How Sharing What you Know Can Boost Your Business!

By Nancy LeVasseur

People use the internet to find information, learn and solve problems.

All the data you could ever ask for is now readily available on the web, and Internet users are becoming more and more focused on finding relevant information from experts willing to share their knowledge.  

This search-to-learn phenomenon has also carried over to our buying habits, and this is where your business’s internet marketing strategies come into play. Most companies are still entrenched in the traditional forms of marketing, and they have an “out of sight, out of mind” mentality when it comes to their website. Yes, they've listed their product online, but marketing their products stops there, and many businesses still expect their sales force to do the lion’s share of the selling.

The New Sales Reality 

For products requiring a large corporate investment, businesses today are researching online to find the best solution, and they’re vetting solution providers, like you, to find the best vendor to solve their need.

Business buyers do not contact sellers directly until they've completed more than half of the purchase process. While you’re waiting for a phone call from an interested party, they’re checking out your website (and your competitors’) to learn more about you and your product.

Businesses no longer need your input to make decisions; they’re learning online, on their own. As a vendor, you have just 12% of your customer’s total mind-share across the entire B2B purchase process. 

By the time they call you, or your competition, your prospective customers have researched the product’s specifications, descriptions, and reviews. They've formed an opinion and expectation before they've even spoken with you.

Adjust Your Strategy

It's not too late. Here's how you can change your online marketing approach to keep up with today’s consumers.

• Determine your buying persona. Don’t be afraid to be specific in defining your demographic. The most effective content is created for a highly targeted group of people. Those looking for your valuable information are willing to take the time to interact with your exceptional content! They are trying to become more informed; be the resource they need, and they’ll keep coming back to you.


• Provide content about solving their problems. Make it about them, not about your products or how wonderful you are to work with.


• Create content for every stage of the buying cycle. Visitors coming to your website the first time may need basic information. Return visitors will probably be ready for more in-depth material such as data or statistics. Create content for each phase to keep them coming back for more.


• Track interaction and engagement with your content. This information is critical for making adjustments to your content marketing strategies! If you have direct contact with your clients, don’t be shy about asking them how they found you. Their responses can provide invaluable information only gleaned through personal interaction.

Remember, educating is part of excellent customer service and client relations!

When someone provides information and solutions to our problems, we feel indebted to that person. And the more we learn from that person, the more trust and loyalty are developed. Increased trust and loyalty = increased sales conversions.

Are you creating online content to help your future customers?

Think Responsively.You'll be Glad You Did!

By Nancy LeVasseur

“Responsive” is a relatively new word in the world of website design and development. It was coined a few years ago by Ethan Marcotte when he published an article in May 2010 introducing his concept. He used “responsive” to describe how a website should fluidly adapt, change, or redesign itself according to the device on which it’s being viewed. The term stuck, spread throughout the web development world, and Ethan is now known as the father of responsive design.

In a nutshell, responsive design is the practice of designing and developing websites that fluidly adapt content and functionality for the device on which they are being viewed – as opposed to creating separate websites for all breakpoints. Breakpoints, another industry word, refer to actual pixel widths where one design layout, along the range of screen sizes, gives way to another.

Breakpoints are measured in pixels. The most common breakpoints begin at 320px for smartphones and increase to cover the wide range of tablets, notebooks and finally desktops (480px, 600px, 760px, 1024px, and 1080px).

7 reasons why you should “think responsively.”

1. It'll save you time and money. It’s cost effective to host and manage one site versus many.

2. Having a responsive website gives you a competitive edge. Your end users will be impressed that you’ve gone responsive. Right away, they’ll sense that your brand is up to date, successful, and that you know what they need.

3. Your customers will have a much better experience viewing your content across different devices. What they viewed at work from a desktop will be easily viewed at home on their tablet or smartphone.

4. You’ll be all set should Google decide to include responsive in one of their organic search algorithms. And speaking of Google, even Google’s getting on the mobile band wagon. On July 22, 2013 Google automatically upgraded all PPC campaigns to its new “enhanced” mode thus ensuring ads will display on all mobile devices.

5. Google’s bots only need to crawl your site once as opposed to many times. This can indirectly help Google index, and then list, more of your site’s content on the search engine results page.

6. Using a single website address –as opposed to a different one for mobile- makes it easier and more likely that users will like, share, and link to your content. That’s a real plus for your business!

7. A single URL also helps Google's algorithms index your content correctly for display in organic search results.

Why should this matter to you?
Well, it wouldn't except for the fact that mobile usage trends cannot be ignored! By 2015, mobile devices are predicted to overtake desktops as the most popular way to access the web. 

• Mobile search is always on; 77% of mobile searches occur at home or at work – even in places likely to have a desktop computer.


