Author Archive
Throughout my career, I have always enjoyed working with associations.
Associations have similar objectives as other businesses that we work with (increase awareness, generate leads, build customer loyalty), but they also often face unique circumstances (Board-related management, limited resources, multiple priorities, etc.).
With that being said, I am happy to announce the release of a new White Paper that was written specifically for associations that are looking for ways to improve their marketing efforts!
Within the White Paper, “Online and Mobile Marketing Success Tips for Your Association“, readers will find a number of strategies, tools, technologies, and tips that will help them to reach their business objectives.
Best of all, the White Paper is absolutely free!
To receive your copy, simply fill out this form today >>
I love social media. I love using it for personal and professional reasons.
On a daily basis, certainly enjoy seeing how it is helping our business! I see the traffic that it drives to our websites, I see the ways that it enables us to engage with customers and prospects, and I see the leads that it generates for our sales team.
However, I have a question for you. It’s in the video below!
If social media is not helping you to generate leads and achieve other business objectives, then I’d like to encourage you to join me on the NAPL/NPES Executive Briefings Road Show!
I, along with a few other speakers, will be traveling to 4 cities on 4 different dates to provide printers with strategies, tools, and tips that can help them to succeed!
Register today for the Executive Briefing that’s closest to you!
Learn more at either the NAPL or NPES websites today.
Today, I’d like to chat about some of the specific tools and techniques that you can use to succeed with your inbound marketing efforts.
Your Blog
When you set inbound marketing into motion, you will soon find it is a strategy that thrives on consistency. The most powerful tool in your arsenal is the Blog on your company’s website. You control how much information you disseminate, what information you provide and how often you distribute that information. Ideally, your blog will consist of multiple short (but not too short) articles on relevant topics that set you up as an authority in your field.
The goal is two-fold:
- You get readers who learn to seek you out for your expertise.
- You get others to link to your material…thereby bringing more readers who will learn to seek you out for your expertise.
Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an integral part of inbound marketing. You don’t have to become an expert in SEO yourself, but you do need to know what the right keywords are and how to use them effectively. The goal is to increase your search rank. You want to be on that first page of Google and bing results when internet users search for your keywords.
The great thing about SEO is that it is something that can be tweaked and worked on to help your visibility. Over time, you will be able to determine what your effective keywords are – what words are bringing visitors to your site. And you will be able to track links leading to your site.
You can also track links from within your site. Perhaps your current blog post has a hyperlink to an older post on related material. Instead of using a direct link, you can use a tool that will allow you to shorten the link and also see the traffic reports on that url. For example, we use ilnk.me and get a special shortened url. Later we can obtain the information on how often the link was clicked, the highest traffic times and so on. Remember, information is power and you want that information to know what is working and what is not.
Social Networking Platforms
A bit overwhelmed by all the social media platforms out there? Start with two. Perhaps it’s Twitter and Facebook. Maybe it’s LinkedIn and YouTube. But start with two and build from there.
Don’t assume more is better.
You should only have as many social media profiles as you can manage to maintain. And while your main goal with social media may be to promote your brand and distribute content, don’t forget that these platforms are interactive. They invite a conversation with the internet visitor. That’s something you never want to lose sight of.
The Online Marketing Audit
Yes, you’ve got a business to run. But even if you use tools to automate as much content as possible, you should schedule regular “check ups” on each platform to make sure there isn’t a question or comment lingering.
Also, the technology behind online marketing can change quite frequently and at a faster pace than traditional media.
Thus, having an online marketing audit conducted regularly may help alert you to new features that you should be taking advantage of to promote your business.
Integrating Inbound Marketing into Your Sales Process
The reality is – visitors are not customers. It’s up to you to turn them into your customers.
As you integrate the SEO aspect with the content and the social media visibility, you will find that you will get those visitors.
In order to turn them into customers, you need to cultivate them into leads. Content can also play a big role in that! Your company should have a stash of content in hand that can support the Sales team at each step in the buying cycle.
Whether you are trying to convert a visitor into an inquiry, an inquiry into a lead, or a lead into a sale, you will need specific content to help move people through each step.
By doing that, you will be working to ensure that your inbound marketing efforts prove to be a success!
Inbound marketing is a popular topic in the worlds of business and communications today… but for good reason: an effective inbound marketing strategy can truly help your organization grow!
Today, I’d like to discuss a bit about how to move forward with building and executing an inbound marketing strategy.
