Content Marketing | inBlurbs Inbound Marketing Agency

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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June 6, 2012June 6, 2012

How to grow your revenue through Social Customer Support

A recent survey from Oracle found out that a growing number of customers are reaching out to companies for support through social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Yelp and thought their corporate blog.

Those users expect companies to response quickly, in less than a day, to their requests. The quick response and serious reaction to requests or events which happen is an essential part to profit from the communication which breaks out. To wait hours to give comments or answers could cost the essential market and marketing advantage.

But customers do not only contact brands for support requests they also often reach out to them to learn more about new products and services. If a brand is able to publish important product and services related news exclusively to their network first this would help to improve loyalty with their network. This can also result in an improvement of revenue in the long term.

About one third of surveyed customers expect to reach a customer service representative or product expert when they reach out to a brand.

The possible benefits for companies who stick to serious social media communication can be huge. They can build a solid base to build brand advocates who spread the word on their behalf.

One of the most successful ways to start the conversation is to publish interesting content on a blog and spread it to social networks where the target audience is around. Content marketing is the name of this strategy.

Companies which publish remarkable and buyer persona oriented content, means you should talk about topics your customer is interested in rather than abut topics you are interested in, show their expertise and build trust with their audience.

4 Reasons why companies should leverage social media:

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

Social Media has proven to be a great source of targeted high quality leads for B2C and B2B. An increasing number of marketers see lead generation as their greatest online marketing challenge.

Infographic: Social Customer Service

7 Steps how you can you profit from social media?

1. Start a social media presence. Complete your profile there
2. Research for industry related groups and people. Become a member and invite those people to your network
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 social media and ask for feedback for your publication
5. Build landing pages and offer exclusive and valuable content for download. So you generate laser target high quality industry related leads
6. Measure your activities
7. Improve your activities and repeat

Social customer support is your great chance to showcase the quality and dedication of your company. Use every request as an opportunity to make a WOW feeling with the person who reaches out to your company.

June 1, 2012

B2B Marketing Social Networks for more Business Leads

Social Media Marketing has been one of the successful marketing strategies for marketers and companies online in recent years.

There are some major social media communities and emerging social media communities that can help business to improve their marketing strategies online. These social media networks help in providing b2b marketing solutions and generate quality marketing tips for new business online.

This article discusses about using 6 top social media communities for b2b marketing best practices and an eye of b2b marketing data giving a glimpse of the power of these social media communities.

Top 6 social networks for B2B marketing solutions

Social Networks have changed the marketing strategies for businesses online with wide range of advantages and quality leads for their business. There are quite a few social networks that help in providing b2b marketing solutions. This article focuses on top 6 social networks that had a major impact on small business b2b marketing.

Facebook
Google+
Pinterest
Twitter
LinkedIn
Youtube

Infographic: Social Media B2B

Given below are some of the key points on using these social networks for b2b sales strategies.

Using Facebook for b2b Viral Marketing

Social Media is viral and if your business is successfully promoted in social media, you are very much successful in generating quality leads for your business online.

One of the major social media networks that have a huge impact on b2b marketing solutions is facebook. Given below are some of the b2b marketing best practices with facebook

Build your brand presence in facebook

If your brand presence in facebook is successful, you are likely to generate quality leads through facebook. Some of the best ways to generate b2b marketing leads through facebook is by bringing more visibility for your facebook page and generate quality leads using latest facebook apps.

Use Latest features of facebook for optimized lead generation

With the new facebook timeline, you can now share the latest updates regarding your business thus bringing more engagement for your facebook fans. Use the latest features such as pins and stars to bring more visibility for your lead generation pages.

Use the popular features such as open graph to know your visitors approach which is one of the key points for your b2b sales strategies.

Build your business community

It is important to build your own business community to stay ahead of your competitors. For this it is very much necessary to brand your facebook page and update it with the latest happenings. Use your page to provide useful information for your community.

