Archive for the ‘HubSpot’ Category
HubSpot TV Rewind with @MarketingProfs on Content Rules
In last week’s episode of HubSpot TV guest Ann Handley, Cheif Content Officer of MarketingProfs.com, stopped by to share some marketing tips from her new book Content Rules Book and to chat it up with Mike Volpe about the week’s stories.
Mike and Ann also discussed a story, published by Paul Verna from eMarketer.com, which found that companies with a blog experience better over all internet presence. Research done by HubSpot has also come to the same conclusion, sites with blogs receive 55% more traffic than sites without and 97% more inbound links to the company’s site.
Mike and Ann also covered the launch of Google’s “Instant Search” which automatically searches as you type. The two concluded that instant search will lead to lengthier search queries, which is important to consider when designing site pages.
Be Sure to tune in to HubSpot TV today at 4pm with special guest Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs.
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HubSpot TV Rewind 9/10/10
In last week’s episode of HubSpot TV guest Ann Handley, Cheif Content Officer of MarketingProfs.com, stopped by to share some marketing tips from her new book Content Rules Book and to chat it up with Mike Volpe about the week’s stories.
Mike and Ann also discussed a story, published by Paul Verna from eMarketer.com, which found that companies with a blog experience better over all internet presence. Research done by HubSpot has also come to the same conclusion, sites with blogs receive 55% more traffic than sites without and 97% more inbound links to the company’s site.
Mike and Ann also covered the launch of Google’s “Instant Search” which automatically searches as you type. The two concluded that instant search will lead to lengthier search queries, which is important to consider when designing site pages.
Be Sure to tune in to HubSpot TV today at 4pm with special guest Chris Brogan, President of New Marketing Labs.
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Marketing Experts Say Google and Facebook Will Decline in Importance
I’ve been doing some research with Justin Levy from the Inbound Marketing Summit (save 50% by using code EBOOK50), which included surveying 19 of the marketing experts who will be speaking at the event. Today we are releasing a free ebook and webinar of the results of our inbound marketing research.
Today, 80% of the inbound marketing experts see Google or Facebook as the most important website for marketers to use.
But 3 years from now, the importance of both Google and Facebook decline, and over 25% of the inbound marketing experts think something new (“other”) will be the most important website for marketers.
Here is the complete ebook as a presentation, or you can get your own copy and watch the webinar.
What do you think the “Other” thing will be? What has the potential to be more important then Google and Facebook in 3 years for marketers? Leave a comment below.
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Understanding Social Gaming’s Marketing Application
The following is a guest post by Shannon Suetos is an expert writer on business phone systems based in San Diego, California. She writes extensively for Resource Nation, an online resource that provides expert advice on purchasing and outsourcing decisions.
As a marketer one of your duties is to get your company’s brand awareness out to the right audience—and that is sometimes easier said than done. Staying up to date on the latest tactics is a must for your niche market, and social media seems to be the golden child for some. Although this is true, I think most of us are getting tired of reading about how Twitter will make your company thousands of dollars a week.
Depending on your company’s target audience, social media games could be a great way to keep them engaged in your brand and help with word-of-mouth marketing (which is why social media can do so well). MTV is the latest company to roll out a Facebook game entitled, “I Woo You.”
According to the Facebook page participants will, “date 60 different characters, including MTV CAST MEMBERS. Ask them questions, and then rate their answers. The I Woo You Meter lets you know if you’re a match. Go on a date and post your date photo on your wall.”
Damon Burrell, VP of marketing at MTV, said, “the true strategic question is how does your brand engage with your audience in a relevant and valuable way? We feel that this is one of those ways for us to be able to do that in a fun and engaging manner.”
MTV is not the first to implement these type of games. At the beginning of summer, 7-Eleven teamed up with Farmville creator Zynga to, “allow millions of consumers the ability to redeem exclusive virtual items with Zynga games (Farmville and Mafia wars) at their local 7-Eleven store.”
Taking the lead from this promotion, Rixty has decided to team up with Coinstar to, “give 10 free Facebook Credits in exchange for trading their coins for a cash voucher at one of 10,000 Coinstar locations, which are usually in grocery stores. That’s about $1 in value. On the back of the voucher ticket, you get a web address that you can enter on your computer. Then you claim your Facebook Credits and can proceed to use them in games and other apps on Facebook.”
