inbound marketing | Social Media & The Small Business

Inbound Marketing – what options are available (pt. 2)?

Hello, everyone! As promised, here is a continuation to my last post, which can be read here. Before looking at the product options, let’s review. The main functions/themes of inbound marketing are:

content creation – content is king! make sure you create content that is good/relevant & create it often
lifecycle marketing – target people based on where they are with interacting with your brand (e.g. new customers should be handled differently than leads, than returning customers, than customers who promote your brand, etc.)
personalization – people will connect with your company/brand more effectively if they feel it can do something for them and if you care for them; tailor messages to specific customers to leave impressions on them
multi-channel communication – see where most of your customers/potential customers interact most with your brand online and meet them there; with that said, don’t conduct all your promoting on one platform…find different modes/channels of communication to maximize the opportunity to reach more people
integration – let your publishing and analytics tools work for you by giving you information about all your channels so you can focus on proper content creation

Ok, great! Let’s get to it with those last three options!

Eloqua

This company focuses mostly on marketing automation, which basically “refers to software platforms and technologies designed for marketing departments and organizations to more effectively market on multiple channels online (such as email, social media, websites, etc.) and automate repetitive tasks” (Google). Eloqua promises to simplify automation for its clients, and even offers a free .pdf booklet that you can download to understand the process better.

Pardot

Pardot truly is the definition of integrated marketing. You can choose to use one, a few, or all of their services (e.g. email marketing help, social marketing, etc.). Specializing in business-to-business (B2B) marketing, Pardot focuses on how to get you a return on your investment (ROI). It offers you a demo version of its product(s) and like Eloqua, has its own free downloadable book that helps you understand its services and the ideas behind integrated marketing a little bit more. Also, I would like to personally add that its website is user friendly and the layout/design is nice and clean.

So there you have it! From this post and the last one, you have a list of a few options of what’s available to you and your company. As always, I am not endorsing one or the other, nor am I being paid to mention these services/companies. I hope this is able to help some of you and the future of your brand!

Cheers!

Inbound Marketing – what options are available?

Hello, hello! In keeping with the theme of my series, here is part five of the social media tools for small businesses conversation! You can read part four in the series Here, which introduces and breaks down the concept of inbound marketing/why it’s such an important option that businesses should consider as they try to grow their customer base and interaction online.

To sum up what I wrote about in my last post, inbound marketing involves turning leads into customers into brand/business promoters by producing quality content that addresses the needs of/engages a company’s various audiences. To review, the major themes or goals of inbound marketing are:

content creation
lifecycle marketing
personalization
multi-channel communication
and integration.

So this is all fine and dandy, but where does a small business start if they decide inbound marketing is the way to go? It takes a lot of time, money, and creativity to come up with a solid content marketing plan, and to maintain it and to attain ROI (i.e. return on investment). However, software exists that does all this for a small business. This software automates creation of content, it finds potential leads, it handles distribution, and measures ROI. There are various options for software out there, and today I am going to highlight five that help with ROI. Please note, as always, I am not paid to endorse any of these options, and I personally have not used them myself.

Hubspot

Positioning itself as the go-to solution for small to medium-sized businesses, Hubspot has made a name for itself as one of the top software/service options for inbound marketing. Specializing in helping business owners who are not very tech savvy, Hubspot allows business owners to blog, find leads, manage social media, and do analytics all from one interface. It also offers SEO (search engine optimization) features and tips (learn more about SEO here and here), training for its resources, certifications, and even conferences. With a starting cost of $300/month, it is one of the cheapest options for small businesses and those looking to start out. It even offers a free trial period to see if you want to stick with the company.

Marketo

Marketo to is an inbound marketing service that works a little differently just because it mainly focuses on business-to-business (B2B) marketing. This service helps a business focus in on the sale cycle of the customer, focusing on helping to create content that can be shared across many platforms to get the attention of new leads. The software Marketo offers helps companies create profiles of customers that hones in on a customer’s behavioral paths, and are shown content based on that profile. In addition to these features, Marketo is especially known for its ROI reporting tools. However, Marketo is not very user-friendly to the technologically challenged out there, and its starting price is a lot higher than Hupspot’s, starting at $750/month upwards to $25,000/month. However, this software appears to work best if you already have an idea of which direction you’re headed with your company’s marketing, and what sorts of audiences you’re trying to attract.

