Posted by Patrick Murphy on Tue, Jan 19, 2010
Some companies only have a website to provide basic information and do not see any reason to invest in Inbound Marketing. What are they missing?
My sister is part of an Insurance company where they actually avoid any leads generated from their website. Over time they have found that these leads are well informed and price conscious. They cannot compete on price so avoid these conversations. So maybe there are some companies they do not need the power of HubSpot or the advantage of inbound marketing.
However when I spoke to a client (Redmond Molloy) they explained why HubSpot software was invaluable it came clear why all business's clients deserve HubSpot.
Their first need was the requirement to keep their existing clients informed of latest news, technology and procedures. HubSpot blogging technology allows Redmond Molloy to engage in a two-way dialogue with their clients and keep them constantly engaged with their company.
HubSpot made it easy for them to add a blog. They can edit their blog in a simple WYSIWG (What You See Is What You Get) interface. The HubSpot technology also takes care of the complicated setup and integration issues, and connects them to their social media sites so their content gets published where they want it and clients read it.
Their second requirement was to keep informed themselves on industry trends and public opinions. The HubSpot social media tool provided them with links to conversations across the Internet related to their business. They saved time by managing social media conversations in a single dashboard that allowed them to follow and discuss their industry and relevant business topics.
Redmond Molloy's view was first to serve their existing clients needs. Rather than simply use a website for lead generation they saw the potential to engage and build a long term relationship with their clients, industry and partners all on the HubSpot platform.
A recent study found that the important benefits of social media to companies are cited to be: increased customer engagement (71%), better brand reputation (66%) and increased communication with key influencers (62%).
So Redmond Molloy are not alone, are your clients important enough?
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Mon, Dec 21, 2009
A Brand is how the market views your product or service. The brand image is crated in the minds of the people and contains all the information and exceptions associated with your product or service.
Companies seek to build a brand to develop the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that their product or service has certain or characteristics that make is special or unique.
Here are a few quick guidelines on how to create your own brand
1: Start with a great product or service
To build a strong brand that will last you must start with a service or product that delivers. All strong and house hold brands deliver and clients look for a superior product or service.
2: Define you brands distinction
What is about your product or service that sets you apart from your competitors? What is the single distinction that is important for your target market? Many times is the first to make that becomes the category leader and hold the position for many years. If your brand is not first in your segment then create a new category do you can position your brand to be the first in that category and become the leader.
3: Use emotion
You should develop emotion attributes for your services and products. You should be able to tap into your target market's psyche and evoke and emotional response.
4: Build your image
Whether it is visually, verbally or through your actions you need to build the message that you are trying to create about your offering and the added value. Your company or brand should communicate through all marketing channels with one voice and remain constant regardless of the communication.
5: Market your new brand
All publications, marketing materials, letters etc should communicate your brand, it's message and what your unique selling point is. Everyone in the organization has to take on the responsibility to demonstrate your brands value at every opportunity and touch point with your market.
6: Eat your own cooking
You need to deliver on the promise your brands makes to your market and clients. Whatever your brand image, positioning statement, or unique selling proposition, you have made promises to your market that you must deliver on.
7: Measure and Repeat!
The only way to know how well you are doing in your branding effort is to measure your brand equity against your competitor's. Brand equity is constantly changing just as society's values, perceptions, and intelligence is changing. You must understand the equity your brand has in the market and also understand how your brand's image measures up against the identity you are trying to create.
Branding is a continuous process of communicating with your market. When you build and manage your brand properly, your brand will pay you large dividends and thus turn into the most valuable asset you own.
Inbound Marketing Software is an integral part of any brand campaign. As Inbound Marketing Software helps your company and brand get found by the qualified people that are looking for the products or services that you sell in search engines, blogs and the blogosphere, and social media.
To help you along the way we at SilionCloud would like to offer you a free 30 point review on your Inbound Marketing capabilities. We analyse and measure the marketing effectiveness of your social media presence and website. We incorporate things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. We also provide some basic advice on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Fri, Dec 18, 2009
So Social Media is growing according to Nielsen when you compare Twitter's growth from February 2008 to February 2009 there was 1,382% increase of the year.
So what is Harvard Business take on how Social Media will change over the next year? Well David Armano has come up with 6 changes for 2010 and they are:
1: Social media will start to look less social
Networks are bringing to grow, Linkedin alone has over 477K groups. With these groups becoming more and more popular, how long before they start to become "exclusive". One blogger recently suggested that Christmas was a great time to clear out the dead wood from your social media. So are we becoming less social in the social media world?
