Posted by Justin Cambria on Fri, Jul 30, 2010
Hey y’all. I'm Justin Cambria, new to the Pull Marketing Blog, and 
a Digital Marketing Strategist here at PNP. So I try to help our clients – and our company – with online marketing strategy. Utilizing the HubSpot CMS, I develop and execute digital marketing strategies using a comprehensive program of quality content creation, clever keyword placements, social media marketing, and blogging for business. Glad to be here with you all!
Facebook...
So… Facebook. It’s a 10,000 lb upstart gorilla in the internet world, which holds clear relevance to online marketing by virtue of its size alone. If you are a business that’s at all serious about your reach, you need to be on Facebook. There are vast resources available about how to do so and Facebook for Business Best Practices, so I won’t go into that today.
Why Facebook matters to Social Media Marketing
I’d like to focus on why Facebook has value, and to what extent that value can be measured for an individual business. As an example, we maintain a PullNotPush Facebook page. This holds value for us for several reasons: Google indexes Facebook pages, which helps search engine optimization, and since Facebook is a highly trafficked site, their links tend to perform well on Google searches. Also, we want to be able to be found and ‘liked’ by clients and partners within Facebook. And we want to share the content we publish in the Facebook channel. It’s an essential place to maintain an active presence, in large part because you are giving away a free marketing opportunity. All of this is undoubtedly good for us.
Can you measure its worth?
But one of the burning questions is how good is it, and how do you measure that value? If you are utilizing Facebook for its Public Relations potential, there’s little to debate. But speaking solely of sales revenue, it’s less clear. We are fortunate enough to work with HubSpot, we use some of their awesome tools to track how effective Facebook and other social media sites are in helping us to convert leads. Here's a snapshot of a client's Social Media traffic, which shows leads from Facebook specifically:
As practitioners of closed loop marketing, we believe strongly in the value of bringing visitors back to our website; if we can’t publish content that’s thought provoking enough for people to visit our site and give us permission to contact them, we’re in the wrong business.
But what'$ a Like REALLY worth?
Discussing some of this yesterday with Michelle from the digital strategy firm LoveTheCool, we spent some time pondering how to quantify the value of Facebook likes in terms of actual sales for B2C businesses, such as musicians who might want to sell MP3s directly to their followings on Facebook .
This is a harder question to answer. Some of the URL shortening services designed for Twitter such as bit.ly offer analytics tools: you can shorten the same URL (say, a link to an amazon MP3 sale page) many times repurposing each for a specific Facebook promotion. Then clicks on each link could be tracked a-la-carte. While that is a nice and useful feature, there is not, to my knowledge, a comprehensive way to demonstrate that having X number of fans, and posting Y times per day about album Z translates into N revenue. And there's clearly a demand for that
Convert Leads & Close the Loop!
As Facebook, which is likely working on a solution to this analytics issue, catches up, we see it as another argument extolling the benefits of closed loop marketing, which culminates by converting leads. Give your followers the option of consuming your content wherever they like – on your blog, at your Facebook page, or elsewhere – but get them to come back to your page and convert if you want to offer them something specific and continue a deeper dialogue. This is especially relevant to B2B business, or any business with a consultative approach to its services. Isolating that interaction out and making it one on one on your website will help you to qualify your leads and spend time only with prospects who are genuinely interested in interacting with you.
How do you use Facebook for business? Are you frustrated by proving its value? Drop a comment!
Posted by Samantha Coren on Thu, Jul 29, 2010
At PullnotPush I get to teach small business owners the ins and outs of inbound marketing. It's refreshing to talk to people who are so dedicated and immersed in every aspect of their business. One thing is for sure though - running your own business can take up quite a bit of time.
The beautiful thing about HubSpot is that it gives the small business owner a one stop shop for managing a web presence and channel for new customers. I was eager to find out how small businesses outside of the ones I currently work with were fairing in the world of inbound marketing with the big orange sprocket.
To quench my curiosity I spoke with the heads of three local businesses from different parts of the US who are involved in different industries. All three of them are current HubSpot customers. Here's what they had to say:
“Prior to HubSpot (April 28th 2010) we practiced traditional advertising that included radio, outdoor (billboards), magazines/programs (professional sports), and a non-structured email campaign. We did absolutely no SEO or Inbound Marketing prior to our launch with HubSpot.
