Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Tue, Mar 30, 2010
Inbound Marketing Successes & Experiences Shared
Today's blog features a graphic design firm in Norwood MA and is an interesting Inbound marketing participant. My assessment is that this firm absolutely understands the movement from outbound marketing to inbound marketing and understands this from first hand experience. Like many business Peartree is and has been studying and experimenting with various internet marketing options. They have used SEO, sponsored advertising, blogging, social media and traditional marketing methods. Peartree graphic design's inbound marketing strategy, like many of us in the business world, has evolved over the past couple of years. They used to do "this and that" but learned that maybe they really need to "try this and that" instead. For the record, this is exactly why I created this inbound marketing blog series. It seems to me that with companies like Peartree willing to share these experiences, all readers can avoid mistakes that have been made by others. We don't all need to recreate the wheel.
I believe this graphic design firm is close to isolating a system that meets it's needs and budget. The important thing to learn from this case is their desire and efforts to learn and listen. Even more importantly, this company has shown to be willing to take risks and apply inbound marketing elements in an effort to grow.
Featured Business: PearTree USA Graphic Design
Business Name: Peartree USA
Business Web Site: www.peartreeusa.com
Business Location: Norwood, MA
Marketing Decision Maker: Kevin Poirier
Business Description: Graphic Design, Logo Design, Brochure Design Services
What are your current marketing activities?: Yellow pages, email marketing, Google Adwords & now business.com. We used direct mail in the past with some return success.
What is your primary marketing method?: Email marketing
What changes are needed (if any) in your marketing methods?: A more aggressive strategy with alternative methods and execution, analysis is front burner for us to understand what we need to focus on first.
Do you know what Inbound Marketing is?: Yes - Driving people to contact me and our web site.
What percentage of your marketing budget is applied to Outbound marketing? 30%
How are you measuring ROI?: We use tracking codes for all of our promotional activity so either direct mail, email marketing or web site coupons, we track any activity through these codes.
Have you ever executed a keyword development strategy?: Yes, we hired an SEO company about a year ago and that was part of the first steps.
How are you measuring your web site's traffic?: Google analytics
How are you measuring your web site's conversions?: We use a contact form for site conversions while we ask all inbound callers how they got our name.
What search engine strategy has been employed?: We started with a Google Adwords campaign and other than securing one good client, we haven't seen any impressive results. Last year we hired an SEO company to optimize our site with limited results. We are now trying business.com with the idea that we will receive more qualified traffic.
Are you using a blog? If so, how often are you posting a new article?: Yes, 2 a month but I know I need to do more posts. I have a hard time creating subject matter and don't really understand why a business will take any time to read random information about graphic design. I do understand that in theory, its an important tool and I will continue to develop my blog.
Who creates each blog article?: I do
Does your business have a Linked In account?: Yes - Kevin Poirier
Does your business have a Twitter account?: Yes - PeartreeUSA
Does your business have a Facebook account?: Yes
How would you define your lead generation system?: No specific software being used but we are researching options.
How would you define your lead tracking system?: Tracking (promo code) through inbound phone call records and contact form.
How would you define your lead nurturing systems?: I don't believe a newsletter would make sense for some of the same reasons I have trouble grasping the blog value. I do think I need to discover new methods of interaction.
Have you considered developing an Inbound Marketing Plan, if so, what are your challenges?: Yes - Driving qualified businesses to my site
On a scale of 1-10, how important is developing a focused inbound marketing?: 8
How soon do you plan on developing a better inbound marketing plan?: This has started as explained earlier.
What would be your first step in creating a better inbound marketing plan?: We are in the middle of investigating more complete Internet marketing solutions. Our biggest concern with some solutions is the costs to start the process. Some of the solutions we looked at involved migrating our site at a significant cost so we were then locked in to using a specific CMS. I don't like that idea.
Stay tuned for "Part 5" by subscribing to this inbound marketing blog.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Mon, Mar 29, 2010
Inbound Marketing Questions & Answers (Part 3)
This inbound marketing blog article is part 3 in a blog series I have created to help my subscribers, as well as all other interested readers, understand how others are using various inbound marketing elements.
Each inbound marketing blog posts features a different business and includes interview question and answers. In this specific inbound marketing blog article I have answered the interview questions myself. The thought was that I needed a point of reference for those readers with limited inbound marketing experience. This blog post can be used as a guide to certain inbound marketing standards that I believe should be established.
In my next blog, I will continue to highlight and provide interview results from other businesses that were kind enough to take the time to answer these questions. I think they should all help us in learning more about how to create the appropriate inbound marketing campaign. I welcome all comments, good or bad.
