What is Inbound Marketing? More Importantly, Is It Better? Posted on January 12, 2016October 21, 2022 by Katie Culp What if instead of a marketing campaign that you hope finds new prospects and customers or clients, your online marketing campaign is designed to have them find you? Inbound marketing is just that, marketing focused on being discovered by customers! Marketing used by most startups and small or medium-sized business is the more traditional, outbound marketing. However, expert internet marketers understand the limitations of outbound marketing, as reflected by these stats from Voltier Digital: 86% of people skip through television commercials 44% of direct mail is never opened 200 million Americans have registered their phone numbers on the FTC’s “Do Not Call List” The outbound marketing methods used to work when marketers controlled the conversation, market, message, and channels. Now, there are infinite channels through which we get our information. Though outbound marketing still is in use and still has its place, it is more expensive than an inbound marketing program and less effective. Why Inbound Marketing Works Most people hate sales calls, do not open emails from people or businesses they do not know, block phone calls from anonymous callers or blacklisted marketers, do not read printed newspapers, and record TV shows to avoid commercials. In other words, consumers really don’t appreciate aggressive advertising – and now have the technology to avoid it. It’s the consumer who’s in the driver’s seat when it comes to conversation. Inbound marketing works well as it is non-intrusive. Potential new customers and existing customers crave quality content and they choose the channels where they find what speaks to them. If you can attract your prospective customers to your website by having a strong content, SEO, and social media strategy, you have a successful inbound marketing campaign. Content Effective inbound marketing campaigns are centered around content creation that offers valuable information. The goal of content should be enticing your prospect to give their information so you can then nurture them into a customer. Either written by you or on your behalf by a professional writer, well-crafted content is the driving force behind your inbound marketing strategy. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) SEO techniques make it easier for would-be customers to find your content on the web. SEO is key to your site’s success by building inbound links from other sites and social media. You want to build a spiderweb of links around the internet that all go back to your website. A side benefit is that as your inbound campaign takes root and you develop inbound links, your Google ranking will go up! Social Media Having a strong presence on social media sites such as Facebook, Google+, Yelp and other social media sites helps you in getting your content distributed to new potential clients. Social media also encourages shares, feels more ‘real’ and fosters discussions about your content – a great way to draw more qualified customers to your website. DIY or Professional Help? Powerful inbound marketing does require investing time and resources into content creation and distribution. But the pay-off is huge. Instead of sinking money into futile advertising or an army of sales people, with the right inbound marketing strategy, the customers come to you! So yes, inbound marketing is better!
Struggling with Content Marketing Strategy? Nail it with these 5 Tips. Posted on November 5, 2015November 11, 2022 by Jessica Lunk You want to be seen. So, do something. Something big. If you want to catch people’s eye in your content marketing endeavors, you have to do three things: Be bold, be relevant, and be impressive. If you want to make an impact and get your business noticed you have to go the extra mile. To reach and engage your audience use these 5 tips to nail your content strategy: 1. Know Who You Are Knowing who you are takes a deep understanding of the product or services you offer, why you offer them, and a bit of the roadmap that lies ahead of you. Once you understand your business, you have to create a brand around it – and this is the tough part. You know who you are, but does your audience? Branding is how you communicate; it’s your face to the world and while it may change over the years, it should remain a version of itself. Think of Q-Tips, Kleenex, Xerox. These companies are so inextricably linked to their product that most time people don’t know whether you are talking about the company of the item. That’s what you want for your business. 2. Know Your Audience Knowing who you are also means knowing your audience. Successful businesses don’t try to be everything to everyone. Instead, they are super intentional about putting their stake in the ground and defining their audience. Herb Kelleher, co-founder and former CEO of Southwest Airlines, took this exact approach. He decided that his audience wasn’t everyone. It wasn’t even the business-class flyer. Instead, he set his sights on the family flyer. He appealed to them by offer low fares, painting his planes like whales, and implementing a hiring strategy that focused on hiring attitude before skills. And this targeted approach paid off. Today, Southwest Airlines is the nation’s largest carrier in terms of originating domestic passengers boarded. When your demographic is defined, you can get to know your audience intimately. What are they interested in? How are they finding information? What are their pain points? Knowing your audience allows you to tailor your message, taking a personal approach to your marketing to stay super relevant to your audience, and create raving fans of your business. 