Internet Marketing- It's Still Marketing

Using Inbound Marketing to Market Smarter Online - Part II

 

 

In my last Inbound Marketing blog I talked about Hubspot's State of Inbound Marketing Report, which had the following three key findings:

1. Organizations using Inbound marketing strategies to generate leads have a 60% lower cost per lead than organizations who use traditional outbound marketing strategies to generate leads
2. Social media and blogs are the most rapidly expanding category in the overall marketing budget
3. Businesses are generating real customers with social media and blogs

What you need to be doing to generate more leads and reduce your cost per lead.

1. The two most cost effective ways to generate leads are:
1. social media
2. blogs.
2. Inbound marketing budgets are increasing whilst outbound marketing budgets are decreasing.
1. Inbound marketing channels are defined collectively as: PPC, social media, seo and blogs.
2. Outbound marketing channels are defined collectively as: trade shows, direct mail and telemarketing.
3. Inbound marketing channels were identified as more important than outbound, and compared with 2009's report social media, blogs and seo were identified as more important in 2010 than 2009 as a marketing channel.
4. The one inbound marketing channel that decreased in importance is PPC.
5. Email marketing which can be either inbound or outbound was also rated as an important marketing channel for 2010.
6. The major factor for businesses increasing their inbound marketing budget in 2010 is because of past success with inbound marketing.
7. Small business is more likely to spend more of their budget on inbound marketing than medium or large firms. This is the same for both B2B and B2C
8. The top most important social media channels for business in 2010, in order are:
1. Company blog
2. Twitter
3. Facebook
4. Linked In
5. YouTube
9. On average 40% of companies reported getting a customer from; company blog, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn
1. B2B was higher with LinkedIn at 45%
2. B2C was higher with Facebook at 68%
10. Frequency of blog is directly linked to customer acquisition.
1. 90% of companies that blog daily acquired a customer, compared with:
2. 38% of companies that blog monthly acquiring a customer
3. A weekly blog is the most common frequency and is up in 2010 compared to 2009.

The take away for business owners and marketers. 

If you're looking to increase leads, remain competitive and decrease your cost per lead you have to:

1. Get started with a company blog, LinkedIn (B2B), Facebook (B2C) and Twitter (B2C and B2B)
2. Blog as often as you can, at least weekly

If you don't have the time, or you haven't seen results spend some money and hire an inbound marketing consultant to help you.

If you're interested in learning more about this research: The State of Inbound Marketing

This was a guest post from Stacie Chalmers an Inbound Marketing Consultant and HubSpot  partner. She has been involved with marketing since the dinosaur and has graduated from the Inbound Marketing University as a Certified Inbound Marketer. You can read her blogs at Stacie's Inbound Marketing Blog.  Originally from Australia, Stacie spent 2 years living in Maine before recently moving to the warmer climate of Florida. However she still maintains her support for Red Sox, Patriots and Bruins !

 

 

Does Your Internet Marketing Plan Include These 6 Key Components?

 

I drive a lot, and some of the ways that I amuse myself is reading vanity plates in traffic. Some have humored me and I have even taken pictures of a few. (like the guy in the convertible mustang who had the plate "NOWIFE". I sent that one to my husband.)

This week's memorable mention is also what inspired this week's  post. Some have asked me why I put so much emphasis on internet marketing plans. The NH resident with the brand new black Escalade said it perfectly with his/her plate "PLNAHD". Didn't catch that? Oh, let me explain- the person in the 65k car (in the middle of a recession and by the way more than I paid for my first house) says PLAN AHEAD.

Yes even in the new age of marketing on the internet, putting pen to paper and planning ahead is a vital first step to achieving success with any internet marketing efforts.

When developed and used in collaboration with your business plan (again-you do have a business plan right?)- your marketing plan provides you with the road map to direct your business towards success.

Thinking about your marketing strategy is the easy part, putting it into an actionable plan is going to require some documentation.

Consider history- if it can teach us one thing it should be this: remarkable things happen when there is a plan, incredible things are remembered when they are documented.

Effective (internet) marketing plans should identify and account for the following aspects of your business:

• Business Model & Objectives (the what, why, and how you do what you do- what is your goal here!)
• Market & Audience (who will benefit from what you do, and why they should care)
• Competitors (who else does what you do!)
• Customer Profiling (more than  just who they are, but why and how they will approach your business)
• Marketing Strategy (how will you let people know about the wonderful thing you do? )
• Measure, Align, Report (what will you measure according to your objectives and what decisions will you make based on those measurements?)

An internet marketing plan should also have a hidden agenda- take the ego out of your marketing. When you have a plan that identifies your key performance indicators (KPIs), aligns those with your business objectives, and determines your reporting, there is not a lot of room for whomever to say "well, I think, I like, I want to see, what about..". Your marketing is not tossed about at sea with the latest storms of the latest and greatest.

