Five Inbound Marketing Resources Every Marketer Should Know

What’s Trending in Marketing

May 1, 2018/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, B2B Marketing, Blog, Content Marketing, Directors, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Keeping up with what’s trending in marketing is an important way to ensure that your marketing efforts remain up to date. Not to mention that they can provide insight into how you can adjust your marketing strategies in order to improve your results. The only problem is that keeping up with what’s trending in marketing can be quite a challenge seeing as how the online marketing landscape seems to always be shifting.

The following are a collection of articles that we have curated from some of the most notable marketing blogs on the web highlighting recent marketing trends that we think you should be aware of:

1. Noteworthy Marketing News and Trends

The power of podcasting: How to boost your reputation and search engine rankings

Podcasts have exploded in popularity over the past five years, taking on the position that radio once had in our lives. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of opportunity for marketing using podcasts as a result. A recent article about podcasts published on Search Engine Land recommends establishing yourself as an authority within your field through the creation of webinars, video content, a social media presence and more. This helps build credibility so that you’ll have a better chance at being invited onto a podcast. Once you’ve built a name for yourself, you’ll want to pitch podcast ideas that can benefit your SEO efforts to podcast hosts that are relevant to your business.

YouTube’s new TrueView for Reach option makes bumper assets skippable

According to an article by Ginny Marvin on Marketing Land, YouTube recently introduced a skippable option for short-form ads that are called TrueView for Reach, which can be skipped after five seconds; however, advertisers only pay if the viewers watch 30 seconds, the viewer interacts with the ad or the video ends. YouTube has implemented this new option in response to requests for ways to optimize TruView buys based on the different campaign objectives that customers have. One of the beta testers of the TrueView for Reach option, Samsung, revealed that it reached over 50 percent more people at half the CPM (cost per thousand) using the new feature.

Google Switches to Infinite Scrolling Mobile Search Results

Google has switched from having to click from page to page on their mobile SERP (search engine results page) to being able to scroll down infinitely by clicking on a “more results” button. This could potentially change what it means to rank on the first page of SERP according to a recent write up on the new infinite scrolling feature on Search Engine Journal. However, it’s currently in a test phase, which Google will only make permanent based on user feedback.

What other trends are there? Check out these ten ways to use Google Trends to Increase SEO!

2. Growing Your Inbound Marketing

Do You Need to Redesign Your Website?

Your website plays a huge role in your ability to market effectively. If it’s been a while since you updated your website, it may be in need of a redesign. Our own Nicole Wagner did a write up recently sharing some of the signs that a website needs to be redesigned. These signs include poor web rankings, a change in branding, a lackluster conversion rate, an outdated look and a subpar user experience.

Your Company’s Core Values Play a Role in Developing Your Brand Story

Storytelling is one of the most important aspects of marketing. Without it, you’ll have trouble engaging with your audience and connecting with them. We recently published a blog post on developing your brand story detailing how important it is to employ storytelling in order to share what your company’s core values and beliefs are and how that will evoke stronger emotions and build stronger bonds with your audience.

3. Recent Marketing Reports, Updates, and Trends

Pinterest reports 50% gain YoY in SMB advertisers

The Pinterest Propel ad program has been around for a whole year now and it recently reported a 50 percent jump in small and medium-sized business advertisers since it first went live. Pinterest has made a concerted effort to position their platform as an effective tool for advertisers and also revealed that businesses who are using Pinterest Propel are earning three times as many clicks than those who are not — and are even experiencing an average of 15 percent lower cost-per-clicks within the first 90 days.

Snapchat looks to offer new e-commerce options for Discover Publishers

According to a recent post on Marketing Land, Snapchat is currently testing a new e-commerce option on some of its Discover publisher channels. The new feature will allow users to swipe on products within the Discover platform in order to buy them from the Snap Store. Although they are just testing the waters, the company seems to have great ambition for its store’s future potential. Several publishers have revealed that they have tested the new feature and that currently, Snapchat is not taking a revenue share from any of the products being sold so far during the testing stage.