What’s the Point?
So why are these heavy hitters participating in social games? Well like Burell said above, it helps customers engage with your brand. It is also a great way to collect information such as email addresses and other contact information—better than purchased lists and outbound marketing.
Nielsen found that, “online games overtook personal email to become the second most heavily used activity behind social networks – accounting for 10 percent of all U.S. Internet time. Email dropped from 11.5 percent of time to 8.3 percent.”
What to Look For
Before implementing a social game you need to have two main points defined—is your target audience participating in social games, and how will you measure its success. If you can define these two points, you will be able to decide how and if a social game can bring in revenue.
One of the main reasons many companies do not participate in social media in general is they can’t tie it to any type of ROI. This is largely due to the fact that they don’t define any reason for participating other than other companies are doing it.
Chances are if your major competitors are engaging in social media, you should be as well. Before you dive in, make sure you take the time to plan out any initiatives you will be doing. (tweeting, blogs, creating games etc.) Start out small and test the waters before dumping a large amount of money into social media campaigns.
You might not be a heavy hitter like MTV and 7-Eleven, but that doesn’t mean social media games could be a waste of time for you. Take the time to research and plan and you could be seeing a great benefit from these games.
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4 Reasons Your Website Sucks
I know, you’ve been working really hard on your website. You’ve made sure that every pixel is perfect, every menu margin magnificent, and every title titanic. Unfortunately, it’s entirely too easy to make a beautiful website that, well, sucks.
Here are four ways things can go horribly, terribly wrong:
- Your website isn’t findable. Some of the biggest companies in the world have websites that aren’t well optimized and they still get found. Unfortunately for the rest of us, that isn’t an option. This is especially a problem for gorgeous sites that are all flash and only have one page for Google or Bing to index, but many new websites don’t optimize page titles or URLs–key places for telling search engines what your pages are about.
- Your website only displays the news about the cool stuff your company has done. Ummmm… that’s nice, but if I’m a prospect, I don’t care about how cool you think you are–I care about how you’re going to solve my problems. If your website only has navigation about who you are & what you do and a news feed, it sucks.
- Your website is so slick and cool that people have no idea where to click. It’s no secret that people have short attention spans when they surf the web, so making your page so “cool” that you’ve hidden all obvious navigation is a really good way to increase your bounce rate. If you only have two buttons, they had better be the best two buttons and serve your prospects’ needs exactly, or they’re not going to engage. Even better, though, would be to give your prospects enough options that you can address their varying needs, depending on where they are in the research or buying process.
- Your website automatically plays sound. Maybe you have an auto-playing video or some funky background music, but it plays instantly. From a pet peeve perspective, this should really be #1, but it’s less of a marketing problem and more of an annoyance. Your prospects probably don’t suddenly want a blasting presentation to come out of their computer speakers while they’re sitting in quiet cube farms. They’ll quickly close the browser tab rather than becoming engaged, filling out lead forms, and eventually buying your product or service.
If you want to “unsuckify” your website, make sure it has the following:
- Enough well-optimized pages that people can find you
- How you’re going to solve your prospects’ problems
- Clear navigation & calls-to-action
- And for the love of everything, no automatically playing noise or video!
Taking these actions will go a very long way towards making sure your prospects stay on your site, interact with your company, and become customers!
Photo courtesy of Alicia Voorhies
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Marketers Gravitate to Facebook As Most Trusted Referral Source
Marketing your product in a trusted environment translates into utter success for businesses. No wonder companies rush to populate different social networks in an attempt to dominate the most credible one.
But which channel do marketers themselves trust the most for referrals and product reviews? That would be Facebook, a recent HubSpot poll showed.
During HubSpot’s webinar, Digital Word Of Mouth: Let Your Customers Transform Your Marketing, we asked attendees to list their most trusted source for receiving product recommendations. The majority of respondents, 40 out of the 124 participants, selected Facebook above Yelp, Twitter and advertising. Company website ranked second in this survey, with 37 respondents recognizing the importance of this channel.