3. Be Where They Are After you’ve defined your niche, go find them. Does your ideal buyer hang out in specific geo locations? Do they participate in certain communities online? Are they urban or suburbanites? Are they looking for a specific resource that you can provide for free? Take a multi-level approach to meeting your ideal buyers where they are by: Driving top-of-mind awareness with ads. Delivering value through helpful resources. Nurturing with personal email marketing. Especially for smaller businesses that have to do more with less, being targeted with your audience means that you can allocate resources efficiently and effectively. 4. Use Technology Marketing technology used to be reserved for big businesses with big budgets and lots of technical know-how. But today, there are a ton of free or budget-friendly resources that are easy for small businesses to implement and use. Try these examples on for size: Create a blog on your company site. Share your expertise, show off your company culture and feature guest posts from others in your niche. Blogging displays your authority, builds up a reserve of content you can share, and helps your ideal buyer find your business online through search. Leverage Youtube to connect with your audience. Produce your own video, or better yet, leverage your customers’ video testimonials to share with your audience. In fact, Offerpop revealed in a recent report that brand engagement rises by 28% when consumers are exposed to professional content along with user-generated product videos. Create buzz on social media sites. With social media, you can take word-of-mouth marketing one step further and get your audience talking about your brand. Focus your efforts on the channels that your ideal buyer engages with the most. 5. Make Sure They Can Find You with SEO Creating useful, relevant content for your audience is the first step to getting found online. Then, reach out to your partners, influencers in your space, and your customers to share and exchange content, helping boost your reach. As you build content on your site, you may also want to hire a SEO consultant to help make sure your website is structured properly for ultimate optimization. For a few more ideas on how to get found online, check out our Small Business Guide to Online Marketing. You want to make a big splash, right? Try these ideas and watch as you reach grows exponentially.
7 Surefire Ways to Get Your Small Business More Leads Posted on August 18, 2015November 18, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Being creative in finding new ways to get qualified small business leads can keep you several steps ahead of your competition. Many companies are using social media to find leads to nurture into prospects and sales. How can you make the most of your social media accounts to get in on the action? There are many different techniques that work for both B2B and B2C companies which you can adapt for your own prospecting. Here are some valuable tips to help you get more leads from social media. 1. Establish yourself as an authority in your field. Establishing yourself as an authority in your field will help prospects focus on what you have to say. Good social media prospecting is related to offering valuable content for shoppers to read, watch or listen to before they are ready to buy. You can offer information that you have gained over the years by answering the typical questions that new customers have on your website, blog or in outlying articles on third-party sites. The more you establish yourself as an expert, the more potential customers will trust you. 2. Set up your Facebook page as a lead-generation tool. While getting likes on Facebook is nice, it is not as valuable as getting leads. If you set up your Facebook page as a lead-generating tool, you can drive business from your page without spending oodles of time. You can add tabs to your page and customize them to offer contests, gather contact information and issue calls-to-action that will invite them to visit your site or blog. 3. Use lead generation cards to gather email addresses on Twitter. Partnering lead generations cards with a customized email campaign is a successful way to drive conversions directly to your content and get their email for future contacts. You can create an attractive ad with a link to your online content and use this incentive to get prospects to give you their email address. Once on your list, these prospects are ready to learn more about your company and how you relate to their needs. 4. Use LinkedIn to drive leads from your profile page. LinkedIn is one of the most valuable social media sites for lead generation. You can start by turning your company profile page into a lead generation tool. Use the description area to write your elevator speech and add a link to your landing page. 5. Join LinkedIn groups to network with contacts in your industry. LinkedIn groups, used properly offer a doorway into a vast networking opportunity for lead generation. Find groups that have the right set of members for you to work with and use them to build relationships that will result in lead generation. 