Our landing pages have been an awesome tool to help build our email list and the blog has not only helped with SEO, but after the first 90 days we have over 220 subscribers via email and RSS. We also use the social media tool to engage the community when one of our brand keywords populates and submit all of our articles to the social media outlets that HS provides. Our social media reach has increased by 3000% since becoming a HubSpotter.
By using the Keyword Grader along with the Competitor reports we have been able to target more long tailed keywords” with lower volume that our competitors are not targeting. This has led to 187 of our 583 keywords being ranked in the Top 100 and improved our search traffic by 382% since HS launch.
Our content creation really has been focused on our blog for not only SEO, but to become a “Trust Agent” in our industry and for the city of Nashville. This has also helped with Link Building as we have increased our inbound links from 67 to 364 since June 1st.
HS makes it so easy that we spend less than 5 hours per week on our entire social media and blog campaign and about 2 hours per week with on page and off page SEO."
"360 Signs started in September of 2008. We are a commercial sign company providing design, fabrication, and installation of many type of business signs: lobby signs, directory signs, floor, wall, and window graphics, monument signs, building sign, vehicle wraps, event signs and many more. We sell only in the Austin, TX area and are fortunate to have achieved a great deal of success during our first two years.
We rely on personal networking, networking groups, and the internet to drive our new business and repeat and referral business to come from current clients. We relied on paid search for our first 18 months in business and thought we did quite well with the amount of leads we were getting. Our website has generated over 50% of our business to date.
We have seen a dramatic increase in the number of leads, over 200%, since I started using the HubSpot tools. We have added two sales reps to handle the extra leads. I have been particularly pleased that we have landed some larger accounts off the web, not just small businesses.
We are ahead of many of our competitors in terms of optimizing our website and improving our page ranking for a company our size. We differentiate ourselves on design and service since it is impossible for us to make signs that someone couldn’t get at other sign companies in Austin. The website helps position us properly and attracts customer that value service and quality."
"Test Drive Technologies was
started to help used car & truck buyers to make an informed decision on what they are purchasing. We are the eyes, ears and hands of our clients that find themselves in the automotive market. Before HubSpot we were solely relying on organic search & free classifieds.
There are so many tools on HubSpot that I use every day. I particularly like the social media engagement tool; it is easy to use and monitors the keywords that I find relevant to the automotive industry. This not only keeps me on top of what is going on but also what the consumer base thinks is happening. I also find the CMS at HubSpot very easy to use.
Our blog is what is making us stand out above our competition. We are able to post our findings for each of our inspections right on our blog much like a case study without the particulars of dealer and buyer information. Having these results on our blog will allow our potential clients to see what we do, how we do it and what we find in some vehicles.
Most of our competition is all about pay per click advertising. Our blog is what is bringing in most of our customers which also allows us to pass this savings on to our clients."
Sick of Old Fashioned Marketing? Take HubSpot for a Spin.
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Posted by Jeff Machado on Tue, Jul 27, 2010
Being part of a team that is a HubSpot Certified Partner means spending a lot of time in the HubSpot forums and listening in on what’s happening in the HubSpot World. One of the main topics that always seems to come up (and for good reason!) when HubSpotters gather to talk shop is the concept of off page SEO optimization and link building.
The #1 thing you need to know about links is that they are not all created equal. One way to boost the power of your links is to change your normal links like http://www.pullnotpush.com into anchor text links like pull marketing.
Not sure how to get these links? Here are 3 places you can start
1. Articles
Sometimes getting an anchor text link is as easy as taking the expertise in your mind, converting it into a 300-500 word article, and submitting it to an article directory like http://www.EzineArticles.com.
When submitting your article, you can create a custom Author Resource Box containing anchor text links back to your website.
2. Online Press Releases
Online press releases should be a part of every inbound marketing plan. Have you released a new whitepaper? Launched a new service? These are prime opportunities for submitting a press release to directories like http://www.OnlinePrNews.com.
