Posted by Jody Raines
Finding new business can be difficult. If potential customers aren't knocking down your doors or calling you... then its likely you aren't practicing "Inbound Marketing".
Cold calling is one of the most dreaded processes in the sales world. It's time consuming and painful. To some, it feels like seeking a needle in a haystack. Yes, eventually it will bring in sales, and it's certainly better than doing nothing, but there is a more effective way to generate sales and leads. And that's by using your website and social media as a 'net' to capture leads. It's called inbound marketing.
What is inbound marketing? It's understanding how people make purchasing decisions and then using this information to position your company in a way that -
1. Your company is found
2. For the right reasons
3. And customers voluntarily reach out to you.
Is this magic? In a way it is... it's a science of search engine optimization (SEO) coupled with savvy marketing tactics including social media marketing (SMM).
Often my clients reach out to me because they think they want more traffic to their website. It's not traffic that they want... what they really want are conversions or sales.
Lead generation. Return on investment. Determining what your potential customer is seeking and then using an internet marketing strategy that uses the power of the internet to help clients find you and helps you to generate business.
So, if you think your web site is just fine, and you like doing cold calls, keep up the great work.
If you feel that there is a better way to position your business to generate leads, then join the inbound marketing generation!
As a Hubspot Certified Partner, we practice inbound marketing strategies and help position websites and social media including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, 4Square, Linkedin, Flikr, YouTube, UStream and other social media sites. That's why I'm sharing this video by Hubspot that shows outbound marketing versus inbound marketing...Made me chuckle, and hope it brings a smile for you too.
Yep... Cold Calling is for losers...
Posted by Jody Raines
Do you want to spice up your Internet marketing life and create some steamy sizzle on your site? They say that sexy sells... and lets face it, you want your website to attract more than furtive 
glances.
If you are struggling with what to do, to enhance your website's shape, and get back into the Google groove, here's a list of 5 to get you started:
1. Shake it up. When you put that old site together, you were logical and you covered all the bases. You wanted the reader to move through the site, starting at "Home", then logically reaching a conclusion at "Contact Us". Surprise - it doesn't work that way! Readers are not logical, and they don't want to read every word. What they want is what they are seeking - a slim-downed and attractive piece of the site. Focus on a sub-category of your business and define the keywords your clients may be using in their Google search. Every page should be unique and considered a landing page, with a clearly identified message and target. The more specific your pages and content, the better you will look in the eyes of your customer.
2. Trashy or Flashy? Google announced recently that load times for your site are now a metric that will be taken into account for your ranking. Slow dancing is sexy, slow sites are not. Why lose points on a site that is all show and no go. Simplify and streamline your page so it loads quickly. Of course if you prefer a site that is a beautiful monument, that's an option. On the other hand if you prefer a site that has hot leads, through traffic and conversion, go fast and keep it elegant.
3. Give it up. Yep. That's right, we are going to give away your secrets for free. Why? Because that's the reason your clients come to the site. They are seeking answers, and our goal is to position you to answer their questions. Of course, there is always more to know - if you client had all the answers they would do it themself. Maybe it's a webinar, maybe an ebook, or a guide? You have the answers... So, get started on a mission to position your content to appeal to your customer's needs.
4. Establish a relationship. Today's marketing is not just about telling your audience, it's about sharing with your audience and listening. Are you ready to listen? Do you have a way to monitor your brand? Are you able to make changes to your site as you learn more about what will appeal to your potential customers? Maybe now is the time to put together a site that will be more responsive or pro-active. It's the new way to do business in an Internet world.
5. Make the First Move. If you are waiting for clients to find you, it may take a long time. Organic SEO means creating compelling content that is keyword rich and appropriately positioned. Even though some clients will find you, think about where your clients may be and reach out to them. If you have a blog post that may appeal to a group, don't be shy - but tell the group you have some hot tips to share. But don't be salesy - that will backfire.
Overall, it's important to communicate and share. Offer great content, optimize your pages and blog, blog, blog.
Posted by Jody Raines
Are you listening to your customers? Do you know what's being said about your company - good or bad? Are you Tweeting? On Facebook? Linked in? What's the last story you thought was Delicious?
The scary fact - a viral derogatory message can be shared across the Internet faster than a 140 character re-tweet!