To become a featured business and share your inbound marketing experience: Let Us Interview Your Business.
Featured Business: Virtual Support Systems
Business Name: Virtual Support Systems
Business Web Site: www.virtualsupportsystems.com
Business Location: Sarasota, FL
Marketing Decision Maker: Daniel Shlifer
Business Description: Inbound Marketing Consulting, Search Engine Optimization, Blog Development, Social Media Development Through Software & Service Application
What are your current marketing activities?: Web site development & optimization, blog development, social media out reach, lead generation, lead tracking and lead nurturing using specific inbound marketing software.
What is your primary marketing method?: Inbound marketing or Internet marketing
What changes are needed (if any) in your marketing methods?: More aggressive or active social media involvement. Further development of all current inbound marketing activities will help generate more traffic and gain more traction on the search engines and blog subscribers. I also need to further develop my lead conversion strategies through closer traffic analysis. By better analysis, I will be better able to modify all my target marketing activities to achieve high conversion and close ratios.
Do you know what Inbound Marketing is, if so, please define in your own words?: Yes - I am in the inbound marketing business as an inbound marketing consultant. Inbound marketing is the process of creating a compelling offer, getting found, promoting the offer, analyzing the results and making the appropriate modifications.
What percentage of your marketing budget is applied to Outbound marketing vs. Inbound marketing? In 2009 it was 80% of all our marketing budget. It is now 100% as we terminated all outbound marketing activities.
What inbound marketing components are you currently utilizing?: Web site development and optimization, blog post creation, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In status updates, email marketing, lead generation, lead tracking and lead nurturing using comprehensive inbound marketing software.
How are you currently measuring ROI?: I am using an Inbound Marketing software application to generate, track, nurture all leads and ROI. This application monitors traffic, conversion of that traffic, blog subscriptions, social media activity and more.
Have you ever executed a keyword development strategy for your web site?: Yes, as part of my new inbound marketing application.
How are you measuring your web site's traffic?: Yes, Same answer as above coupled with reporting software from Web Position.
How are you measuring your web site's conversions?: Yes, my web site uses landing pages as part of creating compelling offers and converting traffic to leads so I am able to separate all landing pages and all offers and analyze leads generated from these pages as well as the blog and social media activity.
What search engine strategy has been employed?: We have created every web page with a specific keyword and message targeted. This also applies to each blog post and social media message.
Are you using a blog? If so, how often are you posting a new article?: Yes - 3 blog posts per week minimum.
Who creates each blog article?: Me
Does your business have a Linked In account?: Yes - http://www.linkedin.com/in/vssseo
Does your business have a Twitter account?: Yes - @SEMSEO1
Does your business have a YouTube account?: Yes - inbound marketing condition video
Does your business have a Facebook account?: Yes
How would you define your lead generation system?: I use lead generation software.
How would you define your lead tracking system?: I use lead tracking software.
How would you define your lead nurturing systems?: I use internal autoresponders and Mail Chimp email marketing software
Have you considered developing an Inbound Marketing Plan, if so, what are your challenges?: Yes, I am using a comprehensive inbound marketing solution and I would say my current challenges includes securing better search engine rankings, blog subscribers and a better conversion rate.
On a scale of 1-10, how important is developing a focused inbound marketing program?: 11
How soon do you plan on developing a better inbound marketing plan?: Started a complete inbound marketing program in January 2010. This was developed from an already existing search engine optimization applied over the past 2 years.
What would be your first step in creating a better inbound marketing plan?: Better social media strategies.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Wed, Mar 24, 2010
This is part 2 in a series of blogs started earlier this week so if you enjoy this blog on lead generation: what are other businesses doing?, please scroll down to read part one.
The question being asked to each every business I speak with is this: Would you explain what your business is doing to develop your lead generation efforts and how Inbound marketing plays a role in your lead generation, tracking and lead nurturing?
Today's blog features: The Corporate Sedan Service
Business Name: The Corporate Sedan Service
Business Web Site: www.philadelphia-limo-services.com
Business Location: Philadelphia, PA
Marketing Decision Maker: Gregg Fox
Business Description: Ground Transportation
What are your current marketing activities: Yellow pages, Philadelphia convention & Visitors Guide, SEO, Blog, Social Media
What is your primary marketing method?: Internet marketing
What changes are needed (if any) in your marketing methods?: Most of the important changes were made over 1st quarter of this year. Last year I ran a pretty aggressive search engine optimization program. This year I see the need to expand into more complete online marketing so I hired a professional who manages a more comprehensive system.