At the Core is Your Website
You already know that the internet is a terrific playing field. It’s the great leveler in that any business can have a web presence and in many cases the internet reader would never know whether a business is a mom and pop shop or a million dollar company in a penthouse suite downtown. Any business can and should have a good-looking, easy to navigate website that appeals to its target market. This website becomes the base for your inbound marketing strategy.
Reaching Your Audience
Of course, you need to decide how you will provide information to your target market. Blogging or regular article posts should be a given. If you don’t have a blogging platform built into your website, you should have that added. Then you can schedule your posts. Will they be weekly? Daily? You want consistency and timeliness. So you should establish a schedule that you know you can keep.
Creating Content
Then you need to create a list of blog topics. What kind of information do you want to provide? Think about what is relevant to your target market. What will they want to read? What will establish you as the expert?
Not a writer? Not to worry. You have several options. Look to someone within your company or perhaps a trusted colleague. You can also look into ghostwriters to write the content for you. You want someone to write for your company with a voice that fits. Not everyone is a wordsmith. And that’s okay. An outsider can write in your voice and your posts will still be relevant and authentic.
It’s tempting to buy a bunch of articles that are touted to be laden with key words and optimized for the search engines. But these articles can be found all over the net. And you’ll lose your authenticity if the internet reader figures out that your information is not yours.
The Multi-Channel Marketing Approach
Start thinking about how you can provide information that utilizes other mediums. How about some audio files that are chock full of tips? Or what about getting a guest spot on an internet radio show? An audio question and answer session can be provided as a downloadable link on your website or posted on your social media profiles. (Learn more about inbound marketing tools and techniques such as social media platforms here.)
Humanize Your Brand
Don’t forget that amidst all this information dissemination, you need to portray your business personality. It’s okay to have a post that isn’t all business. Want to post a shout out to a customer? Do it. Want to whip up a quick video clip showing a couple minutes of your employees hard at work? These sorts of things make you only that much more real to your target market. And it can give you a definite edge. So as you implement your inbound marketing plans, don’t forget to show your target market a bit of personality here and there.
I just wanted to take a quick moment to share a great example of online marketing by my friends at Rescigno’s Marketing Connections.
Over the years, I’ve had the chance to work with them on a number of projects. In fact, I am quite happy that they are listed on our Portfolio page!
They’ve done something recently with online video that also really impressed me.
Video and Direct Mail
Rescigno’s provides a wide variety of marketing services to their audience. This includes direct mail and printing, among others.
In an effort to educate prospects and customers about their capabilities, and to increase awareness of their services in general, the Rescigno’s have launched a video series titled “Do’s & Don’ts of Direct Mail“.
Here is the first video in their series:
I think that this video does a great job of helping to achieve some of the Rescigno’s main business objectives. Also, as a marketing services provider, it is absolutely vital that they should be using newer marketing channels to promote their services!
I also loved how they’ve used video to simplify and explain a very important technology: variable data printing! They not only demonstrate what that really means, but they also share the benefits that their customers could receive if they utilized Rescigno’s services in that area.
My hat’s off to the Rescigno’s, once again! Great job, Ron and Sue!
Every business dreams of those “easy” sales. The sales where customers virtually fall into your lap. Don’t we all want to find that customer who nods at everything we say, knowing that we are the experts and the best solution to their needs? The reality is you likely work hard for every customer you get to that point of the sale. But what if that hard work really involved laying the ground work so that over time, those customers really do fall into your lap?
With inbound marketing, you can lay that groundwork to establish your business as a resource, as a wealth of information and the right solution to your target market’s needs. And while it takes some work, it does not require the outlay of cash that many other marketing strategies take, such as massive ad campaigns.
In traditional marketing, you send your message out to the masses. And hopefully, it gets to your target market and that target market responds. With inbound marketing, you are still sending a message out, but it’s less intrusive and much more authentic. Think about it: when you go to a party, do you want to seek out all the cool kids and chat them up, hoping they will like you? Or would you like to be the cool kid and have everyone come to you?
Attracting Leads to Your Business
By providing relevant and interesting content, you become the cool kid. Your target market wants to get to know you. They want to read your articles. They want to download your audio tips. They want to watch your video clips. As you develop your content and make it accessible in various formats, you get your name and expertise in front of your target market in various ways.
Or course, you do have to make sure your content is optimized for the search engines. You want your informational pieces to be found via free searches. This doesn’t mean you stuff your content with fluff and keywords over and over again. In fact, doing so will turn a potential customer off. You have to find the right balance between using those keywords while providing relevant and readable information.