Facebook & Cambridge Analytica: What we know, what they knew & where that leaves us

Facebook has been all over the news as of late due to the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Considering the fact that many businesses leverage the use of Facebook for their marketing efforts, you’ll want to know where the future of Facebook lies. A recent article on Marketing Land goes into detail about the scandal as well as Mark Zuckerberg’s recent testimony in front of Congress addressing the issue of Facebook’s privacy settings and user consent.

The future of retail is Generation Z-dependent — and martech is the way to reach them

A new generation (Generation Z) is coming of age, and like every generation before them, their buying habits are different. Rohit Gupta explains how important it is for businesses to begin adjusting their marketing efforts to better target this upcoming generation by providing numerous tips. These tips include customizing the purchase journey, connecting through social media, preparing for the use of voice recognition technology, and focusing on convenient shipping options.

Top 3 Ways to Maximize Your Inbound Marketing Strategy

September 6, 2017/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Strategy /by Nicole Wagner

Do you have a favorite sport? Maybe it’s something popular like football or hockey. Perhaps a more dignified pastime such as golf or horseracing better suits your style. Whatever your preference may be, do you ever wonder how your favorite athletes (hopefully!) win more than they lose? Most likely they are playing with a strategy. It may seem obvious, but strategy – even in a sport like racing – is essential to victory.

The same is true for your business website. Without a strategy, your website will fall behind the competition. Don’t let this happen! Many companies fall into the trap of creating a website for nothing more than an “online presence.” With inbound marketing, websites can do so much more than they could 20 years ago. With inbound marketing, businesses are seeing more online traffic that results in more customers and sales. But without a strategy, even inbound marketing has its limits.

Inbound marketing benefits from a well-developed strategy. There are three aspects to creating a well-developed inbound marketing strategy.

1. Create website goals

What do you want your website to do for your customer? That’s the main question that should be asked before a website is developed. Without a clear goal, a website could be published without having any significant benefit to the owner or the visitor. If a website generates most of its sales after visitors view a product information page, the goal of the website should be to create more product information pages, increase traffic to these pages, and streamline the ability to go from product information to product purchase. Inbound marketing benefits from having a website with clearly defined goals. If you are wondering about your website, try having a friend or colleague take a look at it. Ask them if they felt your website had clearly defined goals. Once you’ve determined you have the right goals in mind, it’s time you ask yourself if you have the right person in mind.

2. Create a Persona

Creating a persona is a powerful way for a business to better understand its customers. Without a persona, businesses have an incomplete idea of who to market to. So what is a persona? A Persona is the ‘ideal’ customer that a business wants to reach out to. Personas are defined by many things – ethnicity, location, motivation – but what they all have in common is that they help shape the strategy used by a company to achieve its goal.

Read more on Why Buyer Personas Are So Important

By creating a strategy with a specific end-user in mind, we are better able to understand what their problems are and how we can help make their lives easier. Don’t get too attached to your persona though! You will likely find that you may need to update them as you gain more insights on your customers. You may even considering adding an additional persona. Once you have your persona or personas created, you can move on to the next step.

3. Get to know your persona

Now that you have a persona, ask yourself, how well do you know him or her? It may seem like knowing a pretend person’s upbringing and background is a little silly, but it can go a long way with customer satisfaction. By constructing your persona’s life story, you are better able to understand their motivation, needs, and desired outcome in life. If your persona is looking for a product that satisfies a long-term need but your business only sells products for immediate use, you’ve just gained valuable insight. You’ve recognized a need your typical customer has as well as an opportunity for your company to grow. By using information gathered from our personas, we can update and adapt our company strategy to best fit our customer needs.