Do you know what Inbound Marketing is, if so, please define in your own words?: Yes - Inbound marketing uses a more friendly way to get my message out. Compared to the old way, it doesn't involve interrupting people with my message, it just makes it more available when they are search for related information. It includes a well optimized web site, an active blog and as much social media as I can support.
What percentage of your marketing budget is applied to Outbound marketing vs. Inbound marketing? Last year it was around 60% but this year is close to 90%.
What inbound marketing components are you currently utilizing?: Web site development and optimization, blog post creation, Twitter, Facebook and Linked In status updates, email marketing, lead tracking and nurturing
How are you currently measuring ROI?: I am using an Inbound Marketing software application to generate, track, nurture all leads and ROI. I am still setting up systems because I have to bridge a gap between my web site and a separate reservation system.
Have you ever executed a keyword development strategy for your web site?: Yes, as part of my new inbound marketing application.
How are you measuring your web site's traffic?: Yes, Same answer as above
How are you measuring your web site's conversations?: Yes, Same answer as above
What search engine strategy has been employed?: A complete plan starting with a keyword analysis and research, then optimizing each page based on those results.
Are you using a blog? If so, how often are you posting a new article?: Yes but it's brand new
Who creates each blog article?: Myself but I plan on training others in my office to contribute.
Does your business have a Linked In account?: Yes
Does your business have a Twitter account?: Yes
Does your business have a Facebook account?: Yes, and a fan page
How would you define your lead generation system?: I consider my new inbound marketing application a comprehensive lead generation system.
How would you define your lead tracking system?: Basically, same as above but still working out the kinks and other obstacles.
How would you define your lead nurturing systems?: I am creating an autoresponder
Have you considered developing an Inbound Marketing Plan, if so, what are your challenges?: Yes, my biggest challenge is education. Learning more about the resources within my new system so I can use them in the most efficient way..
On a scale of 1-10, how important is developing a focused inbound marketing program?: 9
How soon do you plan on developing a better inbound marketing plan?: N/A
What would be your first step in creating a better inbound marketing plan?: Optimizing our web site.
Next blog and business interview will be Friday, March 26th, 2010.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Mon, Mar 22, 2010
Part 1: Inbound Marketing vs. SEO vs. Just Using A Web Site
Learn from what others are doing (& not doing).
Today's blog is part 1 in a new series of blogs created to help all business and business professionals understand what others are doing in reaction to all the new Inbound Marketing technologies & lead generation software available.
As an Inbound Marketing Consultant I have learned the biggest challenge for business, developing various inbound marketing applications, maybe to much information resulting in confusion. Inbound marketing is such a new and quickly developing marketing solution that many businesses know they need to get involved but don't fully understand all the options and methods. This translates to a lot of trial and error situations that many times end in frustration. As I speak to more and more business needing and wanting inbound marketing solutions, I hear the same type of questions:
- Do I need to redo my web site?
- What condition is my current web site in now?
- Do I need SEO - What is SEO?
- Do I need SEM - What is SEM ?
- How do I isolate my best keywords?
- How often should I blog?
- How long should my blog be?
- How does video work in a blog?
- What should I blog about?
- Should my blog be under my main URL?
- How can this social media craze help me - where do I start?
- Are my current social media efforts efficient and/or effective?
- Will Twitter really help?
- Should I use Facebook or Linked In?
- How do inbound links work and how do I get more?
- What is the difference between impressions, traffic, leads?
- What is a landing page and how do I use it to my advantage?
- How do I generate more leads?
- How do I track leads?
- How do I nurture leads?
- How do I find time to do all of this?
- Why can't I just use what I am used to, it's worked in the past?
- Doesn't my web master handle of of this?
If you're an Inbound Marketing Consultant, you have heard all these questions in one form or another. If you are a business owner, marketing director or other business professionals you probably have asked many (if not all) of these questions in one form or another.
My short answer to these questions are:
- Take a deep breath and relax a moment.
- Understand that each Inbound Marketing plan will be different because each target marketing is different.
- Make sure you get a clear picture (inbound marketing analysis) of where you are starting from or continuing from.
- Speak with a few Inbound Marketing Consultants in an effort to find one you trust. Find one that gives you a reason to be confident in his/her knowledge and specific solutions.
- Look for a method that is comprehensive and easily manageable under a few or even one application.
In an effort to shed some more light on both sides of this equation, I have taken the time to sit down and speak with business owners of all types and ask them what they are doing, what they believe, what they are concerned about, and what they would like to do going forward in the world of Inbound Marketing.
