B2B Marketing Blog

John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

TLDR- HubSpot's #INBOUND17 Product Announcements

Well to be honest, we’re excited about all of them.

Today on the bus to work, I finished HubSpot co-founders, Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah’s keynote speeches at this year’s HubSpot conference. Formally (or digitally, or both?) known as #INBOUND17, the conference was a great chance to gather as an inbound movement to learn, network, and get inspired by a mutual drive to build meaningful, professional relationships based on value.

But I’m getting sidetracked.

During Dharmesh’s speech as co-founder and CTO, he discussed the new products coming to HubSpot in 2018, and with them comes an underlying philosophy: more than anything else, people buy products based on recommendations, reviews, and good ol’ fashioned word of mouth. In short, people trust the advice of others above all else. With that in mind, HubSpot’s been moving in the direction of offering freemiums in order to pull more people into using their new features and allowing that positive experience drive an organic buzz.

That all being said, let’s review HubSpot’s product announcements for 2018!

1. The professional marketers CMS (Content Management System) — Available now

Fast, stable, and secure, this is any company’s dream when it comes to building a website with easy-to-use templates. It also comes with developer tools like IDE, Custom Modules, and HubDB. Ready for a fun fact? According to third party data, the HubSpot CMS is 2X faster than the average CMS in North America! I may not understand developer jargon, but that speaks to me.

Whether this makes you more or less confused, it’s worth noting that while initially called a COS (Content Optimization System), HubSpot has recently decided to join the rest of website creating world and call this tool a CMS. Good move HubSpot.

2. Facebook Lead Ads — Available now

More and more people are doing business over Facebook and HubSpot’s gotten on board. You now can create Facebook Leads Ads right from HubSpot. Leads will automatically be tracked and synced into your CRM and it’s optimized for mobile so viewers can sign up for newsletters, offers, or deals straight from their phone. Maybe the coolest part of this though, is the Audience Sync. Use the segmented contact lists you already have in HubSpot to send targeted messages to your Facebook audiences. But what about viewers who aren’t in your contacts list? Enter lookalike campaigns for those similar to your contacts, or as Christopher O’Donnell (HubSpot’s VP of Product) calls it, “the mind blow”. What’s next? Facebook retargeting, with early access now.

 

3. Account Based Marketing + HubSpot — Available now

HubSpot’s been getting a lot of questions on how inbound and ABM can work together, and the HubSpot product team did not disappoint. By teaming up with Terminus, a B2B Account-Based Marketing leader, you can now leverage their data to serve hyper-targeted ads not only to the people in your database, but also their peers in the same company. Interested in learning more about the coexistence of ABM and inbound? Check out this video below of Sangram Vajre (Terminus, CMO) and Kipp Bodnar (HubSpot,CMO) discussing the relationship between the methodologies.

4. Shopify Native eCommerce Integration — Early access now

Products sync to HubSpot. Purchases sync to HubSpot. It’s all there. This further allows you to leverage list segmentation, automation, email, and more. Want to send a transactional email? Go for it. Interested in setting up an abandoned cart workflow? HubSpot’s got you. If you’re not the Shopify type, don’t fret. HubSpot is also rolling out an eCommerce bridge which allows developers to integrate any shopping cart – products, sales, you name it – with HubSpot.

5. HubSpot Conversations — Coming 2018

Imagine instant messaging, but bigger. Available for free on the Marketing Hub, Sales Hub, and Customer Hub, this is what Christopher is calling the future. Sure, HubSpot Sales Pro already has Messages, to chat with website visitors, but that’s just the first step in creating Conversations. Why Conversations? It’s multi-channel in one place, for everyone on your team. Cool, but how many people is it now gonna take (slash cost you) to make sure someone is always available to chat? Enter…

6. motion.ai – “Drag and drop, and build a bot” — Coming 2018

According to Darmesh, HubSpot’s team tried out a number of different top-tier DIY bots and ‘fell in love with’ motion.ai. A few meetings and handshakes later, and voilà! HubSpot acquires motion.ai. You can hear him tell the story in his keynote. Just skip ahead to 1:18:30 (at the bottom of this post). The software lets you build, train, and deploy AI powered chat robots to do almost anything imaginable. It can answer FAQs, qualify leads, and direct prospects to sales reps.

Courtesy of HubSpot

[Courtesy of HubSpot]

7. New and (massively) improved HubSpot Sales Professional — Available Nov. 1st 2017

First we got to talk about the automation or Workflows. While this feature used to only be available for HubSpot Marketing, Workflows have come to the Sales CRM and it’s here to stay. For Sales Workflows, you can include New Deals, Tasks, emails, really just about anything you can think of putting into a workflow. The combinations are endless.

Another Marketing feature that’s come to Sales? Sales Reporting. See sales engagement by date, rep, and lifecycle stage right from your dashboard. If you’ve got a growing sales crew, you’re going to love the new Teams feature that allows members to collaborate and share their work and reports. Christopher explains they’re now ‘baking’ artificial intelligence into the Sales newsfeed (though I’m not totally sure what that means), offering you priority notifications for the things you’re most interested in. What’s more? Send prospects emails at the ideal time based on previous openings.

8. Campaign Reporting — Available now in BETA

For every project, and campaign, ROI is the key to measure the return on your resources and efforts. Included for every tier of HubSpot Marketing, HubSpot will now show ROI for every piece of a campaign. Be it at the top, middle, or bottom of the funnel – you now have the power to analyze impact. For us an agency, we’re excited to put this feature to work in order to help our clients best understand the true value of their marketing investments.

9. Customer Hub (because HubSpot taking over the entire buyer’s journey was inevitable) — Available early 2018

Starting out as free version (duh) coming out in early 2018, HubSpot’s excited to roll out the last piece of the end-to-end business trifecta — Customer Hub. This announcement was a bit of an annoying cliffhanger if I’m going to be honest. Christopher didn’t give us much more to go on than that, so we’ll just have to hold on to the edge of our seats until their next round of announcements.

Aaaand that’s a wrap! #INBOUND17 you left us totally starstruck at all the new features they’re coming out with and we’re so excited to see how you continue to change the way companies do end-to-end, personalized, and value-based business! See you next year.

 

To watch Brian and Dharmesh’s keynote, check out the link below. If you just want to skip to the product announcements part, fast forward to 1:08:26.

To watch Christopher’s New Product Spotlight, you can you also watch that below.

 

 

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

How to Get Your First 1,000 Subscribers

In an age where all the information of the world fits in the palm of everyone’s hands (even baby hands, can you imagine that), people are more inclined to start their own business, than ever before. Everything they need to know about running a start-up is at their disposal, a lot of which is free to consume and only a few clicks away.

