INBOUND MARKETING - f.hubspotusercontent20.net

WILKINSONDATA-DRIVEN MARKETING + SALES

INBOUND MARKETING

Create Meaningful Experiences, Tailored to Your Audience.

Data-Driven | Highly-Responsive | Immersive

HOW IT’S DONEAN INTRO TO INBOUND

But how do you do it?

Many, if not all, of the traditional marketing and sales strategies are considered outbound methods. Examples of such methods are cold calling, television advertising, email blasts and telemarketing. Outbound methods force messaging and content on your audience that they did not request and probably don’t want. This wastes time, money and risks alienating the very people you are trying to form relationships with. Moreover, it’s difficult to identify what works and what doesn’t. Without a framework to collect and analyze data, determining ROI becomes a guessing game.

Inbound marketing is different. Inbound is a measurable approach to marketing that focuses on attracting customers by creating valuable content and experiences. These experiences are delivered at the right time, in the right context using integrated, innovative tools

and techniques. Inbound marketing helps to form relationships with clients by providing value and build trust in a human, helpful way. Inbound marketing addresses the problems and needs of your ideal customers, attracts qualified prospects and builds trust and credibility for your organization. The best part? Inbound marketing uses a framework for capturing data that clearly shows where your leads came from, what questions they’re trying to answer and which products and services they need the most. Figuring out ROI is a breeze.

These days, everyone agrees: Inbound is a better way to market, a better way to sell, and a better way to serve your customers.

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION (SEO)

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Here’s a fact—nine out of ten B2B buyers use Google to research vendors, products and services before they make a buying decision. If your organization doesn’t have a strategy to expand your visibility in organic search results, it’s likely you will lose out to a competitor that does. That’s where search engine optimization (SEO) comes in. But, what is SEO?

Search engine optimization is the strategy to ensure that when someone uses Google to research products and services in your industry, they’ll find you. It helps companies improve where they rank in SERPs (search engine result pages), thus improving visibility to searchers. This will result in more website visitors, a crucial metric in Inbound Marketing.

To understand how to improve your search rankings, you must first try to understand how Google ranks web pages. Unfortunately, the algorithm that Google uses to rank pages is a closely guarded secret of their search-quality team. To make it even more challenging, Google is constantly evolving and improving it’s engine. Here’s what we think we know.

Google uses over 200 “ranking factors” to determine search results

Or at least it used to. In 2009 Matt Cutts, a software engineer at Google, stated there “over 200 variables” that Google used to determine search results. That was over a decade ago, so that number has probably changed a bit. But SEO experts still believe that factors such as domain authority, site usability, time on-page and site security impact how Google will rank your site.

Google regularly updates it’s algorithm to improve user experience

Since 2011, Google has rolled out nine major updates, including the game-changing Hummingbird update in August of 2013. The purpose of these changes? To combat underhanded methods used to game the system (like keyword stuffing or shady link building techniques), provide a more conversational and relevant search experience and to keep pace with mobile and voice search technologies. Google recognizes that search behaviors develop and change over time. It’s search engine has as well.

Because of this, every SEO strategy should address three key areas:

First they have to find you.

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To improve your search results over time, the first thing you should do is make sure your site is built in way that the search engines can index it. When Google analyzes your site, it only sees code and text. You want to optimize the code and text so that Google can scan and index your site without any issues. Here are some tips for improving the technical side of your site for searches:

Website

Set your site navigation and links as text-only.

Make sure all of your links work—no broken links!

Create a sitemap and robots.txt file so Google knows what should and shouldn’t be indexed.

Do not duplicate content or copy and paste text from other websites. Google will penalize you for that.

Speed matters; work to reduce load time on your web pages.

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Have you ever heard the phrase, “content is king”? Well, when it comes to websites, it’s the truth. Your website content is what visitors will (hopefully) find during a search. If you can prove to Google that your content is worth finding, then they will rank you higher for relevant searches.

Coming up with content ideas isn’t always easy. Maintaining and optimizing content can prove challenging as well.Here are some ways you can optimize your content for searches:

Content

Do keyword research to identify the specific phrases that web visitors use to conduct searches. Build your content around these terms.

Make sure your keywords are used properly across your URL, H1 tags, meta-tags and image alt-tags.

Shorter isn’t necessarily better. Craft your content to comprehensively answer the question your visitors are searching for answers to. If you don’t answer their question, they will bounce, and Google will adjust your search ranking accordingly.