As stated earlier in this blog, this is "part 1" in a new series. Each new blog in this series will have the results of a new interview with a different business. These interviews consist of general questions, the subject's responses to those questions and some suggestions to resolve the obvious obstacles and challenges.
My hope is that this open communication will help business owners understand more about what is needed and the Inbound Marketing Industry will be better equipped to address these needs as they are stated from the client's point of view.
Interview #1:
Featured Business Name: Pain Medicine Associates
Business Web Site: www.painmedicineassociates.net
Business Location: Sarasota Florida
Marketing Decision Maker: Rosana Anatra
Business Description: Medical Office with 15 professionals with focus on pain management.
Overall Assessment: As I stated earlier, all businesses are unique and demand a unique approach to developing an inbound marketing startegy that works best. In this case, no real Inbound Marketing strategy has been developed. You can see by the answers below that this business does understand the importantce of marketing but feels they have success using a more traditional methods. After an initial conversation, PMA understands that they are ready to upgrade at least their representation and image online by creating a new web site. Once this is finished, they will slowly and systematically apply more inbound marketing elements. After this interview I can see that this business is different than many others in that they were not effected as greatly by the economic downturn. Their revenues have contionued to increase in 2009 and 2010. What I did notice was that even though they are taking in new business and growing each month, they are starting to understand the future and what technologies may help them support their future growth and marketing management.
Interview:
How would you describe your current marketing activities: Peer to peer communication, yellow pages, Physicians Guide (annual publication), networking with other physicians.
What is your primary marketing method?: Peer to peer communication
What changes are needed (if any) in your marketing methods?: More frequent marketing, diversify marketing efforts, the addition of some form of Internet marketing.
Do you know what Inbound Marketing is, if so, please define in your own words?: Yes - You bolster your internet presence in an effort to become more visible online and reach out to your target marketing in a non-invasive market responsive way so that they can reach you as their needs dictate.
What percentage of your marketing budget is applied to Outbound marketing vs. Inbound marketing? 50% - Our efforts are shiftly from focus on print to other types that are web site driven.
What inbound marketing components are you currently utilizing?: Web site development. Our web site is being recreated.
How are you currently measuring ROI?: Detailed analysis of new patients and their referral sources through traditional methods measurement.
Have you ever executed a keyword development strategy for your web site?: No
How are you measuring your web site's traffic?: Not
How are you measuring your web site's conversations?: Not
What search engine strategy has been employed?: Limited SEO with no real results, we think.
Are you using a blog? If so, how often are you posting a new article?: No
Who creates each blog article?: Nobody
Does your business have a Linked In account?: No
Does your business have a Twitter account?: No
Does your business have a Facebook account?: No
How would you define your lead generation system?: Don't really have one
How would you define your lead tracking system?: Old fashion paper system
How would you define your lead nurturing systems?: Thank you cards, phone follow up, written follow up, updating referring physicians
Have you considered developing an Inbound Marketing Plan, if so, what are your challenges?: Yes, enough time to create, budget and a better understanding of what we should do first.
On a scale of 1-10, how important is developing a focused inbound marketing program?: 4
How soon do you plan on developing a better inbound marketing plan?: within 24 to 36 months
What would be your first step in creating a better inbound marketing plan?: completing and then optimizing our web site.
Stay tuned for Part 2 In this blog series with Inbound marketing perspectives from other businesses.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Fri, Mar 19, 2010
What is Inbound Marketing?
I understand the answer to this question may be obvious to most readers because most readers of this blog are in the Inbound Marketing Industry. However, for the purpose of educating all others who may be exposed to my blog, I offer the following explanations:
Inbound Marketing vs. Outbound Marketing
Definition of Inbound Marketing (wikipedia):
Inbound marketing is a style of marketing that focuses on getting found by customers. This sense is related to relationship marketing and Seth Godin's idea of permission marketing. David Meerman Scott recommends that marketers "earn their way in" (via publishing helpful information on a blog etc.) in contrast to outbound marketing where they used to have to "buy, beg, or bug their way in" (via paid advertisements, issuing press releases in the hope they get picked up by the trade press, or paying commissioned sales people, respectively). Next best action marketing can also be applied.
Definition Of Outbound Marketing (wikipedia):
Traditional marketing (outbound marketing) is where companies focus on finding customers by advertising. This sense is related to intrusion marketing and Godin's term interruption marketing. Traditional marketing (outbound marketing) is where companies focus on finding customers by advertising. This sense is related to intrusion marketing and Godin's term interruption marketing.