While you do need to pay to submit to these directories, you will have the chance to not only increase your website traffic, but also create these valuable anchor text links within the content.
3. Squidoo Lenses
If your content has genuine value, you owe it to yourself and your target market to repurpose your content in as many ways possible to get the information to people when they need it. With a few revisions, you can take the articles and the press releases you created and turn them into Squidoo lenses at http://www.Squidoo.com.
Squidoo lenses are small, focused, and easy to update minisites that have a high authority with Google. Within your Squidoo lens, you can easily create an anchor text link back to your website.
What other techniques do you use for off page optimization? Have you had success implementing a similar link building strategy? Let us know in the comments!
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Posted by Samantha Coren on Fri, Jul 23, 2010
Why does Google's image search matter to inbound marketing?
Google's image search is one of the most popular image search engines on the web. Even though people might not necessarily be looking for content from your site, they might stumble upon some of your site’s images and find their way to you indirectly through their keyword search terms. Having good on page SEO practices for including images is a pull marketing strategy that can help generate traffic you wouldn’t normally get from your text based content.
Not to be out done by Bing, Google recently decided to update its image search. Here's a rundown on what's new:
New search results layout
Instead of a grid containing information directly under each image such as dimensions and source URL, you now get your results in a minimalistic layout that resembles a digital lightbox. Now users will have to hover over your pictures in image search to find this information. There's also the "show sizes" option on the side bar to show the dimensions on each image result in the lower right corner.
Another thing to note about the new image search results screen is that Google has done away with having separate pages for displaying results. Now, after your initial search, you have the "Show More Results" button at the bottom. Instead of loading another separate page, the additional images will load on the same page allowing you to see everything at once without having to constantly go back and forth.
If you hate change, you can select "Switch to Basic Version" at the bottom of the page to get the good old fashioned image search results view you grew to know and love.
New filters for Colors and Image Type
Google has also given image searchers the option to filter results by image type with the options for "Face", "Photo", "Clip Art", or "Line Drawing". You can also filter your results based on the main color of the images. Or if you're looking for black and white photos, there's even an option now for that. It seems like the search spiders are doing a pretty decent job at identifying colors for searches with a large number of results. Here's what happened when I filtered for Pink images for my search query on Verona:
Reaction to Google's new image search
Speaking as someone who uses Google for finding images frequently, I find these new features to be extremely helpful for those looking for specific images. Being able to quickly compare all the images on the same page will save a lot of time instead of having to load and go back and forth between dozens of separate results pages.
How do the new Google Image Search features affect on page SEO?
It means you might have to get in the habit of creating more detailed alt tags for your images. This way, those searchers who are taking advantage of Google’s filtering features have an increased chance of finding your content. For example, if you have a press page that has versions of your logo for other content creators to use, it might be a good idea to add "Black & White" to the black and white version of your logo in addition to your keywords.
What are your thoughts on Google's new Image Search? Love it? Hate it? We'd love to hear your two cents in the comments!
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Posted by Samantha Coren on Wed, Jul 21, 2010
At PullnotPush I have the opportunity to work one on one with the owners of businesses developing
inbound marketing strategies for lead generation. For local businesses that only perform services in person, such as an auto shop or hair salon, capturing qualified leads can be tricky. If your website visitors and leads aren't coming from the areas you service, then you aren't going to get the best ROI on your inbound marketing efforts.
So how do you ensure you're attracting both relevant and local attention with your landing pages?
Here are a few easy tips that will help you appeal to the locals and easily filter out unqualified leads:
Use an Offer that Encourages Visitors Come Into the Store
Let's say you run a small coffee shop and you're trying to figure out a way to build up an e-mail list for your monthly newsletter. One thing you might want to try is offering a coupon on a cup of coffee to your website visitors in exchange for their e-mail address.
Or suppose you run a flower shop and want to spark interest in your monthly newsletters; letting people know they'll receive in-store discounts through your newsletter will encourage more folks to sign up.
No one wants to give away their email address – incentivize your potential leads to do so through meaningful offers!
