INBOUND ACCELERATOR

In marketing, as with almost any endeavor, there is theory and there is reality. Just ask any veteran of a given profession who has recently had a conversation with a freshly-graduated newcomer full of ideas about “how it works” that come from classes and books.

Those classes and books are great, and should be very close to what happens on the ground and in the trenches, but real-world results can also be much different. Which is why it pays to take time to review your actual results and see how they compare to what you would have expected based on best practices and industry averages.

Is 2020 the year your company refreshes its online look with an updated website? Or launches a new brand or branding that means building a new site from scratch?

Here are the design trends you’ll want to keep in mind to build an effective website that not only looks great, but performs from the first click.

The core principle behind inbound marketing for B2B brands — whether in healthcare, technology, software or others — is that the content created is designed to have value to prospects and customers. It is not strictly focused on selling something, but rather on teaching or reaching leads in a way that shows how they can best use your product or service to improve their own bottom line.

Inbound marketing is focused around a few seemingly simple steps to generate online leads:

1. Write blog posts that address customer pain points to boost SEO and attract visitors.

2. Further promote those posts through social media.

3. Use posts to link to downloadable content and other offers gated behind landing pages, capturing lead information from the landing page forms.

Sounds simple, but there are plenty of potential stumbling blocks along the way.

If you were to write a Christmas wish list for your marketing department, what would it include?

I envision mine as a “12 Days of Christmas” style countdown, that combines to create a fantastic inbound marketing campaign, all in one neat package and ready to go.

It’s December 5 - how many times have you heard your favorite (or most-hated) holiday song?

While a partridge in a pear tree sounds romantic as a gift, and I don’t know of many people who would turn down five gold rings, some of other gifts bestowed in those infamous 12 days are more than little over-the-top.

A key component to a complete inbound marketing campaign is the downloadable asset or offer. It is this piece of valuable information, insight, or assistance that triggers conversion and online lead generation.

In order to generate online leads with downloadable content offers, you have to create offers that have a strong appeal and value to your prospects. Makes sense, right?

I’ve said all along that inbound marketing requires valuable content, but what content is most valuable to your prospects today? What offers will entice them to convert from a visitor into a lead?

We know from years of surveys that generating website traffic is always a challenge and a top priority for marketers. You’ll find it listed in the State of Inbound 2017 report created by HubSpot, and in the 2016 report, and in the same reports for years before that.

With 4 of 5 consumers (and a similar number of business leaders) saying they would rather watch a video about a product than read text (more on that here and here), it just makes sense to put videos in places that make the most of your automated lead nurturing: your lead nurturing emails.