How Social Media Fits In
Inbound marketing also embraces the use of social media to get noticed. You should be sharing your information across multiple platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and so on. Your target market isn’t going to be hanging out in one place. They’re laughing at the latest tweet. Checking out the most recent status update. Sharing that video clip. By establishing your business identity via several social media platforms, you get the chance to seize the interest of many more potential customers, and continue to establish your business as a resource. Another benefit is the ability to interact with those in your target market on a more personal level. Social media invites dialogue and interaction. By being responsive as well as proactive with your information dissemination, you are becoming the friendly resource that your target market wants to work with.
Inbound marketing isn’t for the lazy business. It takes time. It takes knowledge. It takes dedication. You need to provide good, quality content. You need to be search engine friendly and keyword wise. And you need to establish your business identity across multiple social media platforms. But in the long run, inbound marketing can take your business sales to a whole other level.
Would you like to learn how inbound marketing can help you grow your business? Well, I’d like to encourage you to attend the 7th Annual Bridge to Integrated Marketing and Fundraising Conference in August.
This conference is being hosted by the Association of Fundraising Professionals of Washington DC Metro Area Chapter (AFP DC) and the Direct Marketing Association of Washington (DMAW).
On August 8th, I will be speaking on the subject of “How Inbound Marketing Can Work for You”. I took a quick moment to record this preview video below:
I’m quite excited to share news that I’ll be speaking at Content Marketing World 2012! Here is an article that I’ve written to tease my presentation.
I love marketing.
As a result, I often get excited about new channels and technologies that appear. Over the past few years, this has included such things as QR Codes, Near Field Communication (NFC), and of course various social networks. Perhaps you also have the tendency to get excited about new channels and opportunities that arise!
However, one of the biggest things that I’ve learned throughout my business career has been this — you can never rely solely on one channel to get the job done! No matter how buzz a channel or technology may come up, the best way to effectively reach your audience is through an integrated, multi-channel effort.
In today’s world, it may seem harder than ever to stand out and get noticed. But during my presentation at Content Marketing World, titled “Expand the Reach of Your Story with Multi-Channel Marketing”, I will demonstrate how you can effectively use a mix of traditional and newer marketing channels to tell your brand’s story more effectively than ever before!
I hope to see you there!
In the meantime, I’d love to connect with you on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, or Pinterest!
I am excited to share the news that I’ll be speaking at the ON DEMAND Expo on June 14th in New York!
I will be talking about a topic that I am quite passionate about: “Growing Your Business With Social Media”.
But what has made me more excited than usual about this presentation is that I will have a very special co-presenter.
Ladies and Gentleman, Meet My Co-Presenter
Donna Vieira, the Director of Marketing and Communications at Curley Direct, will be speaking with me on this very important topic.
You will not want to miss out on the insight that Donna will share with attendees! She has a lot of experience in a variety of marketing channels, and she has absolutely had success with various social networks.
If you will be in New York for ON DEMAND, we would love to see you there!
Presentation Overview
Title: Growing Your Business With Social Media
Description: In this session, hear how companies can grow their business through online marketing initiatives, including strategies, plans and tactics for incorporating social media into multi-channel marketing campaigns.
- Understand how your target audience communicates in the various channels and how getting noticed is most important.
- Learn how to drive traffic from your marketing campaigns and how lead generation is done in a multi-channel effort.
- Learn from real examples and case studies on how to blend traditional marketing methods with online channels.
- You will take away immediate actionable ideas for your business — for your website, social media channels, email campaigns, and more.
- Learn best practices for social networking, SEO, and website design.
Learn more at the ON DEMAND website today >>
I am happy to announce that I’ll be headed down to Arkansas to participate in another great event from the folks at CustomXM!
On Thursday, March 29, I will be speaking on the subject of “State of the Union of Social Media & Mobile Marketing“.
During my presentation, I will cover a lot of important material on two of the hottest areas in marketing today – social media and mobile.
Topics That Will Be Covered
- Increasing Awareness and Becoming a Thought Leader
- Generating Qualified Leads
- Creating a Happy Customer
- What Social Networks Do You Need to Be On Today?
- What’s Next? And How Can You Prepare?
- Best Practices for Social Media Campaigns
- Why You Need a Mobile Website Today
- Make Print Interactive: Best Practices for QR Codes
- Get Local! Using Location-Based Marketing
- What’s Next? Get Ready to Tap with NFC
Video Preview
Event Details
Topic: State of the Union of Social Media & Mobile Marketing
Date/Time: Thursday, March 29, 2012 from 11:30AM to 1:00PM
Where: North Little Rock Chamber of Commerce
RSVP: Online at IntegratingMedia.com
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