6. Pin images on Pinterest that demonstrate how to use your products in new ways. Pinterest has become a useful search engine for many industries. One excellent method of driving leads is by offering suggestions to prospects as to how they can use your product through images and text overlay. You can add a call-to-action in the pin description for lead generation. 7. Create how-to videos for YouTube to promote your products or services. YouTube is the second largest search engine after Google. By creating short videos showing customers how to use your products or services, or answering questions that may confuse customers, you can drive prospects to your website or landing page. Calls-to-action and links can be inserted in the video or listed in the description below. Source: Social Media Examiner
How to Make your Small Biz Look Big (Without Growing Your Footprint) Posted on April 7, 2015July 25, 2016 by Jessica Lunk You’ve worked for corporate America, and know what big business feels like. You didn’t like it. But that doesn’t mean you don’t want to grow revenue while staying true to your small business roots. While putting more boots on the ground can help your small business win more customers, hiring a bigger sales force increases payroll and requires more management on your part. Today, though, there are innovative ways your small business can live large, attracting the bigger fish with less work – and without growing your small biz footprint. Your Website If your online presence is still a static website that is more like an online brochure, it’s time to update. Building a CMS-based (content management system) website on a platform like WordPress can give you the power to update your website whenever you please. With frequent updates to your website – like a new blog post or timely homepage announcement – you’ll actually look like you’re in business. It’s reassuring to your prospects and customers knowing that there’s activity going on behind the scenes of your online calling card. Even if your business relies on highly personal relationships, you can bet that visiting your website online is one of the main steps prospects will take before they decide to do business with you. A modern, up-to-date website that clearly communicates who you are, what you do, and how you benefit your customers can make you look a lot larger – without adding a single person to your team. Social Media Social Media has been an excellent vehicle to help small businesses get their story across without making huge investments in traditional advertising like print, television and radio. But is your social media presence making you look smaller than you are, or larger than life? Keeping social media manageable and updating your small business profiles every day or two can make you look larger, while neglected profiles can sink your status. The golden rule of social media is to do a few channels very well instead of spreading yourself too thin. If most of your customers are on LinkedIn, but not active on Facebook, cut out your Facebook channel and focus your efforts on sharpening your LinkedIn presence. Do one or two social channels well to project a professional, polished image and to boost engagement with your social fans. CRM If an excel spreadsheet and business card collection are your main contact organization tools, it’s time to upgrade. A simple CRM can make your business look a lot bigger. For starters, you won’t be scrambling to find information. A small business CRM can track and organize your customer and prospects’ activity in real time. You’ll have the information you need at your fingertips to pick up hundreds of conversations right where you left off. You won’t lose your friendly small business vibe, but you will be able to handle more interactions with prospects and customers more effectively. That’s huge. When you’re driving business development and sales for your business, your time is much better spent building on relationships with customers who are ready to buy now than wasting time cold calling prospects. A small business CRM can track notes on a contact record, record email conversations, keep tabs on your contact’s interests, and let you know which prospects you should be in conversation with. A spreadsheet just can’t do that. Email Marketing As a small business owner, you’ve got your hands in sales and marketing, and your business is built on the personal relationships you’ve developed with your customers. With the right email marketing tools, you can continue to communicate in a personal, but scalable way. Instead of blasting the same message to everyone on your list, small business marketing automation tools allow you to reach many prospects and customers at a time with an individual message just for them. We like to think of it as personalized mail. Sending the right content to the right person at the right time makes them feel like you know them. It also lets you write emails that say exactly what you would say to a prospect or customer over lunch. But instead of sending hundreds of individual emails, small business marketing automation takes the administrative stuff off your plate,e giving you the freedom to get away from your machine. You don’t need lots of employees to help your business run smoothly. Invest in a few smart small business tools to build up your brand and pump up your profits.