When doing their due diligence on how to run a start-up, many young entrepreneurs quickly come across a couple of ‘universal laws’:

  • They need an exceptionally strong marketing effort
  • They need to focus on email marketing to get their message across

The arguments are common sense: if a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it doesn’t make a sound. Or, in other words, if nobody knows about your business, you won’t make an impact no matter how hard you hit the dirt. The second ‘universal law’ might not be common sense for everyone, so here’s a short recap:

Today’s younger generations are exposed to more than 200,000 marketing messages by the tender age of 15. That means if your message is not ultra-relevant it will be ignored more than the terms and conditions of a mobile app. That makes traditional ad marketing a very challenging task.

Second, email marketing is an awesome method because it is opt-in and thus you can be 100% sure your messages go out only to those who are genuinely interested in hearing it. It has also been proven effective time and time again. You can check out the latest figures (August 2017) on this link.

But perhaps the most important ‘side-effect’ of your email subscribers list is that you’re creating a community, and a community has the strength to move mountains. Creating a movement, having people that feel they’re part of a group or a tribe, as Seth Godin puts it, creates a strong bond between you and your visitors. They become your brand evangelists, your PR spokespeople, your strongest advocates. If they feel included, if they feel like they’re part of a group in which they will be respected and missed if they’re gone – they will be very passionate about you and your work.

The problem with online marketing is that everyone’s fighting for attention, and there’s only that much people can give. Today’s internet users have an attention span of a goldfish, and I’m not exaggerating. So email marketing is one of the best ways to go. But getting people to give you their email isn’t that easy. They know why you need it and how valuable it is. So, they want something in return. Make sure you give it. Below you’ll find a short guide on how to get your first 1,000 subscribers. You can also consider it as a step-by-step guide, with the first tip also being the most important one. But why 1,000? Why not 500, or 5,000? A thousand is generally considered a tipping point that can propel your business forward and is thus seen as the first important milestone.

Give them value

Your goal is to get your visitors to give you their email address – on their own free will. They will do so if they get free (valuable) stuff or special offers. Depending on your business or industry, you can create ebooks, podcasts, offer free demos, product evaluations or reviews, schedule meetings, organize discounts, coupons, whatever you consider valuable for the audience in your industry.

For all of this to make sense, you need a landing page (or even better – multiple landing pages). Without a solid landing page where visitors can learn a bit more about what they’re getting for their email, the entire effort will be pointless.

impact of number of landing pages on lead generation

Impact of multiple landing pages on lead generation [Image Credit: HubSpot]

The second thing you absolutely must have is a lightbox, like the one we have on our own site, which pops up when you move your mouse towards the exit button. Similar to pop-ups, lightboxes appear across the screen at certain points in time, and are one of the most effective ways to turn visitors into leads.

They are an essential step in reaching your goal of 1,000 subscribers. They pop up at the perfect moment, and are capable of engaging leaving audiences. They feature a clear call to action, communicate the unique offer in an eye-catching manner, and allow you to personalize it to specific audiences.

But you must be very careful when creating lightboxes. One wrong step and everything will backfire. Lightboxes need to complement the site and offer relevant content in order to improve the overall user experience.

Make sure to read this UX Planet’s post on best practices when creating lightboxes and similar modals.

Post regularly

Building habit is probably the most potent marketing strategy ever created. If you can create a habit among your visitors to keep coming back for more, your virality potential grows, your SERP position increases and your overall chances of getting new people on that landing page of yours increases.  But in order for your visitors to keep coming back, they need something to come back to. So create an inbound marketing strategy that will revolve around your target audience’s pain points and challenges. Learn what they are looking for online and create content around those issues. Make sure to follow them through the entire buyer’s journey. That way, not only will you create habit, but you will also form a strong, trust-based relationship with your readers.

Start guest posting in your niche’s top media

If the mountain won’t come to you – you must go to the mountain. Going where your target audience is already present is considered best practice, and your audience is most likely a regular visitor to your niche’s top media or blogs. Posting on such sites is a win-win situation: the blog gets quality content (you need to make sure it’s quality content), and you get to advertise your business (and more importantly – your landing page) to your desired audience. Do not forget to add a link to your site or landing page to the copy you are submitting. It is not uncommon to even share a call to action at the bottom of the piece, inviting readers to learn more about you and your business, so consider that option as well.

Pay for traffic

Organic is the holy grail of traffic, but the way internet works today, it is almost impossible to have your traffic fully organic. It needs to be greased every once in a while, so don’t hesitate to shell out a few greens to get those initial visitors rolling.

Luckily, there is a myriad of options when it comes to paying for traffic, and some companies have it down to fine art. There are really cool ad networks out there, obviously including the likes of Google AdWords or SelfAdvertiser. They can help you get your message across to very specific audiences, regardless of how narrow or unique your niche might be.

Also, don’t forget social media like Facebook, Instagram or Twitter who all allow buying ad space and usually have tremendous reach. Last, but definitely not least, consider niche sites, forums (Reddit, perhaps?), and your industry’s influencers.

The gap between 1,000 and 10,000

As in anything else, the first steps in building a subscriber base are definitely the hardest. You will find plenty of content out there promising 1,000 subscribers in a week or in a month, but it wouldn’t be wise to give out such promises – each start-up is different. However, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t set yourself up with a couple of deadlines when it comes to reaching that famed 1,000.

And once you hit that milestone (and I’m confident you will), the gap will start narrowing, and adding new subscribers will probably be much easier. Be warned – you will face new challenges as scaling a subscriber base is a whole new pair of sleeves. But we’ll get to that on another time. Now let’s first get you to that thousand.

 

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

competitor landscape header

You have an idea for a startup, you’ve put together a team and now you want to find an investment. Your idea is important but your potential investors will probably be even more interested in figuring out whether or not you’re aware of who exactly your competition is. An investor under the impression that you don’t understand who your competition is, or worse – aware of a competitor that you’re not aware of, won’t take you seriously.

This post will teach you how to find your competitor landscape, why you need to and why people are afraid to talk about their competitors.

Why you need to find out who your competitors are?

In short – it will give you the upper hand over them. To compete – and win – versus anybody, you first need to know exactly what you are up against. The first benefit of knowing who your competitors are, is understanding your competitive advantage. What differentiates you from your competition? What are you doing differently and/or better than the rest of them? Knowing this helps your potential investors get a clear picture of your strengths, and/or weaknesses that need eliminating.

The second benefit is closely tied to the first one – it helps you and your investors understand your competitors’ weaknesses. Is there something they are doing poorly which you could be doing better yourself? Learning from their mistakes will help you increase the gap between you even further.

Then, there is learning from all the good things they are doing. Is there a way to use this intelligence to improve your product, or services? Can their practices give your customer support a welcome nudge? Do your investors see how you can improve and grow over time?

