Learning from Affilorama’s Inbound Marketing Success. I’ve worked with Affilorama for over a year and half as an in-house SEO (since early 2010 to mid 2011), and became an external marketing consultant for them for almost a year now. Those experiences alone have taught me ton of things that I’m sure I will not be able to learn if I’ve chosen to work for other companies. Even the story of my career – as an online publisher, online marketing professional and entrepreneur – has revolved around the fact that I’ve been once a part of a really strong team.
That part of my career has been a solid core of who I am and what I do now. And the thing that I loved the most about working with them is that it allowed me to see more things beyond marketing. That’s how you win in online marketing from now on. Before I start off, here’s a brief background (in case it’s your first time hearing them).
Great Product A really useful product that no one in your market can match can be the strongest marketing arsenal a business can have. Affilorama Premium. A Super Simple Explanation of Inbound Marketing [INFOGRAPHIC] As extreme inbound marketing advocates, we love when we see businesses drink the inbound marketing Kool-Aid, eat the inbound marketing dog food, sip the inbound marketing champagne, or just, you know -- adopt the inbound marketing methodology. And we love it even more when they evangelize it, as HubSpot Partner The Whole Brain Group has recently done with its new infographic featured below. So if you're just catching on to the concept of inbound marketing and are looking for a super simple explanation of how it compares to a more traditional marketing strategy -- and how a really effective inbound marketing strategy works -- take a few minutes to check out The Whole Brain Group's rundown.
(Click infographic to enlarge.) Do you plan to incorporate inbound marketing tactics into your overall marketing strategy? 7 Inspiring Examples of Real-Time Marketing in Action. Real-time marketing means reacting in real, or near-real time. It’s about relevant messaging, and it's achieved in social channels by listening to and anticipating customer needs. Paid media (advertising), earned media (content), and owned media (social and PR) are rapidly converging into just … media. Digital channels have long enabled real time optimization of display advertising, but as social listening and monitoring tools proliferate nearly as quickly as social media channels, real-time matters more to marketers. This is true not just because of social media, but also because social is now what provides the creative impetus for paid and owned media. Real-time marketing demonstrably works -- not just in social channels, but across the marketing spectrum.
How Real Companies Are Leveraging the Power of Real-Time Marketing That's all well and good, but in the real world, how are marketers working in real time? Pepsi During Fashion Week 2011 Oxygen Network Pilots OxygenLive. 12 Critical Marketing and Sales Metrics You BETTER Be Tracking. Sales and marketing alignment takes work. Lots of organizations have the idea to get both teams in a room together, communicating, collaborating, and all those other warm and fuzzy things that make our hearts flutter. Problem is, that all just turns into a lot of hogwash and fingerpointing -- especially when the bottom line isn't getting hit -- when there isn't anything but "feelings" to back up the discussion.
That's why it's critical sales and marketing should track shared goals and metrics to keep each team accountable to the other. When your two teams get on the same page with these 12 metrics -- that address both quantity and quality -- you'll find it's easier to objectively evaluate your respective performances without devolving into unproductive blame games that don't do anything to advance your company's goals. Here are the 12 metrics that will serve as the missing piece in your attempts at sales and marketing alignment! Quantity Metrics Quality Metrics How to Establish an SLA. Sales - Marketing Automation Drives B2B Lead Gen Effectiveness. Among B2B organizations, the use of integrated marketing automation appears to boost the effectiveness of lead generation efforts across various metrics, such as the quantity of leads generated, the quality of leads passed to sales teams, and the proportion of leads accepted by sales, according to a report by Lenskold Group and The Pedowitz Group.
Roughly one-half (51%) of surveyed lead generation marketers use some type of integrated marketing automation platform (i.e., a system integrated with CRM and sales), the study found. Another 19% use a marketing automation system, but one not integrated with CRM or sales. Among those 51% who use an integrated marketing automation platform, more than six in ten (61%) cite lead quantity as a key benefit of their system, while 60% cite a higher quality of leads passed to sales.