Well, because it is late and this post is about to run very long, I’m going to stop here. I will post a part 2 to this post later, which will include two more services/software options that stood out in my searches.

Until then, arrivederci y’all!

Inbound Marketing – why it’s worth it

Hey guys! Here is part four in the series of posts I’m publishing dealing with the different options I discussed about social media in relation to small businesses. So in case you missed my first few posts, you can find them here, here, and here. Each week, I will release a more comprehensive discussion, followed by a review of different services the following week.

This week, I am discussing inbound marketing and what benefits small businesses can receive from this form of social media. Firstly, to answer a few questions I am sure you’re wondering right now: 1.) what is inbound marketing, and 2.) how is it social media? Well, I certainly am glad you asked because I want to answer that for you!

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing – Inbound Marketing Defined

As people began charting the new frontier of the internet, when Web 2.0 standards were being defined (and still are, today), businesses grew their customer base through outbound marketing. This old form of marketing meant relying on a wish and a prayer – businesses would purchase ad space in search engines and would purchase email lists, and hope for leads for their business. However, this is becoming an outdated way to build your clientele. So, what now? In walks Inbound Marketing. Fresh, shiny, and new, inbound marketing is becoming the up-to-date and current way to increase your brand’s awareness and to rake in new customers. How do businesses do this? By creating quality content online that reflects their brand and their brand’s desires. This seems one-sided, but if done properly, the idea is that customers will eventually take over and market the brand/business for you through online word of mouth. To better explain, here is a visual representation of what inbound marketing looks like/ways to go about doing this, as well as a link to the page I am referencing to better explain the concept.

infographic breaking down the inbound marketing concept

As this graph shows, there are four steps to inbound marketing:

Attract the customers through different social media platforms
Convert them from impassive visitors to leads
Close the deal by turning them from leads into customers
and finally, delight, which basically is various ways of turning your customers into business promoters by keeping up good online content, and by offering them perks every once and a while.

One major theme to take away from inbound marketing:

Content is EVERYTHING. Without good content, you won’t be able to keep the customers you do have engaged, you will potentially be missing out of new customers out there, and actually bad or no content could hurt your business through bad word of mouth or even by never being able to raise brand awareness by getting your brand out there and putting your business on people’s maps.

How is Inbound Marketing Considered Social Media?

Glad you asked again, I was just about to answer that. It is considered social media because of the various platforms that are available for use (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, blogs, email, etc.), and the importance of interacting with them through these media. I mentioned that the importance of content is a major theme that goes with inbound marketing. Well, there are others, as well, and I’ll break them down for you below (note: these are in a nonconsecutive order, one is not more important than that others).

Content Creation This ties into the concept of content is king. It’s not just about creating content, it’s also about the type content that you’re creating. Your content needs to be targeted to your specific audience(s), and it needs to address the basic answers and needs of the customer(s)/audience(s). Also, the content needs to be shared both far and wide.
Lifecycle Marketing This is just the simple realization that there are various levels of interaction with your brand, and their needs to be content based on these levels because each level will have different needs and questions that should be addressed (this simply means that marketing for potential/new customers should not look the same as marketing towards long-standing customers, brand promoters, etc.).
Personalization As a business begins to learn its leads and customers and their behaviors, it can begin to tailor its messages/content in a bit more of a personal way.
Multi-channel This is important what I’m about to say, so come in closer and listen well…DO NOT stick to one channel/medium if you’re hoping to grow your customer base. Inbound marketing is used so that businesses and people can find each other on the channel that they want to interact with you! This is important so you don’t feel limited to one medium outlet.
Integration Use whatever publishing and analytics tools you wish to help you focus on producing the right content on the right channel at the right time.

I hope this gave you a better understanding of inbound marketing and its importance. Sometime this week, I will publish a post continuing this discussion of inbound marketing and how to optimize this tool to reach out to potential clients.

Until then, cheers y’all!