• People like to search using mobile because it’s more convenient and quicker. They don’t have to get up, turn on the computer, and wait for it to boot up. And, they can search anytime, anywhere.


• Mobile devices are becoming the “instrument of choice.” People are no longer upgrading or purchasing new desktop computers. They are buying smarter smartphones.

Are you thinking responsively? What kind of experience do your future clients have on your non-mobile optimized website?

The New Competitive Marketplace and What it Means for Your Business

By Nancy LeVasseur

Think you’re competing against your competitors’ product? Think again. You're competing against your competitors’ ability to market information about the product you both sell.

Part of competing effectively in the search experience means actively creating and providing information, (primarily through your website and social channels), that educates and helps solve your prospects’ problems.

You may have the best product in the industry, but if you don’t share what you know along with your expertise in your field, people who are actively looking for you may never find you. Instead, they’ll be on your competitors’ website getting the information they want and need.

The New Internet Consumer

Today’s consumers are better informed and more empowered than consumers were 10 years ago. They are using the internet to their fullest advantage to make informed decisions about the products they purchase.

The new Internet consumer, interested in your product, no longer has to call your sales team to get information. They go online to find the information they need. They read product descriptions and reviews, and if they don’t find what they’re looking for on your website, they could go to your competitors’ website.

For products with long sales cycles, the new internet consumer is more than half way through the research and vetting process before they call your sales team - if they decide to call your sales team.

The New Internet Marketing Approach

The new Internet marketing approach is called “Inbound Marketing.” Part of the inbound marketing strategy includes content marketing – providing unique, exceptional information about what you know to address your future clients’ needs and solve their problems.

Your content should. . .

• Be created and written with a specific client persona in mind. 
• Be empathetic and address the needs of your buying personas. 
• Grow in depth as the buying process evolves. The further along, the more detailed the content. 

The New Business Differentiator

You might think content marketing has nothing to do with your differentiator. But this blogger contends that it can be the starting point of what sets you apart from your competitors. Your content marketing differentiator should be your ability to:

• Anticipate your future clients’ needs and concerns before they even know what they are. 
• Provide solutions for your clients’ problems. 
• Know and share the latest industry news so your clients can be ahead of the industry curve. 

How can Inbound Marketing help you?

Increased qualified sales leads and client retention - that's how. Staying ahead of the curve with your industry’s latest changes and trends, and sharing that information online, is going to make you invaluable to your current clients. They’ll stick with you for the long haul because you are a trusted resource.

How's the end-user's experience when they visit your business's website? Are they getting the information they need, or are they going to your competitor’s website?

Content Marketing in 6 Easy Steps

By Nancy LeVasseur

"The best way to get what you want is to help others get what they want."

This mantra, made famous by Dale Carnegie, is the essence of content marketing - creating and publishing meaningful, valuable information online with the intent of educating and building trust with your future clients.

The theory is that if you openly share what you know, you will build loyalty and ultimately be rewarded with more conversions and thus more clients. Help others gain the knowledge to make an informed decision, and you’ll increase your client base. And isn’t that what we all want?

Very briefly, online content can include blogs, videos, white papers, articles, e-books, infographics and webinars. Regardless of the format, the content should be unique and exceptional. If possible, it should offer information that your users can’t obtain anywhere else.

Exceptional content. . .

• Provokes comments and conversations.
• Allows and encourages social sharing across multiple channels.
• Should be created and written with a specific client persona in mind.
• Should be available at all stages of the buying process.
• Should grow in depth as the buying process evolves. The further along, the more detailed the content.

Getting started - Here's How

Determine who needs your product/services. Clearly define that group of people. 

Example: Women 20 – 40 years old who run to stay fit – aka semi-serious runners who participate in amateur competitive running events.

2.    Research your. . .

         a. Demographics’ buying habits (online versus bricks and mortar), social trends, mobile          and other channel usage like YouTube, eBay etc. so you know what channels to use                when you publish your newly-created content.

   b. Competitors to determine how they are engaging your demographic. If possible,    generate some unique content that your competitors are not offering.

3.    Figure out (more research) what information your demographic needs.

Example: women’s health and running, injuries common to women, balancing kids, career, and running. 

4.    Create content such as videos, articles, and blogs that solve your demographics’ problems mentioned above. 

Example: Start a blog on balancing kids, careers and cardio! (Catchy uh?) Write an article entitled, “Common Running Injuries for Women.” Create an exercise video that focuses on avoiding injuries. List upcoming races for women only!

5.    Put yourself in your demographics’ shoes, (okay, maybe pun intended!), and figure out what they’ll need in the future. This will probably take a bit of research on your part, but it will be well worth the effort. Being the first to provide content about unforeseen trends will build trust and keep your users coming back to you frequently. They will view you as the expert and will be delighted to “know” you! 