Understanding how your competition operates, how they engage with clients, which business models and pricing they are using, as well as the mistakes they are making, is a great brainstorming tool which can help you come up with new and innovative ideas. You wouldn’t be the first one to use such intel to come up with a great new tool that’s solving a real pain point in today’s society.

And finally, knowing your competitors helps you get a clearer bird-eye view of your entire industry. How much funding are they getting? Is the funding going down just a couple of big-game start-ups, or is it spread across the industry? Is the funding growing, or shrinking? All of this can help you determine the strength of the industry and that, in turn, can speak volumes of the demand, helping you position yourself better when it comes to discussing investments.

These are some of the biggest advantages of having detailed knowledge of your competition, and something that is not optional if you are really serious about succeeding with your start-up. So, how do you do it?

How to find your competitor landscape?

There are four main ways to map your competitor landscape:

  1.  Look for products solving similar problems as your own
  2. Look for funding on CrunchBase
  3. Analyze marketing efforts via SimilarWeb or Google
  4. Do some heavy review reading

So the first step is to find products that are similar to your own and that solve the same problems as your product does. This is an important first step as it helps you count how many companies you’re up against. You can see where they’re located, how many employees they have on average, how old they are, and how big of a market they cover.

Determine who the big players in the industry are, and analyze their business models. Pay attention to their user interface and user experience. Is there anything they’re doing differently than you, or similarly to you? If you find something within the UX/UI world that works – mimic it. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel.

Once you map out all your potential competitors, the next step is to see how much funding they’re getting. Luckily for everyone, Crunchbase is here to save the day. This site is going to be your new best friend. Learn when they were founded, how many venture capitalists invested in them, and with how much funds they’re currently operating. This will also help you determine who the ‘big players’ are in the game.

Another important step is to see how they’re marketing themselves. You can have the best product in the world that will be worth jack squat if nobody knows about it. So, say hi to your second best friend – SimilarWeb. Use this site to understand how your competitors are generating traffic. Is there anything you are not doing at the moment? Is it working for them and can you use it too?

Also, don’t forget Alexa and the Google keyword research tool – these are important sites that will help you find keywords you can rank for with your own marketing efforts. Last, but definitely not least – make sure you read up reviews of your competition online. There are literally hundreds (if not thousands) of customer reviews from your competition. Having a product that’s driven by the market is an awesome approach, bound to make a difference. That is most easily achieved by understanding what your competition’s customers like, and what they dislike. Obviously, once you hit the market, you’ll be getting reviews of your own, so make sure you don’t neglect them. It is a time-consuming endeavor, but one that is definitely worth the effort.

Closing comments

Those looking to draw in investments need to pay really close attention to their competition, because that is definitely something investors will want to know. You need to have a better product than what your competition is building. You need to understand other competitors’ business models, their executions, pricings, and most importantly – investments. Having less intel than your potential investors means they will probably perceive you as frivolous, not really committed. Luckily enough, with the strength of the internet and some time invested, you can easily map out your competitor landscape.

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

facebook watch platform.jpg

Facebook just introduced a new video watching service and considering the direction the internet has been taking in the past couple of years, it shouldn’t come as a big surprise to anyone. Before we dig into why I think it’s a logical step forward for Facebook, let’s first take a look at what this new feature actually is and how it operates.

Say Hello to Watch

facebook's new feature watch

Image Credit: Facebook

The platform is called Watch, and given the explanation Facebook’s put up on its newsroom, it feels a lot like YouTube:

“Watch is personalized to help you discover new shows, organized around what your friends and communities are watching. For example, you’ll find sections like “Most Talked About,” which highlights shows that spark conversation, “What’s Making People Laugh,” which includes shows where many people have used the “Haha” reaction, and “What Friends Are Watching,” which helps you connect with friends about shows they too are following.”

The above is similar to YouTube, which has sections like “Your Subscriptions”, “Trending”, “Recommended”, “Entertainment” or “Watch it again”.

Another thing that makes it a lot like YouTube is the fact that it revolves around user-generated content. So, home-made videos and anything else which might fit along those lines.

“Watch is a platform for all creators and publishers to find an audience, build a community of passionate fans, and earn money for their work. Shows are made up of episodes — live or recorded — and follow a theme or storyline. To help you keep up with the shows you follow, Watch has a Watchlist so you never miss out on the latest episodes.”

What’s also interesting about the way Facebook’s presented the new feature is the order in which it listed all the available platforms: “Watch will be available on mobile, on desktop and laptop, and in our TV apps.”

Keep in mind – it’s listing mobile first. It’s a strong indicator of where Facebook feels the future of video lies (more on that later, as well).

The comments are where Facebook decides to take it a step further compared to YouTube. They, too, will be live and will be a “part of the experience”.  “So when you watch a show, you can see comments and connect with friends and other viewers while watching, or participate in a dedicated Facebook Group for the show.”

A logical step in a logical direction

Now that we know what Watch is and how it works, let’s briefly touch on why I feel it was long coming.

First (and foremost), all predictions on what the internet will look like in the next five years have the same conclusion: it will be dominated by video content. A higher penetration of high-speed broadband everywhere, followed by a decline in prices, has made viewing video over the internet a more enjoyable experience. And consumers have responded in kind A report by Cisco  says that by 2020, 80 percent of all internet traffic will go on video, up from 73 percent last year. Five years ago, we were still counting how many pieces of content were watched – thinking of percentages of the ENTIRE global traffic was inconceivable at the time. So, how much data exactly are we going to watch in a few years’ time? Well, roughly three zettabytes. Yes, I know. Let’s just say it’s REALLY a lot.

global IP traffic

Image Credit: Recode

Knowing that Facebook wants to be the omnipresent internet force, tapping into such an important trend was expected. As a matter of fact, Facebook has already been doing that for quite some time now. More than a year has already passed since the social media giants said it’s changing its algorithm to put a stronger emphasis on video. Then, in January this year, it changed its algorithm once again, this time to give priority to longer videos, and those with higher completion rates.

But that’s not everything Zuckerberg’s social fortress has been doing. Facebook has essentially become a media company, and as a such, video plays an extremely important role.

“Facebook is a new kind of platform. It’s not a traditional technology company. It’s not a traditional media company. You know, we build technology and we feel responsible for how it’s used,” Zuckerberg said back then.  “We don’t write the news that people read on the platform. But at the same time we also know that we do a lot more than just distribute news, and we’re an important part of the public discourse.”

And check this out – late this June, it was announced that Facebook struck a deal with Fox to livestream the Champions League. Yes, THE Champions League – one of the biggest sporting events in the world.

If that doesn’t spell “we’re a media company”, and “video is brutally important to us”, then I don’t know what does. All things considered, this makes Watch a step in the right direction for a company that wants to organize and upgrade on its video efforts.