Further descriptions and examples of both Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing:
Inbound Marketing Examples:
- Web pages: design and development of message by use of web pagesor web sites.
- Landing page: similar to above but with a more targeted message.
- Key phrase development: this is an important foundation for the above SEO process.
- SEO or search engine optimization: The process of making web pages more search friendly.
- Social media usage: delivery of marketing messages via Facebook, Linked In, Twitter, You Tube, Digg, Delicious, etc.
- Blog Posting: Uploading or posting of market related information.
- Link development: this is a very important process of attracting and securing inbound links from web pages, blogs, tweets & status updates of social media accounts of other individuals or business organizations.
- Internal lead generation: some form of internal systems (usually a lead generation or lead tracking software application) used to generate leads from existing web page traffic.
- Internal lead tracking: lead tracking software solution that allows for understanding all statistics produced from traffic conversion.
- Lead nurturing: the process of continued communication or nurturing of converted leads.
Outbound Marketing Examples:
- Direct mail
- Telemarketing
- Radios advertising
- TV advertising
- Print advertising
- Billboard advertising
Reasons that Inbound Marketing is now more effective than Outbound marketing:
- Higher ROI: In fact, search engine marketing is now the #1 return on investment when compared to all other marketing mediums.
- Inbound marketing is much more budget friendly: A small business is much more able to afford a comprehensive inbound marketing strategy.
- We have become more capable as consumers to "block" the outbound marketing message:
- Remote control
- Caller ID
- DVR
- satellite radio
The simple approach of providing relevant information as the individual or business is actively seeking, is becoming a more efficient, effective, budget friendly and most importantly, common sense method of delivering your messages.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Wed, Mar 17, 2010
Local Internet Marketing Is A Powerful Marketing Solution But Still Somewhat Unrecognized or Simply Ignored!
If you have a built in advantage... USE IT!
One observation I continue to make about local (geographically targeted) Internet marketing strategies, is the significant gap between the possibilities (advantages) and the recognition of those possibilities by local business. I believe it is mostly an education issue and the sooner a given business realizes the opportunity, the sooner that business will also realize a real boost in visibility.
If you own or operate a local (geographically targeted) business and have considered marketing your product or service online, you may have come to conclusion that it doesn't fit into your marketing budget. This is a common conclusion that in my professional opinion, should no longer be as easily accepted as a final conclusion.
Marketing is as important as it ever was and because of the Internet, it is more available that it ever was. There has been (and will continue to be) a major shift in Internet usage with more and more consumers and businesses turning to the search engines (and social media) to find products and services. This simple fact requires local or small business to adjust their marketing budget accordingly. Ignoring this shift, or not including your business in this shift can become a death sentence.
As an Internet marketing (Inbound Marketing) professional (includes local Internet marketing), I would like to offer the following information and encourage that you as a small business owner to reconsider the powerful local Internet marketing tools available.
- Businesses that have a specific geographic target market do have an advantage.
- Local Internet marketing eliminates a certain element of national competition.
- Local Internet marketing eliminates a certain element of regional competition.
- Using a local Internet marketing focus provides faster traction and visibility.
- Many business prospects prefer to do business with local companies.
- Local Internet marketing is designed to take advantage of the "lower hanging fruit" that exsists in virtually all markets.
- Local Internet marketing doesn't require the same marketing budget as a national marketing campaign. It's even more affordable.
- Even national or regionally based products and services can benefit greatly from a geographically targeted messages or local Internet marketing activities.
The significant advantages available to business through local Internet marketing will not last forever. Not only will your local competitors enter the world of Inbound (Internet) marketing, but as you might already recognize, bigger business is also starting to focus efforts on local markets.
Another advantage local small business needs to recognize is that many competitors are still behind the technology curve. Those that become the first local Internet marketing players will get a significant head start. Those that don't will be passed by their direct local competitors.
Although Internet marketing budgets are much more manageable than traditional marketing budgets, local Internet marketing budgets offer even more benefit and message delivery power.
As a small business owner myself, I encourage all other small business to change they way they think about marketing in general and learn as much as possible about using local Internet marketing to:
- Get Found
- Convert Visitors To Leads
- Convert Leads To Customers
This is absolutely the most affordable, efficient and effective method to build your business in 2010 and most certainly into the future. Speak to a local Internet marketing professional, get your web site analyzed (Inbound Marketing Analysis) to uncover strengths and weakness and develop the appropriate strategy to take the advantages already available.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Sat, Mar 13, 2010
Marketing campaign software thats well synchronized with your marketing objectives can be a powerful combination.
