How Things Used to Be Sold

The Power of Inbound MarketingHow changes in human behavior and the web landscape have led to a

revolution in customer acquisition (and how marketers can take advantage!)

How Things Used to Be Sold

1921

1955

1983

1998

2011

2011

The Process of Selling Hasn’t Changed…

The Process of Buying Has…

How People Buy Today

Realize a Need

Research Options

Ask Peers and Experts

Seek Out Experts

Leverage Q+A Sites & Forums

Dig Into Every Detail Available

Convert, Buy, Trial

Inbound vs. Outbound Marketing

Inbound Marketing Outbound Marketing

Social Networks (Facebook, Twitter)

Blogs + News Sites

Links from Partners + Friends

Forums + Discussion Sites

Q+A Answers w/ a Link

User Profiles + Comments

Opt-In Email Newsletters

Organic Search Rankings

Inclusion in Universal Search Results

Viral Content

Viral Content

Display Advertising

Buying Email Lists

Site Sponsorships

Demographic Targeting

Affiliate Marketing

Video Ads

Paid Search Ads

Contextual Ad Networks (AdSense)

Facebook Ads

You Must Become a Go-To Resource Expert

http:/googleblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/our-new-search-index-caffeine.htmlSometimes, a single piece of content or just a few, can yield these results but, more often, it takes dozens to hundreds of attempts to become a resource hub.

Site that offers:• Unique Research• Informed Opinions• News/Trend Analysis• Multimedia Content• Authentic Expert Contributors• Quality Discussion/Interaction

Referenced by industry

blogs

Mentioned in news

publications

Cited at conferences + events

Liked/Shared on Facebook

Links are Tweeted

Answers on Q+A sites reference its resources

Forum discussions link to its pages

People email links to each

other

Tips, Strategies & Channels for Effective Marketing

Discover What People Want By Asking Them!

Polls

Q&A

Surveys

Contests

Maturate & Engage in Dialogues Pre Sales Process

For some great Facebook-focused marketing tactics, check out http://www.seomoz.org/blog/4-facebook-marketing-tactics-you-might-not-know-about

Facebook More fans = more people potentially exposed to

your content.

But… You also need to create posts that will

show up in “top news” on your fans’ walls. That’s

more challenging.

I highly recommend http://www.slideshare.net/danzarrella/the-science-of-re-tweets which helps show the correlation between activities on Twitter and your ability to have the message spread.

TwitterIt’s not just about the follower count. Your

tweets have to count for something and drive actions/awareness.

Good advice on LinkedIn profiles here - http://www.seomoz.org/ugc/optimize-your-linkedin-profile-for-best-results-howto (also, don’t miss the comments which discuss how the links work).

LinkedIn

Like Facebook, LinkedIn now has a wall that drives “likes” and

comments (as well as traffic).

LinkedIn’s “Groups” are a powerful way

to grow your network and spread

a message.

Every two years, we put out http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors but leave the URL the same, so it continues to accrue great link/social/sharing signals.

Evergreen Content

After producing what is, admittedly, an awesome graphic - http://www.paralegal.net/judge-judy/ - Paralegal.net rose to page one in Google (and got bjillions of drive-by visits, too).

Infographics

The genius game-like badges, points and progress at http://stackoverflow.com has helped make it one of the most successful sites in the Q+A world.

Gamification

Feeds aren’t just useful for subscribers. They “ping” search engines, enable easy syndication and can be used by lots of content aggregators that send traffic, too.

Blog Content Feeds

On average, this many people actually read a

post via feed

Fostering Community

These (http://www.seomoz.org/users/profile/) emulate the success of places like LinkedIn, Quora, Stackoverflow and others. They’ve increased participation and traffic to the profiles dramatically.

User Profiles

Progress Bar

Highly customizable profile details

Custom Photo

Links to other web profiles

Guest blogging (or contributing content to any type of publisher) is a great way to build your brand and earn links. Tools like http://myblogguest.com/ can help make the process easier.

Partner Blogging + Writing

Partner Generated Content

HARO (http://www.helpareporter.com/) is a popular service that lets you get contacted when relevant reporters/journalists need sources. Hrmarketer (http://www.hrmarketer.com ).

Direct Connections to Journalists

Presentations = Engagement

I did a brief, 4-minute presentation at the Seattle 2.0 Awards - http://www.geekwire.com/2011/seomoz-ceo-rand-fishkin-googles-panda-update that promoted our hiring + growth (focused on that audience’s values rather than trying to sell to them)

Live Events

Our webinars http://www.seomoz.org/webinars attract 500-1,000 attendees and earn lots of tweets, blog posts and links. Hubspot’s get 10K+ attendees http://www.hubspot.com/marketing-webinars/

Webinars

I put many of my presentation on http://slideshare.net where they earn thousands of additional views.

Online Presentations

Video

YouTube actually ranks as the second largest “search property” in the US, behind only Google: http://thenextweb.com/google/2011/05/25/youtube-hits-3-billion-views-per-day-2-days-worth-of-video-uploaded-every-minute/

YouTube

Don’t be a honey badger. Care about

YouTube’s potential!

The “Long Tail” of Video Sites

http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/08/long-tail-video-half-viewing-minutes/

Long tail of video sites get 50% of all

online video traffic/views!

At SEOmoz, we use http://www.wistia.com who submits our video XML sitemaps to Google for us - http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?answer=80472

Self-Hosted Video Content

Step #1: Promote

Step #2:Test

Step #3: Repeat

Find marketing communities that look promising.

Invest a few days/hours building authentic value in that niche/sector.

Throw out low ROI programs; repeat high ROI programs.