Whenever you can, use content in a format that increases engagement. Killer video and engaging visuals (like infographics) will keep visitors on your page longer—and show Google that you offer quality content.

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Earlier, we mentioned domain authority as a factor that Google uses to rank sites. Your website links are a critical element when determining your website’s authority. Google looks at the quality and quantity of links to your site; improve both and you will be on the path to optimizing your organic search rankings. Unfortunately, building high-quality links to your website is extremely challenging. Here are some things to consider when working to improve your website’s links:

The explanations and tips we’ve provided are just a few elements to take into consideration when building your SEO strategy. We’re just scratching the surface. The topic of SEO is a broad one. Hopefully we’ve supplied insights with which you can deepen your understanding of this vast and complex subject.

Links

Work to get links from sites that are popular (have lots of traffic) and are deemed trustworthy by visitors (meaning other sites link to their content).

Establish links from domains that offer quality content on topics that are similar to yours and relevant to the searches your visitors are conducting.

Avoid links from low-quality websites or links that look as if they were put in place to trick Google into thinking your site is authoritative. These links can negatively impact your rankings.

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CONTENT CREATION

CONTENT CREATION(Content types continued next page)

As we mentioned in the previous section, your content is what visitors will find when they visit your website. So, answer this question:

Are they going to find useless, irritating sales pitches or will they find helpful, valuable answers to the questions they have?

Inbound marketing is unique in that it tirelessly focuses on solving for the visitor, prospect and customer first. The way inbound accomplishes this is with quality content. Quality content can come in many forms, but in the end it always achieves the same marketing and sales objectives:

A blog is a regularly updated website or webpage that is written in an informative, conversational style. Blogging enables you to publish insights, thoughts, and stories on your website about any topic. They can help you boost traffic, brand awareness, credibility, conversions, and revenue.

Videos are a powerful form of content. With video, you can inform and educate your audience in a flexible, highly impactful way. Data shows that video can increase conversion rates by more than 80%, and in a recent survey, nine out of ten respondents indicated they use videos to help them make buying decisions.

Content creation is the process of generating topic ideas that appeal to your buyer persona, creating written or visual content around those ideas, and making that information accessible to your audience in an appealing, useful format. There are many types of formats to choose from. Here are some examples, along with brief explanations:

Quality content comes in many forms.

Blog Posts

Videos

Connects with your audience to show them ways to reach their goals and solve their challenges.

Builds a relationship of trust between your visitors and your organization.

Increases engagement, boosts conversions and sets the table for a smooth, informed sales process.

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CONTENT CREATION

CONTENT CREATION

An infographic uses visualizations and images to represent information and data. They often come in easily downloadable formats, like PDFs and JPEGs. You can also create web-based, interactive infographics. Data and statistics can be easier to understand (and fun) when presented in the form of an infographic. Marketers love them because they can be quick and affordable to produce.

Guides is a broad term, but it’s basically a reference or resource that provides information about a particular subject. Many come in the form of a tutorial with step-by-step instructions. Ideally, they will be comprehensive in nature – with detailed explanations, visuals and descriptions. These take time and effort to produce, but are well worth it. Guides are great for deep-funnel conversions.

Do you have a client who you have enabled to overcome their challenges and reach their goals? If you do, chances are they absolutely love you for it. Tell their story. With a case study, your audience gets a front-row seat to what it’s like to be a customer. This can be extremely effective at establishing credibility and moving the relationship to the next level.

Electronic books or “eBooks” are digital forms of books that visitors can navigate through, read and share. They often come in PDF format so they can be served up like webpages and emailed. When creating an eBook for the first time, it might be helpful to think of it as a really long blog post. It’s a great way to deliver lots of information in a format that people can take with them and digest on their own time.

Creating interactive tools can be challenging (and expensive) to develop. However, the right tool can really resonate with your audience and generate a ton of leads. A good example is HubSpot’s Website Grader. Users can enter the site’s URL and the tool will grade it across various parameters, such as performance, SEO and security. It’s easy to see why content like this does such an effective job of delivering conversions and setting the table for next steps in the sales process.

Infographics

Guides

Case Studies

eBooks

Interactive Tools

(Content types continued next page)

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CONTENT CREATION

CONTENT CREATION

You might not have realized it, but your website is your #1 piece of content. Just like a blog or guide, the content you furnish on your website should inform, educate and engage visitors. Sites full of catchy taglines, descriptions of products and services and distracting elements like social media feeds might look good—but at the end of the day, they don’t deliver value. We’re not saying that you shouldn’t talk about your products and services on your site, but remember do it in a way that solves for the visitor, prospect and customer first.