What is most interesting about this quick survey is that only six people voted for advertising as a trusted referral source. These results emphasize the ineffectiveness of outbound marketing as a recommendation system. Instead of consuming TV ads in a passive environment, online audiences prefer to interact in a dialectical environment. They would reach out to their contacts for product tips and reviews rather than rely on a corporate brand message.
The fact that Facebook has emerged as the leader in social networks doesn’t erase people’s fear of confidentiality breaches. Many times have online audiences expressed concern about their privacy on Facebook, and marketers need to be careful not to exasperate that fear. Businesses should encourage authentic discussions and celebrate the two-way communication thriving in the new media landscape.
As recent research by research company Vision Critical shows, “consumers trust a brand message when it is discussed or recommended by friends, family or contacts within a social network.” According to the study, coupons, product photos and videos also rank high as credible avenues for product placements. Not surprisngly, banner ads are the worst performing in terms of earning the trust of audiences.
This prioritization of interactive referral systems before static, outbound channels gives rise to a new, dynamic culture. It is an environment “where likes matter more than links,” as Jenna Wortham of The New York Times noted in a recent article.
Free eBook: Understanding Digital Word of Mouth Marketing
Learn how word-of-mouth marketing has evolved online and how you can use these changes to your advantage
Download the free ebook for tips about getting yours customers to evangelize your brand.
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New Twitter Launches, Helps Multimedia Marketers
Twitter.com users will soon be using a new interface. Yesterday, the company announced that a new design for Twitter.com will roll out to users over the next couple of weeks. As you can see from the screenshots and video below, besides design changes, the major improvement to the new Twitter interface is the integration of images and videos in streams.
Check out this video of the new Twitter.com:
Twitter is partnering with DailyBooth, DeviantART, Etsy, Flickr, Justin.TV, Kickstarter, Kiva, Photozou, Plixi, Twitgoo, TwitPic, TwitVid, USTREAM, Vimeo, yfrog, and YouTube to display content from these services directly on Twitter.com.
While many other subtle changes have been mentioned about the new Twitter.com, from watching the video Twitter produced, it is clear that the service is growing up and that these changes set the foundation for future plans to generate revenue and increase engagement for users and marketers.
Marketing Takeaway
Twitter just became a little more like Facebook and other social networks with the incorporation of multimedia into user streams. However, Twitter is still a different type of network and users interact with each in different ways. Twitter is about discovering new people and information. By adding multimedia into the new design, Twitter.com reinforces the need for marketers to become content creators. These changes demonstrate that text isn’t the only method for telling a story online.
As a marketer using Twitter and other social media sites to interact with customers, it will be important to create interesting multimedia content and distribute it via services, like those the Twitter media partners listed above, to ensure that content is easily consumed on Twitter and other social networks.
What do you think of the new look of Twitter.com?
The Science of Twitter: State of the Twittersphere Meets Sales 2.0
How do you measure the ROI of tweeting?
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5 Ways to Champion a Successful Marketing Transformation
I bought an MP3 player about 2 years after they were officially cool. I thought it would be an easy transition, yet the move from familiar pre-MP3 gear to something brand new was challenging. I could use a CD player in my sleep, why change? I had mountains of already paid for CDs and other gadgets, why disregard those investments? While I recognized the way of the music-listening future, getting there took more effort than simply making an MP3 purchase.
The same can be said for inbound marketing. The desire and necessity to join the new way of marketing is there, but the existing processes, tools, and investments can create a daunting barrier to change. Change management is extremely important when transitioning to something new, especially when the change must be embraced and implemented by an entire organization.
With this in mind, below are 5 tips for setting change management goals, to help you transform your organization’s marketing:
1. Game plan: The decision has been made, and the transition to inbound marketing is going to happen…now what? To kick-off the transformation, ask yourself (and your team) the following questions:
- Why did we make the decision to adopt inbound marketing?
- What are our long term goals related to inbound marketing?
- What are our immediate goals?
