Dragan Mestrovic – Page 2 – inBlurbs Inbound Marketing Agency

September 11, 2012

Grocery Stores discover Social Media as Communication and Marketing Channel

Increasingly consumers shift from traditional to the digital media. They research about products on search engines, forums, and blogs and in social media to get the best products for their money!

To get found online when future customers are looking for products is one of the major challenges businesses are facing today.

Millions of businesses competing for paying customers and it have become a difficult task for most of them to stand out of the crowd and to make future customers aware about their offers.

A recent research from media and marketing services firm Valassis shows that 12% of the surveyed grocery retail executives go from usage of 12% social media in 2012 to a 65% usage in the next five years. They also plan to increasing investments in online marketing in general. The have understood the advantages of facebook for business and other networks to build customer loyalty.

An increasing number of B2C marketers are faced with the challenge to attract buyers to their offers.

This problem can be solved with Content marketing which has established as a powerful way to engage customers in social media.

Also an increasing number of B2C marketers are faced with the challenge produce and publish buyer persona oriented interesting and remarkable content to attract customers on the web and in social media to their products.

The most popular channel to share content is social media, the advantages of facebook for business and to win customer loyalty are known. About 76% of marketers say they used a social network as the main channel for content distribution.

Successful companies use every possible communication channel to get in touch with their target audience. They are interested in what their recent and future customers are thinking and communicating about them.

Infographic: How Brands Listen in the Digital Age

This communication ability helps them to better understand and to serve their audience, which sets them apart from their competition and gives them wide advantages in their business field.

Businesses which are willing to communicate with their audience in blogs and social media show that they care about the people who spend their money with them.

September 6, 2012

7 Easy Steps on How to use Twitter to Reach Your Revenue Goals

New reports show that Twitter beats Facebook in US Mobile Ad Revenues This Year. This is a clear sign that Twitter users could be more engaged that Facebook users. New numbers also show that Photo- and Video-Sharing Popular on Twitter.

Here are some numbers to try to compare the effectiveness of Twitter and Facebook for marketing:

An average Facebook user has an average of 130 friends compared with a Twitter user and his average 300 Followers. Twitter users share 1.5 more times tweets than compared with Facebook users which share wall post messages 0.65 on average. Massages shared on Facebook reach 45k of people there on average compared with 105k reach on Twitter.

These numbers give you a small idea of marketing effectiveness of booth social media platforms.

How can you profit from Twitter’s great opportunity to reach your target audience and increase business leads, sales and profits without spending a truck load of ad money on Twitter?

Twitter is a great tool to do real time communication with your audience. Users expect companies to response quickly to their requests. The quick response and serious reaction to requests or events on which happen is an essential part to profit from Twitter communication which breaks out.

Customers often reach out to brands to learn more about new products and services. If a brand is able to publish important product and services related news exclusively to their Twitter network first, this would help to improve loyalty with their network. This can also result in an improvement of revenue in the long term.

4 Reasons why companies should leverage Twitter:

• Increase brand awareness
• Humanize B2B companies
• Establish as thought leader
• Connecting easy and effortless with customers and prospects

7 Steps how can you profit from Twitter?

1. Start a Twitter presence and complete your profile
2. Research for industry related Tweets, discussions and people. Follow those people
3. Listen to their discussions. If you have something valuable to contribute than do it, otherwise go on listening
4. Start a corporate blog. Write about topics your audience is interested in. Share your blog articles in Twitter and ask for feedback and opinion for your publication
5. Build landing pages and offer Twitter exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related leads from Twitter
6. Measure your activities
7. Improve your activities and repeat

Infographic: Twitter Marketing

September 4, 2012

Why do you have a Facebook profile if you don’t want to communicate?

When I communicate in Facebook and Twitter, then I like to share interesting and valuable content.

Sometimes there are users in my network who make the impression they are bothered through this information. Social media is for connection and for communication. People who don’t want to be “bothered” by information which they don’t like for this moment should take into account that maybe this information they don’t like at this moment can benefit other people.