Ok, so hopefully now you have some ideas about content that you’d like to create. But how do you get started?

At Sharp Wilkinson, we use a simple formula to map the steps for creating content. We call it the 3D method:

The first step in content creation is to define your content. In this step you are going to plan and describe the format, topic and scope of your piece of content. You’ll want to do some research on your audience. Use your buyer personas to accurately define your target. You might also want to research keywords that are used to search for answers to questions your piece of content will address. Once you know what you’re going to talk about and who you’re trying to reach, ask yourself these questions.

Website

Define

What are the key insights/takeaways I want to provide with this content?

How will this content help my audience/what value does it bring?

What action do I want the audience to take next?

(3D method continued next page)

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CONTENT CREATION

CONTENT CREATION

Write all of this down. With the target audience, content format, keywords and answers to these three questions, you should have a clearer sense of the content you will produce. So let’s develop this thing!

After the initial piece of content is developed, you enter a kind of “review and revise” loop. Have two other people review the content and make suggestions for revisions and adjustments. Revise and repeat until the content is standing tall.

The develop phase of the content creation process will look different based on what type of content you are creating, but often it starts with writing. Even if the content is an infographic or video, following these guidelines should help you plan and execute your communication:

Develop

Speak directly to your persona. Use their vernacular and tone to deliver the message.

Strive to be distinctive. Avoid repeating what others have done. Use a unique style to make the content one-of-a-kind.

Be succinct. Clearly express what you are trying to say. Don’t try to impress with fancy jargon or technical language.

Stay focused. Don’t go down a rabbit hole. Refer back to what you wrote down in the define stage.

Follow Josh Bernoff’s Iron Imperative: Treat the reader’s time as more valuable than your own. Simply put, if you don’t have something valuable to offer, stop what you’re doing and go back to the define stage.

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CONTENT CREATION

CONTENT CREATION

Time to put the content out there and start raking in the conversions. But first, plan how, when and where the content will be deployed. Map it out. If it’s a blog post, select the day and time the post will be published. Then decide how you will share the post—email, social media, etc. If it’s a video, decide how it will be hosted and shared. If you are going use the content to generate leads (and you should) plan the conversion path and follow up.

You spent the time to make an awesome piece of content, so spend the time to deploy it in a way that it will deliver results. And the job doesn’t end there. Now that you have a bunch of killer content, you will want to create a content inventory spreadsheet and use it to supercharge your content strategy with your best content performers.

Deploy

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LEAD GENERATION

LEAD GENERATION

Wouldn’t it be great if your website provided your sales team with qualified leads? Think about it – your sales reps could spend less time on outbound techniques, like cold calling, and more time turning qualified leads into revenue. Seem too good to be true? It isn’t. Lead generation is an inbound marketing strategy that businesses can use to attract and convert website visitors into a leads. Just so we’re on the same page, we define leads as known contacts who have indicated an identifiable interest at some level of the marketing and sales funnel.

If you’ve spent the time making your website easier to find (SEO), and you’ve developed lots of valuable information that will be valuable to visitors (Content Creation), then the next logical step for you is to find a way to turn those visitors into leads. But before we dive into the best ways to generate leads, let’s discuss the different types of leads.

Get them into the funnel.

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LEAD GENERATION

LEAD GENERATION

An easy way to classify leads is by the stage of the funnel that they convert at. We like to use the simple acronyms: TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. These stand for Top of the Funnel, Middled of the Funnel, and—yeah, you guessed it—Bottom of the Funnel.

Top of the Funnel leads are aware they have an issue (or issues) and are starting to look around for answers and ideas. The are researching online so they can better understand their problem, its causes and its consequences.

Middle of the Funnel leads have defined their problem and understand its causes. MOFU leads are exploring options for solutions. They are committed to addressing the problem and are actively evaluating different approaches or methods to overcome their challenge.

Bottom of the Funnel leads have already decided on a solution strategy and are actively assessing potential partnerships. They are usually whittling down a list to a select number of solution providers and working towards a final decision.

The challenge with lead generation is in actually converting previously unknown website visitors into identifiable leads. The best way to do this is with conversion paths. A conversion path is the step by step process by which a visitor becomes a lead. The steps may vary, but most often a conversion path consists of a CTA, a Landing Page, and a Thank You Page. By developing and deploying the conversion paths, you can effectively move website visitors through the funnel and turn them into happy customers.