2: Companies looking to Social Media for efficiency
Corporations are looking to social media as a first level of support to their clients. By leveraging their staff network and social media their support based is increased. So companies will look to social media to uncover cost savings and efficiency more effectively through social media technology.
3: Social Media business turns serious
By taking foursquare as a sample case, users can now earn points and reach new levels with higher participation. We are starting to see the competitor spirit come out similar to what we see in the Facebook games for Mafia Wars and Farm Ville. So as social companies look to increase activity they are turning to open competition.
4: Companies are starting to have a Social Media policy.
More and more corporations are starting to consider how to implement social media into their corporation from a HR perspective. The policy could vary from how to conduct yourself as an employee to what's considered competition, it's likely that you'll see something formalized about how the company views social media and your participation in it.
5: Social Media will be more mobile
As some organizations are banning social media websites the sales of smartphones on the rise, it's likely that employees will turn to mobile phones to feed their social media addictions. As a result, we may see more and/or better mobile versions of our favorite social network.
6: Sharing is moved away from email.
Newspapers will provide the functionally for users to share articles and updates over their social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. Many websites already support this functionality, but it's likely that we will see an increase in user behavior as it becomes more common for people to share with networks what they used to do with e-mail lists.
These are some of the changes that we can expect for Social Media in 2010. What are your views?
To help you along the way we at SilionCloud would like to offer you a free 30 point review on your Inbound Marketing capabilities. We analyse and measure the marketing effectiveness of your social media presence and website. We incorporate things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. We also provide some basic advice on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Thu, Dec 17, 2009
A recent survey preformed by Hitwise of the UK online business found that 69% have a Facebook profile and 50% have a Twitter one.
When you look to see how many are blogging or social bookmarking that drops down to only 31%. And those that do use it sometimes keep it well hidden with no links on their home page.
What are the options that are out there for business both online and traditional?
Blogging
Blogging provides a voice for the business to publish interesting content and the chance for customers to provide feedback on their service or products. Blogging done right can help build up a following and establish a profile for the company in their sector.
As Google strives to mind more relevant and recent content, blogs can act as a tool for SEO and search page ranking by providing unique and frequently updated content.
Facebook
Business can now create their own their own pages where people, customers , stakeholders etc and become fans. By acquiring fan, companies now have the opportunity to market their products or services to the Facebook populations. Companies should actively interact with their Facebook fans and post frequent, interesting and targeted content, such as competitions, company news, photos and product launches.
For more information please see our webinar on "Facebook for Business"
Twitter
Twitter is becoming a form of highly targeted permission marketing. Dell is a great case study where their sales from twitter not exceed the millions. Those businesses that use Twitter use it to communicate directly with their customers, publish company news and post special offers.
To help you along the way we at SilionCloud would like to offer you a free 30 point review on your Inbound Marketing capabilities. We analyse and measure the marketing effectiveness of your social media presence and website. We incorporate things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. We also provide some basic advice on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.
Posted by Patrick Murphy on Tue, Dec 15, 2009
You should always review you SEO goals to ensure that they are in line with your overall corporate and business strategy. With 2010 coming around the corner now is the time to consider your long terms SEO, Inbound Marketing and Social Media strategy.
To be in line with your own business strategy you need to clear of what your own business strategy is. You should ask yourself what is the purpose of your company and does this tie in with the purpose of your website and SEO campaign.
To help define your strategy you need to know the answers to the following questions.
1: What are you marketing goals?
2: What is your best selling product or services?
3: Where else are you running adverts online?
4: How or do you evaluate the return on your marketing investment?
5: How do you determine your marketing budget?
6: Who are you competitors?
7: What is your target audience?
The answers of these questions should help you define your marketing strategy and plan out an effective SEO & Inbound Marketing campaign.
While answering these questions, you should also ask yourself do you need Inbound Marketing Software. Inbound marketing software helps your business get found on the Internet by the right prospects and convert more of those prospects into leads and paying customers. Really is takes your strategy and converts into an actionable plan with tracking and metrics accurately measure your performance.
To help you along the way we at SilionCloud would like to offer you a free 30 point review on your Inbound Marketing capabilities. We analyse and measure the marketing effectiveness of your social media presence and website. We incorporate things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity and other technical factors. We also provide some basic advice on how your website can be improved from a marketing perspective.