Watch is not yet widely available. Facebook says it will introduce it to a “limited group of people” in the States, while the rest of the world will have to wait a bit.

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

create content that’s both relevant and evergreen header

Introduction – content that’s both relevant and evergreen

Back in the Summer of 2016, Pokémon Go was all the rage. Everywhere you went, you saw people walking around staring at their phones trying to find little AR creatures hiding behind mailboxes and lampposts, all in the hopes to “catch ‘em all”. Within no time at all, marketers couldn’t help but take notice.

Over the course of that summer, the number of blog articles written about ‘Pokémon Go marketing lessons’ was out of control. Since Pokémon Go was so incredibly relevant, it was an easy springboard to talk about marketing strategies for any company blog. The issue is Summer 2016 came and went and now Pokémon Go has just become another fad of the past.

google trends pokemon in google trends

(Google Trends interest report for Pokémon Go, July 2016 – July 2017) 

While these posts might have been popular during the summer of 2016, there’s a good chance they’ve lost their relevance factor over time.

What’s a marketer to do? You want to write relevant content for your audience but what’s the use if it’s going to be passé in a matter of a couple of days, weeks or months? You spend good time writing blog posts, and you want them to last in relevance until the end of digital marketing’s time.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s first understand relevant and evergreen content.

Relevant Content

Relevant content rocks. When done right, you tell your readers that you’re with the times, and you understand who they are, their interests, and what’s on their minds. To do that, you’ll need to do a couple of things.

  1. Understand the buyer’s journey. More than writing about the season, upcoming holiday, or latest ‘must have’ gadget, truly relevant content speaks to where your reader is in his/her buyer’s journey. Do they have a {insert your vertical here} problem they’re looking for help with? Are they looking to assess potential solutions to a known challenge? Are they ready to buy, but just not sure if you’re the best fit for them? Make sure each piece of content speaks to one of these stages in the buyer’s journey. A reader should finish a blog post and say, ”wow, that article was really on the same page as me.”
  2. Buyer persona/ vertical research. This is your chance to step into your reader’s shoes and walk around for a bit. Each buyer persona has their own unique lifestyle. Get to know their taste in movies, blogs, tech, and music. In other words, speak their language and culture. Same goes for their vertical. What else is going on in your vertical besides for the challenge that you solve? What other industry news are your prospects thinking about? If you’re shrugging your shoulders, you’ve got yourself a new research project.
  3. Seize the day. Or holiday. Or season. You get the point; time is of the essence. When you make content sensitive to the here and now, it becomes within itself a call-to-action. People want to read things while they’re still hot (but more on that later). Take-away lesson: If you call, they will follow.

relevance.png

(Courtesy of Convince and Convert)

Evergreen Content

Evergreen content is compared to an evergreen tree because it survives throughout the seasons without getting old or irrelevant. In addition to never ‘going out of style’, evergreen content is helpful because these are posts that you (and others) can link to in other posts, giving you better ranking on SERPs and positioning yourself as an authority to your readers.

B2C companies are less likely to write evergreen content because their prospects tend to have a flavor of the week when it comes to just about anything and everything. These companies work endlessly, creating timely and stylishly relevant content that will be read now and scrolled over tomorrow, with new material to take its place.

B2B companies know their personas and their challenges, and for the most part, those are consistent. So for them, evergreen content can be helpful to readers no matter when they read an article. What’s most important though is that it still sounds relevant and engaging.

So how can B2B companies write content that’s both relevant and evergreen?

Here are some hybrid relevant-evergreen content ideas:

  1. Socially evergreen content. Tools like Qzzr or Fyrebox can help you create interactive quizzes that can give readers a good laugh, insight, or uncover pain in their business strategy. These can also be used for knowledge assessments to aid readers in understanding where there might be gaps in their knowledge. From there, you can position yourself as the company that can offer advice about how to fill those gaps.
  2. Annual reporting and predicting. Time relevant blog titles like “What MarTech companies can learn from 2017” and “Upcoming digital marketing trends to watch out for in 2018” can be eye-catching. It’s important then to set yourself reminders for when the content won’t be relevant anymore, so you can reassess if you want to write follow-up articles. This is a great way to take readers on a journey through time and discuss trends in your field.
  3. Follow up on case-studies. Case studies are an excellent way to get decision makers to seriously consider the work you do and how it might be an effective solution for them. That being said, everyone likes a movie with a good sequel, so feel free to create a follow up article after the case study comes out to discuss the long term results. Give a Q&A with a client’s CEO down the line, and let them sing your praises about how you changed the way they do business.
  4. Separate the fads from the faves. So Pokémon Go’s popularity didn’t last forever, but you could have seen that coming. Before creating token trendy B2B content, consider what is popular now, and what will stay popular in the future.
  5. The right content, on the right channels. More trendy content is great for your social channels like LinkedInFacebook, or Instagram. Since these are ‘now’ mediums of information, they can be a great place to share industry news, wish followers happy holidays, and showcase new features. On your blog, try to keep your content evergreen. This is a place to add value, so make sure it does that no matter the season.

Conclusion

Whether you’re looking to build content that’s trendy, evergreen, or something in between, there’s one golden rule: all content should add value. Regardless if you’re offering them a case study or wishing them well before a national holiday, your goal is to let your followers and readers know that you’re thinking about them.

Ready to start blogging? Click below to download our Ultimate Blog Content Editing Checklist to make sure your blogs are top notch before you hit that ‘publish’ button.

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

inbound marketing in the MarTech and AdTech header

Introduction – inbound marketing in the MarTech and AdTech industry

You know what they say about those who assume (if you don’t know the answer to this, ask the next thirteen-year-old you see). But let me venture a guess that you fall into a camp of people who are vaguely familiar with inbound marketing but you’re not totally sure how it all works. If in fact you’ve never heard of inbound, stick around, because I’m about to explain what it is and how it applies to the MarTech and AdTech vertical.

Where to begin? Let’s start with traditional marketing.

Marty mcFly - Back to the future

If we wind back the clock ten years to 2007, cold calling and cold emailing is the norm. The name of the game is to get yourself in front of your customers, smooth talk them through your elevator pitch, and close the deal. But here in 2017, people don’t pick up their phones if the number is unrecognizable and much of the emails we get are spam. Suddenly there’s a need for a different kind of marketing.

While traditional or outbound marketing focuses on getting your brand out there and talking about your company and what it does, inbound marketing turns that model on its head. With inbound, the goal is to drive leads to your brand on their time and create marketing content that speaks to who they are and where they stand in their journey to purchasing a product/service like yours.