Comprehensive marketing campaign software is still very earlier in it's overall development, availability and effectiveness. The capabilities of developing and managing every component of our Inbound marketing or Internet marketing plan under one roof or umbrella is a very attractive thought and we are not as far away from this as we might feel. We could probably all agree that having one tool or resources in the form of comprehensive marketing campaign software would make it easier. more effective and efficient for us to:
- Define your online target markets.
- Connect the most powerful keywords to those markets.
- Evaluate the real time condition of your web site and marketing objectives.
- Monitor the activity of those important keywords over time.
- Create the content that includes the keyword prominence and density that will serve us (and our market) best.
- Further optimize and expand our pages for target market accuracy and reach.
- Develop and manage our blogging.
- Develop, manage and connect our social media accounts and efforts.
- Develop and manage our inbound links
- Develop and test landing page idea
- Manage an appropriate PPC project
- Lead generation
- Lead tracking
- Lead nurturing
- Analyze all of this for ROI
- More & more & more...
The better and more complete the marketing campaign software is, the closer you will be able to meet your marketing objectives.
Currently there are a great deal of available marketing campaign software options but the challenge is to avoid developing your marketing campaign execution strategy using 25, unrelated, unconnected, unsupported and completely independent software components. You'll get the job done to some degree but it won't be the most efficient method and most likely, even in the sort run, it will be come less and less efficient as this industry develops.
Inbound marketing, Internet marketing, SEO, PPC are all still very new and to some, very different methods of marketing. In many cases we are seeing a large array of organizations gravitate towards making these methods their primary avenues of marketing. Some aren't even realizing this as it's happening. It appears more like plugging leaks or throwing darts.
Companies need to analyze, evaluate and prepare more for our changing times and one powerful results should be isolating and applying a comprehensive marketing campaign software solution. Rather than getting pushed and pulled by the speed at which blogging, linking, social media and search engines are growing, a company needs to access the current condition and create a real answer and a real marketing campaign software solution with marketing objectives that are in alignment.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Thu, Mar 11, 2010
What's the first thing a company or business professional needs to understand when they begin or advance an inbound marketing plan?
My short and quick answer is this. They need to "get it", "understand it", "embrace it".
If you asked me to isolate one of the most significant challenges as an inbound marketing (Internet marketing) software & services provider, it has to be getting my clients (and prospects) to understand as many of the basic changes taking place in the world of marketing and message delivery. Then react and embrace those changes.
Even more significant is... If you asked me to isolate one of the most significant challenges for my business owner or business professional clients, it would be the same challenge.
The most useful way for me to explain this point for other (interested) inbound marketing professionals and all business that need to consider employment of these strategies is sharing this latest experience.
Client: The Corporate Sedan Service
Client Location: Philadelphia, PA
Client Background: Provides sedan and limousine services to major airports in the tri-state area.
Client Size: 29 corporate style sedans, 7 limousines, 5 shuttle vans, 2 mini-buses
Client History:Ground transportation service provider since 1996.
I (Virtual Support Systems) have been working with this client for a few years on a number of different projects. The relationship started like many as goals were established and the related work and performance was dictated in the form of instructions. Beginning an SEO project would be a good example. The client thought better search engine position would be beneficial to the marketing efforts of his business so the project was handed off to my company, we did the required work and reported the results to the client and everyone was happy.
Fast forward to current times and as most of us can see, the demands of today's business leaders are changing and they are required to "get more involved".
As part of a "new strategy" discussion with this client last year, I explained as clearly as possible that new times, demanded new strategies. I continued to explain that these new strategies would demand fundamental changes in thinking and some of the old ways of managing our marketing must change. I further explained that as Operations Officer of this company, he would need to take part and pay regular attention to some or all the following:
- Evaluating current content on the web site.
- Dictate specific modification needed to web site content.
- To help develop new, powerful and relevant content for web site.
- Establish profiles on Twitter, Linked In, Facebook, etc.
- Use Google Reader to subscribe to related industry information.
- Regularly read & stay current on industry content.
- Create & develop a blog.
- Utilize his new social media accounts to communicate to his customers.
- Learn traffic analysis skills.
- Brainstorm new offers & develop landing pages.
- Answer and coment on other industry blogs.
- Answer target market's questions on blogs & other social media.
- Teach company employees to contribute to blog and other content.
These and other changes are not easy for business owners who have been employing traditional marketing strategies for many years. Thats what makes this challenge so real and so critical.