CTA stands for Call to Action. A CTA is an element that promotes your content offer. This element can take the form of a button, an image or even a line of text. Regardless of the form a CTA may take, when a visitor clicks on it they are presented with a form to fill out and submit so they can receive the content offered in the CTA. Typically, these forms are housed on a landing page.

We often see the term landing pages being used to refer to any page on a website on which a visitor might “land.” We prefer to differentiate landing pages a little bit more than that. Instead, we call any page on the web on which a visitor might land a “web page”.

A landing page is any page on the web on which a visitor might land that:

1. Has a form

2. Exists solely to capture a visitor’s information through that form

Types of Leads

Conversion Paths

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LEAD GENERATION

LEAD GENERATION

In other words, all landing pages are web pages, but not all web pages are landing pages.

When creating a landing page, consider removing the website navigation elements. This helps to reduce bounces and increase focus on the content you’re offering. It’s also a good idea to add links with which visitors can share your content with audiences on social media.

Once the visitor has submitted the form, they will expect to receive their content. You could always send it to them via automated email, but if you do you will miss out on an opportunity for more conversions. The best way to deliver content at the end of a conversion path is with a Thank You Page.

A thank you page marks the end of one conversion path and the beginning of another. It’s a landing page that features a link to the content you offered—but it also features a CTA for another piece of content the visitor might enjoy. By continuing to offer additional content at the end of conversion paths, you can increase conversion rates and collect valuable data on what leads are most interested in. That data can be extremely helpful at the final stage of lead generation—handling your lead.

In Inbound Marketing, lead generation doesn’t end at the conversion. Rather, proper lead management is the key to taking your hard earned inbound leads and turning them into opportunities and customers. There are three basic steps in the lead management process.

Identify the Type of Lead

Are they a TOFU, MOFU or BOFU? It matters, because each one is at a different stage of the buyer’s journey and therefore should be managed differently. If they subscribed to your newsletter, they shouldn’t necessarily be contacted by a salesperson. Conversely, if they requested a consultation they should not be entered into a lead nurturing workflow. Take a closer look at the contact and ask these questions.

Lead Management

Is this the first time they’ve converted?

If not, what other content have they converted on How often have they’ve converted? Did they use a personal email address or company email address?

(Identify the Type of Lead continued next page)

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LEAD GENERATION

LEAD GENERATION

In addition to conversions, have they been to your website, engaged with emails or interacted with your social media?

Don’t jump to conclusions. Do your research so that you can handle this lead in an optimal way.

Assign the Lead

Whether you are going to immediately contact them or not, you will need to assign this lead so that they are handled correctly. That doesn’t just mean assigning a contact owner. It also means you will need to update their lifecycle stage. By designating the appropriate lifecycle stage, you can be sure that the rest of your team (especially the contact owner) will better understand the context in which the lead converted, and they can tailor their follow-up accordingly. In Inbound Marketing there are eight lifecycle stages:

SubscriberLeads who have subscribed to a newsletter, blog, etc. In some cases, these contact records may contain nothing more than an email address.

LeadLeads who have provided you with more information about themselves, usually by filling out a form in order to receive some sort of MOFU content.

Marketing Qualified LeadLeads who have expressed a deeper interest in your offerings. Whereas Leads are usually accepting top-of-the-funnel offers, MQLs are asking for information closer to the bottom of the funnel.

Sales Qualified LeadLeads who have been identified by your sales team as being ready for direct contact.

OpportunityContacts your sales team is already actively in a conversation with.

(Assign the Lead continued next page)

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LEAD GENERATION

LEAD GENERATION

CustomerContacts who have already purchased something from you. EvangelistContacts outside your organization who aren’t going to buy, but are willing to spread the word about what you do. Evangelists are an invaluable source of referrals. OtherPeople who don’t fit into any of the above. You might not have any contacts in the category, but if you do, you need to be sure to clearly define what sort of person belongs here.

Once a lead has been identified, given a lifecycle stage and assigned to an owner you can now move to the next step.

Respond to the Lead

The way you follow up may vary on the characteristics we’ve discussed, but one thing is for sure: you must respond to the lead in a timely manner. The average lead response time for organizations is 46 hours and 53 minutes! Are you kidding?! It’s easy to see that just responding quickly to leads puts you in rarified air.