There’s a good chance that last bit replaces your one question of “what is inbound?” with an assortment of new ones. “How does one drive leads? What does ‘on their time’ mean? What kind of content? How can you write content for everyone? The buyer has a journey? How does this apply for MarTech and AdTech companies specifically?” Great! We’re going to answer all those questions now.

But first, B2B marketing

Before we tackle how inbound can be used to help MarTech and AdTech companies, we first have to zoom out and talk about inbound for B2B companies vs. B2C companies. Remember before when I was talking about the need to understand where prospects are in their journey to purchasing a product? We call that trek the buyer’s journey.

In the case that I go to the mall after work because I feel like my closet could use a makeover, there’s a good chance I’ll walk into an H&M, consider a few options that peak my interest, and head to the register with the item of my choice in less than 30 minutes. Could your prospects beat my time? Probably not.

In both B2C and B2B transactions, buyers progress down the same journey. They realize they have a challenge, they consider possible solutions, and finally choose one to solve their needs. It looks like this.

buyers-journey.png

In B2B companies, the journey of awareness (of a challenge), consideration (of solutions), and decision (of a remedy) is the same. The main difference is the time it takes to move from one phase to another and the level of trust required before making a decision. B2B products typically cost more, so naturally, people will be more hesitant and will want to make sure they are choosing the right supplier and that they are in good hands.

Other things that make B2B different:

  1. With B2B, there’s also more people involved in the decision process.
  2. B2B companies have a narrower target audience. But more on that later.
  3. B2B business is not a one and done. You’re (or at least you should be) looking to build lasting relationships with your clients. By delighting them, you turn them from customers into promoters of your brand.

Inbound methodology

When you’re marketing the inbound way, the buyer’s journey is important, but how can we encourage strangers (who aren’t even aware of your brand) to travel down their journey to decide on your service/product and become lifelong supporters? Welcome to the inbound methodology!

2-1.png

As a B2B business, you should ideally focus on the following:

  1. Attract – bring people to your website
  2. Convert – turn casual visitors into leads
  3. Close – sign on the dotted line and shake hands with your new clients
  4. Delight – secure clients by offering them perks, transforming them into your advocates

What guides the methodology? Content.

Now that we’ve created the framework, let’s talk about strategy. By offering them content or help for each stage in their journey, you become a mentor that accompanies them throughout. Let’s talk about the different kinds of content that can be created to help prospects at each stage of the process, positioning you as an expert of your vertical (and their challenge).

To do this, I’m going to use a fictional MarTech company I thought up called Landing Pad to use as an example. Landing Pad is a marketing conversion tool that allows companies to convert visitors to leads through unique DIY landing pages. In this scenario, the main buyer persona (or target audience) that Landing Pad is looking to attract to their website are CMOs.

Awareness

First Landing Pad will need to do some research in order to understand these personas. They’re writing content for them, so it’s important that what their writing speaks to them as people and professionals. They should brainstorm and research the kinds of challenges their buyer personas face as CMOs. Once they figure out what their persona’s main challenges are, they should research what keywords their personas are searching for on Google when trying to find a solution to their challenges. Since 57% of prospects research online before even contacting the supplier, Landing Pad’s goal should be to be there and add value for their future prospects at those early stages of research. Once they’ve done that, they should be ready to create content. With consistent (and frequent) blogging, B2B companies having almost 3X more traffic than those blogging 0-1 times per month. That being said, there’s no doubt that blog posts should be the front door to Landing Pad’s website.

Watch out: Make sure to keep the buyer’s persona in mind. It’s important to make sure your content is educational, not promotional.

Some examples of blog titles Landing Pad might use for the awareness stage:

  1. How to increase your landing page conversion rate
  2. Landing page optimization tips
  3. How to keep your leads engaged (hint: thank you pages)
  4. Tips for creating better landing pages

Are any of these blog posts going to talk about Landing Pad? Nope. We’re simply trying to educate Landing Pad’s buyer personas. If Landing Pad bombards visitors with their marketing solution’s features right away, they’ll have jumped the gun and risked scaring them off.

Quite the opposite, this is just the beginning of Landing Pad educating them.

Landing Pad will need to add a CTA (Call-to-Action) at the bottom of each post, inviting readers to download a content offer. That click is going to lead them to (my favorite marketing tool) a landing page! After filling out requested information, readers will receive their offer via email and voila! Landing Pad’s marketing team just got themselves a lead to nurture.

MarTech/ AdTech Tip: Awareness stage content is the hardest to write. You have a tech solution, so it’s hard to think out of the box when all you feel you know is your software, what it does, and how it works. Do research by talking to current clients about their larger marketing strategies to learn more about your vertical and the related challenges that exist in it.

Consideration

Consideration stage is all about offering solutions. Whether it be more blogs or eBooks or videos, this is your chance to show them what’s out there to meet their challenges and needs.

Going back to Landing Pad, this is the stage of the journey where our CMOs know they have a challenge that is related to landing pages. This is Landing Pad’s chance to educate them on all the options and solutions out there. Sure they should name drop Landing Pad, but it should not be the center of their content. They should make it clear to their prospects that they should find a solution that most suits their needs.

MarTech/ AdTech Tip: When talking about tech, think about your buyer personas. Are they millenials that advocate for new technology and are savvy enough to use it? Are they from an older generation who want more clients and results but can be hesitant to change the existing technology they’ve been using for years. By keeping your personas in mind, you can be sensitive to their personal tech capabilities and adjust your content accordingly. One more thing, offer low-tech options to consider if possible. They’ll appreciate knowing those options exist.

Decision

Finally, it’s time to talk about you. Your tech is great, and it’s time to show that off. Content to consider at this stage includes case studies, product comparisons, or live demos. Watch out, it can be tricky to not slip into a business-centric model! Remember that even at the end, this is about them and the tech and support you can offer. When listing what your software can do, be sure you’re giving them benefits over features. If you list a feature that can be responded to with a “so what?”, you’ve missed the opportunity to explain to your prospect how it meets and fulfills their needs.

MarTech/ AdTech Tip: When it comes to tech, it’s important to show your prospects how it works. If you’re running demos (or considering running demos) for your leads, do you have a standard script you use across the board? According to inbound, you have an opportunity to dive deep into the needs of your prospects — take advantage of it! Uncover challenges they have. They will likely ask, “I really wish we could X, is that something you can help us with? How would we do that using your product?”. From there, you can customize your demo to answer their questions and review other benefits you think will peak their interest. Hint: Using storytelling to aid in making the software walkthrough engaging and practical.

Conclusion

Inbound marketing is the methodology that turns strangers into brand ambassadors by continuously offering personalized content that is helpful and engaging. If you’re in the MarTech and AdTech vertical, what you’re doing is probably really cool. The issue is, techy things like software, data, and coding can be confusing or boring to people. Try to use inbound to connect with who and where your prospects are.