Do You Have Fun With Your Social Media Strategy? Posted on February 19, 2015August 5, 2022 by Jessica Lunk Does your social media strategy feel like a chore? Do you create posts that your audience doesn’t engage with? It’s easy to get discouraged when your social media strategy just isn’t working despite your best efforts. When social media marketing isn’t fun, it’s time to change something. “I live by the rule, if it’s not fun, I’m not doing it.” – Kim Doyal Social media can provide you answers, inspiration, and motivation. So how can you centralize your social media strategy around having fun? Use your heart. You’re emotionally and personally invested in your business, so replicate that in your marketing. Your biggest fans will be the ones that know without a doubt that you love what you do. Talking about your passions and having others respond is so rewarding. Get in front of your customers online. If you provide great customer service, they will provide the engagement you seek. Explore your creativity. Through my years exploring social media channels and the web, I’ve found that I have the most fun when I find my niche. Social media allows you to find like-minded people with similar interests, voice, and style. Get out of your comfort zone and put yourself out there! Explore and you will find your treasure chest. Break from what you know and dip your toe in other social networks; stick with the channels you enjoy participating in. Being creative and real will help you break from the noise. Show some personality. Don’t be afraid to be yourself on social media. If social media teaches us anything is that you can be yourself and still find acceptance. On top of that, it’s easier than ever! Your online tone and voice will take some work to develop. If it feels wrong, then it’s wrong. If it feels forced, it’s forced. Use your company values as the background to your online brand. Be wary of automated social media response tools because your audience will be quick to sniff it out. Context is everything on social media. You can be silly online but looking like a fool won’t get you far. “Take your time, find out what it is you want to do, and develop it by having fun with it.” – Steve Ewing Don’t be scared. Be human. Social media is a two way street. Once you get yourself out there, engage with others without self-promoting. Respond to every tweet or comment – not because a social media expert told you to but because it makes people feel good to be heard. Provide valuable feedback and conversation to build a relationship because you don’t just walk into a networking event shouting about your business. At the end of the day, life is all about relationship building. Don’t lose your human and don’t be afraid of being emotionally vulnerable. If it’s fun, you’ll have the time. Be emotionally invested in your social media marketing. “People don’t buy what you do but why you do it.” If you aren’t excited about it, how can anyone else be? If you are creating noise, you will not see the engagement you want. Get the social conversation going with great customer service and keep it going by having fun with it. “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” – Maya Angelou Shout out to Nickelodeon for creating Spongebob Squarepants and years of fun inspiration!
3 Quick Ways to Build Traffic to Your Next Blog Post Posted on January 16, 2015October 7, 2022 by Travis Arnold A Guest Post by Chuck Aikens, Founder & CEO of Volume Nine You already know how valuable blogging is, which is why you already have one. But if you don’t have enough people visiting your blog, the whole purpose of having a blog is lost. Ever wonder how some bloggers arrive out of nowhere and skyrocket their blog’s traffic and subscriber numbers, while some others struggle forever to move the needle? With over 164 million blogs already out there, you need to do a lot more than just write good content and present it well. You need to begin the groundwork even before you press that “Publish” button. Want to know how? Read on. You spent all week writing a great piece of content that your industry is going to love, and now you’re ready to relax. But wait a minute, this new blog post is going to get published on Tuesday morning and you have to get the word out. Don’t worry, go enjoy your weekend! Here are three things painlessly simple you can do on Monday morning to increase the traffic to your blog post. 1. Boost Your Facebook Post Facebook has an astonishing 1 billion active users, and an average user spends about 22 minutes every day on this social network. No matter who your target audience is, chances are high that they will be on Facebook, so you should try everything possible to leverage this. Facebook’s Boost Post is a good starting point. Boost post is a feature that allows a post from your business page to appear higher up on the News Feed. Facebook charges a fee for this service, depending on how many people you intend reaching out to, and the number of impressions your post gets over time. By boosting your posts on Facebook, you earn an extra degree of visibility for blog posts that you think are important. There is a much higher chance of a boosted post being seen by users who have liked your business page, that relying on organic Facebook impressions alone. To boost a post, all you need to do is click “Boost Post” button next to the post, select the target audience, set up a budget, and you are good to go. 2. Use Coschedule to Schedule Social Media Follow-ups A major mistake that many bloggers make is that they publish the blog, notify the social networks, and do nothing after that. By doing this, they lose the opportunity to get the click-throughs that the content deserves. The good news is that there are there are tools to help you promote your blog with social media in a more effective manner. Coschedule is a tool that lets you leverage the full power of social media. With Coschedule, you can implement a sharing schedule, and maintain a more consistent social presence. More than an editorial calendar, Coschedule is a Plugin that connects to your WordPress site and social media connections. Once added to WordPress, Coschedule lets you publish to your social connections, all through a calendar format. You can add as many social connections as you want, integrate with Google calendar, track analytics, interact with team members, and more. Our recommendation is to use it to schedule 5 Tweets and 2 Facebook Follow-ups – a solid game plan for your next post. 3. Write Some Teaser Articles and Send it to a Few Influencers A simple secret to rapid blog growth is blogger outreach. You can get other key bloggers in your niche, or influencers, to promote your blog for free. Just write some teaser articles and send them to a few influencers. By doing this, you can actually put your content before the movers and shakers in the niche, increasing changes that your blog is well received and highly circulated. For example, in the following snippet, an SEO influencer, references an article from another SEO website’s blog, increasing the reach and audience for the blog post: How to Create an Awesome Hashtag for Your Business https://t.co/XxpynQxmvR via @v9seo #socialmedia #marketing pic.twitter.com/zdKTZzeDjw — Chuck Aikens (@chuckaikens) September 14, 2016 With better tools and an air-tight strategy, you’re ready take your blog to new heights of success. About the Author Chuck Aikens is the CEO of Volume Nine, an SEO Agency which has been helping clients build organic traffic to their websites for over 9 years. Chuck enjoys living in Denver with his wife and 2 children where he enjoys running, skiing, and working on his golf game.