Using Google+ for B2B Lead generation

Google+ is one of the popular social communities which are just started receiving popularity with Google indexing and prioritizing it in search results. Millions of users have already started using Google+

There is huge potential for B2b marketers to generate leads through Google+. Some of the best ways to use Google+ for business are

– Use the feature of Hangout to create live stream of your business hangout. The latest feature allows up to nine people to hangout using the video function of Google+
– Use Circles to share your content. It is very important to generate business specific content that is interested by users in your Google+. The best information that can be shared through your circles are virtual conferences, events, interviews and webinars which are very much useful for B2b marketers
– More is your content in Google+, more is the visibility of your content is search engines especially Google+.

Using twitter for B2b Marketing

Twitter is another top social media community that helps in B2b Viral marketing. Given below are some of the ways b2b marketers can use twitter

– Use B2b Marketing with your blogs and share your blog content in twitter. This increases visibility of your business in twitter.
– Increase reach of your business in twitter by increasing your followers. As your business reach increases, more people know about your business which is one of the key B2b viral marketing strategy.
– Another way of increasing reach and visibility is by asking your employees to tweet your business content. Sharing buttons for your B2b Marketing blogs and allowing your employees to share your business content brings more visibility for your business.

Using LinkedIn for B2b Marketing solutions

LinkedIn is one of the powerful social networks for b2b marketing solutions. As it is professional network, you have major chances for generating b2b marketing leads with LinkedIn.

Some of the best B2b marketing practices of using LinkedIn are

– Index your B2b marketing blog in LinkedIn and share your latest contest in LinkedIn. This brings more approach for your business in LinkedIn.
– Use Applications like Slideshare to share your business presentations in LinkedIn.
– Create your own company page and share business updates through your status updates and group updates. You can also promote your business products through the products tab in LinkedIn. Show your creativity in generating impressive business promotion strategies through LinkedIn.
– Another important feature of LinkedIn is email marketing, one of the important B2b Viral marketing strategies. Mail your LinkedIn members with email marketing feature of LinkedIn.

Using Pinterest for B2b marketing solutions

Pinterest is another powerful social network for generating B2b marketing leads for new business. Given below are some of the best ways to leverage your b2b marketing solution with Pinterest

– One of the best ways to promote b2b marketing through Pinterest in developing quality boards and creating pins in suitable boards. This gives members flexibility to find useful information through boards.
– New product offerings, services can be pinned through suitable boards which increase interest in readers to visit the boards and thereby generating leads.
– Use Pin info graphics, data and charts to know more about your business reach and thereby optimizing your marketing strategies in Pinterest.
– Share useful E-books and content information through your pins.

Using YouTube for B2b Marketing solutions

YouTube is one of the popular social media networks which can be used for quality B2b lead generation. Some of the ways of using YouTube for your b2b marketing are given below

– Share your top level management and interviews in YouTube.
– Share informative videos related to your business products, new launches and reviews of your business products in Youtube.
– How to videos, product tours and optimized YouTube search are some of the ways to generate b2b marketing leads with YouTube.

These are some of the best examples of using social networks for b2b lead generation. Consult the inbound marketing experts in optimizing marketing strategies in these social networks thereby increasing profits.

May 24, 2012May 24, 2012

How Content Marketing Works For You Too To Get Business Leads? Give to Get

The tremendous 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!

Video: What you can learn for your Marketing from the Greatful Dead

Infographic: Content Marketing

Here is how content marketing can work for you to attract new customers to your business like a magnet. To empower your content marketing you should start with a corporate blog.

Some facts about the power of blogging: Blogging companies get…

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

The next steps you should do are to craft further buyer persona oriented content like:

– Press releases
– Pictures
– Whitepapers
– HowTos
– EBooks
– Video

Take care to include a call to action in each of your content pieces. This ensures that the user exactly will discover what to do next.

Each of this these pieces of content are outposts of your business which increase your visibility, brand reach and can direct more future customers to your business.

You should also distribute these pieces of content to social media and sites like y Prweb.com, Flickr.com, Pinterest.com, Slideshare.net and YouTube.com to increase the reach of your message.

Buyer Persona Sheet:

To get the most out of your content creation and marketing efforts you should think of a strategic way to measure and improve your efforts. Inbound marketing is the way to get the most out in business leads and revenue for your business.