Case in point: consider the recent viral Facebook trend where bra colors were suggestively referenced in several women's profiles. The fun part of the post - no one said why or what it was, simply a color. Staggeringly, some men, who didn't understand what was going on also posted "nude" or "eggshell" without a clue what they were referencing. As more and more people jumped in on the action, random bra colors started ranking in the top ten Google searches!
What does this mean for your business? You don't sell bras? Imagine that it wasn't bra color, but something about your business that was being shared. Something unsavory. That you are not happy about. Being Tweeted. Facebooked. Virally.
Who would have thought bra colors would be so viral?
And of course, you remember the Domino's Pizza incident - where a couple of renegade employees posted a derogatory video that went viral and caused the company an incredible amount of damage - lost sales and lost customers.
Unfortunately that scenario is not farfetched.
In a time when Social Media is measured by your Twinfluence and Facebook has over 400 million subscribers, not understanding the tools is risky business.
Social Media Marketing (SMM) has become a necessary tool for marketing today's business. Utilizing the principals of inbound marketing a social media marketing consultant can help you increase the effectiveness of your website by complimenting it with Social Media Marketing. The Internet as an effective way to reach an audience through "Inbound marketing" has evolved where it becomes a tool to level the playing field between big business and smaller businesses.
Rutgers University is hosting a Roundtable on Social Media Marketing to be held on Tuesday, March 23rd at 8:30 am. I'll have the distinct pleasure of speaking to a group of Family owned and privately held businesses about the power of branding through the Internet and how to harness it's power to speak with your customers. (there are still openings, and you can still register)
Small, privately held companies have an advantage when it comes to Social Media. A dynamic small business can be responsive to their customer and can effectively create an online presence or respond to an online menace. Especially because the decision cycle is shorter than the large conglomerate, the small business owner who grasps the strategy is way ahead!
The group at Rutgers will learn secrets and strategies to effectively use Twitter, Facebook, blogging and LinkedIn in conjunction with their website to position their business, achieve greater visibility through search engine ranking, and tips on how to make their website a lead generation magnet.
Registration for Rutgers' University Social Media Forum featuring Jody Raines, WebMarCom
Rutgers University
Family Business Institute
Waterfront Technology Center
200 Federal Street
Camden, New Jersey 08102
March 23rd, 2010
8:30AM-10:30AM
Conference Room B
Posted by Jody Raines
If you are like me, you've been glued to the television on at least one occasion, watching the activities of the Olympic Games in Vancouver. How exhilarating to watch these incredibly talented athletes perform at the pinacle of their chosen event. The competition is fierce, there is just one gold medal winner.
When it comes to having a terrific blog, there are some analogies that can be made with the Olympic champions. For example, when a prospect hovers above the search bar in a search engine, and types in their query, is your content going to be among the results? Will you be the Gold Medalist when they decide to click on a link?
Partially, this has to do with relevance, partially with your understanding of the audience, and partially with creating really great blog topics. The relevance and understanding of your audience are related to SEO and search engine optimization - in other words, understanding what terms to use, which relevant keywords will lead to being discovered, and how to create content that will rank for those terms. That's very important to being found, but you also have to have Gold Medal topics - you know, the one that gets clicked and read... This article is about how to create blog topics.
Great blog topics. What are they? In a nutshell, the idea is to create topics that creates interest in the reader. It's a way to share knowledge, develop relationships and create a flow of interested parties to your website.
What makes great topics? And how do you know that you have a great topic?
Before writing an article, I typically ask myself these three questions that I've boiled down into simple rules to follow when deciding what to write about:
1. Is my topic helpful? If my blog topic is preachy or salesy, I toss it. Frankly, there are enough people blasting you with commercials. That's not what 'inbound marketing' is about. The topic has to be of interest to companies or individuals in order to attract interest and readership. I liken this to the old days on the Atlantic City boardwalk - you may remember walking past those shops where they had an auction taking place - or maybe they were trying to get you to buy those knives that never get dull...? In any case, there was someone outside the store who was 'hawking' at you, or soliciting you to get you to come and participate. Today's consumer is smart, and when they decide to opt-out or block you, you are left without a way to appeal to them. If however, you offer information that they need at a time when they are looking for exactly what you are presenting, then you have a chance of appealing to them through opt-in marketing! Your prospect finds YOU and asks YOU for the information.