Social media is a democratic way of communication and this means that everybody is free to publish any information which can benefit others.

Not each piece of content which a business or a private person publishes in the social media channel is of interest or value for all. But the more content and information is published the higher are the chances that under this mass of content parts exist which benefit other people.

To publish and to share content is a sign of generosity. And if there is content or any information you don’t like than you are free to express your personal opinion on this, but keep in mind your opinion must not be universally applicable.

Content sharing is an essential part of knowledge and communication and improves the online reputation.

Infographic: Social Sharing Trends

What do you think, how does content sharing in social media benefits you?

August 23, 2012August 23, 2012

How Real Time Communication can increase your Revenue by up to 40%

In the past marketing has depending on campaigns. Because of its inflexibility this model does not fit anymore into this Real Time world we live.

Today businesses need to react in real time with their audience.

Business can gain a massive competitive advantage when they become able and are willing to communicate with their audience in Real Time.

The most frequented Real Time Communication Channels are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn only to name some of them.

Here is the audience which demands brands to communicate in real time and show they care about their recent and future customers.

Real Time Communication is a powerful way for businesses to learn more about the demand their audience has and this sets them into the position to custom tailor products and service for the price their audience want.

As business recognizes the Real Time Mindset and the importance of speed they can set them self apart from their competition the smart way for a fraction of the cost of old school campaigns but with much more better results.

A Real Time Mindset ads an smart additional way of marketing to the businesses marketing arsenal, which means that business still can go forward with the marketing activities they still do and then compare investment, effort and results with this new Real Time approach.

Numbers do not lie and every business owner will go on to use the marketing strategies which bring him the most for his buck and cancel those one who do not.

The size of an organization can make real time communication difficult. Because of the simple question who does what.

But great examples like ZAPPOS have proven that even organization with 300 people can communicate in real time for example on Twitter which has set them massively apart from their competition. They became so successful that AMAZON acquired them and let them work further as ZAPPOS without changing anything inside, especially not the successful way of real time communication.

Sure size matter, but when you want it and you understand the benefits, than you can do it no matter how big or small your organization is.

The secret to get Real Time Communication successfully achieved so that it brings your business huge profits is to lower control which needs to hand over a high amount of trust to your employees. If you see them as responsible adults and demand for their responsibility they will react this way.

You will need to set flexible rules about communication which leaves your employees enough space to breathe and to react in your favor.

Let me know what you think about Real Time Communication!

August 21, 2012August 21, 2012

How to Generate Business through Content Marketing

We live in a customer centric time powered through social media and the rules of marketing and PR has dramatically changed.

The customer chooses by himself through research on search engines like Google, with the help of friends, relatives and his social networks which product to buy and which not.

Then it counts what and if he can find your business on the web.

Marketers need to understand that most people do not go online to buy something. The primarily go online to research for products and services. This is valid for B2C and B2B!

Businesses who publish and share content on the web do not only increase the number of “digital outpost” but moreover increase their visibility and build trust with the future customers. Trust is the main motivation to buy. When your audience trusts you, then you they are willing to do business with you.

Trust can only be build with a long term approach, because what you publish reflects what and who you are.

With great content you position your business and the people of your business who create the content as trusted experts in your field. Content Marketing is great to build your online reputation.

Here are some marketing tips you can use right away.

Give away free content

Give away free content in form of a corporate blog where you write about topics your audience is most interested in. You can get great ideas for blog articles when you go through email and support requests. This will give you a ton of possible blog article topics.

You can also take a camera and explain a task, for example how to use one of your machines and what to take care of. Or you can use photos and testimonials of satisfied customers and publish them too.

You need to invest time/ money to produce content

To find the time to produce remarkable content is the most common problem business face. But as you need to spend time for your business you also need to understand that marketing and content creation is an important part of your lead generation. Therefore you need to set time free to produce remarkable content which will attract new customers to your business.

No matter if you do it by your own or you hire an Inbound Marketing Agency, content marketing is not free. You have the choice, do you want to invest your time or do you want to set a marketing budget and hire a professional Inbound Marketing Agency.