Download A Free Template For Developing Personas

Just like in all sports, strategies continue to adapt as they encounter new problems and opportunities. You will likely find that a strategy created today might not work for you a year from now. That’s okay! Revisiting your goals, updating your persona’s attributes, changing their background and desired outcomes; these are all essential to a successful business. Just remember, inbound marketing benefits strongly from a well thought out strategy. How do you think your company’s online strategy is? If you’d like a free consultation, please check out the link below.

Want more resources on how to redesign your website? Click here!

Inbound Marketing Works. Politics Proves It.

August 17, 2017/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing /by Mark Beebe

We can all agree that politics in America right now is messy. To be honest it’s beyond messy. That’s no secret. So I won’t be writing about how divided we are today, rather, I’m going to be discussing how inbound marketing benefits organizations that operate in the political realm.

So what does inbound marketing have to do with politics?

Absolutely everything.

Think about where most people get their news from today. Is it the “failing” New York Times? What about CNN? Fox News? No, the answer is social media: Facebook, Twitter, etc. For traditional news organizations, this is devastating. But for inbound marketing news websites? It’s a cash cow.

What’s inbound marketing news? We’ll get to that. First I want to talk about how social media works. I’ll keep it brief because I’m sure you already know. Social media tracks your interests through likes, shares, and retweets. Based on your interests, the social media service you’re using is more likely to put content in front of you that you will react to. It’s human nature to want to see the things you like.

Considering The Source

Okay, back to news. News isn’t supposed to be all good or all bad. News is, or rather should be, a collection of facts that are communicated to its audience regardless of their feelings and personal opinions. Good things happen, and bad things happen. Your favorite politician may betray you with certain legislation, or maybe someone you detest says something you agree with. These are hard realities to grapple with for anyone. But social media doesn’t want to give you difficult feelings to grapple with; it wants to make you happy. Always happy.

[Read About Creating A Brand To Become President]

So is Facebook going to let you see a CNN article about how the president isn’t living up to his promises to you? Of course not. But what if a website were to take the same information and deliver it in a way that makes you happy? That’s what inbound marketing news is. These websites make their fortunes by taking anything that happens in the world and delivering it in a nice, easy to digest fluff piece that puts its audience’s mind at ease.

Now, I’m not making a political statement with this article. I’m pointing out how inbound marketing works and I want to use the best example. For that reason I am going to focus on conservative media. Head on over to the “Being Conservative” Facebook page.

The Echo Chamber

First of all, this is one of the most followed political pages on Facebook right now with almost 3 million followers at the time this article is being written. Take a look at all the posts on this page. They are ALL from The DailyWire.com. Almost 3 million followers seeing multiple posts every single day from a single news source translates into an astounding amount of views for that website. This fact isn’t lost on advertisers who pay to have their products and companies advertised on the website. This alone generates an impressive amount of income for the website. The fact that The DailyWire also charges to remove ads creates another revenue stream for the company.

Once visitors click on a headline and are brought to the website they are shown other articles that may interest them based on the tags and keywords in the original article. While exploring The DailyWire, visitors increase the website’s SEO ranking and credibility with Google, meaning DailyWire articles are more likely to appear in search results. Now that The DailyWire has millions of daily visitors they can generate money by publishing books, scheduling speaking events, and a number of other things, all of which helps their SEO and Facebook following grow.

This level of online engagement should be the envy of every business owner hoping to grow their company. Think about this; in a time where print media and local newspapers are struggling to survive, The DailyWire has been growing steadily since its founding in 2015. Without inbound marketing benefits continuing to improve the company’s marketing efforts the website would probably find itself struggling to stay online. But with new and relevant content, active engagement on social media, and the support of millions of viewers, The DailyWire will most likely continue to defy the odds and succeed in today’s digital economy.

Benefits of SEO: How Optimizing Your Website Will Lead To Greater Results in 2017

January 25, 2017/in Articles, Attraction Marketing, Directors, Inbound Marketing, News & Insights, SEO /by Nicole Wagner

By now, most marketers recognize that SEO is an important part of doing business online. To put it simply, if your website isn’t properly optimized, you are missing out. There are many reasons why you should start an SEO program if you haven’t already. SEO is a part of attraction marketing. Here are six of the top benefits of SEO.

