What is Inbound Marketing and How Does it Work?

by Myra Stacey | Aug 10, 2018 | Inbound Marketing

“Marketing” means doing all sorts of things to get the word out about your business and attract customers. You might advertise, join networking groups, adjust your brand to be more appealing, and more.

One form of marketing you may have heard is called Inbound Marketing. This is the idea that you can help potential customers find you while they are early in the search process. The idea is to create awareness, make sure they know about your brand, then turn them into a lead, and finally, convert them to a customer. Inbound Marketing is like hunting; instead of spraying interrupting advertising messages, you’re going out and laying bait, luring customers to you.

Inbound Marketing is strongly tied to content marketing. Consumers are either actively or passively seeking information or entertainment. If done correctly, you can build a relationship with them by sharing useful and interesting content. That relationship will lead to sales.  

However, this content can’t be too salesy, or it won’t work. The material must educate, inspire, entertain, or inform. Most of all, the content must be relevant.

 When it works, Inbound Marketing leads to:

• More organic website traffic
• An increase in leads
• Social engagement

How to Make Inbound Marketing Work

Inbound marketing is a series of actions or steps, and content is just one of them. For it to work, you’ll need to set up a funnel correctly. As part of your process, make sure to:

• Prepare your sales team – Some of the leads will be cold because they weren’t really searching for your product or service. That’s OK. Part of the idea is to begin warming them up for later. But your sales team needs to prepare for this, knowing that you won’t close every deal and that you might need to leave prospects alone for awhile and come back.
• Inform people – Entertaining content will engage, but it might not actually help if no one knows what you do. Have you seen a commercial and thought, “Wow that’s great. But I have no idea what the company does?” You want to avoid that.  
• Stand out – There’s a lot of content out there. If you sound the same as everyone else, you’re going to blend in.  
• Get noticed – Smaller companies sometimes struggle with this approach because they just don’t have enough engagement to make it work.

Inbound Programs
There are many (expensive!) programs out there claiming to help you with your inbound marketing campaign. They come with fancy dashboards and help generate content. However, we feel smaller businesses in Raleigh and Cary are better served by a more nuanced approach from a local marketing firm. We can help you set up tools to generate content and track leads. Contact us for more information.

Delivering Your Content: How to Make Sure It Reaches Your Clients

by Myra Stacey | Jun 21, 2018 | Inbound Marketing

Business managers spend a lot of time creating content and then send it out to the world. And then … nothing. No one comments on your Facebook post. No one replies to your email or clicks through to your website.

What happened? Many things can go wrong with delivering content to your potential and current customers. We recently talked about seven ways to deliver your marketing message. Now, let’s look at how you can make sure those deliveries arrive as planned.

Email – Email remains one of the most effective ways to reach your customers. Studies show consumers prefer this method of contact from brands and companies. However, email comes with restrictions.

• Spam – If you aren’t getting any clicks on links in your emails, your messages might be ending up in people’s spam folders. If you bought an email list, your emails are almost certainly going to end up marked “spam.” Some other ways to get marked as spam include:
  • Someone marked you that way because he or she forgot about signing up.
  • Your IP address was used to send spam messages.
  • Your subject line is deceptive.
  • You don’t have your name or a real email listed as the “from.”
  • Your message does not contain an “unsubscribe” link. (Though most email software programs won’t even let you send without it.)
  • Your email only contains images with no words.
  • You used spam trigger words such as “guarantee,” “risk-free,” “debt,” “winner” or one of many others.
• Server Limitations – You may struggle to send email to customers due to server limitations. If you are trying to send hundreds of emails through your regular email program, such as Outlook or Gmail, you’re going to experience problems. Switch to an email marketing program such as MailChimp (free) to avoid this.
• GDPR – You may have heard these initials and wonder what the heck. This new European Union law has a lot of restrictions about emails, more than the CAN-Spam act we follow here in the U.S. If you’re sending email to EU citizens, you should follow the GDPR. While a similar law is not an issue here, most experts expect such restrictions down the road. Many large companies are adhering to some of the GDPR now as a way to be safe and prepare. Learn more about the GDPR and how you can follow it.

Social Media – Delivering social media messages is relatively easy, but if you use a scheduling program such Buffer or Hootsuite, you should do a spot check once in awhile to make sure posts are showing up — and that they look presentable. Remember, if you schedule a LinkedIn post on Hootsuite, only add one photo. Use a link shortener for FB to make URLs look prettier.

Ad Campaign – If your ad campaign isn’t getting any clicks, the message isn’t resonating, or you’ve targeted the wrong audience. (Or both!) Go back to the drawing board, make sure you’ve conducted research, and make some adjustments.

Questions about delivering your message? Contact us for a free consultation.

5 Steps for Small Business Owners to Create Content Month after Month

by Myra Stacey | Jun 21, 2018 | Inbound Marketing

Creating content month after month is a challenge for even the largest company. And those companies have teams of people dedicated to the task. The Raleigh and Cary small business owners with whom we work are often interested in content as a way to reach their audience, but many find it difficult to produce that content consistently.

Last month, we discussed some things you should know about creating content and included a list of several types of content you might consider. Now, let’s look at how you will get it all done!

Step One: Create a content calendar.
A content calendar sounds formal, but really it’s merely a spreadsheet or a physical calendar on which you’re keeping track of blog posts or other content you create. We like to use spreadsheets so we can add tabs for each year and view past material as well as what we’re working on now. Spreadsheets also offer the option of multiple columns where you can track dates, topics, content type, categories, and even add in notes about the engagement that content received. If you prefer to use a paper or electronic calendar based on your system of getting things done, that’s fine, too. The idea is to lay out a plan months in advance; ideally, you will create a plan for at least 90 days.

