Blog
Category: Inbound Marketing
08
May
2013
In Blog
Inbound Marketing
Marketing Automation
Trends / Demographics
Web Strategy
By Marcia K
Thank You Pages in Response to Landing Pages are a Changing
On 08, May 2013 | In Blog, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, Trends / Demographics, Web Strategy | By Marcia K
Montenate is a company (not our client) that we follow as a best practice company, one that is leading the way in inbound marketing. Recently we signed up for a webinar on Trends in Mobile. The webinar thank you page caught our eye because it is representative of a new trend in thank you pages. Instead of a thank you page that looks like a letter, this one takes advantage of a 3 x 1 grid to drive more engagement: How do you get thank you pages like this? Talk to us and we can not only do the coding required but – as part of our content marketing services – we can help you …
For B2Bs & SMBs, The Oscar For “Best Social Medium” Goes To Twitter
On 01, Mar 2013 | In Blog, Inbound Marketing, Social Media | By Marcia K
Recently a friend of mine had to downsize her business and in the process she lost her social media intern. She shrugged it off by saying – it’s not as if Twitter drives new business. On the contrary! According to a recent study completed by Optify – one of our strategic partners here at Open Marketing, social media accounts for 5% percent of leads. For B2B small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), Facebook is for traffic, and Twitter is for leads. That, at least, is the conclusion of an analysis of 600 US B2B SMB websites conducted by Optify. The study, which parsed over 62 million site visits, 215 million page views and 350,000 leads in …
04
Dec
2012
In Blog
Content Marketing
Inbound Marketing
Marketing Strategy
SEO (Findability | Search Visibility)
By Marcia K
That Sound You hear? It’s Not Holiday Bells. It’s The Dangerous Sound of Money Being Wasted on PPC Ads
On 04, Dec 2012 | In Blog, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Strategy, SEO (Findability | Search Visibility) | By Marcia K
More and more of our clients are asking us about pay-per-click advertising – sometimes called “SEM” – and where it fits into their inbound marketing + content marketing plans. For us, this is a little like the holiday bells in “It’s a Wonderful Life”. Instead of hearing an angel getting its wings visualize hearing the robot in “Lost in Space” shriek “Danger Will Robinson”. PPC in the wrong hands can be – well a waste of money. Which makes it dangerous. Here’s why and what you can do about it. 1. PPC Ain’t Easy Google Adwords accounts are deceptively easy to set up and almost impossible for people who don’t specialize in PPC to optimize …
Goodbye Feedburner, Hello Feedblitz
On 03, Dec 2012 | In Blog, Inbound Marketing, Technology / Tools | By Marcia K
Google is phasing out the Feedburner API, which generally means that the company is getting ready to end-of-life the product sometime in the near future. It’s not imminent, no reason to panic, etc. That said, we like to be proactive about these things, so we are moving all of our clients to Feedblitz. We looked at a couple of different solutions and selected Feedblitz because of its excellent social media capabilities. The service is free for burning an RSS feed ONLY. Monetization happens based on the number of email subscribers who sign up (more on that later) which makes the service essentially free. The interface is a bit … funky. In terms of UI, we …
Why lead nurturing is surprisingly like dating … and what to do about it
On 21, Nov 2012 | In Blog, Inbound Marketing, Lead Nurturing | By Marcia K
I’m a happily married lady. Have been married to a terrific man for 25 years now. Which dates me. Speaking of dating. It occurred to me recently, that many business-to-business marketers don’t “get” how lead nurturing is a lot like dating. Whether you are a man or a woman, gay or straight, it is unlikely that you’d feel great about a first date where the person you just met got down on one knee and proposed. Right? Precisely. So why do some B2B marketers go straight from ‘Hi we are Company X’… to ‘Get started today with a free trial. Our product is great!’? Okay, so marriage is a slightly bigger decision than investing the …
Infographic on B2B Lead Generation
On 31, Oct 2012 | In Blog, Inbound Marketing | By Marcia K
A new and very cool client I can’t (yet) announce brought this to our attention. We love all things Unbounce.
Business to business behavior is changing: adaptation is required
On 22, Oct 2012 | In Blog, Content Marketing, Inbound Marketing | By Marcia K
Even experienced B2B marketers are finding the rapid shift to online/digital/website/inbound marketing (pick your favourite acronym – we prefer the term “Inbound Marketing”) challenging. Buyer behavior is rapidly shifting and B2B marketing campaigns need to adapt to catch up. There is no time to waste. Delay and your competitors will eat you alive. Managing The Longer Buying Cycle Challenge: The B2B decision making process is considerably longer than the consumer buying process. B2B marketers must think about the whole go to market funnel, from very first point of engagement to the point the buyer becomes a customer and market to the entire funnel. Too often marketers support sales with quick end of quarter campaigns. Having …
Killer Landing Pages that Convert 7 Tips from Search Engine Watch
On 19, Oct 2012 | In Agency, Blog, Inbound Marketing | By Marcia K
I was thrilled this morning to wake up, scratch my head, grab my reading glasses, stumble for my phone and find that our landing page for our client Content Rules was featured as a best practice example on Search Engine Watch as a killer landing page that converts: As a quick refresher, here are the criteria for landing page success: Have a Clear and Emphasized Call to Action Align Your On-Page Message and Call-to-Action With Your Off-Page Promise Simplify Design and Reduce Text Use Images Judiciously Show Brand Validation Enable Sharing and Highlight Social Validation Test, Test, Test Let’s look at three landing pages doing it right. In the spirit of always testing and the …
8 Ways Business to Business Lead Gen Campaigns Go Wrong
On 01, Oct 2012 | In Blog, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation | By Marcia K
This data from Marketing Sherpa confirms what most we know to be an essential truth; the two top priorities for our clients are: generating leads converting qualified leads into paying customers This hasn’t changed from the “old” days when lead gen was synonymous with direct mail and trade shows. Today, most buyers start their journey towards purchasing in your category at a search engine. Which is why you must make your website an integral part of your lead generation strategy; it’s how potential buyers will find and familiarize themselves with you. Your website is an integral part of your online lead generation machine – but the machinery itself is far from simple. There are lots …
15
Feb
2012
In Email Marketing / Lead Nurturing
Inbound Marketing
Marketing Automation
Marketing Strategy
ROI marketing
By Marcia K
The difference between marketing automation and CRM
On 15, Feb 2012 | In Email Marketing / Lead Nurturing, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Automation, Marketing Strategy, ROI marketing | By Marcia K
A client asked me recently what the difference is between marketing automation and CRM and why they needed both systems as part of their fundamental infrastructure. CRM solutions like Salesforce target sales and business development folks and the tasks that are important to them, especially how to input, manage, and track their leads. The unit of measurement used is an opportunity. However, CRM systems don’t do a good job of recording all the marketing activity that happens through multiple channels. For this, we need marketing automation. Most marketing automation applications are designed to do 7 core things: 1. Lead Generation Make sales happy with more qualified leads Convert website traffic into leads, automate lead development, …