If you’re working on an inbound marketing strategy, we’ve created a blog editorial calendar template which we think just might make your life easier. Click below to download it.

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

attract the right leads header

Introduction – Attract the Right Leads to your MarTech/ AdTech Business

In our world’s revolution of becoming more hi-tech and automated by the day, you’re on the front lines of the movement. Your work is brilliant and innovative, turning some of the more (dare I say it) mundane parts of marketing and ad networking into something of the past. Your software or tool is going to make a lot of companies and individuals very very happy.

With a dramatic increase from 150 to 5000 MarTech companies from 2011 to 2017 though, it’s more important than ever to be ahead of the curve when it comes to prospecting and converting leads to your Mar-and-Ad-Tech tech company.

The trouble is, with so many MarTech and AdTech companies on the market, it can be hard to drive the right kind of traffic. You may find that you’re attracting leads that are irrelevant. Maybe the right leads are coming to your website, but since they’re not ready to buy, are leaving your site without a trace.

The truth is, you’re not alone. This is a common challenge for B2B companies, but particularly for your vertical. With so many fish in the MarTech/ AdTech sea for prospects to choose from, the first step to lead generation success is understanding the buyer’s journey.

The MarTech/AdTech Buyer’s Journey

If I were to make a #1 rule about inbound marketing, it would be to respect the buyer’s journey.  Simply put, this refers to the steps prospects take from being aware that they have a challenge, consider their options, and decide which of the available choices is the best solution for them.

buyers-journey.png

Consider this: Research indicates that 57% of the purchase decision is complete before a prospect even contacts a supplier.  Your prospects are doing research online well before you hear from them. Bottom line: you’re going to want to get in front of your prospects at earlier stages of their research.

How To Create An Effective Inbound Marketing Strategy Call to Action

Use this model to understand how it works in your vertical. As much as you might want instant leads who turn into on-the-spot customers, your true prospects will go through a buyer’s journey before deciding you’re the right solution. This might include:

  1.  Searching the web for solutions, only to stumble upon (code for: SEO) your company blog and in turn gaining value from it. From here they begin to understand that their challenge could be solved by MarTech/AdTech.
  2.  Considering different marketing software solutions in order to solve their challenge.
  3. Choosing you after feeling confident that you’re the pros that fulfill all their needs.

But why should they choose you? What makes you a pro?

If you respect that process and position yourself as an advisor along the way, there’s good chance they’ll turn to you when the timing is right. But more on how to become that advisor soon.

According to Ascend2, only 9% of marketers feel like they have all the tools they need and are using those tools to their fullest potential. On the flip side, 34% of marketers don’t feel they have the right tools to meet their needs and aren’t even utilizing the software they current have.

ascend marketing

So what’s the hold up?

In a research study of over 300 marketers, participants gave their top three reasons for being hesitant about taking on or add more tool to their MarTech strategy. The majority cited budget as their biggest obstacle, followed by being skeptical about the challenges they’ll face during implementation, and resistance to change within the company.

buyer's journey matrix

(Courtesy of HubSpot)

Let’s tackle those three challenges and see how they can be considered while designing the content and strategy for your buyer’s journey. To do this, let’s turn this list on its head and talk about these items in the opposite order.

Resistance to change

Even though the times are a-changin’, marketing teams can be nervous to adapt their tech to the times. Many marketers feel their marketing software is outdated, but taking the plunge (both in terms of time to learn something new and the cost) to taking on a new MarTech or AdTech tool can feel daunting.

What can you do about it?

Figure out what your ideal buyer’s challenges are and then develop awareness content that rallies around education and support. That way when your prospects research online for solutions to their daily challenges they’ll find your content. Remember to always keep your content light and helpful. By doing so, you’ll be able to show your prospects that you’re not just there to sell and disappear, Show a willingness to work together with them to understand their marketing challenges and how they can best use your tech to cater to their needs. If prospect knows you’ll be a partner in this change, there’s a good chance they’ll follow you to the finish line.

Challenges of implementation

When using any form of tech, there always seems to be this feeling of, “I want to do X, and I feel like this tech should allow me to do it, but I can’t seem to figure out which buttons I should click on to navigate me to the action I want to do”.

What can you do about it?

Insert content that will help them consider your solution. At this point in the buyer’s journey they know who you are, but are still trying to figure out just how good your tech is and how much it aligns with their marketing challenges. Again, helping, client-centered content is going to be key. Webinars and engaging walk-through videos can help show prospects just how simple and user-friendly your technology is. When they’re ready to make a decision, offer them a demo. Going the extra mile to show them how your tool can transform the way they organize and execute their marketing effort is your way of saying that your software caters to their individual needs.

The B word (Budget)

Saving the best for last, right? If talking about money makes you squeamish, you’re not alone. In the past year, marketing teams are spending over 60% of their budget on MarTech and advertising (e.g. paid search). That being said, the pressure to look for marketing/ advertising assistance is very real, and very costly.

What can you do about it?

Meghan Keaney, the VP Marketing of HubSpot, wrote an article discussing how to talk about pricing without scaring people off. If budget is people’s largest reservation when it comes to committing to a new MarTech or AdTech software, err on the side of caution not to send them running.

Here are 3 of the biggest take-aways I had from the article that I think speak to the MarTech/AdTech field:

  1. Have a pricing page. For those who come to your website and right away see that your product isn’t in their price range, they’ll close the tab and move on something else. Guess what – that’s not a bad thing! This can help create a self selected group of leads who continue down your buyer’s journey. Better that than to spend time nurturing poor leads down your sales funnel, only to find out later that you’re not in their price range.
  2. The clearer your pricing the better. If you offer various pricing packages, make that known to your website visitors. While you may (and should) have a ideal buyer profile, different companies have different needs. Use keywords to speak to the features and solutions your prospects are looking for. This can drive leads straight to your website from search engines, making you zero to hero just like that!
  3. Pat prospects on the back. Whether it’s on your website or in a meeting, bring the human factor into the conversation. No matter how much research they’ve done, your technology is an investments. Give them an encouraging, “you’re on the right track” or “smart move” to show them that your MarTech/AdTech solution’s payoff is coming soon.

Conclusion

When it comes to being on the marketing team of a MarTech/AdTech company, there can be an internal and/or external assumption that you of all companies should be the jack of all marketing trades. Whether this is true for you or not, keep educating, helping, and cheering on your prospects as you support and lead them into their bright and techy marketing future.

If you found this useful, and you’re curious to learn more and find out how to create a long lasting inbound marketing strategy, we invite you to download our How-To guide for creating an Inbound Marketing strategy below!

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

bold hive

Introduction – The Bold Hive

Traditional marketing agencies work with their clients in a vacuum. Many times, companies that work with agencies have little contact with other clients past the case studies the agency puts out on their website.

