Month: September 2013

Developing Optimized Architecture

September 11, 2013

A great architecture is the basis of every company as it is what they build their core values and marketing tactics from. By using inbound marketing, you can develop an optimized architecture to help your business thrive. Here are some tactics you can use through inbound marketing to help you get started:

1. Attract with timely and relevant search results. Search engine optimization (SEO) is greatly affected by content rather than through keywords. It’s important to understand that almost every business in the same industry is using the same popular keywords to rank higher in search results. Yes, these keywords are important but what really captures your audience’s attention is the content itself. Do you have information that others don’t? Do you represent another view of the topic? Questions like these are important to help you decide what content to include on your site.

2. Build and engage with social networks. Social media is the easiest way to quickly spread news and the best part is that it is FREE. Few things in life are free and the advantages of social media are endless. Because you can upload anything from text to images to sounds to videos on the web, you can pretty much share anything to help your business grow. The more useful information for you give your audience, the better. Useful information will more likely be shared through your audience to others and you will get free marketing from this tactic. Take advantage of social media as consistent conversating with your audience will help you to connect with your potential leads.

3. Optimizing the conversion point. The landing page must be of utmost importance when it comes to your website. It is what people first see and it can either make them continue to look through your site or make them leave. A great website with easy navigation and functionality as well as beautiful aesthetics will lead to a higher conversion rate than a messy website. It’s important to understand that the functionality is more key than the aesthetics. People need to find what they are looking for and know exactly where you want them to go so steer them in that direction when they come to your site. Once you give them information and the correct steps, make sure you have call-to-action on your page so that the next step is for them to become a lead. Leads turn into conversions and then you know the rest.

Inbound marketing is a strategy that has excelled and really transforms your business. Through SEO, social media and a great website and, of course, consistency throughout, you will gain more conversions and more sales.

JetBlue: Staying Social, Staying Human

September 10, 2013

“Social media is sort of beyond a natural for us. … If it didn’t exist, we’d have to invent it because we have this goal of having this human connection with our customers,”said St. George, Senior Vice President of JetBlue Marketing and Commercial. “What’s so fantastic about social media is, it actually facilitates that one-to-one brand connection that marketers have wanted for so long.”

JetBlue is a clear example of a company that successfully built their brand using the advantages of social media. By using social media outlets like Twitter as a serious medium, JetBlue is able to create conversations with their customers and directly respond to them immediately. This aspect makes them seem more human and real and not just for the people, but with them as well. By placing the company in the same light as their audience, JetBlue becomes one with their customers. This inbound marketing strategy allows the people from within the company to reach out to the audience themselves.

Social media is where the people basically “live” mobile and by recognizing that, a company will recognize the value of engaging with fans and customers in this manner. Some companies place a tweet or promotion here or there but it take consistency and commitment to really thrive in a marketing aspect. These digitally-social initiatives are what brings JetBlue to another level. They always have at least one person who constantly monitors the social media networks for a rapid response.

From the constant social media monitoring, JetBlue was able to gain as much advertising and props from their audience with only $17 million spent on their marketing in 2012. This budget is only half of American Airlines, only one-third of United Airlines, and 8 times less than Southwest according to Kantar Media. With JetBlue as a great example, companies should start to look toward social media as a strong medium as it is free and very successful when monitored correctly.

NFL and Sports Illustrated Continue with Inbound Marketing

September 6, 2013

As the 2013-2014 NFL season started last night, Sports Illustrated wasted no time by extending their inbound marketing tactics. They kicked off the festivities with the weekly live NFL show “Pro Football Now,” which is a spinoff from the daily Sports Illustrated web series. This weekly, half-hour series will broadcast live every Thursday morning at 10:30am hosted by Sports Illustrated anchor Maggie Gray and former New York Giants player Amani Toomer.

Sports Illustrated understands their audience well as a variety of people watch football including those who study every athlete to the T for their fantasy teams to those who are trying to pave their way into knowing about the field. Through this weekly show, Gray and Toomer will help cater to this whole range of people. The inbound marketing strategy for this allows for expansion for current fans and brings in newcomers as well. It gives room for everyone to understand the sport and in turn love it and become an NFL/SI fan in this sense. The live show will also give viewers more of a chance to engage with the hosts and other viewers through social media as they encourage tweeting and calling in.

“Our readers’ appetite for NFL is off the charts, so we feel really strongly about this,” said Time Inc. Sports Group editor Paul Fichtenbaum.“There will be hardcore football for our fans, and maybe some light fare now and then. We’d like people to get a variety of NFL-ness, so to speak.”