More Website Traffic

Top positions in the search engines result pages lead to a lot more clicks, so ranking near the top can significantly increase the traffic coming to your website. According to research from Advanced Web Ranking, the top search result gets 30.1 percent of the clicks and over 50 percent of the clicks go to the top three results. Read more

How Can You Delight Your Customers?

August 3, 2016/in Articles, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

How do big-name brands like Coca-Cola and Disney retain their customers after their first sales interaction? They continuously delight their customers with their products and services, and aa a result, develop a strong relationship with those customers.

So what does it mean to “delight” consumers? The “delight” phase of the Inbound Marketing Methodology is all about pleasing your customers so that they benefit from your company and remain a customer and promoters of your brand. Read on to find out how you can delight your customers:

A Thank You Page Isn’t An End, But A Continuation

July 22, 2016/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

A thank you page is where a website visitor is directed after downloading a content offer. The function of a thank you page (of course) is to thank that visitor for downloading the content from your landing page, but also to help them move through the Buyer’s Journey.

A thank you page shouldn’t just say “thanks for coming.” Saying thank you is important to be courteous and trustworthy, but you can use thank you pages to your advantage and lead visitors to discover more about your company. Here are some important practices to help make sure your thank you pages are as effective as possible.

The Benefits Of Marketing Automation For Senior Living Communities

September 18, 2015/in Articles, Directors, Inbound Marketing, Senior Living Marketing /by Nicole Wagner

Seniors today are more tech-savvy than ever before. A recent Nielson report shows that the number of adults 65 years old or older actively using the Internet has increased by more than 55 percent in the last five years. Furthermore, adult children continue to play an important role in finding quality elder care for their parents. This means that it is vital for your senior community to maintain a strong web presence, and vital for your company to reap the benefits of marketing automation, as a part of senior living marketing.

When searching for a community online, seniors and their children both expect timely responses to their questions and content that addresses their specific needs. Marketing automation helps enable senior living organizations to engage leads with relevant content, track and score each lead’s behaviour and deliver better quality leads.

What is Marketing Automation?

Marketing Automation is a tool that informs, interacts and nurtures leads as they move through the sales funnel. It is a process that manages a community’s interaction with its prospects by providing them with the right information at the right time in the buying process. By targeting content, marketing automation informs, entertains, socializes and earns the prospect’s business.

Prospects define the path through their modes of interaction, targeted search, website visits, by downloading brochures or requesting a tour of your community.

How does it work?

MA tools start with the premise of managing all levels of leads and then apply business rules, analytics, segmentation and scientific data to manage prospects in your sales funnel.

Here is an example of what a basic automated email workflow could look like:

Step 1: Email Invite

You send an email invitation to download your latest community brochure to a targeted list of contacts

Step 2: Thank You Note

You send a thank you note to all the people that downloaded the brochure.

Step 3: Follow Up Email

A few days later, you send a follow-up email to the list of people who downloaded the brochure, offering them more detailed floor plans, amenity lists and information about your community.

Step 4: Notification

Finally, when someone reads that information, your sales team will get a notification so they can follow up with them (this person is now much more qualified and is likely farther down the buying process)

Learn more about the Benefits Of Inbound Marketing

Now, put yourself in your prospect’s shoes for a moment. If this was you, receiving information from a senior community about their services and amenities, wouldn’t you prefer to get emails like the ones above over blasts you can tell they’re sending to hundreds of other people? It feels personalized like it is tailored to you and addresses your individual medical needs. This makes you much more likely to trust that community and ultimately schedule a tour.

This is the foundation of marketing automation. To provide you, as a marketer, with the ability to target your contacts and send them content that is based on their behaviour. You’re giving them the information they need when they want it. You’re easing their buying decision. And as a result, your conversion rates will increase and vacancies will decrease.