Those two metrics tend to be the first impacted by automation—and the easiest to track. Impact of Using ROI Metrics Boosting Marketing Effectiveness. 12 Automated Email Workflows You'll Kick Yourself For Not Using. Advancing from SEO to CRO: Using AB Testing to Maximize Conversions. This entry is a guest post by Nick Eubanks, the VP of Digital Strategy at W.L. Snook and Associates, Inc. You can follow him on Twitter: @nick_eubanks. SEO moves fast. I realize this contradicts the fact that SEO is a marathon and not a sprint, however I’m not talking about the process or the results, but the industry… In a recent post by Matt Beswick he compares SEO to “trying to build a house in a fault zone,” and specifically that “by the time you have laid down the foundation, the gound underneath may have shifted.” I know often times SEO’s focus on the on-page factors before jumping into link building, but there is usually a lot of money conversion left on the table.
Even when you have maxed out your on-page optimization efforts, there is always room to improve the experience and the focus of your content to drive more conversions. Optimizing For Conversion I have always been a firm believer that the job of the SEO is to acquire targeted traffic to the right pages via search engines. The Must-Have Components of a Modern Sales & Marketing Machine [INFOGRAPHIC] How powerful is your sales and marketing machine? If you're like most businesses, chances are, that machine could be a bit stronger. That's why HubSpot and Salesforce.com have been teaming up to emphasize the power of social enterprises using inbound marketing to create powerful sales and marketing machines. Think about it -- the core of inbound marketing is making marketing that people love, or marketing to people the way they want to be marketed to.
Social enterprises, or companies leveraging social, mobile, and open cloud technologies to revolutionize their relationships with their customers, build customer profiles to better understand their customers' interests and needs. What's why we worked with Salesforce on the following infographic to explain how these pieces fit together to enhance a business' sales and marketing machine. (Click the infographic for a full-sized version.) How powerful is your sales and marketing machine? 10 Stops to Take on the Road to Lead-Generating Landing Pages [INFOGRAPHIC] If you’ve ever wondered how to build a landing page that converts, or even why you should be using them, you’re in the right place.
Today you’ll learn tons of great landing page tips, and get to go on a road trip at the same time. We'll take you on a trip across the U.S., stopping in at some famous American landmarks to learn how to create landing pages that convert more visitors into leads and customers, admittedly pushing the limits of metaphor further than it probably should be ;-) And be sure to check out the recap below the infographic for some bonus tips, too! (Click infographic to enlarge.) So what now? Time for a little recap ... Now that you’re armed with the all this awesome knowledge needed to create an effective landing page, let me share a few extra pointers to keep your momentum going. 1) Use a Single Call-to-Action Having a single objective on your landing page should be your goal. 2) Match Your Messaging 3) Do Some A/B Testing 4) Leverage Testimonials 6) Include a Phone Number.
How to Analyze the Strength of Your Marketing Offers. As an inbound marketer, you spend countless hours creating remarkable content to help generate leads for your business. Whether it’s a blog article, whitepaper, ebook, or webinar, it takes time to think of a topic that’s relevant to your audience, research that topic, and then create content that will attract new leads and customers. When you put this much time and effort into your content, it’s crucial that you also take time to analyze the ROI of your content creation. After all, if you don't understand what types of content and topics work best to generate new leads that convert into customers, you can't exactly optimize the process to make it more efficient, can you?
By analyzing the ROI of your content and offers, you can make yourself and your marketing team more efficient and effective at generating content that will turn into actual dollars. About the Offer Analysis There are a lot of different pieces of data you should analyze when you dig into the effectiveness of your content. After Google Penguin, Travel Sites Need to Get Serious About Inbound Marketing.
Google’s Penguin algorithm update has impacted several travel affiliate websites. What did all those travel sites have in common? A search engine optimization (SEO) strategy that depended heavily on a non-diverse link profile with a majority of their links coming from low quality sites with over-optimized anchor text. As a result, many businesses were decimated by Penguin, just like Panda before it. These sites won’t recover the organic traffic and rankings they once had unless they do some cleaning up and reinvent their online marketing strategy.
Now the focus for travel sites should be on how to create and implement a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy (although many of these principles apply to other segments) to not only recover from an algorithm hit, but to avoid one altogether. In travel, the search engine results pages (SERPs) – especially on Google, less so on Bing – for high volume keywords are unsurprisingly dominated by big brands such as Expedia, Kayak, Priceline, etc. 8 Ways to Integrate Social Media Into Your Lead Nurturing Campaigns. We often fall into the trap of assuming that lead nurturing is a completely email-driven strategy . But technically, lead nurturing is defined as consistent and targeted communication to move your leads further down the funnel. So while email has proven to be a very effective tool for this, it is not the only bridge between your company and its leads.