That doesn’t mean every lead should be contacted immediately, or that all leads should be contacted in the same way. Subscribers might receive an automated email letting them know you received their request and are available to answer any questions they may have. Other types of leads might be put into a lead nurturing workflow where they can continue to be supported through every stage of the buyer’s journey. MQLs will typically be contacted by a salesperson via phone or personal email. Lead response is different for every business case. That’s why you should build an internal SLA.

A service-level agreement, or SLA is a type of contract that establishes a set of deliverables between two parties. In this case the SLA will address responsibilities, processes and accountability for leads between the marketing and sales departments. By clearly defining lead response in an SLA, your organization will be in the best possible position to reap the ultimate rewards of your lead generation efforts: happy customers.

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SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING


Social media marketing is the use of social media networks to market an organization’s products and services. Within the framework of inbound marketing, we use social media to drive visitors to a website and onto conversion paths. Social media as an excellent method of sharing your company’s blog posts and content—carefully positioning it alongside the latest industry news to establish ethos with potential customers who discover your company on social media.

Improving your social media skills is worth the effort. Using social media to market your business will enable you to reach your target audience, engage with current and potential customers, create brand loyalty, increase website traffic, and drive sales. Marketing on social is not just a trend, it’s a powerful industry technique that will help you reach more people all over the world.

There are two basic types of social media marketing: Paid and Organic.

Paid social media targets specific segments of an audience with display advertisements and promoted content to build awareness, boost conversions and increase sales. It’s a great way to leverage your top-performing content, putting it in front of audiences that you’re unlikely to reach by organic methods. When considering the right paid social strategy for your company, you’ll want to keep these three key factors in mind:

Drive visitors to your site.

Paid Social

Budget Channel Creative

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Budget

Every organization is unique, with its own goals and challenges. Because of this, there isn’t one single way for determining social ad budgets. Your goals play a major role in determining the resources you will set aside for any endeavor, and social ads are no exception.

Having said that, a survey of Chief Marketing Officers shows that marketing budgets are typically 8% to 9% of gross annual revenue, and spending on social media occupies between 13% to 20% of marketing budgets. It’s important to remember that the money you spend on advertising is only part of that cost. Planning, management and creative services, like design and copywriting, also will require budgetary resources – so plan accordingly.

But don’t overthink it. The thing to keep in mind when you’re starting out in paid social is this: a small business with very few followers can reach an audience of thousands for just a couple hundred dollars a month. Don’t be afraid to start small and scale your strategy as you begin to see results.

Channel

Now that you have a budget for social ad spend, let’s decide where to spend it. The social media channel you choose should be based on your target audience. Which social channels are they using? As always, when you have questions about the behaviors and characteristics of your audience, you should refer to your buyer personas. If you don’t have buyer personas, you might want to hit the pause button and come back to this step after you’ve developed a few.

There are several social channels that offer advertising opportunities. Here’s a list of the ones you should know, along with monthly active users:

All of these channels offer tools to help you create, schedule and manage your social ads and promotions. Each is a bit different, but they are all are fairly straightforward and easy to use. Your best bet is to test different social channels to determine which one does the most effective job of reaching your audience and helping you to meet your goals.

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Creative

Every picture and word in your ad matters. Your ads should be well-designed and visually appealing so that social users will stop what they are doing and take a closer look. But what happens when they take that closer look is of the utmost importance… What action do you want the audience to take when they see your ad? Think about this ahead of time. If you want them to sign up for a free consultation, make sure the call to action and method for communication are readily available. If you’re sponsoring a piece of content, be sure to test your conversion path so that you know it functions optimally. There are many elements you’ll want to consider when designing your ad. All of these should be carefully crafted to grab the attention of your target audience and entice them to take the desired action:

Again, to determine the best ways to use each of these elements, refer to your buyer personas. Then, tailor your ad to resonate with your ideal customer.

Images and VideoUse visual elements that will grab their attention. Fonts and ColorsSelect fonts and colors that work with the rest of your ad. CopyBe compelling, clear and actionable.

Social posts that doesn’t have the benefit of paid promotion is considered organic. Organic social instead relies on followers to engage with and distribute it to expand its audience. This approach to social media marketing is challenging, but it is an effective way to build trust and credibility with your audience. Think about it — when your audience values your content enough to “like” it, comment on it and share it, they are telling the world that it is high-quality and worth reading.Being responsible for growing audiences and deploying content on social platforms isn’t all fun and games. Along with maintaining a posting schedule, you will need to plan and create channel-specific content as well as keep an eye out for trends. Here are some best practices for managing organic social media.

Organic Social

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Know Your Audience

…and here’s where we bring up buyer personas. Again. But seriously – how can you expect to address the needs and interests of your audience if you don’t first take the time to understand them? By referencing your buyer personas, you’ll be able to determine what content will attract ideal followers (and customers) to your social channels. You’ll also be more successful at keeping them engaged with news, tools, tips and content that they are genuinely interested in.

Choose the Right Channels

Instead of putting a little water in a bunch of glasses, strive to fill a few glasses all the way up. One of the common mistakes business owners, sales managers and marketers make with social media is they try to operate across every social network available. Like paid social, the goal here is to invest in the channels your target audience actively uses. And whenever we need to know about the characteristics and behaviors of our ideal customer we always turn to our… …that’s right. Buyer personas. You’re really starting to get the hang of this.

Define Your Approach

What you talk about on each channel may vary. For instance, on your LinkedIn account, you might share industry news and content with a professional, more serious tone. While on Facebook, you might be more willing to share content with a light-hearted flavor.

Carefully assess the behavior your target audience engages in on social media. Identify the types of content your audience shares and interacts with on each channel and this will help you to define your own approach.

Identify Trusted Sources

Do some news searches and find sources for accurate, meaningful and trustworthy content that you can share. Consider each source carefully and ask yourself these questions.

Does this source have credibility with the target audience?

Does this source consistently reflect the values and interests of the target audience? Does this source have an established audience that resembles that of the target audience?

(Identify Trusted Sources continued next page)

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Does this source consistently develop and deploy original, high-quality content? Does the content this source deploys represent optimally across social channels (e.g. featured image, content descriptions, linking, etc.)?

If you answer “yes” to all of these questions, chances are you’ve identified a trusted source. Add them to your sharing rotation and see what your audience thinks.

Establish Clear Protocols

Plan your work, work your plan. Lay out the rules and procedures that will guide how, when, where and what you will share. Address types of content and sources that are deal-breakers. Clearly define the number of posts per day that will be shared and across how many channels. Be sure to establish how much of your content should be shared vs. content from external sources. By outlining your sharing strategy, you will take out the guesswork and increase the efficiency of your social efforts.

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EMAIL MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING

Email is a versatile marketing tool that, when used within an integrated inbound strategy, can net significant results. It can lead to more website sessions, conversions and customers. On the flip side, using email marketing improperly can lead to high bounce rates, spam reports and damage to your brand.

The methods and uses of email marketing are varied, but emails are commonly used by organizations to stay top-of-mind with leads

and customers, advertise promotions on products or services and strengthen relationships with prospects and customers. There are almost 4 billion people globally who use email, making it one of the most powerful marketing channels available. Email is also the preferred method of communication for 86% of professionals.

Marketing emails are quick and inexpensive to produce and send. They allow for the inclusion of links and interactive media, making them much more engaging than traditional email. There are also a large number of easy-to-use tools that business owners can use to automate and increase the efficiency of their email marketing efforts.

However, the modern consumer receives an average of 90+ emails a day. Because of the high volume of emails that are sent and received around the world on a daily basis, email deliverability is a huge issue. In the United States, roughly one out of every four emails that are sent are either filtered out as spam or fail to make it to their desired recipient. Organizations must also ensure they are complying with spam laws, like CAN-SPAM, or else they face significant civil and criminal punishment.

So what does this all mean? It means that email marketing should definitely be a part of your inbound marketing strategy, but you have to choose the right approach. Depending on your goal, there are two basic types of marketing emails in your arsenal.

A versatile tool.

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EMAIL MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING

Informational emails are used to give someone facts or information about something pertaining to your business. These could be product updates, event invitations, company news, links to content or offers and discounts. These are commonly referred to as “email blasts” because they are a single email version, “blasted” out to lots of different recipients. These are also referred to as “one to many” emails. Here are just a few best practices to consider when sending informational emails.

Establish Clear Protocols

Avoid the temptation of buying a list and sending everyone on it a promotional email. C’mon man. Not only is it potentially annoying to the recipients, it will result in high bounce rates and spam reports. Also, it’s proven that these types of email blasts don’t perform all well anyway—so why waste the time and effort?

Open rates are all about the subject line.

35% of recipients will decide to open the email based solely on the subject line. So what’s the secret? To compose a high-performing subject line, be concise and informative – but don’t give it all away. You want to make them curious enough to open the email, so get creative. Take your time and write a compelling subject line that will drive a strong open rate.

Timing is everything.

No discussion about email marketing best practices would be complete without touching on the subject of timing. The day and time you send your email makes a huge difference in your email’s performance. So how do you choose when to send your email blasts to give them the best open and click-through rates? Of course, you should let data drive the decision-making process.

A 2015 study that analyzed data from over 20 million emails sent in a ten-month period showed that:

1. Emails sent on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Mondays had the best open rates.

2. Emails sent at 11am received the most responses

Personalize key elements of your email.

I know what you’re thinking: how am I going to personalize emails to hundreds (if not thousands) of different people? You shouldn’t have to. There are plenty of email tools that can work with the information in your contact list to automatically create a personalized version. For instance, you can create a personalization token that pulls the first name of your contact and inserts it in the greeting, so instead of “Dear Member”, your email will read “Dear Jerry” (or whatever their name is). Pretty cool, huh?

Informational Emails

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EMAIL MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING

Optimize your emails for mobile viewing.

More than half of all emails are opened on a mobile device. The same tools you used to personalize your emails can be used to make sure your email content is displayed optimally across devices of all sizes. Also, utilize smaller images in your emails. This will help to reduce load times on phones and devices that have slower connection speeds.

As opposed to “one to many”, transactional emails are “one to one” emails triggered by specific actions taken by the recipient. These emails contain relevant information in the recipient’s context and often help to complete a process or transaction (thus, the name). Common examples are order confirmations or receipts, but there are also other types of transactional emails that can have tremendous impact on inbound marketing efforts.

Customer Feedback

An often overlooked aspect of marketing is collecting customer satisfaction data. This is where Customer Feedback emails can be extremely effective. The next time someone completes a transaction with your organization, send them an email asking “How did we do?”. It’s a great way to reduce the friction in an otherwise tedious, but necessary, business function.

Thank You Emails

Much like Thank You pages, Thank You Emails can be automatically sent following conversion events to encourage additional engagement. For instance, if a user downloads a white paper, send them an email thanking them and offering an additional piece of content on the same topic. This is a great technique for measuring their level of interest or engagement.

Lead Nurturing

It’s a fact of life. Many leads are not ready to buy. And you can easily ruin your chances of capturing their business in the future if your start pressing them when they aren’t ready. Enter lead nurturing. These transactional emails enable you to maintain contact and stay top of mind with leads, in a friendly and helpful way. By creating automated email workflows, you can continue to deliver relevant, valuable content to leads with multiple touches across the entire span of their buyer’s journey. That way, when they’re ready to buy, you are at the top of their list of people to contact.

Transactional Emails

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EMAIL MARKETING

EMAIL MARKETING

We want to give special recognition to our favorite types of marketing emails, email newsletters (or eNewsletters). Email newsletters allow you to regularly communicate with people who have engaged with your brand. On average, we recommend sending at least one email newsletter per month to help you interact and build relationships with your leads and customers. Email newsletters typically contain links to recent content you created, CTAs, and news about your organization’s activities. Email newsletters are a great source of website sessions, conversions and engagement. Done correctly, they deliver tremendous value to prospects, customers and partners alike. We love ’em!

Email Newsletters

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MARKETING ANALYTICS

MARKETING ANALYTICS

We’ve seen firsthand that it’s impossible to know what’s working (and what’s not), if there are no defined goals and metrics to judge success. We talk to marketers, sales manages and business owners on a daily business about the ways they prefer to advertise and develop business. Often, we find businesses marketing themselves blindly, unable to answer the question: Which marketing approach produces the highest return on investment (ROI)? While traditional marketing approaches used to work, the push for more meaningful, data-driven marketing initiatives comes as a direct response to the need for businesses to show return on marketing and sales investments. This is why marketing analytics is such an important part of inbound marketing strategies. Marketing analytics allow us to determine and optimize ROI.

Many people use the terms analytics and metrics interchangeably. We think this is a mistake. In our view, analytics refers to tools and methods used to make better, more informed decisions in the future. Whereas metrics refers to the actual historical data that you track within marketing analytics.

This begs the question – What marketing metrics should I be tracking?

To answer this question, we need to first understand that there are two main types of metrics: Vanity Metrics and Actionable Metrics.