2. Can you tell me how-to? Many of my best clients are companies that understand what I do. They also recognize why I am good at it. It's not a matter of whether they can do it themselves - most likely they can. The value is the depth of knowledge and the level of understanding that I bring to the table. Here's what I mean - you are an attorney who practices divorce law. Can someone buy a kit to do-it-yourself-divorce? Yes. Is that advisable? Not really. So, if that's the case, explain what the pitfalls are, and how to protect yourself if you go that route. The people who are looking for this advice are in the market for what you offer. They may have thought that they would save money by doing it themselves, and that is what they are seeking. However, what they find (assuming that your content is well thought out and developed and that you used appropriate keywords and SEO positioning strategy) is that it's not as simple or easy or inexpensive as they originally thought. Now you are in a great position to help them.
3. Is it relevant? No one wants to read the same old stuff that you published last week. It's got to be fresh and new and timely. If the Olympics are today, then discuss the Olympics. If the Word Series is today, don't discuss the Olympics, discuss the World Series. In a day and age when 140 character micro blogs (such as Twitter) rule the planet, you have to be timely and relevant. Consider news events, topical events and activities that are compelling for angles and buzz.
Bottom line - keep your postings helpful, entertaining and relevant. Like the Olympic athlete, it takes training - the more you do it, the better you get. So, practice often. Learn from others. Watch the competition, and then when it's your turn, make it original and make it your best.
Posted by Jody Raines
Hub
spot, the award winning software that enables small and mid sized businesses to compete with large corporations on the Internet had a webinar today for partners and prospective partners. Brian Halligan, co-founder and Pete Caputa, Partner Relations Director shared their vision of how marketing is evolving and suggested that today's marketer's must evolve as well.
Partially based upon personal observations that traditional promotional methods and advertising were not working, and partially based upon the experience of an Internet program that was working, Halligan and his to-be partner, Dharmesh Shah put together the foundation of a strategy that would become the prototype for Hubspot. Halligan and Shah met while attending MIT.
According to the website "The founders of HubSpot® met at MIT in 2004. Both were interested in the transformative impacts of the internet on small businesses and were early students of web2.0 concepts. The discussions and early work were on-going for two years and in June of 2006 the company was officially founded and funded."
So, although Hubspot was founded just three years ago, the company has experienced geometric growth to it's present level of 2,300 subscribers. Part of the success of the program is based the (killer software) "marketing application and great advice Hubspot offers to small businesses enabling them to leverage the disruptive effects of the internet to "get found" by more prospects shopping in their niche and to convert a higher percentage of prospects into customers.
Most small businesses have a website that behaves like their old paper-based brochures, but just sitting online. It is rarely updated, is not given significant visibility by the search engines, has low traffic levels, does not encourage return visits, does not enable/track conversions, etc. What HubSpot does is transform that relatively static website into a modern marketing machine that produces the right leads and helps convert a higher percentage of them into qualified opportunities."
During today's presentation, Halligan described his experience with media and his observations of how much it's changed; In the mid 1970's, he shared how his family would gather around to watch television together. When a commercial came on, they would watch it, and perhaps even comment to each other about the commercial. Companies like Procter and Gamble and McDonald's built their brand and were very successful with broadcast advertising.
However, fast forward fifteen years later, there was his father, 'clicker' in hand, and when a commercial came on, the channel surfing began. No longer was the commercial king of the airwaves.
Today's marketers, must adopt an inbound marketing approach. Inbound marketing is a combination of search engine optimization, careful keyword rich content creation, link building, ongoing evaluation of performance and massaging the content, blogging, social media including Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Google Buzz, YouTube, Flikr, Digg, press releases, pod casts, landing pages and compelling call-to-action offers. Content that is found and which appeals to the target audience, so much so, that they volunteer their contact information in order to be added to mailing lists and rss feeds.
A lead nurturing program is also incorporated into the software, which makes it a system that has a provable ROI.
The focus of the announcement today is for a special section where Hubspot Certified Partners can share their expertise with businesses who want the power of the Hubspot platform, yet don't have the expertise or the time to devote. Programs are offered, such as "Do Hubspot For Me", with pricing and metrics for customers to select a marketing partner to work with.