Step Two: Choose a publication day or date.
Publish your content consistently. Choose a recurring day or date each month. The best practice is to publish once per week, but you might start with twice a month. So your publication dates might be the first and third Thursdays, for example. Although you’ll read a lot about the “best” days to publish, for now, focus on choosing a day or date based on your schedule.

Step Three: Set aside time.
Creating content takes time, whether it’s a blog post or video or something else. Select a time on your calendar and write down a recurring meeting. That way you have no excuses; you have a meeting scheduled and can’t take client calls or meet with others. That’s your writing/video shoot/creation time. Choose a time you feel creative. For some, that’s the first thing in the morning. Others feel energized and ready right after lunch. By taking into account your general moods as well as your other commitments, you’re more likely to get it done.
Once you choose a time for creating the content, you’ll also need to put a date on your calendar every month to think ahead about more topics for your schedule. In June, you’ll plan for July through September. At the start of July, you’ll think about October. In August, you’ll prepare for November, and so on.

Step Four: Get a few pieces of content ready.
Don’t start publishing next week even though you wrote your first blog post. Instead, write your next two. When you have three ready to go, then start publishing so that you’re always two posts (or videos or whatever) ahead. This cushion will come in handy when you have work or personal emergencies or sick days. You’ll also want to take into account any vacations you have planned.

Step Five: Keep it going!
Here comes the tough part. Stick to your schedule. If you’ve created your cushion of a few extra blog posts, you might find it easy to skip a week. Don’t. Sit down at the same time each week to work on content. Publish on the same days. If you get stuck, that’s OK. Just pick back up and keep going.

If You Delegate
If you find you don’t have the time or inclination to create content, delegate this work to someone on your team or a content marketing professional. While this will save you a lot of time and effort, you’ll still need to set aside a little bit of time to review the content before it is published. You’ll also want to schedule a regular meeting or call with your content creator to go over topics and ideas. Many business owners think hiring means “set and forget.” If you’re comfortable turning over the work to someone without review, then it will be, but most people with whom we work realize they want to see everything and offer some input.

With these steps, you should be able to generate your content on time, consistently. Good luck!

7 Ways to Deliver Your Marketing Message

by Myra Stacey | May 24, 2018 | Inbound Marketing

This is the third of three posts this month describing my Builder, Creator, Deliverer Marketing approach. Small business owners must manage so much. In these posts, I explain the breakdown of some marketing tasks and how to accomplish or delegate them. Read the first post on being a builder and the second on how to create content.

Now that you’ve begun to build your small business marketing program and created some content, you might wonder where to put it. The “deliverer” portion of my marketing approach focuses on this — including some things many business owners forget.

Here are some ways to deliver your message to potential clients:

Your Website – Your website is, of course, a primary place for you to offer content and information. Make sure your site represents your brand, looks professional, and is easy to navigate. Learn more about website design.

Social Media – Social media is a must-have for every business in any industry today. But that doesn’t mean you must post on every network. Choose the two that make the most sense for your business. You’ll figure that out during the Builder portion, as you research your audience. Where are they spending time? You’ll also decide which social platforms based on what types of posts you want to create and your goals. For example, if you want to reach 35-year-olds and up and use a more casual message, and you plan to advertise, then you need a Facebook page. If your goal is sales, you might focus more on your individual LinkedIn profile. The platform you choose also depends on what you have to share. A retailer is going to find it easier to join Instagram, but plenty of B2Bs can and do find success there. Social media is its own beast, so check out our other posts for more on this.

7 Critical Tips Regarding Social Media Images
The Importance of Social Media in Your Small Business Marketing

Landing Pages – Business owners often link content back to their website, which is a good thing. But in specific cases, you want to build a separate web page, called a landing page. This page is focused on one goal: conversion. For example, you might use a landing page as part of a marketing campaign around a particular piece of content (or series) all with the goal of getting more signups. We explain more about landing pages here.

Networking – Yes, networking is part of your marketing. Neworking probably feels more like sales, but when you network, you’re meeting cold leads. You market by planting the seed of your brand in every meeting, every interaction. You might deliver content to people via business card or brochure during these exchanges. How is your brand introduced on those items? How is your brand presented in your clothing, your way of speaking?

Speaking Engagements – One sure way to get your content and message out there is to talk in front of a group. Public speaking is not for everyone, but if you can master this, you’ll be ahead of many other, shyer small business owners! In our content post, we talked about presentations. A presentation is your chance to have a captive audience and demonstrate yourself as an expert. Although you’ll have to work a lot to earn money as a speaker, each small group is an opportunity to meet potential new clients.

Email Newsletters – People love to complain about spam, and you may fear alienating customers. But studies show email is a consumer’s preferred method of contact by brands. Furthermore, email works, even after decades of use. It’s still the best ROI you can buy (if done correctly). After all, it’s far easier (and cheaper) to repeat or upsell to a current customer than to acquire a new one. Put your name in front of people each month with a newsletter. Even if they don’t open it, they’ll see your name as they clean out the inbox. Email newsletters are most effective when they are consistent and offer something. That doesn’t mean a discount or deal every month; if you do that, customers will come to expect it and get angry when you don’t. So only do that if you’re willing to commit. What you offer might be information they can use or find entertaining. Give them a reason to open that email!

Ad Campaign – Small business owners often avoid paying for advertising. But today’s tools make it cheaper to acquire advertising that’s far more targeted and effective. The trick is to plan a campaign or a series of campaigns in advance. These may have different messages, such as on per quarter each targeting a different audience segment. This point goes back to our Builder post; if you don’t research where to advertise and how, you’re just throwing money into a hole.

Questions about the ways to deliver your message? Contact us for a free consultation.