Social media has emerged as an increasingly important part of people’s lives, and the savviest marketers have found ways to integrate it into lead nurturing to build stronger relationships. Consider this for a moment: According to a ATYM Market Research study , 85% of the 2,000 internet users surveyed are on Facebook, 49% have a Twitter account , and most of them visit these sites daily. 1) Include social follow widgets in lead nurturing emails. This is an easy addition to your lead nurturing emails that will also help you grow your social reach -- add social follow widgets to your lead nurturing emails! Image credit: alakuloo. The 5-Step Guide to Executing an Outstanding Inbound Marketing Campaign. We marketers are known for launching and running various campaigns.
But like lots of other terms in our industry -- 'engagement,' 'brand equity,' 'virality' -- what an inbound marketing campaign actually is sometimes seems like sort of a mystery. It's not that it's a difficult concept -- an inbound marketing campaign is simply a concentrated effort to attract leads and customers who are interested in a particular topic, or have a specific need. But it gets complicated in the execution, because inbound marketing campaigns have lots of moving parts that require plenty of forethought and coordination. In other words, if you fly by the seat of your pants, your campaign's results will suffer accordingly. Step 1: Determine Your Offer Mix Inbound marketing campaigns are all about creating the right mix of offers.
For example, HubSpot recently announced a brand new email tool. What to Measure: Downloads, registrations, new leads, and eventually, the number of customers those offers generated. Sales - Why Lead Scores Should Have Expiration Dates. It became immediately apparent to Howard J. Sewell that something was terribly wrong with his client's lead scoring system. "The most glaring symptom was the absurdly high scores: hundreds of contacts had lead scores of more than 1,000, even though the supposed threshold for a sales-ready lead was a mere 100 points," he notes at The Point. Score inflation is a common problem—and one Sewell attributes to a point-adding loophole in automated technology.
Most of us assign scores by: Adding points for a desirable behavior (attending a webinar) or demographic (VP-level title). Subtracting points for an undesirable behavior (visiting the career page) or demographic (non-US resident). But steady positive behavior—visiting your website, for instance—might have the unintended effect of driving a lead's score into the stratosphere. The solution, he argues, is to place an expiration date on behavioral scores. Visit a Web page: add 1 point, wait 3 days, subtract 1 point. The Po! Is Your Sales & Marketing Team Ready for a CRM? As a marketer, you're likely familiar with a CRM system; if not, no worries, you're about to learn all about it! The frustrating thing about many CRMs is that they come with a range of functionality -- from basic to robust -- and all too often, businesses find themselves equipped with more than they need (or frankly, can handle).
In an attempt to equip businesses with the right CRM system for their needs , this post will explain -- without the gobbledygook -- what the heck a CRM is, why they are incredibly valuable in the right hands, and whether you actually need one at this stage in the game. And if you find after this post you are ready for one, be sure to remember that you can get pretty fancy with a CRM.
So keep in mind all of the benefits listed below, and select only those that are most applicable to your business, marketing, and sales processes during implementation. What is a CRM? What are the Benefits of a CRM? Wait, Are You Sure You're Ready for a CRM? When You Do Need a CRM. Understanding How Your Marketing Analytics Gives Credit for Conversions. When chatting with marketers, one of the most common questions we hear at HubSpot is regarding "first touch" versus "last touch" attribution in marketing analytics . First touch, last touch, and assist reports are all different ways to attribute conversions on your website, and each of these attribution methods will tell you something different and important about the effectiveness of your marketing and the behavior of your visitors. The following guide will help you understand the difference between "last touch," "first touch," and "assists" attribution, as well as give you a sense of the primary use-cases for each approach.
As a wise man once said, you should always give credit where credit is due! What Are 'Attributions' in Marketing Analytics? Before we begin, first a definition ... 'Attribution' is a way of understanding which marketing channels or campaigns contributed to a conversion on your website. Last Touch Attribution When It's Useful First Touch Attribution When It's Useful. How to Design a Persona-Centric Website Experience. How to Combine Personas With Automation and Get Closer to Customers. 20 Fresh Stats About the State of Inbound Marketing in 2012. The Inbound Way to Do Trade Show Marketing. How Inbound Marketing Works, From Start to Finish [INFOGRAPHIC] 6 Google+ Tips for Businesses.