Disclosure: WebMarCom is a Certified Hubspot Partner and we are excited to be associated with such a professional organization. As an independent Marketing Agency, we can elect to work on any platform. We are honored to be one of 30 Hubspot Certified Partners, and to offer our services to clients and potential clients who would like to experience the power of the Internet through a trial. WebMarCom is the only Hubspot Certified Partner in Voorhees or Cherry Hill, New Jersey, and in the Philadelphia Metro Area.
Posted by Jody Raines
Wow. One more inch and we'll have a new record! After 27 inches of snow on Saturday, why is Mother Nature adding another snow/rain mix for us?
So, what's a snowed in business owner to do? Bemoan the weather or be proactive? Here's a list of 5 things you can do to promote your business while snowed in!
1. Sign up for Twitter. Connect with people you've not had a chance to connect with. Yes, it's frightful out side, but you are not the only person who is snowed in! Plus there is a whole part of our nation where the weather may be sunny and warm. If you haven't started, try downloading my podcast- How To Tweet Like A Master. It's full of ideas for managing your Twitter account as well as how to develop a Twitter following, how to connect with others, what to say on Twitter, how to say it, and how to create a custom background for your Twitter profile.
2. Create a Facebook Page for your Business. It's not a difficult thing to do, but it can be confusing. Today is the day that you can take the time to work through your Facebook Page setup. If you already have one - post some comments. Your Facebook page should be informative and helpful.
3. Use YouTube. It's the 2nd most popular search engine. Take a video of your snowfall and post it on YouTube. It's not difficult. If you have a video record function on your mobile phone, you can take the video on the go... Today's a great day to learn how to use it! For a fun exercise, try uploading pictures to animoto.com and select from their music to create a custom thirty second video. Then upload the video to YouTube. Here's an example of one that I did.
4. Explore Live Streaming video. I love UStream and it has some neat functionality. One of the best users of this technology is Adam Sokoloff and the team at Sunrise Signs. They took live streaming video of a vehicle wrap, and they are adding new content on an ongoing basis. Check their stream out: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/sunrise-signs-live
5. Set up your blog. A blog is a great way to add new content to your website. As a Hubspot Certified Partner, we are always looking for methods to improve conversion and generate leads. A recent Hubspot study shared the following:
"A study of 2,168 HubSpot customers shows that businesses that published at least 5 blog articles in the last 7 days draw 6.9 times more organic search traffic and 1.12 times more referral traffic than those who don't blog at all."
So after you've done your first round of shoveling, take a few moments and enjoy exploring Social Media Marketing and Inbound Marketing with some of these neat programs. As always, please add comments or thoughts, and start today, while you are snowed in, to take your business to the next level...
Posted by Jody Raines
Congratulations to Jody Raines, President of WebMarCom.net and newest certified partner for Hubspot. "There are approximately thirty partners across the US, said Raines, and it's truly an honor to be among this elite group". The Partner Certification means that Ms. Raines has passed a rigorous test that measures knowledge of Search Engine Optimization, Internet strategy, website design, social media marketing, blogging, public relations on the Internet, creating effective websites, generating leads through online marketing and the components of an "Inbound Marketing" program.
"My frustration with doing the things the old way was the catalyst for starting WebMarCom.net. Many of the 'Old School' web companies are still just building pretty sites. A website has to be an effective tool for the company, otherwise, why invest in fixing it?"
Raines started WebMarCom.net in November, and it has already rising in Alexa rank to one of the top nine percent in the United States. This means that it's outranked over 91% of the websites that are out there. "I use the same techniques for my clients that I use on my site" Raines stated. "They are effective and they work."
The goal for a website is to become a "lead generation magnet". It's first important for the site to be found, by practicing great search engine marketing. This is an ongoing process - if you can imagine, with all the blogs and new websites and updates every day, nothing is static. A website should continue to change and adapt to maintain ranking. In addition, it's not enough just to be found - once the site is sound, the content has to be excellent. Plus there has to be a call-to-action or reason for a potential client to ask for you to contact them.
'I'm gratified and excited", Jody shared, "and I'm ready to work with businesses, not just in Philadelphia, Cherry Hill and Voorhees, but in the entire south Jersey region as well as Philly metro who recognize that their website is not working and they want to make it into a 'lead generation magnet'."