In this case, almost to my amazement, the client started to relax, absorb and understand the new power he himself has over the future success of his business in this fast changing climate. Keep in mind that the ground transportation business is old school, blue collar and probably not first on my list to embrace change. To illustrate and drive home this point, do a quick search of regional or local limousine web sites and you will quickly see they are dangerously behind. It's not difficult to see that a web site has had no real attention for 5 years or more.
Conclusion: The better a business owner, professional or leader understands what changes are taking place, the better a client understand their new role, the better a company executive understand the specific methods they can accelerate their performance... the more loyal the client and the more successful the client will become. The first step is to teach the client to understand the real time condition of the web site.
To other Inbound Marketing Professionals: The better the communication and educational skills, more we can help our clients.
Thanks for reading!
Inbound Marketing & Blogging
How to Blog Effectively for Business (GF101)
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Tue, Mar 09, 2010
It's important to know where you (your website) are, before you plan a great SEO or inbound marketing strategy. A great way to know your condition is to execute an accurate SEO analysis or SEO report.
There are many ways to secure an accurate SEO analysis and SEO report for little or even zero money. The important consideration before you hire or pay for an SEO or Inbound Marketing professional is to be sure the SEO analysis or SEO report is accurate and comprehensive.
Below is an example of an SEO Analysis and SEO report generated on my own web site. It has all the search engine report details that I believe are critical to get a clear picture of the condition of any web site. Please understand that this SEO analysis is quite long and contains a lot of detail. You may want to come back to this report a few times and absorb all of this SEO report data in segments.
Report for www.virtualsupportsystems.com
March 09, 2010 at 08:37 AM
The website www.virtualsupportsystems.com ranks 40,314 of the 2,159,542 websites that have been ranked so far.
A website grade of 98.1/100 for www.virtualsupportsystems.com means that of the millions of websites that have previously been evaluated, our algorithm has calculated that this site scores higher than 98.1% of them in terms of its marketing effectiveness. The algorithm uses a proprietary blend of over 50 different variables, including search engine data , website structure, approximate traffic, site performance, and others.
I. Create Content
This SEO analysis and SEO report shows that every web page has the potential to rank well in search engines and draw traffic from other sources, like social media sites and the blogosphere. Of course, whether a page draws traffic (and links) depends on whether it's optimized and how remarkable (useful, interesting, etc.) it is. But in general, most pages do "ok" and contribute to the cause, so it's both a quality and a quantity game.
A. Blog Analysis
Blogging is a great way to reach your target audience with your thoughts, opinions, and offerings on relevant topics and should be part of each SEO analysis and SEO report.
Blog Found
Blog URL: http://www.virtualsupportsystems.com/our-blog/ (Last Post: March 05, 2010)
B. Blog Grade : 15.27
Your Blog Grade of 15.27 is based on a measurement of the traffic levels to your blog and the number and quality of links pointing at it.
C. Recent Blog Articles
Targeted Website Traffic (con't)
Targeted Website Traffic
Marketing Revolution & Online Marketing Strategy
D. Google Indexed Pages : 144
This SEO report shows approximate number of pages on www.virtualsupportsystems.com that have been stored in the Google index. The Google web crawler will visit the website periodically and look for new content for its index. Generally, the more pages your site has within the Google cache, the better.
E. Readability Level : College Undergraduate
This score measures the approximate level of education necessary to read and understand the web page content. In most cases, the content should be made to be simple so that a majority of the target audience can understand it.
II. Optimize
Optimizing that content is a key step, however, to ensure you give your valuable content the best chance possible of drawing traffic from the web. In essence, this SEO analysis section is about maximizing your ROC - return on content.
A. Metadata
Metadata tags allow you to tell the search engines what your web page is about.
Page Title: Inbound Marketing & Inbound Marketing Consultants
Meta Description: Inbound Marketing Information & Search Engine Optimization consulting firm specializing in SEO, Social Media, Blog Management and Lead Generation and Development
Font Tags Found in HTML: We found some HTML <font> font tags on this page. While this is not a critical issue, you should use Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) to separate your website's content from its appearance.
B. Heading Summary
Similar to how newspapers and magazines use headings and sub-headings to help readers, websites can use special tags in their HTML. This SEO analysis and SEO report shows that tags not only help human readers read the content, they also help search engine spiders better understand the content on a page and what is most important. It is generally a good idea to use heading tags to help signal to the search engines, what the web page is about.
Total headings found: 10. See details.
