using Facebook on a regular basis (Pew Research)
Then in another study, we asked users via which channels have they been able to acquire a customer, and 52% used Facebook, and not far behind were LinkedIn and Company Blog.
So it turns out, social media is really easy once you’re already producing such strong content. Using social media is all about making strong contributions and sharing information, messages, and links to content that you think your target audience will enjoy. If your blog is a magazine, then social media are the coffee shops where you are dropping off your magazine copies, and while you’re there, you’ll probably see what other people are reading, shake a few hands, and connect. So for you: this means making sure you have these different channels built, and then create a schedule to share your content, other people’s content, and interesting messages to this channels on a regular basis.
What will start happening, is people will view you as a social account that shares interesting things, and people will start following you. And now that they’ve followed you, you have a larger audience of people to view your social content, click on your links, and come back to your website.
You can also do things on your website to fuel your social growth. And one of the most easy is having share buttons on your content. Think about it! If you post a blog article to Facebook, some one clicks the link and comes to the post, reads it and enjoys it – you better have a really easy way to let them pass it on. This also helps you, because now you have two people sharing your content. The share buttons also do another cool subconscious thing for readers: 1, it reminds them TO share and 2, it can serve as social proof. If a post has a lot of shares, people will especially perceive it as valuable.
And then finally, make it really easy for folks to follow you when they learn about you. Add your social profiles to your business cards, as a follow me module on your website. Use every web visit as an opportunity to invest in your reach.
This is where the magic happens. We are investing all this time in energy into creating content that attracts visitors, and promoting it on social media so folks can discover it and find value from it. But … interesting fact!
Only 4.4% of first-time visitors convert into a sale. That means 95.6% of people won’t ever buy from you … unless they come back to you. That means, as soon as the first visit to your website, you need to find a way to get some value out of that first visit, in order to make sure that visit is a good bye for now, not a good bye forever. We need to find a way to get them to come back on their own, and continue through the buying process. So how the heck do we do that?
Well! We do that with a little thing called an offer. And what an offer is is a piece of especially valuable content, information, something incredibly useful to the visitor that you can offer in return for the visitor to unmask himself. This offer is your key to help your visitor go from being an anonomoys person, to a real human with a name and an email. And the way that that works …
Is that receiving the offer is a transactional process. In fact, the way that they get this valuable piece of content, is by filling out some sort of form. And in that instance – the person has a choice AND their prior experience with you is very critical. If they have developed some sort of trust like say, they read your blog already, or perhaps they have interacted with you on LinkedIn, there is a higher chance they will fill this out. They need to decide if the price of giving you their email address is fair enough. And if they fill out this form – they are now a lead, and you can use this information to follow up when relevant.
Now, let’s go through how literally this would happen via a social channel …
Now, really important – will the people who you are sharing your content LOVE it. That’s how you know you are being Inbound focused and are focusing on helping vs. promoting. Remember, think like a customer-centric helpful person vs. a capitalistic marketer. Because at the end of the day, being helpful makes you more money anyway!
Finally, let’s do this path one more time but through an actual HubSpot example that we’ve done …
Make sure CTAs are everywhere – remember you are guiding the buying process but letting your prospective leads make their own path. Your CTAs across your content will lead to landing pages like this, where someone can choose to fill out the form in order to receive the offer. And that is good for you, because now the person isn’t an anonomoys visitor, he is a person with an email who you can potentially do business with.
Now is your chance to nurture with email. And this is different than outbound focused email, because it’s a follow up to an opted-in person. Use the information you know about the person to make this as valuable of a communication as possible. You can use the information they put into the form to customize the email. You can use the subject matter of the original download to customoize the email. Remember – using context is absolutely key both to the quality of their experience as well as the liklihood of its effectiveness.
Then, when it makes sense – integrate sales related content. We give our leads the chance to grab a demo of our marketing software after we’ve seen they have taken a certain amount of investigation. And we also work hard to relate it back to what they care about – so they can see that perhaps this software is also a thing of value that relates to their needs. But! We’ve very conscientious about when, to make sure the sales process has developed enough to make sense for the person.
And finally, it’s all about measuring what’s worked and learning what to improve. How is your traffic from Twitter converting into leads? How much of your Facebook traffic are filling out your forms. You recently did a huge LinkedIn push – did it work? Did your traffic increase from that Source? Use analytics tools to make your marketing work as smart for you as possible.
And as we near our close, let’s review Inbound one last time, returning back to that woman who was interested in beach font properties. At first, Jenny was a stranger to the company. Until one day, a friend of her’s tweeted a blog post of yours about the “10 Most Beautiful Beach Homes”. She clicks on the link and visits your website. And now she’s a visitor. She reads a few more articles and stumbles upon a CTA for “Rental Guide: Best Beach Front Properties” clicking that CTA leads to a landing page with a form. She thinks about it for a minute – but thinks, what the heck. I am looking for a new rental, and I really liked their blog content so this must be great as well. She downloads the ebook and now is a lead for your company. Then, two weeks later a unit in one of the beach rentals opens up. You have context about her and know she likes beach homes, so you send her an email inviting her to check out the listing. She is delighted, it’s exactly the kind of area she was hoping for. She works with a realtor and she makes the close. From there, you still keep in touch with Mary and make sure to share content with her on social that she values. And because of that, now she’s a promoter – just like the Mary, the friend who had tweeted the blog post that she had clicked in the first place. And that’s Inbound! A happy place where we are serving our prospects like they are our customers already, and because of that – they are happier and we are more successful.