Give away GREAT content

Great content is valuable. It is worth reading and sharing it. Therefore you need to be specific with information which should benefit your future customers. Don’t be afraid to give away “secrets” because this kind of content attracts the most people. And be the end you are the professionals and the future customer will turn to you when he is ready to buy.

Infographic: The Rise of Content Marketing

Six great reasons to consider content marketing to generate more business

Companies who operate a corporate blog on frequent base get …

…up to 55% more Traffic than companies who do not blog
…up to 97% more Inbound Links than companies who do not blog
…up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines than companies who do not blog
…up to 25x times more business leads than companies who do not blog

Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report an up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.

Every businesses which ignores these facts will vanish in the dust of today’s networked and quick economy and that’s good.

August 7, 2012August 7, 2012

How to Increase Backlinks and Customer Loyalty through Content Marketing

To get found online when future customers are looking for products and services is one of the major challenges businesses are facing today.

Millions of businesses competing for paying customers and it have become a difficult task for most of them to stand out of the crowd and to make future customers aware about their offers.

Businesses need to understand that future customers B2B and B2C primarily do not go online to buy something. First they go online for research. They research for products and services and if they found something of interest they research about information about the company. They ask friends, family and their social networks for recommendations and if they know the company the have recently found.

Did you asked yourself what future customers will find when they research your industry for products and services you also have to offer, will they find you or your competitor?

How many people hit your site and how many business leads do generate daily?

Targeted traffic is a result of many tasks which need to be done before you even get the chance to get found by future customers through Google, Yahoo of Bing search.

Actually the best way to increase visibility is content marketing. With content marketing businesses demonstrate thought leadership; prove themselves Trustworthy and Boosts SEO by increase Backlinks to their website.

Remarkable and helpful content is also a great to build customer loyalty. It offers the so called value ad for customers.

The great success of content marketing is the result of giving away valuable information – remarkable content for free to attract people to your business like a magnet.

Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report an up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.

This marketing system works 100% for any business!

Content marketing can also work for you to attract new customers to your business like a magnet.

To empower your content marketing start with a corporate blog!

Blogging companies get…

…up to 55% more Traffic
…up to 97% more Inbound Links
…up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines
…up to 25x times more business leads

The next steps of content creation are to craft further buyer persona oriented content like:

– Press releases
– Pictures
– Whitepapers
– How-to’s
– EBooks
– Video

In blurbs buyer personas analysis sheet from inBlurbs

Include a call to action in each of your content pieces. This ensures that the user exactly discovers what to do next.

Each of your content pieces is an outpost of your businesses which increases your visibility and improves trust and directs more future customers to your business.

The more content you publish on the web the more online outposts you get in exchange and your chances to get found increase. Other sites will find your content valuable and link back to it. People will share and comment on your content, which also will increase reach and visibility. You increase Backlinks and customer loyalty through content marketing. As simple as that.

August 1, 2012August 1, 2012

Customers Demand Brands to Prove Themselves Trustworthy

Trust is a major factor when it comes to get new customers acquired.

Companies need to understand that they need be there before they ask for a sale. They need to establish themselves as an authority and trusted source in their industry.

About.com conducted a survey where they find out that 84% of said that brands must prove themselves trustworthy before they buy or interact in any other way!

Reviews (customer generated content) are a way how brands can gain trust with future customers said 41% of the surveyed people.

This brings us to the most effective way how to gain customer trust before you ask for the sale.

Content marketing is a proven way to engage customers.

A seriously executed content marketing strategy can be responsible for 25x times more business leads and boosts your revenue by up to 40%!

One of the most popular channels to share content is social media. About 76% of marketers use a social network as the main channel for content distribution.

To share content in social media is not enough. Content creation and content marketing must be executed as a holistic strategy and have to be performed on regular basis to gain profitable results on the long term.

Companies utilizing content marketing strategy report an up to 2,000% lift in blog traffic and 40% boost in revenue.