You can develop a strategic and tactical plan that can be analyzed, optimized, and lead to innovation. You will be less stressed chasing down a half thought out idea, you will waste less money on ineffective campaigns, and you will have the road map you need to drive your dream car to your desired destination.

 

From the mouths of babes...

 

Are taglines like:

"Just Do It"

or

"Life Comes at You Fast"

a thing of the past?

So my question is simple- in the new age of marketing (ie: Web 2.0, social media, blogging, Tweeter, Facebook, etc...et al) is there still a place for traditional marketing tactics? Can the right tagline make a difference in branding and having your customers remember you before your competition?

A few days ago my answer would have been yes, there is still a place for traditional marketing in this new age of marketing, but it's place will be different, have a slightly altered role.

Then earlier today my husband was rear-ended, possibly totaling our new (gulp- yes, I am admitting it and putting it out there for all the world to see)...minivan (god- that was painful).

Anyway, after making sure everyone was ok and figuring out what to do next, we sat around the table with our store bought frozen pizza dinner with the kids. My youngest comments on the nights events with one simple statement:

"Well mom, life sure does come at you fast!"

And I paused, and thought- where have I heard that before? And when I realized it was the tagline for my insurance company, I laughed, turned to my son and asked him, what made you say that? His response? "I dunno, it just popped into my head."

So I wonder, when my insurance company came up with that tagline to resonate with it's potential customers- was a 10 year old part of their target market?

So what do you think- target on or target off?

Oh, and for those of you who are dying to know- yes, we will be getting another minivan.

 

One small step for search engine marketing, one huge step for your customers...

 

It is always refreshing to know that you are not alone in the world, that there are others like you who think (and act) like you. This was how I felt after returning from NYC to attend Future Now's Persuasive Online Copywriting and Call to Action seminars.

Years ago when I decided to pursue a career in marketing, I was driven by the concept of motivation and persuasion. Why do people do what they do, why is it that given the same circumstances and environment people can have completely different perspectives (tomato- tamato anyone?), why do people make the decisions that they make? Why, why, why, why....

And so I studied marketing plans, demographics, customer segmentation versus mass marketing, and sales processes. I even dabbled in philosophy and psychology and consumer behavior and still the question nagged at me- but why? All of the traditional methods of marketing told me the what or the how, not the why.

And then came search engine marketing- now we are getting somewhere, or so I initially thought. I soon learned that a lot of SEO and SEM experts were merely playing the same numbers game as traditional marketing mediums. Find out what the most searched terms are and use those for the website to get better rankings and more visibility. In other words, lets dump more traffic into a sales funnel that is full of holes. But I was determined, there had to be a better way, I still wanted to know why.

What was the intent of the person who typed in that search term, what questions are they looking to answer, and how can I best answer that for them?

The methodology that I have learned so far from the great people at Future Now answered the why. The why is answered when you consider, plan for, test, optimize, and refine the marketing to align with a person's decision making preferences.

And just how do you do that you ask? Start with these three questions:

1. Who are you trying to persuade?
2. What are you trying to persuade them to do?
3. What does that person need in order to feel comfortable and confident taking that action?

The first two are not new questions to most marketers, the third brings to light the missing link.

Our personality traits shape how we see and interact with the world (and make our decisions). Your customers have a preference for how they interact with you, and it just might not be what you expect. People will easily do what they want to do, the job for marketing should be to figure out what it is that they want, how they want it, and deliver it in a way that is appealing to them.

So the small step for search engine and internet marketing? Empathize with your customers, after all, it is all about them is it not? Don't talk at them, talk with them, in their language, in a way that they are comfortable with. If you have traffic coming to your website, then you have potential customers coming to you with questions. Do you know what questions they are asking? Does your site answer those questions, or frustrate them (and they leave to visit your competition)? All that polished, clever, and pretty copy writing will not mean anything to your customer if it does not answer their questions.

I know what you are thinking- of course I empathize and listen to my customers- but are you really listening? All the focus groups and surveys in the world will not give you your customers natural reaction to your company, product, or service.

But here is the good part, with the internet as a marketing medium, we now have the opportunity to really find out what customers think. Web analytics can tell you how they found you and how they interact with your website. Online forums, blogs, and customer reviews can tell you what they really think. With every click on your website, your customers are telling you what they like, and what they don't. Your customers are in control of the message online, are you listening, or are you making your decision based on actual behavior, or speculations?

So here is the start, the small step marketers need to take to shift the thinking back to the customer. Because it is all about the customer...

Answer that third question, and you have taken that small step.