Example: If you’ve reached out to those women runners 20-40 years old, how can you retain their interest when they turn 41?

6.    Deliver your new content, created for the above demographic, in a way they would expect to receive it based on your research above in No. 2.

To be an effective content marketer today, one must focus on creating and providing unique, exceptional content via the internet. Content created for a specific demographic, in order to meet their needs or help solve their problems, is most effective for educating, building trust, and ultimately acquiring new clients.

How are your content marketing efforts going? What are your greatest challenges with content marketing?

Inbound Marketing: Fact or Fiction?

By Nancy LeVasseur

Last time, we talked about inbound marketing and its focus on attracting new prospects and leads by providing helpful, meaningful information, (via your website) to the people who need your products and services.

We also noted that inbound marketing is client-centered and emphasizes providing solutions to your clients’ and future clients’ most important challenges.

But does it work?

Here’s what the Inbound Marketing pundits are reporting! 

• Inbound marketing produces 54% more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound leads.
• 41% of marketers who adjusted their budgets did so because of past success with inbound.
• 48% of marketers plan on increasing their IM budgets in 2013.
• This marks the 3^rd year in a row that inbound marketing budgets are increasing at or near a 50% pace ( “2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report,”  HubSpot.com.)

Success breeds success! In other words, it’s working for businesses that have actively embraced the principles of IM. Those companies that have bought in to this relatively new concept are having success and are building on that success.

Can I measure my ROI? 

• 41% of those who participated in Hubspot’s survey (Jan. 31^st - Feb. 14^th) reported that inbound marketing produces measurable ROI.
• 79%of companies that blog report a positive ROI this year, compared to just 20% of companies who do not blog.
• 82% of marketers who blog daily acquire a customer using their blog, as opposed to 57% of marketers who blog monthly.

Take aways . . .

Get on board! It’s not too late to get started with an inbound marketing strategy. This is a relatively new approach to marketing, and you could still be the first one in your industry to take a significant lead over your competitors.

Don’t wait for your leads to dry up before shifting your marketing efforts to inbound marketing. If you want more leads, that are more qualified, and are cheaper than using traditional marketing methods, don’t wait any longer!

Have you gotten started with your inbound marketing campaign?

6 Reasons to Get on Board With Inbound Marketing!

By Nancy LeVasseur

Inbound marketing attracts and converts visitors into clients by providing solutions to their most important challenges. 

Like a magnet, it draws prospects to your website and sets the stage for ongoing interaction and a lasting relationship.

By contrast, outbound marketing is the once tried-and-true advertising approach that pushes information to people whether they want it or not. Print ads, mailers, telemarketing, and cold calling are all examples of the now, not-so-effective, traditional outbound marketing methods.

6 Reasons Why You Should Adapt This New Strategy

 

1.    The world has changed, and like it or not, we’ve changed with it. Need info on the best pair of trail running shoes? Google it! Want to know what others are saying about the mountain bike you’re thinking of buying? “Bing it on!” Information, on just about everything, is available for us to find. All we have to do is look for it. Inbound marketers know this, and that’s why. . .

2.    It's here to stay! Yes, inbound marketing is still very new, but it’s gaining traction every year. More and more businesses are seeing the value of this new marketing strategy. Why? Because it’s based on how we, as consumers, have changed our buying habits. Did you know that in 2013, for the third year in a row, almost 50% of marketers plan to “up” their inbound marketing game?

3.    With inbound marketing, sales leads are more qualified. In the “2013 State of Inbound Marketing,” HubSpot reports that “inbound delivers 54% more leads into the marketing funnel than traditional outbound leads.” Translation? Inbound leads are more qualified, than traditional outbound leads, because they are actually looking for you and what you do. They want what you have!

4.     And, return on investment can be measured! In fact, in the same survey, 41% of marketers agreed that their investment could be measured, and 82% of those that blog reported seeing a favorable result for their investment. 

5.     Inbound marketing expenses are considerably less than traditional methods, and that makes the cost per lead significantly lower.

6.   Traditional outbound marketing is fading. While not gone all together, businesses are relying less on traditional forms of advertising. Return on investment is difficult to measure, blocking methods such as do-not-call lists and caller ID have increased, and for the dollars spent, the results just aren’t there.

What does inbound marketing mean for your customers?

It means the client acquisition process begins and ends with your customers; they are at the heart of a successful inbound marketing campaign. Most businesses tout, “The customer is always right!” Inbound marketing is an opportunity to give that motto “legs.”

Still have questions? Do you have an inbound marketing strategy? Leave a comment!

Content for this article was taken from “2013 State of Inbound Marketing Report,” by Hubspot.com.