That being the case, it’s often unheard of that clients have the opportunity to share with each other nuggets of wisdom they individually picked up along the way. Each has (in the words of our agency coach and Hubspot Sales Director Dan Tyre) Big Wins and Little Wins they should be applauded for. Each naturally also has their setbacks and pitfalls which others can undoubted nod and say, “I’ve been there. Maybe try this?”. In short, fellow clients rarely have the chance to engage with each other as a way to share insights, network, and grow together.

But at Bold, we see things differently. Introducing: the Bold MarTech and AdTech hive!

 

We believe we have the responsibility to connect and engage our clients beyond our one-on-one meetings. After much brainstorming and planning, we’re proud to present The Bold Hive.

The Bold Hive’s first collaboration will include Israeli companies in the MarTech and AdTech industry.

What does the Bold Hive include? In addition to our usual marketing services, Collaborators will enjoy

  • The opportunity to learn and network with each other, as well as our current clients in this vertical (e.g. Self Advertiser).
  • Monthly meetups to share experiences and learn about updates in the field
  • Guest speakers from the industry
  • The reassurance that they’re of being surrounded by competitors, but rather allies
  • Private Slack channel for continued engagement
  • A way to strengthening each other’s efforts by directing new leads to each other
  • Sharing SEO link juice by mutually linking to each others websites and resources

If you’re an Israeli MarTech or AdTech company that’s looking to get into the same room with people who understand what you do, and can help you with your marketing efforts, join us!

Know a CMO or CEO who might be interested? Have them reach out to us.

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

must have chrome extensions

Introduction

I know, I know. You’ve seen it all before.

The web is swamped by countless blog articles offering you, well –  basically, the same old extensions over and over again.

Most of them are covering very short lists aimed to assist specific needs in the online marketing world according to the hosting site’s niche expertise. But as the marketing world evolves there’s a broader understanding that the best form of marketing is the kind that makes everything work in synergy. You simply can’t afford not to know how to make the best of the limited time you’ve got, in order to achieve everything you have to do in the day.

With the right browser extension, you can save a lot of time and effort currently wasted on small tasks that could be done do much more efficiently.

So, I’ve put together a list of 24 Chrome extensions that will help improve your time management, SEO efforts, data analysis and overall marketing. This post is a follow up to a past a succesful post we’ve published on the subject.

Extensions that will help you be more efficient and manage your time better

1. The Great Suspender: Don’t you just hate it when your browser starts to slow down when too many tabs are open? Closing them is frustrating, as you’ll need them soon. Leaving them open slows down your work as you end up staring at your screen waiting for your computer to move it. Stress no more! this magical extension helps you suspend tabs and free up the memory of your Chrome browser. You can choose from automatically or manually suspending those tabs that have been inactive for a while, only to reactivate them when needed by browsing back to them. You’ll feel like you’re cycling on a paved road after struggling through a gravel one.

2. OneTab: Compresses all the opened tabs in the browser into one tab, so you can see the content of all opened tabs in one look. Active web pages will be closed, but their URLs will be automatically saved within a single tab. You can also group these tabs into a special category, enabling you to open them at a later time.

For every minute spent organizing an hour is earned. Benjamin Franklin.

3. One Click Extensions Manager: Basically like the one above, but for extensions. With a click of a mouse, it hides the extensions icons and gathers them under one icon. Simple, smart and helps you cut down the clutter.

4. Boomerang: A popular extension that offers smart mailing solutions. My favorite is scheduling those emails you work on when you’ve woken up at 4am and didn’t want to startle the recipient. No need to worry about forgetting to send that email later. Schedule it and go back to sleep.

5. Awesome Screenshot: A quick and easy to use screenshot tool with extra editing features. For example, you can highlight or mark important captures with arrows for that web developer who didn’t implement that pixel correctly.

6, Tinybeest Image Optimization: a very simple tool to reduce and optimize images for your site, blog etc.

7. Figure it Out: Allows you to add up to 10 time zones to your “new tab” screen, helps make scheduling posts or setting up meetings with different regions super easy. It also displays regional national holidays, so you can avoid posting your best social content on a day when no one will be paying attention.

8. Zest: Stay up-to-date with minimal effort with this amazing new-tab feed extension, which gathers stellar content suggested by marketers, for marketers.

9. Search and Replace: The title says it all, do it on every in-browser writing box without browsing away.

Extract useful marketing information faster

10. SimilarWeb: This Israeli marketing intelligence product also has a great Chrome extension. The tool shows useful site analytics and information like traffic sources, monthly visits, rank, Geo sources and more. A must-have for everyone who needs to collect valuable competitor’s information.

11, SimilarTech:  Another one from the Israeli guys, which also have a competitive intelligence tool that tracks technology adoption and usage analytics in real-time”. More simply put, it shows you what technology or marketing products are used by any site. Very useful for competitor research.  (Bonus insight: We’ve recently collaborated with the SimilarTech team to conduct a research on the state of marketing automation in 2016, you’re welcome to read it)

12. Tag Assistant: This one by Google, helps you make sure your Google tags (like GA, Google Tag Manager, Conversion tracking etc.) are implemented and fired properly.

13. Ghostery: A little bit like SimilarTech, but under a different hat. This one helps you protect your web browsing privacy by showing you what trackers on a site are viewing your personal data and the ability to block those you’re not interested in and speed up your browsing. For us marketers, it can be used as a spying tool to see what our competitors/clients are doing.

14. IP Address and Domain Information: This is a bit more in the Webmastering world, but also useful to any of us doing a little bit of SEO. It displays detailed information about any website, including Domain name, Host, Server location, Mozrank and Alexa rank and a lot more useful info.

15. Rapportive: Although digital marketers are more and more active on social platforms like LinkedIn and Twitter, many of our interactions still happen via email. Rapportive helps you bridge that social gap by gathering information from your contact’s social accounts right inside your inbox. You’ll be able to conduct conversations that are much more personal and relevant to what your recipient is up to.

16. Hunter: One of the most popular extensions to find email addresses of your leads from either a Linkedin page or a company’s website. Much like Rapportive, only the other way around.

17. BuzzSumo: When browsing the web searching for new content ideas for your blog, this extension can help you by instantly showing how many social shares an article or blog post on a potential subject received.

18. KUKU.io: The most user-friendly social media management tool I ever used. Its coolest feature is that it allows you to adapt the voice you’re using when sharing in each different social media platform with a few clicks. Charm!

For better SEO work

19. Majestic Backlink Analyzer: This one might not be the first choice of a backlink analyzer for many SEO managers, but it’s definitely my personal favorite. I find it way more comfortable to use than Moz or Alexa’s, and the data much more accurate. Also, I find the correlation between the Trust Flow and Citation Flow more informative than those other metrics.