How to start content marketing?

The best way to start content marketing for business is to start a corporate blog. Recent and future customers can interact this way with your business. You show expertise and offer valuable information to solve your audience’s problems. This gains trust.

Blogging has great advantages and here are the most important:

1. Blogging companies get up to 55% more Traffic
2. Blogging companies get up to 97% more Inbound Links
3. Blogging companies get up to 434% more indexed pages in search engines
4. Blogging companies get up to 25x times more business leads

All of this above builds trust and increases brand visibility. As a result this brings more interested people to the offers and can increase revenue in the long term.

July 11, 2012July 11, 2012

How to empower your Real Time Marketing and PR with Traditional Medias trust

To get the word out about your business, products and your services becomes an increasing challenge in today time.

More and more businesses focus on online marketing, social media marketing and online business lead generation. They all compete for the attention of their target audience.

The buyer also increasingly research for products and services on the web and in social media. He asks his network contacts, business partner, family and friends for their opinion and for recommendation about products, services and brands.

The development of mobile devices like smart phones, tablet pc and mobile apps give them all the power to research and to buy on the fly.

This is valid for business to consumer (b2c) and for business to business (b2b) related industries. Nobody can escape this buyer centric market when he wants to stay successful in the future.

But to make a person aware of your products and services they need to find you. You need to be there when and where they are looking. How to do that?

A great way to catch a customer attention is by publishing great content. Each piece of content is an outpost of your business on the web and can help to find you when your audience is looking in social media and on search engines.

Content creation is the most successful strategy to attract the right buyer persona to your offers.

As content creation is the most successful strategy to attract the right buyer persona it is increasingly used and the quality and competition for good content is growing.

The only thing what can help businesses to set them self apart from their competition is to be and stay creative.

A recent research from Triton Digital found out that the most people still trust more Traditional Media like TV, Radio and newspaper than news and information from the internet and social media.

So it looks like that social media is obviously not the #1 news machine. What to do now?

A great way to show creativity in content marketing is to do Real Time Marketing and PR by Newsjacking.

Newsjacking is the process by which you inject your ideas or angles into breaking news, in real-time, in order to generate media coverage for yourself or your business. – David Meerman Scott

Regarding to David Meerman Scott the bestselling author the rules have changed. The traditional PR model—sticking closely to a preset script and campaign timeline—no longer works the way it used to. Public discourse now moves so fast and so dynamically that all it takes is a single afternoon to blast the wheels off someone’s laboriously crafted narrative.

And here we are!

I will not describe here how exactly to do Newsjacking. For this you should buy David Meerman Scott great book to learn the exact tasks.

But I will try to give you a small idea how Newsjacking can work for your business.

When you go through the daily media, like news on TV, radio, newspaper social media updates on Facebook, Twitter, etc. do you see sometimes news which grab your attention because they relate to your industry in any way?

We learned that still most people trust traditional media. How would it be to get piggyback on breaking news and profit from the public excitement and the life of a news story to increase your businesses reach and awareness with future customers? 😉

So by using the reach and the trust of traditional media you can reach far more people with your message than before. But you need to be very quick!

There is no question Newsjacking is the most creative and one of the most effective ways to get attention, and the best on it, anybody can do it!

July 6, 2012

How to Wipe Out your Business by Choosing the Wrong Color

A recent study of Marketo brought out that a wrong chosen color for your business and logo can cost you the success in the long run.

The color of a business is the first impression a future customer will discover when he hits your offer. The study found out that the right product color can influence your target audience purchasing decisions by up to 80%. The right color can make or break a business!

To choose the right color is a process where you have to ask yourself how you want your business to be perceived out there?

You can go the quick and dirty way to choose a brand color but this can cost your business the success in the long run. Or you sit down and use the recent information (for example this below in the infographic) to choose your brand colors wisely.

Infographic: True Colors

Further important resources:

June 29, 2012

How to Build a Brand through Inbound Marketing

Businesses are always interested to increase the reach of their brand to get in front of future customers.