Give People the Option to Schedule an Appointment or Quote
If giving out discounts isn't your style (and shame on you - everyone loves deals!) you can create a landing page that lets people schedule an appointment or get a free quote. However, if you do this you'll have to stay on top of people opting in to fulfill these requests and qualify the leads as potential customers. In this case, it's a good idea to include a field to capture a telephone number.
Make sure to designate someone in your business to respond to new leads coming in if the offer requires contacting the lead within a certain amount of time. If you have HubSpot, it's easy to notify someone on your team via e-mail the second a new lead comes in the Form Manager settings.
Require a Zip Code on Your Sign Up Form
You don't need to be wearing a tinfoil hat to feel uncomfortable giving away your home address to a form on the internet. However most people aren't shy about just giving out their zip code. This is also essential lead qualifying information for businesses that provide on-site or delivery services to a limited area.
Do you run a local business? What are some ways you've attracted local traffic through your website that resulted in new customers?
Posted by Samantha Coren on Mon, Jul 12, 2010
Pegasus Communications has been a HubSpot customer for over a year and has found tremendous success with inbound marketing. Every day the leads just keep rolling in from organic search and referring websites. How do they do it? By giving their visitors high value offerings on their website with a treasure trove of free systems thinking resources. In the world of inbound marketing content is king, and Pegasus certainly has no shortage of quality content.
Pegasus Communications specializes in publications and events on the topics of systems thinking and organizational learning - two subjects anyone can greatly benefit from exploring. People across a variety of industries have used Pegasus's free online materials to introduce them to a new way of understanding their issues. As a result of having well-optimized pages and an excellent systems thinking blog called Leverage Points you can continue to find Pegasus ranking highly in search engines for systems thinking related keywords.
Last week the PullnotPush crew visited the Pegasus offices in Waltham, MA. Mark Alpert, their president, took some time out from preparing for their annual Systems Thinking in Action conference to talk with us. Check out our video interview with Mark to learn more about Pegasus' inbound marketing experience with HubSpot and PullnotPush.
PullNotPush Interview with Mark Alpert - President, Pegasus Communications
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Posted by Jeff Machado on Fri, Jul 09, 2010
Whenever I look at the most successful clients we get to work with, there’s always one common thread that ties them together – they are committed to and live by the principle of “Add Value First, Customers Will Follow. “
But I’ll admit that it can be difficult to wrap your brain around the concept, especially if it seems a little too touchy feely or New Age-y to you. To make inbound marketing work for you, it’s imperative that you focus less on the goals that you have for your marketing (although they’re important!) and more on the needs of your prospective clients and customers.
If your content isn’t meeting those needs, getting them to take the next action and become a lead will be an uphill battle.
Inbound marketing isn’t just about SEO, lead generation, and lead nurturing. It’s about looking at your business in a completely new way and seeing yourself as a solver of problems, not just a business person wanting to increase your cash flow.
Not sure how to add value in your content? These 3 tips should help!
Invite Your Audience To Ask Questions
One of the reasons I encourage blogging for inbound marketing is that it gives you an opportunity to form a relationship with your readers. While they may not always leave blog comments, they are always there in the background reading and getting familiar with your voice.
As your readers start to get familiar with you, create opportunities for them to ask you questions. Host a uStream.tv show or just put up a video asking for their most pressing questions. You may not always get questions but you always need to be asking for them.
Get Tuned Into What’s Happening
The power of social media isn’t just finding more people who are interesting in hearing your message. The hidden power is the ability to listen in on conversations in real time. Think about it. Just a few years ago, you would have to spend time at in person networking groups or conferences in order to find out the needs of your target audience.
Now, all you have to do is use some social media monitoring tools like Trackur to track down conversations relevant to your business. Find out the most pressing problems and use the solutions you come up with to create your next lead generating whitepaper.
Don’t Worry About Giving Away Too Much
Many times when I read blog posts, I have a feeling that the writer is holding back for fear of giving away too many secrets. They’re afraid that if they give away too much information, they will have solved all their prospects’ problems and will lose money.
Time and time again, this has been proven wrong. The hidden secret here is that no matter how much you give away, people are always going to think their situation is different. Share too much and share often. Then, you’ll create more opportunities for your prospects to strike up a dialogue with you. You’ll be adding value and making your readers and prospects see that you’re the one they should be doing business with and not your competitors.