Vanity metrics track data that might look good in a chart or graph, but don’t actually help you achieve your goals. Actionable metrics, on the other hand, are statistically tied to outcomes that produce growth. Every business is different and consequently should collect and analyze their own unique data sets. However, we have seen certain vanity metrics and actionable metrics rear their heads in nearly every organization, regardless of industry, size or sector.

Following are a few metrics that tend to be a bit overblown...

You can’t manage what you can’t measure.

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MARKETING ANALYTICS

MARKETING ANALYTICS

Social Media Followers

These types of metrics measure audience. But audience size is not the same as reach. Reach is considered the actual number of people who were exposed to your message. Social media followers aren’t that. In fact, many social media followers rarely, if ever, see messaging from the companies they follow. I’m not saying you shouldn’t try to grow your social media fanbase, just put this metric in perspective.

Page Views

People tend to get excited by a high number of page views. Don’t. A pageview is just a request to load or reload a page in a web browser. Page views can be helpful in evaluating content or SEO efforts, but at the end of the day a large number of pageviews may or may not translate into leads, deals or revenue.

Open Rate

Sure, open rate can tell you if your subject line was impactful or if you there is an optimal day and time to send an email (Tuesday at 11am, by the way). But depending on the individual email client settings of your recipients, what does and does not count as an open can sometimes be foggy. Don’t depedn on this metric to measure email success.

Likes. Ok, they liked it. Now what? Impressions Much like a page view, an impressions is an instance of when an ad was served from its source. It doesn’t measure reach, because who knows if anyone saw it. And even if they did see it, if they didn’t click on it what does it matter? While metrics like these can help you understand your marketing funnel, they don’t directly correlate to growth or success.

View Count With inbound marketing, we are trying to provide valuable content in a helpful, holistic way. How does view count tell us if we did that? Knowing who watched the video, for how long and what they did next are much more compelling pieces of information for the savvy marketer. Those are some examples of overhyped vanity metrics. Here are some actionable metrics that are much more insightful.

Vanity Metrics

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MARKETING ANALYTICS

MARKETING ANALYTICS

Sessions

A session is an instance where a visitor views any number of site pages within a defined length of time. Basically, it represents a website visit. A new Google session starts after thirty minutes of inactivity. So why is this an actionable metric? Well, for starters, it’s important to Google. This means it probably impacts your rankings in searches. But you can also split your sessions into new and returning visitors and see how your site is performing over time. Are you attracting and engaging new visitors? Understanding sessions can help you figure that out.

New Contacts Created

New contacts created is a metric that measures how many new visitors to your site entered your CRM via conversion. Used in tandem with sessions this metric helps to quantify your funnel and evaluate the results of your inbound marketing efforts.

MQLs

This takes the “new contacts created” metric one step further. MQL stands for marketing qualified lead. The best definition we’ve seen for MQL comes from HubSpot: A marketing qualified lead (MQL) is a lead who has been deemed more likely to become a customer compared to other leads. This qualification is based on web pages a person visited, what they’ve downloaded and similar engagement with the business’s content. So, more MQLs = more customers. ‘Nuff said.

Shares

Unlike “likes”, shares gives you insight into the value of your content. By sharing your content, users are designating themselves as brand ambassadors for your organization. They trust and value your content enough to expand the reach of your content. And that’s a metric inbound marketers can really get excited about…

Actionable Metrics

(Actionable Metrics continued next page)

MARKETING ANALYTICS

Time On Page

Time on page is a measurement of how much time a visitor spends…wait for it. On page. This metric is typically calculated by dividing the total amount of time that visitors spend on your site, by the total number of site visits. Time on page gives you insight into how engaging your content is (after all, it’s easy to surmise that most of that time on page is spent digesting your content). Just as important is the fact that most experts agree it’s a number Google looks at to determine SERPs.

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

A little different than the other actionable metrics we’ve noted, NPS stands for Net Promoter Score. It’s a customer satisfaction metric that is determined by asking customers the question: On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely is it you would recommend our organization to a friend or colleague? A score of 9 or 10 denotes a Promoter, 7 or 8 a Passive and 0 to 6 a Detractor. You determine your score by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters. NPS is different from other benchmarks, such as customer satisfaction score or customer effort score, in that it measures a customer’s overall sentiment about a brand, versus their perception of a singular interaction or purchase. Consistently surveying customers and learning how they talk about your company to friends and family helps identify risks, areas of opportunity, and ways to improve. That’s why we recommend monitoring NPS as akey metric for success.

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