Presentation: Inbound Marketing

May 3, 2012May 4, 2012

What is the most effective SEO Tactic? Creating Content!

A MarketingSherpa research found out that creating content is one of the most effective tactics for improving a website’s SEO.

User-Generated Content encountered for Organic search up to 10%, and lead conversion up 125%.

Companies who create content, operate a corporate blog and update it frequently have 55% more website visitors.

57% of companies which operate a corporate blog report to have acquired new customers through their blog.

Corporate Blogging

Blogging gets companies 55% more Traffic and up to 97% more Inbound Links. Companies who blog get 434% more indexed pages in search engines and up to 25x times more business leads.

Video Content Creation

Business who utilize video content creation, encounter up to 300% more monthly unique visitors, and 100% longer average time-on-site per visitor. The average time spent on pages with videos is 3-minutes. Generating video content increases search engine traffic by 157% and page views by 63% unique visitors by 100%.

User generated reviews on ecommerce sites

Content marketing ways like product ratings and reviews are proven to increase conversion rates on product pages.

Visitors of ecommerce pages should be able to include pictures and videos with their reviews. The way like sited as eBay and Amazon do to provide an overall rating are additional ways to increase website interaction.

The value of reviews increases as they are moderated within a short time period of about 24 hrs.

Also sharing these reviews to social media sites like Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and other is a great way to distribute this user generated content.

Infographic: The Rise Of Conten Marketing

All above activities are visible to search engines and can lead to a massive growth in traffic.

Creating content takes time, money and expertise. When you need inspiration on which content your audience is interested in, just ask them and they will tell you.

April 11, 2012

3 Reasons why to outsource Social Media and Inbound marketing for your Restaurant

All successful businesses have one thing in common, they have great marketing and they care about their customers and restaurants are no exemption.

For a restaurant to get new guests the audience needs to know that you exist and what you have to offer. So you need to get found!

When you operate or just start a restaurant it can make sense to use Groupon for the first six months to help boost your reach so more people learn about your restaurant. But when the first six month are over you need to have a holistic strategy prepared to attract new guests to your restaurant and keep the actual coming back.

But what if you do not have the time and the experience in house to do so? And which strategy should you use, which one brings the big bang for your marketing buck?

Inbound marketing has been the most successful Internet marketing strategies in recent years.

Many businesses from different industries are using inbound marketing since about ten years as it is highly productive for their business. This article will give you a few examples why restaurant businesses should outsource their marketing and advantages in doing so.

Inbound marketing has been the successful and cheapest marketing trends in online world now. Inbound marketing generated leads have a proven 62% lesser Cost per Lead (CPL) and an up to 55% higher conversion rate! It simply outperforms any other way of marketing like TV, Radio, Print Media, Mass mail, Trade shows, Pay per click, Cold calling, etc.

All major brands and thousands of small and mid size businesses have switched to these powerful marketing strategies. Inbound marketing needs expertise, dedication and commitment and companies can benefit by hiring a professional inbound marketing agency. It is beneficial for companies to outsource their marketing in order to concentrate more on their business and leave their marketing strategies for the experts in the field.

Infographic: Dining and Restaurant Reservation Trends

Advantages of Outsourcing Marketing for Restaurant

Restaurant business is popular though its wide opprotunites it offers. Hundreds of success stories show and prove how money can be made by operating a good restaurant. Chains like Burger Kind, KFC prove this. Also celebrities have discovered the restaurant business as a profitable way to make extra revenue.

With increasing competition, regular restaurants have also started their business online and taking reservations and orders. With many competitors creeping up, it is very much important for the restaurant owners to get themselves updated with the latest marketing trends online to stay out of the crowd.

1. Get found online through inbound marketing

Main requirement of restaurant industry is the word of mouth marketing and getting new customers. So it is important for the businesses in restaurant industry to concentrate on their competence and outsource the marketing it for the inbound marketing experts to lead new guests to their restaurant.

Main advantage of inbound marketing is to get found online at the start to the customers. By hiring marketing experts who use the latest social media marketing and analytical tools for analysis, companies need not worry about the fast changing marketing trends and strategies.