Those who stand out in Inbound Marketing are the ones who genuinely care about their field of business and feel compelled to give away valuable free information.
What’s the hardest part about adding value in your business? Is it the fear that you’re going to give away too much or that you just don’t know what your prospects need? Let us know in the comments!
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Whitepaper - The 7 Universal Laws Of Pull Marketing
Want to learn how to switch your marketing efforts from interruption to attraction? Learn how to become a lead generating magnet by using Pull Marketing techniques.
Download the free whitepaper to discover The 7 Universal Laws you should following on a daily basis to make the most of Pull Marketing.
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Posted by Samantha Coren on Tue, Jul 06, 2010
A lot of local businesses have a tendency to jump head first into the PPC pool to generate targeted traffic to their websites. What's bad about this? Well, buying search traffic isn't exactly cheap. Paid search is not something you want to become dependent on when you're a small business on a tight budget.
So how can you help bring visitors in your community to your site organically and for free? You can start by making sure your pages are properly optimized for search engines to reflect the areas your business serve:
1. Include Your Location in Page Titles and Headers
Make sure each of your pages includes the city you operate out of in the title. Usually [Business Name] | [Type of Business] + [Location] is a popular formatting convention for doing this.
So for example let's say you're a pizza shop in Brockton, Massachusetts and you want to give your "About Us" page an optimized title. Here's one way of optimizing your title tag:
About Joe's Pizza Shack | Pizza Restaurant in Brockton, MA.
Additionally having your H1 header and content echo what you place in your page title can help. Let's say you go with the above title for the about us page. You can have your H1 header be:
About Joe's Pizza Shack in Brockton, MA
2. Submit Your Business to Online Directories
Listing your business on directories as Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local and Yelp! is free and easy. It's also another way for people to find your out about your business through search engines. To quickly check where your business is listed on the web's most popular business directories you can visit getlisted.org.
In some cases you may find your business is already listed on one of these sites without you submitting the listing on your own. If that's the case what you should do is take the proper steps with each site to claim your listing. Why should you claim your listing? So you can make sure the listing info is accurate, complete, and up to date.
Every listing you fill out or claim should include a link to your website so searchers can find their way to your site easily. Certain directories give you the option to add photos, videos, and special coupons which will help generate more interest in your business to searchers. Some of these additional listing features are free on certain directories (Yelp!, Google Places) and others may charge you an additional fee to take advantage of them (Yahoo Local), so be sure to read up on the potential costs of each one.
3. Talk about local happenings in your blog.
Blogging about what's going on in your neighborhood on your company blog is a great way to not only show your visitors you care about your community, but another way of optimizing your pages. This dry cleaner in Birmingham, AL blogs about a music event happening in one of the neighborhoods he provides delivery service to. Not only does he include the town name in the blog title, but he also provides a link to a page he created specifically for this town on his own site.
Do you have a small local business (or know one) who practices good Local SEO? Tell us in the comments!
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Whitepaper - The 7 Universal Laws Of Pull Marketing
Want to learn how to switch your marketing efforts from interruption to attraction? Learn how to become a lead generating magnet by using Pull Marketing techniques.
Download the free whitepaper to discover The 7 Universal Laws you should following on a daily basis to make the most of Pull Marketing.
|
Posted by Samantha Coren on Tue, Jun 22, 2010
Do you sometimes get the feeling that Google Adwords is a vampire sucking you dry? Let's be honest here - you've spent hundreds (or thousands!) each month on paid search and haven't seen it translate to an increase in leads or sales.
Want to start seeing results? Here are three ways you can set your next PPC campaign up for success:
1. Don't use words you already rank high for organically.
Before even thinking about what search terms to add to a paid search campaign, you need to check your organic traffic. Find out what keywords people are already using to find your site using your analytics software of choice. If you notice that you're already getting a lot of traffic for a certain term without PPC, then chances are it's not a good investment in paying for that traffic.