With this information, create a Transition Plan that is accessible to your entire team. The plan should answer the questions listed above, in addition to anticipated milestone and “Go Live” dates, to provide full transparency for when changes are expected. Keep in mind that your plan doesn’t have to be a detailed 150 page thesis. Keep it simple for yourself and your team.
2. Outline: What do your current marketing processes look like? Who in your organization lives and breathes these processes to do their job? One of the biggest roadblocks to a successful implementation of any change comes from plain old confusion. When expectations are not clearly defined, and new tasks are not outlined, there is a tendency to hang onto the “familiar” rather than move forward with something new. Spend time with each person in your organization who will be impacted by the shift to inbound marketing, to ensure next steps are clearly defined. Schedule 1-on-1 sessions to outline and discuss the differences in their day-to-day tasks and general responsibilities. It’s extremely important to make sure everyone has a clear understanding of the changes to their job, and the expectations associated so they can successfully work toward marking inbound marketing happen.
3. Adoption: Once a change is recognized and its impact is understood, the third hurdle is putting the change into action. Getting your team to adopt and drive the changes that have been explained and outlined is critical. Rather than saying “Ready, go!” – make the adoption a collaborative effort. It’s important to build momentum and excitement around the changes to increase buy-in, satisfaction, and motivation. How many people are involved in the transition process? Come up with a contest to “Name the Change,” and the winner becomes the “Brand Champion” of the project. What is the date of your first milestone, and why is it so important? Can you have a happy hour after to celebrate? Think of fun ways to help brand the project, and to rally and encourage your team. Change management projects are often thought of as daunting and overwhelming. While there are certainly challenges involved, creating an atmosphere of excitement and collaboration will help build morale and develop change agents among your team.
4. Learning: You also want to make sure there is a learning plan in place. Do you have an internal learning coach or trainer who can help coordinate some training sessions to your entire team, or select teams based on their new responsibilities? Take a look at Inbound Marketing University and make it a requirement for your teams to get certified, or if you are a HubSpot customer, take a look through Success to build a curriculum. Ask your team to subscribe to the HubSpot Blog, and read through the content on the Inbound Marketing Hub. Schedule “Lunch’ n Learns” around new topics, using HubSpot webinars as your teaching materials. Providing resources in conjunction with some formal training will build the confidence of your team, and provide them with the knowledge needed to successfully drive change.
5. Share: As with any major project or transition in an organization, communication is key. Keep everyone who is part of the change involved and informed. If possible, create a Wiki Page or internal blog to share ideas, questions, concerns and updates. If your team lives within the same office space, dedicate a free whiteboard to your change management project, where people can post updates, announce contests, brainstorm, and share questions. Hold a weekly status meeting, and plan review and contingency sessions around key milestones. Keeping the lines of communication open is key.
As with any change, a complete transition does not happen overnight. Keep these 5 tips for setting change management goals in mind as you champion the inbound marketing movement in your organization, and don’t burden yourself by thinking everything has to happen all at once. You do not have to “quit” outbound marketing cold turkey. Use the Change Management GOALS (Game plan, Outline, Adoption, Learning, Share) to successfully ease your organization into inbound marketing.
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Poll: Marketers Uncertain About Lead Value
How much is a referral lead worth to you? If your answer is “Don’t Know,” add yourself to the majority of marketers who gave the same answer in a recent HubSpot poll.
During HubSpot’s webinar about the power of customer evangelism, we asked attendees how much a lead was worth to them. Though we offered a broad range of answer choices—from $100 per lead to more than $10,000 per lead—the majority of respondents said they weren’t sure about the value of their leads. With surprise, we found out that 40 out of the 102 respondents “didn’t know.”
It turns out these results aren’t that surprising. In a June survey, EXHIBITOR magazine found out that “only 47% of companies track leads generated at trade shows and events throughout the sales cycle.” The survey results also showed that the overwhelming majority of companies don’t measure lead-to-customer conversion rates as part of their ROI reports.
Why is not tracking lead value problematic?
The fastest path to failure is to quit assigning real value to metrics. If the value of a lead is unknown, you won’t be investing in lead generation. No budget is allocated to initiatives whose performance is untrackable. This, in turn, can result in lower marketing performance and slow down the sales cycle.