Brand building can be a though thing if not done the right way. To build a brand a huge budget is not necessary but more the right strategy.

The past and the present (still for some) of marketing:

There are a lot of ways to inform future clients of a brand, like advertising, TV and radio spots, newspaper ads, snail mail, pay per click marketing, trade shows, etc. But the hook with most of those marketing ways is they are expensive, mostly not measurable and not long lasting. As soon you stop this paid advertising than your visibility decreases again.

There is a strategy which delivers guaranteed, long lasting and measurable results for a fraction of the costs of old school advertising.

The marketing strategy:

Inbound marketing offers you a smart strategic approach to be and most important to stay steps ahead of your competition.

The inbound marketing strategy focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.

With inbound marketing businesses “earn” their way to the customer by publishing helpful information for example on a corporate blog, in social media and forums.

Inbound marketing includes: Content creation like blogging, video, photo, whitepapers, eBooks, podcasts, press releases, comments in social media and other blogs and forums, Social media two way communication, lead generation, lead conversion, lead nurturing and closed-loop analysis.

Summary what you can expect from inbound marketing:

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget in the long term
B. Make you stand out of your competition
C. Generate a massive amount of qualified and hot business leads
D. Improve your lead conversion rate by up to 55%
E. Increase your loyal customers and sales

Brain vs. Budget = Inbound Marketing

View more presentations from inBlurbs

Time frame for inbound marketing brand building?

As every doing in business inbound marketing also depends on what you put in. The more you do the better results you will get and expand your brand reach faster.

To establish a brand takes about 2-3 years, depending on product, service market and customer demand.

But the difference is, with inbound marketing you have an up to 62% lesser cost per lead and an up to 55% higher lead conversion rate. Which is a much lesser marketing investment than old fashioned advertising, and your doings are long lasting.

For example: Created content which you have published stays online as long you want it to be, attracts people which research online for products and services you also have to offer and still delivers qualified visitors to your lead capture – landing pages.

You do tasks like publishing a blog article–– one time and they deliver traffic to your lead capture – landing pages where you convert them to leads and later to paying customers.

By executing a serious inbound marketing strategy for your business you can set you apart from your competition, reach more future customers, improve your brands reach and visibility and become trusted industry source.

How much is inbound marketing?

Again, as every doing in business inbound marketing also depends on what you put in. The more you do the better results you will get, expand your brand reach and get more customers faster.

As inbound marketing is the most powerful marketing strategy in the marketing actually, it is also difficult to execute through its complexity without any professional help.

Moreover about 70% of businesses which try to execute an inbound marketing strategy without professional help fail within the first three months, remain 30% of business fail thereafter.

To start with inbound marketing for your business you should calculate $2,000 – $3,000 per month or maybe more. The size of your inbound marketing investment also depends on your goals and the pace you want to achieve results.

As we discussed brand building earlier you should take into account a minimum time frame of 18 months or more for your brand building, and this also depends on several factors like the market and competitive situation, your products and services only to name some of them.

June 27, 2012June 27, 2012

How to Win Customer Loyalty in Social Media with Smart Inbound Marketing

Many marketers out there still think that a Facebook “like” is a proof of customer loyalty. Or when the do promotions and give coupons and freebies this will help to tie customers to their brand. But the “like” button is mostly clicked by expecting a reward to do so.

An increasing number of people who like a brand page are looking for valuable and helpful content.

COLLOQUY find out that promotions in the long run do not have an impact to customer experience!

Customer loyalty can be won and kept by encouraging them to spread the word about the brand they are satisfied with and help those customers to become brand advocates.

The today customer depends on his friends, family and social network when he is researching for new products and services on the web. Furthermore the today customer wants to be entertained and informed from brands and not overwhelmed with sales pitches.

Customers want brands to listen and to respond to their needs, wishes and complaint because this is what makes them feel understand.