2. Link to a landing page.
One of the biggest "no-no's" we come across with paid search campaigns is that, more often than not, people are just linking to their home page. Sure, you might get a nice traffic increase, but you can bet your bounce rate is going to skyrocket. Most home pages tend to be designed as an "internet brochure" for a company and don't contain a way to capture lead information directly.
Why is it better to design a landing page for your PPC campaign? The more leads you can generate from a paid search, the better. This gives you a way to build up a lead list so you can actually nurture people who visit your site into customers via e-mail marketing. People are more inclined to give you their contact information (in this case an e-mail address and name at the bare minimum) if you have some sort of compelling offer you're willing to give away for free.
3. Choose "middle of the road" keywords.
Another mistake we see people make when setting up paid search campaigns is picking many low-traffic terms instead of a few higher cost ones that get traffic. There's a false economy in going with several lower-cost "long-tail" search terms. It's not worth your time setting up a whole campaign around a bunch of terms that aren't going to generate any traffic.
You're better off utilizing those lower traffic keywords within your SEO within website strategy by using them in your content. So what should you pick? Terms that bring in that are priced to bring in traffic, but don’t break your budget.
On a final note, you should avoid falling into the trap of relying too heavily on paid search to generate traffic and leads. PPC should always be an ancillary marketing effort and not your primary focus. Remember, there's no substitute for generating remarkable content that pulls people to your site without paying for their visit!
Whitepaper - 17 Ways To Get Found Online
 Is all website traffic created equal? Learn how to generate website traffic from social media in a Web 2.0 world.
Download the free whitepaper for 17 tips you can implement to start increasing your website traffic in no time.
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Posted by Jeff Machado on Mon, Jun 07, 2010
There's a basic fact about Inbound Marketing that we all must understand - generating a lead and turning that lead into a customer both require skill and hard work. While the activities look different on the surface, they both share one powerful and common thread however.
That powerful and common thread is none other than content creation.
Want more leads? Create more content.
Want to turn more leads into customers? Create more content.
Why Content Is The Answer To Your Lead Generation Problems
Whenever I talk to anyone about lead nurturing, I ask them to think about their own buying habits. I ask them if they're willing to drop down the cash or sign the check as soon as they find out about a potential service or product. Usually, the light bulb goes off right at that moment. People need time to think about the product or service they're considering.
Usually, this same person will then take this info and start blasting sales messages to their leads, hoping some of them will be reminded of what's available and take instant action. I'll shake my head a bit and let them know that this just doesn't work either.
Following up with content changes everything. When you're not promoting yourself, you're adding value. The best thing is, this type of lead nurturing doesn't require you to shell out a ton of cash in order to see results. All it takes is some time and a willingness to take all the information and resources you have available to somehow make the lives of your potential customers better.
It should go without saying that you need to treat your leads like gold if you want them to take the next step in the sales process.
Not sure what type of content to share as part of your lead nurturing? Here are 3 quick ideas:
Tell A Story Through Video
Creating content doesn't require you to sit down and write for hours. All you need to start with is an easy to use video camera like the Flip video and the willingness to put yourself out there for the world to see. Every business has a story - something that makes you more human to your prospects.
Doing a video that has personality helps increase the Know, Like, and Trust factor that helps loosen up and want to know more about what you have to offer.
Share A Blog Post
One of the things I emphasize most to my clients is that blogging generates business. The reason for this is two-fold. First, blogging helps you to get found online and makes it easier for you to convert those visitors into leads.
Second, blog posts can be used as part of a lead nurturing campaign to help answer some of the questions your leads have. If you have one blog post that is particularly insightful, you need to make sure your leads have read it and have a chance to interact with you in the comments section.
Conduct a Survey
Need an easy to follow up with your leads? Put together a survey to start gauging where your leads are at in their knowledge of your niche. By doing this, you'll be able to look at what you're offering and see if those offerings are in line with where your leads are at.
Using that information, you can also fine tune your lead nurturing even more. If it turns out that your leads are beginners, you can get rid of that technical and advanced whitepaper that you inserted into your automated lead nurturing campaign and replace it with a webinar that explains the basics more in depth.
How have you used your content as part of your lead nurturing process? Do you find that it helps your leads to get to know you and your company better? Let us know in the comments!