2. Marketing Experts help you in Social Media and Content Marketing

Social Media and content marketing through blogging have increased in popularity as consumers are increasingly looking online for reputable sources to spend their money. Content marketing is increasingly used by companies to get new customers to their business.

If we take an example, companies that blog get 55% more visitors to their business website. So it is very much important to use these types of marketing strategies to gain new customers for your restaurant as well.

Another important strategy that has been successful is the social media branding for business and being active in social media. It is very much important to update your social media profiles regularly as search engines have started indexing your business social media content. This brings more prominence for your business in search engine marketing.

Not only search engines, your customers are also very much interested with the latest news, promotions and deals that are updated in your blog and social media.

To get potential leads and increase their prominence in market place, it is therefore useful to hire the marketing experts to do this job for restaurant industry.

3. Less Marketing Budgets and risk free business marketing strategy

Inbound marketing is the cheapest marketing strategy in the long term. It is easy to outsource your marketing by hiring an inbound marketing agency and build prominence on the web for your restaurant business.

By using various effective and creative marketing, inbound marketing agencies help to stay ahead of your competitors and get found online easily to potential customers.

Not only do the inbound marketing agencies help to do your marketing, they also help you to minimize your budgets on the long term.

Summary of what you get by executing a professional marketing strategy?

A. Save up to 62% of your marketing budget
B. Stand out of your competition
C. Generate a massive amount of leads
D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates
E. Increase your customers and sales

These are some of examples on how you can benefit by outsourcing your restaurants marketing to a professional inbound marketing agency. Start your inbound marketing today and stay ahead of your competitors

Read also:

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When you feel you need help to execute this combined marketing strategy just let us know. Request a free custom quote today!

December 3, 2010September 6, 2012

Inbound Marketing to attract Hedge Fund Investors

The hedge fund advertising and marketing is set under various restrictions. Hedge funds in the United States are under strict rules and regulations.

For example: Hedge funds in the US are only allowed to accept investments from accredited investors and institutions.

Here is what hedge funds can’t do for marketing

Hedge funds can’t do TV or radio commercials
Hedge funds can’t do print media advertisments

With these restrictions it seems that hedge funds are very limited in there ability to reach investors.

But wait, with inbound marketing a hedge fund can gain a competitive advantage against others, the smart way!

Here are some advantages of inbound marketing for hedge funds:

A. Save up to 60% of their marketing budgets.

B. Stand out of their competition.

C. Generate a massive amount of leads.

D. Get up to 55% higher lead conversion rates.

E. Increase investor rates the smart way.

Here are some things a hedge fund can do to become visible for there audience without violate any rules or regulations.

Starting a corporate blog

Starting a corporate blog is a great way to show expertise in the financial management field. No matter how many analysts or financial manager work for a hedge fund, each one should write a remarkable and interesting article once a week.

Each article is a chance to get found by potential accredited investors, build trust and increase the visibility of your financial brand. The more articles you publish the better for your competitive advantage and for your revenue in the long term as well.

Engage in social media

Engage in social media and make friends. Distribute and market your remarkable content through your social media channels. Encourage others to start discussions about your articles and keep the discussion active.

Show your success

Show your results, encourage your clients like institutions to give you testimonials and communicate open and honest with your audience. This is another important point which earns you credibility and trust and sets you apart from others in your field.

Generate leads with whitepapers, reports and eBooks

Produce whitepapers, reports and eBooks with valuable tips on what to take care when investing money. Show your expertise. Set lead capture – landing pages and catch these leads to stay in touch with them, nurture them and convert them to new investors.

Measure your results

Measure your results. This sets you in the position to know where to increase your engagement to get the most out for your marketing investment. In the long term this enables you to reach your audience more and more efficient.

Marketing take away tip: Inbound marketing seems to be the most effective strategy to support investor acquisition and branding within the high restricted hedge fund business, without to violate any rules, regulations and laws. To get your hedge fund seen from your target audience the smart way, start today and get help from inbound marketing professionals.