The top five most popular things customers expects from a brand are:

1. Providing a great 24/7 customer service
2. Rewarding them for purchases, their feedback and referrals they bring in
3. Sending them exclusive and relevant offers and specials
4. Provide them with personalized products and services
5. To know them when they visit or call a brand

How can you utilize those above information to set your business apart from your competition and to fulfill your customer’s needs?

Ask yourself, what will future customers find about me when they research for products and services on the web which I have to offer also?

When the above described customers ask friends and family for recommendations on products and services, will they recommend you or your competition?

As people go online to research, and customers want to be informed and entertained, what do you do to inform and/ or to entertain your existing and future customers.

In simple words, how do you separate your brand from the competition?

To separate your brand from your competition you need to understand that those above stated five points are your business advantage when used wisely. When you are able to improve these points than you will be always several steps ahead of your competition, but only as long as you do not stop improving what you do!

Inbound marketing offers you a strategic and smart approach to be and to stay several steps ahead of your competition.

Inbound marketing is the marketing strategy that focuses on getting found by customers when they research online for products and services your business also has to offer.

With inbound marketing businesses “earn” their way to the customer and his loyalty, by publishing helpful information on a blog, in social media and forums.

Infographic: Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing can help you to:

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget in the long term
B. Make you stand out of your competition
C. Generate a massive amount of qualified and hot business leads
D. Improve your lead conversion rate by up to 55%
E. Increase your loyal customers and sales

What do you think are you willing to take the effort by doing the above?

June 20, 2012June 22, 2012

Beware of DocStoc or the Reason why Slideshare is the Market Leader

As many marketers and businesses I use Slideshare, DocStoc and other document hosting sites to upload content to make it available to different audiences.

For a couple of years now I used DocStoc to upload more than hundred documents for the reason of content marketing which in exchange brought me a small amount of interested visitors to our website and blog.

Today I went again to upload information to several document hosting sites and also on DocStoc. After I have done my upload successfully I discovered that only thirty documents are visible in my documents library.

I try to research what happen with the other documents which I have uploaded in the past years. Because all documents uploaded on other document hosting sites are still there, visible and deliver targeted traffic to our blog and website.

I was not able to find my remain articles so I decided to send an support request to DocStoc to clear what happen with my document where I have put time and effort to produce ant to upload to DocStoc.

Here is the email I have sent to DocStoc:

Several hours later I received a response mail from DocStoc:

Yes, you read it right. By the way you are able to read, obviously “Jane” from DocStoc was not…

DocStoc deleted my account!

Nobody asked them to do so. “Jane” from DocStoc didn’t answer my support request but deleted my work.

When I started out with document hosting sites, my first choice was the market leader Slideshare, which has been acquired from LinkedIn several weeks ago. After some research I discovered further document hosting sites and registered there to spread the inBlurbs content, like whitepapers, articles and press releases.

We use a paid Slideshare account which offers also a lead generation and analytics feature. As I used Slideshare and the other document hosting sites like issuu.com and scribd.com I never discovered any problems.

Marketing Tip: Ensure that sources where you invest time and effort to spread content are reliable to not waste your time.

Did you had the same experiences with DocStoc? Post them here in the comment section below.

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UPDATE 06/22/12: DocStoc Restored my account. Thanks DocStoc.

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Infographic: How Brands Listen in the Digital Age

4 Reasons why companies should leverage Twitter:

7 Steps how can you profit from Twitter?

Infographic: Twitter Marketing

Infographic: Social Sharing Trends

Infographic: How Brands Listen in the Digital Age

Here are some marketing tips you can use right away.

Give away free content

You need to invest time/ money to produce content

Give away GREAT content

Infographic: The Rise of Content Marketing

Six great reasons to consider content marketing to generate more business

Blogging companies get…

How to start content marketing?

Infographic: The Inbound Marketing Multiplier

Social Media Infographic

You can achieve a better social media ROI when you follow these four easy steps:

Infographic: True Colors

The past and the present (still for some) of marketing:

The marketing strategy:

Time frame for inbound marketing brand building?

How much is inbound marketing?

The top five most popular things customers expects from a brand are:

Infographic: Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing can help you to: