Social Media for business | inBlurbs Inbound Marketing Agency

May 8, 2013May 8, 2013

42 Profitable Reasons to Consider Inbound Marketing Strategy for Business

The proven and successful inbound marketing strategy is a great way to generate high quality leads.

Therefore inbound marketing is known as the “riskless” marketing strategy because of the activities done which are long lasting and bring an increasing stream of future customers to your offers.

Why is this inbound marketing such a great way to generate leads?

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.

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.

How can Inbound Marketing help you?

A. It saves you up to 62% of your marketing budget
B. Makes you stand out of your competition
C. Helps to generate a massive amount of leads
D. Gets you up to 55% higher lead conversion rates
E. Increases your customers and sales

Infographic: Inbound Marketing Rising

TOP 42 Reasons to Jumstart your Inbound Marketing NOW!

1. 60% of companies will execute an inbound marketing strategy in 2013.

2. Marketers dedicate 34% of their department budgets to inbound tactics, but only 11% to outbound.

3. 48% of marketers will increase spend on inbound marketing in 2013.

4. 34% of all leads generated in 2013 come from inbound marketing sources.

5. Inbound practices produce 54% more leads than traditional outbound leads.

6. 17% of marketers say traditional advertising and direct mail are less important than they were 6 months ago.

7. Traditional advertising and PPC deliver the least leads of any form of marketing.

8. Only 6% of marketing leads originate from advertising or PPC campaigns.

9. 34% of businesses cannot or don’t calculate overall inbound ROI in 2013.

10. Adopting a marketing/sales agreement saves companies with more than 200 employees $195.84 per new customer.

11. Only 24% of companies have a formal process for marketing/sales handoffs.

12. Companies who test are 75% more likely to show ROI for inbound marketing.

13. Inbound marketers double the average site conversion rate, from 6% to 12% total.

14. The average website conversion rate is 10%.

15. 81% of companies integrate inbound marketing with larger marketing goals.

16. Marketers spend 55% more of their time than their money on blogging.

17. 82% of marketers who blog on a daily basis have acquired a customer through blog content.

18. 57% of marketers who only blog once a month have acquired a customer through blogging.

19. Inbound marketers plan to hire an average of 9.3 people this year.

20. Only 18% of marketers are purely focused on developing quality content in 2013.

21. 25% of marketers cite reaching the right audience as their top priority for 2013.

22. Only 5% of marketers have no integration between inbound marketing and overall marketing goals.

23. 50% of marketers consider their companies primarily customer-focused.

24. 17% of sales teams and 11% of executives fully support inbound marketing efforts.

25. 73% of marketing agencies are implementing inbound strategies.

26. Only 41% of nonprofits report adopting inbound tactics for 2013.

27. Just 21% of enterprises assimilate inbound marketing with their overall marketing strategy.

28. 47% of CEOs and CMOs ignore formal marketing/sales agreement development.

29. Marketing is 125% more likely than sales to provide inbound resources.

30. Increasing total lead volume is the top priority for 21% of marketers.

31. Customers average a total of 9,100 leads after 1.5 years of inbound marketing.

32. 67% of marketers produced a blog last year.

33. Only 20% of marketers without a blog reported a positive ROI for 2012.

34. 27% of marketers report that both social media and email marketing produce the lowest total average lead costs.

35. 15% of marketers say SEO leads have the highest sales conversions.

36. Social media delivers 14% of all leads and 13% of all customers.

37. 52% of all marketers have found a customer via Facebook.

38. 43% of marketers have found a customer on LinkedIn.

39. 36% of marketers have found a customer on Twitter.

40. 41% of marketers have adjusted their budget due to the success of inbound marketing.

41. 41% of CEOs report inbound delivered measurable ROI.

42. Marketers with more than 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 leads per month.

Source:

February 9, 2013

Lead Generation with Inbound Marketing and PPC Advertising done right!

In the past years Pay per click marketing has been a quick and easy solution for businesses to generate leads. But to do paid advertisements is no long-lasting and holistic marketing strategy to depend on!

When you do PPC than you generate leads as long as you pay. When you stop your PPC campaign then you will not generate leads anymore! As simple as that!

Nevertheless PPC are still a great vehicle to get the word out but only when they are incorporated within a smart and holistic marketing strategy.

The proven and successful inbound marketing strategy is a great way to generate high quality leads. Therefore inbound marketing is known as the “riskless” marketing strategy because of the activities done which are long lasting and bring an increasing stream of future customers to your offers.

Why is this inbound marketing such a great way to generate leads?

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

Inbound marketing includes Blogging, Social Media, Lead Conversion, Lead Nurturing and Closed-Loop Analysis.

How can Inbound Marketing help you?

Example: The backbone of successful inbound marketing is the content creation strategy. To create outstanding in a corporate blog improves the trust, visibility and traffic to a business online. Published articles once done are literally online forever, are indexed through search engines and can be found from future customers.

The more articles you publish the more „digital outposts“which you build for your business and you get an increasing stream of future customers to your offers.

Businesses brand them self by creating and publishing original content. Businesses that create and publish remarkable content on the web and in social media:

• Establish thought leadership
• Elevate brand visibility and buzz
• Boosts SEO

Blogging has great advantages and here are the most important:

Blogging companies get up to…

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

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

Infographic: The Rise Of Content Marketing

PCC can’t deliver such results!

But you can incorporate Pay per Click Marketing into your Inbound Marketing Strategy.

Some thought how you could use PPC to increase your visibility:

PPC drives you quick results and you can use it to bridge over the time until your content marketing starts to show effect.

To get a better idea of what your audience is looking for before they hit your website and to adjust you’re SEO, you could start a PPC campaign. Look at the initial keyword data in your Google AdWords account and see which keywords have the highest click through rate (CTR). So you get the most popular keywords and custom tailor your content and your next PPC advertising.

You should bid on your own corporate terms, for example your business name or the names of your products. So when a interested person is researching online for your business, products and services the chances are good even if you are not in the top five Google Search result they will find you through your PPC ads.

Especially for local businesses PPC is a great way to get a targeted location based positioning to attract locals to the business front door. Local businesses can do advertising for a very specific location and do bidding on keywords related to this location. So they get laser targeted traffic from people who are maybe living around the corner in the next street.

There is not only Google AdWords where PPC campaigns can be done to reach the buyer persona in a great way.

Businesses can also do PPC ads on Twitter, Facebook and for B2B on LinkedIn.

One more thing to keep in mind when doing paid adverting!

You should direct your traffic to dedicated landing pages to convert those prospects into leads.

Take care to prepare a great offer on your landing page to motivate those prospects to leave their contact to follow up with them later and to get them into the lead nurturing process to convert them to sales.

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

March 27, 2012March 27, 2012

Why CEOs and CMOs should join the Socialsphere

BRANDfog found out that consumers and employees regard company leaders who engage on social media platforms positively.

Social media is a great way to showcase a C level executive’s personality and to offer a more personal insight view. C level executives have great opportunities to show personality to attract the right buyer persona and to get in touch with the right new future customer when this one is looking out for products and services.

Five reasons for C level executive’s to engage:

1. CEO participation in social media leads to improved brand image
2. CEO participation in social media leads to better communication
3. CEO activity on social networks influences employees’ faith in their company
4. Employees trust a company more when the CEO and leadership team communicate via social media
5. Buyers are more likely to buy from a company whose CEO uses social media

Financial services firm ING Direct Canada is known for its tweeting CEO, Peter Aceto.

Aceto says that using social media helps him gauge how employees and consumers view the company and its products:

“We saw it as a competitive advantage for us,” Aceto said. “There was no science. There was no ROI. We just needed to get going, start to build a community and learn about how we can use it.”

C level executives have the great opportunity to become real “Trust Agents of their Brand” with very less effort and the rewards can be huge!

If C level executives are not willing to listen and to communicate in social media their audience will turn to their competition which is willing, for sure. When brands are not willing to listen and to learn it simply shows that they do not care about their buyers. And why should their buyers than care to spend their money with them?

Infographic: How Executives Are Using Social Media

Click the graphic to enlarge

Marketing takeaway for C level executives:

Start in social media with a Twitter account and begin your communication. It is not time consuming as a blog and video and can be managed from your blackberry on the fly. As simple as that!

Further resources:

CEOs Who Tweet Held in High Regard

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February 2, 2012

How Word-of-Mouse can Drive Revenue for your business

The influence of user generated content on purchase decisions is increasingly growing. Especially the digital natives 18 to 34 account for this trend where products and services are recommended to friends, business partners and family.

User generated on-site content created by internet users includes reviews, comments, stories and questions.

A Study from Bazaarvoice shows that today up to 51% of internet users purchase decision is influenced by user generated content. It is influenced by their social network, family and friends.

Today people research on the internet and in social media about a brand, products and services to get the best deal for their buck.

It is crucial for any brand to know what these future clients will find about them on the web. What kind of ratings on rating sites, product reviews in their network, the brands communication from a blog, video, social media, press, etc.

What will these future customers find when they research about your business. Can this information they find about your company influence them positively to buy your products? Or will they influence them to buy the products from your competitor?

On the web you are what you publish, what are you? — David Meerman Scott —

Brands need to follow the general principles of authenticity and transparency and they need to understand there is a huge group of consumers right now who just do not trust them. They need to be open and give their audience the opportunity to talk about their brand. This will become the standard to the long term.

What brands can do to step into brand talk:

– Be where your target audience is around
– Listen to the conversation
– Respond to the conversation
– Publish and share buyer persona relevant and remarkable content on the web and in social media
– Ask for opinion about your products and your business
– Ask for any suggestions for product and services improvement
– Be authentic, be honest and be helpful
– Keep the conversation on run

The most important point: START IMMEDIATELY before your competitor does! A later uphill battle will cost you much more and it is doubtful that you can overtake them.

All of the points above increases trust, credibility and reputation of your brand. This is the currency on the web! When you are smart and build your currency the right way than you can gain a massive competitive edge.

What are you actually doing to get seen and found on the web when your target audience is looking for products or services you also have to offer?

Do you utilize one or all of the above suggestions to improve your chances on the market? If not you should start right away! It’s a mouse click economy; your competitor is only a mouse-click away.

Infographic: Bazaarvoice Millennials

Further important resources:

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August 24, 2011October 7, 2011

47 Percent of your competitors are not using Social Media for business

Hiscox surveyed US small business leaders and found out that 47% do not use social media for business. Furthermore 24% of the surveyed stated they do it when they have the time and about 14% indicated they don’t know enough about it.

Puuuuh, I don’t know what you think when you read such information but I ask myself: “What do the 24% mean when they say they do it when they have the time and the 14% which indicated they don’t know enough about it?

Does this mean they step into customer conversation when they have the time and the other seem even not to know how to communicate with their audience?

Maybe they do communication through telepathy or any other exciting media. I am just kidding, let’s get serious now.

Social media websites are communication channels. These communication channels are the places where your target audience is around, where they communicate, ask their network friends for product and services opinion and where major brands and thousands of small business worldwide are ready and prepared to step into the conversation with their audience.

Those businesses are aware they need to be active in social media, to get seen, to gain trust, credibility and to attract there audience to their products and services by publishing share worthy and remarkable content on the web and in social media.

Every business which treats social media as a serious communication channel to attract new customers and to stay in touch with their existing customers and their followers (potential future customers) is a step ahead of those 47% which not using social media for business.

Moreover, every business which treats social media marketing with a strategy and obligation instead of doing it when they have the time will profit from it.

Some facts about social media for business:

– Customer behavior has changed so your marketing must change!
– Internet and social media has changed the marketing push to a real time communication.
– 78% of internet users do research online before they buy!
– They spent 3x more time on blogs and social media than on email or other publications.
– 67% of the b2c and 41% of the b2b companies report to have acquired new customers through Facebook.
– 42% of the companies report to have acquired new customers through Twitter.

Social media makes your business found when your audience is looking! As social media is indexed through search engines, the chances are good that your business appears in search results of the big search engines when potential customers are researching on the web!

What does this mean for your business when you are active in social media actually? It’s simple you are a big step ahead of those 47% which are not.

You should improve your social media tasks and fine tune them step by step to improve your results.

Listen to your audience; this will help you to improve your business and products. When you listen carefully your audience will tell you what they want to buy from you. This gives you the opportunity to build custom tailored products and services to increase your customer base and revenue this way.

Marketing Tip: Keep an eye on your competition and look what they are doing, but do not try to copy them. Instead of look through other industries to get ideas and to adopt their creativity with social media marketing to your business! Don’t try to do your social media marketing perfect. It will never be perfect! Just do it as soon as you can and get the word out to your target audience and then refine it step by step.

Further important sources:

47 Percent of SMBs Still Not Using Social Media. Oy.

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