If you are unsure about your cost per lead, consider reading HubSpot’s 2010 State of Inbound Marketing report. That will give you an idea of how much inbound marketing can save you in terms of lead generation. As a reminder, businesses that invest in inbound marketing achieve 60% lower cost per lead than businesses spending on outbound channels.
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3 Key Factors For Improving Ecommerce Conversion Rates
While an ecommerce site will always be focused around driving transactions, capturing the huge non-transacting majority for emarketing presents a major revenue opportunity and marketing challenge.
The very best converting ecommerce sites make extensive use of remarketing tools to improve their ultimate transaction rate and retain visitors who are not yet ready to buy. These sites capture visitor information early, use value-added marketing offers, and have unique product page content beyond the boring manufacturer’s same-old template.
For ecommerce sites that don’t convert at 18% or better, implementing non-transactional leads can greatly improve their ultimate conversion rate. A poor implementation, however, can lead to an even poorer site conversion rate as traffic is siphoned off the primary ecommerce funnel. There are three critical pieces to a successful implementation of offer-driven lead paths. They are:
- Call-to-action button
- Landing page with a form
- Thank you page
Keep reading for implementation and design specifics on these three key pieces.
Call-to-Action Buttons That Don’t Cannibalize Transactions
A call-to-action button’s purpose is to capture interest and divert traffic that does not intend to transact immediately. The button itself needs to have specific design and language characteristics to accomplish this goal and not remove people from the primary transactional funnel.
Two critical basics of non-transactional call-to-action buttons design on ecommerce sites:
- Clearly identify the buttons as paths to learning more, not continuing down the purchase path. Visitors will self-select to engage if they are interested but not ready to purchase. Use messaging like “Looking for more? Download the buyer’s guide to…” or “Need more information before you buy?” to make this crystal clear.
- If the button is placed as a secondary conversion option in conjunction with “buy now” messaging, it should be less eye-catching than the “buy now” button or messaging.
Landing Pages That Capitalize on an Indicator of Interest
Once a site visitor clicks a call-to-action button, they move to a landing page. A landing page is a page with one singular purpose: collect visitor information (a name and email) in return for an asset (a buyer’s guide, ebook, factsheet).
As with the call-to-action button, below are 2 critical considerations particular to ecommerce sites:
- Visitors to your non-transactional landing pages have already indicated interest in downloading the asset and not converting. Take off the sales hat for just a moment; time to allow visitors to get what they want as simply as possible. That means no “buy now” or product-level messaging and a relatively short form.
- Briefly express the value of your giveaway to capitalize on the previous indicator of interest from the call to action button click. Recall that visitors to the landing page have expressed that they are not ready to purchase right now and are looking for more information. It’s better to capture their information here than have them defect and buy from a competitor next week.
Thank You Pages That Don’t Maroon Shoppers
After a visitor indicates interest by clicking a call-to-action and completes the form on the landing page, the site needs to uphold its end of the bargain and deliver the asset. The most effective way to deliver the asset is on a dedicated thank you page. On this page, the asset is can be linked along with hooks back into the main site’s funnel. This page may even remain open as people peruse your content, so keeping links back to the main ecommerce funnel may yield some additional utility.
Two important elements for thank you pages on ecommerce sites:
- Keep the first, clearest link on the page for the asset. People have come through the landing page and expect a simple method of receiving their asset. Give it to them.
- Other links on the page can fall into two categories, depending on your goals. The links can either continue visitors in the “learn more” mode, which they are already in, and link to a blog or other informational assets. Alternatively, if the asset given away on the thank you page helps visitors make a final buying decision, follow-up links can now direct traffic back into the main ecommerce site funnel. Now is the time to put on your sales hat back on and move people back into the product pages, if you like.
Putting Non-Transactional Ecommerce Leads in Their Place
When the time comes to make a purchase, would you rather have been in communication with a lead for 2 weeks? Or would you rather they make their own unaided decision to type your site into the address bar?
By following the tips above, ecommerce marketers can begin to grow their up-funnel email list and increase customer retention in the critical consideration stage that precedes an online purchase. The best-converting ecommerce sites in the world are doing this already.
Photo Credit: Яick Harris
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