Sports Illustrated understands that football is key to the company, as statistics show that there are more hardcore football fans than other sports including basketball and baseball. The start of football season helps Sports Illustrated and the NFL as corporations and they certainly understand that. By expanding current successful shows and creating spin-offs, SI is broadening their horizons for this football season. Time Inc. announced their plans to build a centralized digital video unit and the NFL is one of the main components in this process. In this sense, inbound marketing is what can make these corporations as brands expand from within and help their online presence to grow as well.

Inbound Marketing Through Hubspot

September 5, 2013

Brightfire, an inbound marketing and B2B lead marketing agency, saw Hubspot as a differentiation in their field. The process of inbound marketing attracts customers to your site and converts them into leads and customers

 

Director & VP of Business Development Johnny Mone says that Hubspot “has changed the way we think about ourselves as a business. We no longer ‘do websites’ but rather we transform our customers’ businesses by helping them meet their growth objectives using inbound.”

This strategy shifts the agency’s entire strategy as the revenues are obtained through inbound marketing, which helps them to plan and grow as a company. Brightfire nurtures their customers through e-mail marketing campaigns and tools. From there, they can provide sales with properly qualified leads with marketing alignment and improved output. The all-on-one platform is what plays into this strategy well as workflow is consolidated. Analytics, social media and email marketing have trouble coinciding within the marketing process as there is so much to take in and this problem is eliminated through inbound marketing.

There is definitely a change of customer response to this process. With inbound marketing you are able to reach a global audience at a lower cost. Hubspot isn’t just a marketing software, but rather it is a redevelopment of a business to enhance sales and customer satisfaction.

Digitally Front Row for NYFW Spring 2014

September 4, 2013

It’s that time of year again as New York Fashion Week comes back for the upcoming Spring 2014 season. As fashionistas from all over fly over to “The Big Apple” for the first look at these collections, the digital age is making their way through this industry with many fashion-centric news sites becoming more prominent. With this, inbound marketing is made more possible for the fashion industry.

PopSugar fashion, a popular fashion news site, has managed to score interviews with the many high-end designers and gain invitations and front-row seats to exclusive fashion events including Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week. As these editors are planning to make their way to the best seats in the house, viewers from all over will be able to get the inside scoop of the new looks, as well as view them on the YouTube live stream.

“The attitude has definitely shifted,” said PopSugar fashion and beauty director Melissa Liebling-Goldberg. “At the beginning everyone was very nervous, and it makes sense that certain houses that are steeped in tradition had a slightly tougher time.”

The digital community is definitely making a turn in this industry as traditional paper sources are having a downfall in this economy. This digital twist to runway coverage started with the massive editorial news coverage on the web. It has moved on to the live YouTube stream and is still growing now that that industry takes the digital world more seriously. It is a great way to spread news and make an impact on many people at once easily. The web allows for photos, videos, insight, feedback and more very easily and through this process, the fashion industry can come a long way with inbound marketing.

“Dropped”: A Heineken Reality-Style Web Series

September 3, 2013

Heineken’s past campaign “Departure,” giving people the change to press a button and change their destination at the airport was a success as an advertising campaign but they’re not stopping there. Continuing their theme of living adventurously through improvization, Heineken released “Dropped“, a reality-style web series featuring different storylines of people being blindfolded and sent to an unknown place. This web series is finally coming to a close as the fifth and final video was released. Heineken did an amazing job understanding the advantage of inbound marketing through online videos as this web series generated over 2 million views on YouTube since June.

On the YouTube Channel itself, Heineken included a web series for storyline with background information for each voyager, a chart of things they missed most and statistics of the activities that occurred during their adventures. This information helps audiences see how real these people are and allows us to follow their storylines better.

Not only did Heineken use the video channel aspect to their advantage, but they also used other forms of inbound marketing by using product placement for the beer itself within the video. With Heineken beers in the web series, audiences can see how the voyagers react to having Heinekens on their journey. Although they are pretty much stranded, when the voyagers each discover bottles of Heineken, they are instantly hopeful about their situations. This is a clear message that Heineken is trying to present to the everyday person.

By releasing each web series at separate times, viewers also have a sense of anticipation for what happens next, giving them a sense of adventure while watching the videos. Heineken presented many smart inbound marketing techniques through this adventurous campaign and the viewership of over 2 million people certainly reflects upon this.