Celebrate Achievements With Milestones Posted on November 4, 2014June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk A great way to step back and recognize your achievements is through social media. As a small business owner, you’re hustling to get as much done in a day so it’s hard to celebrate those achievements and goals you have met. Facebook has a cool, underused feature that can help you document and showcase your achievements in a simple, easy way: Milestones. Here’s how simple it is to upload your Milestones to Facebook: Step One: Go to your Facebook page. Step Two: In the section that Facebook asks you “What have you been up to?” and where you type out your status, there are three tabs in that box. Click “Offer, Event +” Step Three: Select Milestone Step Four: Complete the form (don’t forget to add a bit of background in the story section & a photo!) and be sure to keep ‘Hide from News Feed’ unchecked! Publish! Milestones can serve as a post in your social strategy to increase engagement! Your milestones will show in your About section under Life Events. You can use this as a quick reference and a source of inspiration to see how far you have come with your business! Add your milestones to Facebook when you complete a large goal such as earning your first buck and other big events. Other great milestones ideas are highlighting when your rockstar employees came on board, when you hit your 10th, 100th, and 10,000th customer, facelifts to your company with rebranding, and the launch of your big marketing campaign. Take pride in your great milestones as a small business owner and show the world the strength of your company with Milestones!
Marketing to Millennials Posted on September 12, 2014June 3, 2016 by Jessica Lunk This past weekend, a few of us from Hatchbuck attended a local music festival, Loufest, filled with great music, local beer, delectable food, perfect weather, and a swarm of millennials. Festivals are sensory overload and an experience that lives on with the attendee. I’ll never forget the colors and friendly warmth of Coachella, the torrential down pour that always occurs during Lollapalooza, or 3 days on the beach. However, when you really get down to it, how is one festival any different than the next on the business end? If anyone tells you that the music industry is dead, they aren’t paying attention to these festivals popping up all over the country. Here are a few things that I believe small business can learn from these millennial playgrounds: Great Visual Content Millennials love pretty pictures. Instagram and Tumblr are for millennials which are both the social channels designed for visual content. Check out the full Millennials and Social Media infographic from Marketing Strategies. Instagram is an excellent channel to start with because users aren’t as guarded as they are on Facebook and it’s easier to create a successful strategy. Your visual content strategy will lead to your success on this social channel. Use Instagram to showcase and tell the story of your brand. Here are a couple examples of a few brands I follow on Instagram: Coca-Cola Coca-Cola is a great example because they are clever and creative while making it looks so easy. Not much else needs to be said since Coca-Cola is one of the most loved brands worldwide. Coolfire Studios Instagram is also great for B2B! Coolfire is a design agency in the St. Louis area so naturally they’re bursting at the seams with creativity. They use Instagram to highlight their company culture beautifully. Madewell This one is used for a lifestyle branding technique. Madewell uses their buyer personas to drill down to figure out how those girls live their daily lives from what the’re eating, reading, or doing; they have it figured out. If you’re feeling really up to the challenge, I would suggest checking out Vine. This channel is, in my opinion, where the pulse of millennial trends spur from. However, they don’t typically make it to Facebook unless in a Buzzfeed article. User Generated Content (UGC) You might as well call us millennial smart-phone-hands… and instead of griping about it, capitalize on it! Loufest did a great job encouraging attendees to submit their images to their hashtag which they then pull onto their website. They also used an Instagram campaign to build excitement in the days leading up to the festival. With the rise of easy photo editing and Instagram, anyone can become a photographer with professional looking images. By setting up a UGC component to your visual content strategy, you can increase your volume and share of voice without paying an arm and a leg with a professional photographer. Running social contests is your best bet for collecting UGC. Set up a relevant hashtag for your brand that can live on past the contest. If you have a brick and mortar, post that baby all over the place and encourage your customers to use it! There are so many social tools to track social hashtags and even plug-ins for your website to pull those images directly to your page. I’m a huge advocate for UGC because it takes much of the burden of creating visual content off of your shoulders. Plus, you create a legion of advocates without much work to maintain it and it’s an easy way to boost employee engagement and morale. Go Straight to the Source… If it’s appropriate for your small business, becoming a vendor at a local festival could be an awesome opportunity. Millennials get a lot of criticism but one thing they do surprisingly well is supporting small business. Corporate sponsors are very clearly there but on the grounds of a festival, local business and restaurants have so many opportunities to connecting with the festival audience. At Loufest alone, 19 restaurants made up the “Noshpit” and 15 small business “from the St. Louis creative community and beyond” in the Market Square. Festivals aren’t a new idea; every generation has had their fair share of outdoor music festivals. Shout outs to the Boomers… there’s a great visual content strategy there by putting a modern spin to your nostalgia; you guys knew what was up!
The How and Why of Lead Nurturing for Insurance Agents Posted on February 27, 2013June 1, 2016 by Nicci Troiani What is lead nurturing? Lead nurturing is a marketing process designed to educate and build relationships with your leads and prospects who are not quite ready to buy yet. Why do agents need lead nurturing? 1. Only 25% of new leads are ready to buy and another 25% are not going to buy. You need to properly maintain communication with the other 50% without being the pushy, sales type that they are now conditioned to ignore. By sending them informative, educational information about insurance and financial products, you are building a relationship. The prospect needs to be able to trust your advice, so that when they are ready to purchase, they know where to go. 2. Automate your follow up Following up with new leads and maintaining communication with current customers is a problem that all insurance agents face. It is easy to only focus on “hot” leads and let all others fall by the way side. By using a system that will allow you to send automated email marketing campaigns and trigger tasks and reminders to you, you minimize the time and effort on your part to follow up with all of your contacts, which gives you more time to focus on those ‘hot’ leads and make more sales. 3. Score your leads Whether you purchase leads or simply collect business cards, all leads you get are at a different part of the buying cycle. Tracking behaviors such as email opens, link clicks, white paper downloads and webpage visits will give you an idea of who is most interested. You should be focusing on contacting people who have indicated that they are interested with behaviors like these. Ideally, using a sales and marketing software than can track and score this information for you will save you time and the headache of trying to keep track yourself. How do I start nurturing my leads? Use current marketing materials You don’t want to use material that sounds salesy and chances are, most of your current marketing material does. Your current marketing materials can make a good outline or starting point though. Use what you have and do some additional research if necessary to write a few short and educational articles about your industry. Give the prospect tips on buying but don’t mention your product or service. Leverage other people’s content Start following blogs and publications that write about insurance. They need to provide good, educational information (but isn’t written by a competing agent). Keep and archive good ones that your find (I like Diigo.com for keeping track of articles that I like). Start a blog A blog is a great way to not only attract people to your website, but to keep ideas in writing. Old blogs can be revamped into a new e-mail marketing campaign so its great to have content like this on hand. Send your content out to current prospects via e-mail You should develop an e-mail marketing campaign with your new content. Don’t put long articles into your e-mail, no one will read them. Stick to a short introduction and then a link to the article or blog. Again, this can be a link to someone else’s article as long as it isn’t a competitor. Give new leads your content via social LinkedIn groups are a great place to post your content. Find groups that make sense to post your content (writing about group insurance? post in small business groups) and write a short description with the link. Also, post your links on Facebook and Twitter. You never know who may click to read and become a prospect in the process.