20. PageSpeed Insights: A must-have tool for any SEO manager. Check any site’s performance grade instantly with this light and fast extension.

21. SEO Quake: This one’s a bit advanced, but I find myself using it a lot. The great thing about it is that in one look, it shows you the most important metrics of a website from Alexa, SEMrush, Bing and Google. With just one click you can also see internal and external backlinks, compare URLs and even browse to a deeper diagnosis for titles, headers and overall health of the site you’re investigating.

22. NoFollow: See if a web page is providing a Do or No Follow link with just one look.

23. Goo.gl: My personal favourite URL shortener. Perfect for instantly sharing friendly URLs without browsing to another site.

24. Clear Cache: Speed up your browsing in one click by clearing cache and browsing data with this extension.

Final note

Hopefully, I introduced you to some fresh and new extensions you didn’t use yet. They sure did save me a lot of time that otherwise would have been wasted on silly tasks like, I don’t know, cursing away through the dozens tabs constantly opened on my computer.

If you found this useful, and you’re curious to learn more and find out how to step up your marketing I invite you to download our How-To guide for creating an inbound marketing strategy.

 

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John Doe

Architect & Engineer

We love that guy

marketing vocab header

Introduction – marketing vocab

Whether you’re an entry level marketing coordinator or a CMO, marketing lingo can feel like it’s a sea of confusing acronyms. In this blog post, we’re gonna go through the rundown of all of the marketing vocabulary you need to know to hit the ground running. In the past, the marketing dictionary was fairly simple, but with the rise of digital and inbound marketing, social media and SEO, suddenly there’s plenty of new terminology you got to know. So before you you go out there walking the marketing walk, make sure you read this so you’re talking to the marketing talk.

 

The big picture

So let’s get started, shall we? Let’s start with the big picture. Digital marketing? Content marketing? Social media marketing? Inbound marketing? Are these all the same? Kinda, but no.

If we zoom out, we can talk about the umbrella of digital marketing, or the marketing of products or services through technological mediums like the internet, mobile, etc. Under this umbrella, we have three categories:

 

  1. Owned media
  2. Paid media
  3. Earned media

Sorry if it seems like I’m adding insult to injury of your marketing lexicon, but stick with me. Owned media includes the basis of your digital marketing efforts. It’s your website, mobile site (or app), blog and social media channels. It’s the content you put out for the world to see.

Paid media, is your advertising efforts. As suggested by the name, this channel shows that when done right, money talks. Using Pay Per Click (PPC), influencer marketing (we’ll get there), and paid content ads, this is the strategy used to get your name and product in front of your prospects.

Earned media is the high five you get at a crowded party that gets people’s attention. It’s the shares on social media, the name-drops on Twitter, and reviews in an online magazine. The result? With some genuine hype (and/ or some good PR), earned media turns heads and gets people talking.

digital marketing trifecta

(Courtesy of Quora)

Content marketing vs. Social media marketing

Aren’t these the same? Not quite. Many people might call these two the flirty soul sisters of marketing. Unlike the analytical backend side of marketing, these two are the personable faces of any company. Marketing thought leader Jay Baer once distinguished between the two as follows:

The goals of content are consumption, then behavior. The goals of social are participation, then behavior.

Content Marketing reminds me of a summer camp bonfire. You have the ability through blogs and other forms of content to tell stories about your company, product, or content. Social Media Marketing is a way to engage your audience to participate in the conversation.

Third party marketers: Affiliate Marketing vs. Influencer Marketing

It’s human nature that people trust people more than people trust brands. Enter: affiliate and influencer marketers. They can create blogs, vlogs, Tweets, and all other kinds of content that people consume, trust, and follow. By reviewing or mentioning a brand or product, they can easy create brand awareness to their niche audiences. How do they get paid? Each can use special tracked links and cookies to directly tie sales to those that were generated from viewing their content about the brand or product.

So what makes them different?

Affiliate marketing

 

  • These companies promote products, sales, and offers of other companies through blogs, reviews, paid ads and participating in online discussions.
  • Affiliates are paid a commission from the sales resulting from the traffic they generate to the sites that sell the product/service promoted.
  • Unlike influencers, affiliates will work hand in hand to ensure that the content being posted is in line with the kind of review the brand has in mind. By having the ability to censor the content being published, companies can ensure that their brand is being well represented.

Influencer marketing

 

  • Usually individuals (bloggers, authors, consultants, etc.) who have a strong niche following either online or on social media.
  • Influencers are (usually) paid a flat fee to promote a brand. This can come with free perks or products to use and review.
  • One unique strength of their influence is that since their reviews tend to be posted through social media, social engagement like commenting, liking, sharing can be generated quickly, bringing new followers to the brand’s social media platforms.
  • Influencer marketers can be a bit tricker because brands have less of a say in how their product is presented. This is a great double edged sword because while companies can have their hands tied about their product’s presentation, consumers tend to trust influencers to be true to themselves and the needs of their audience. Take a thought leader for example. If a company in his vertical sends him a “goodie bag” with their software to try, there’s a good chance he’s going to put out some kind of review for it. While it’s hard to say bad things about free stuff, the ball’s in his court.

Let’s talk SEM keywords (and acronyms)

Oh SEM (Search Engine Marketing). You’re so dynamic, you get your own subheading. Looking at the Digital Marketing Trifecta above, SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is placed between Owned Media and Earned Media. But what’s the difference between SEM and SEO?

Most simply put, SEM is the larger umbrella that holds SEO, but also includes PPC (Pay Per Click).  PPC earned its name because it allows advertisers to pay only when someone clicks on their ads that leads the prospect to a company’s website. Within PPC, PSA (Paid Search Advertising) is the ability to put your brand at top of search engine results pages (SERPs) by paying a price.

That being said, SEO is the tools (e.g. Google Search Console, Majestic, Moz OSE, or SEMrush) and tricks (e.g. keywords) that allow you to have your brand organically appear at the top of search results through continued analytics and testing. Online Reputation Management (ORM) is the act of staying on top of your online perception on SERPs to ensure that people see what you want them to see.

Conclusion

That’s all folks! I hope this was helpful for anyone looking for a clearer understanding about some of the existing terminology in the field of digital marketing. One last term for you. Inbound marketing is the perspective of all of these forms of marketing through the customer-centric lens of educating and delighting consumers. Through inbound, marketers work to meet customers where they’re at in the buyer’s journey, whether they’re Googling a how-to, trusting vlog content from influencers, or comparing pricing and features before they decide to buy.

Now that you can talk the talk, let’s see you walk the walk. Check out our eBook 30 Greatest Lead Generation Tips, Tricks, & Ideas to get starting on taking your next digital marketing steps.

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