Heading Type
Text
First-Level (H1): Inbound Marketing and Search Engine Optimization
Third-Level (H3): Certifed Inbound Marketing Consultants
Third-Level (H3): Inbound Marketing Consulting Client
Third-Level (H3): Free Inbound Marketing Analysis
Second-Level (H2): Inbound Marketing Consulting Application
Second-Level (H2): Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Second-Level (H2): Social Media Optimization
Second-Level (H2): Blog Development
Second-Level (H2): SEO Lead Generation Software
Second-Level (H2): Other Services:
C. Image Summary
Images are a great way to enhance a website from a user's perspective. However, it is important to note that search engine crawlers cannot really "see" images. So, if you have lots of images that contain textual content within the image itself, this content will not be seen by the crawlers. Make sure all SEO analysis and SEO reports provide this information.
HTML helps address this issue by providing a way to specify the textual content for an image using the "alt" attribute. The alt attribute allows web pages to assign specific text as the "alternative" content for images for those that cannot view the images themselves. This can be search engine crawlers or text-only web browsers.
Total images found: 13 , 2 image(s) don't have ALT text.
Too Many Images Found.
Having many images on the web page means the user has to wait longer to view your page. This web page has 13 images.
It's usually better to have fewer or smaller images. Sometimes simply resizing your images will make them smaller in size, and your web page will load faster.
D. Interior Page Analysis : 3 Pages Processed
This SEO analysis and SEO report looked at a few other pages on this website to see how well they are optimized. This sort of interior page analysis can reveal exciting opportunities for you to target specific keywords or visitors. You can then create landing pages optimized towards converting those visitors into customers.
Page Titles & Description:
About Search Engine Optimization | Best Website Marketing
Learn about search engine optimization and best website marketing practices.
Search Engine Marketing Blog | Inbound Marketing Blog
Search engine marketing blog offering insight into the new Inbound Marketing explosion, SEO, PPC ...
Lead Generation Software | Marketing Software | Search Engine Optimization Software
Lead generation software & search engine optimization software makes your SEO and complete inboun...
E. Domain Info
Most experts agree that you should register your domain for a long time, because search engines factor domain "stability" when looking at your pages.
Domain Age
8 years, 7 months, 2 days
Time To Expiration
2 years, 4 months, 29 days
This domain is registered for more than one year.
Google and other search engines like to see domains that have been registered for extended periods of time as this shows a commitment to the domain name. It also is an indicator that this website is not a temporary spam site.
F. MOZ Rank : 5
MozRank is SEOmoz's general, logarithmically scaled 10-point measure of global link authority or popularity. and is very similar in purpose to the measures of link importance used by the search engines (e.g., GOOGLE's PageRank).
G. Last Google Crawl Date : March 05, 2010 @ 12:31 PM (GMT)
Google will periodically crawl websites looking for new and updated content. In general, you want Google to crawl your site as often as possible, so your new content shows up in Google search results immediately.
H. Inbound Links : 229
One of the most important measures for a website is how many other sites link to it. The more links the better. Having links to your website from authoritative resources on the Internet helps you rank higher in search engines since these links are an indication that your website is trustworthy and contains good content.
J. Yahoo! Directory : No Entry Found
virtualsupportsystems is not listed in the Yahoo! Directory.
The Yahoo! Directory is a web directory which rivals the DMOZ Open Directory Project in size. We recommend that every business have a listing in the Yahoo! Directory.
III. Promote
Now that you are producing remarkable content and optimizing it for search engines and other channels, you are ready to start promoting your content.
A. del.icio.us bookmarks : 2
del.icio.us is a social bookmarking site. Users can save links they wish to keep for later reference on the site, and pages that have been saved many times are displayed in a special "hot" section which can drive thousands of visits.
B. Link Tweet Summary
TweetMeme is a service which aggregates all the popular links on Twitter to determine which links are popular. Tweets and retweets help drive traffic to the content that you have created.
Could not find tweets referring to your site via TweetMeme. Quick, go create some interesting content that will get people talking!
C. Twitter Grade : 59.89
We found the account @semseo1 tied to your website, below is our Twitter Grader analysis of the influence and usefulness of that account for your marketing efforts.
@semseo1
Followers 30
Following 42
Updates 20
IV. Convert
Getting found sure is fun. You're writing articles and producing videos (creating remarkable content), you're an SEO ninja by now (Optimize), and you're using all the social media sites and running email and ppc campaigns (Promote). At the end of the day, however, we aren't in this for fun. We're also not in this for traffic. The goal is quality sales leads and customers, so let's focus now on converting as much of your traffic as possible to leads and customers.
A. RSS Feed : Found
RSS (Really Simple Syndication) is a standard way to easily deliver content to visitors after they've left your website but they're still interested in your subject. RSS is commonly used with blogs, news feeds, and other formatted news or other sources of information.
An RSS feed was detected in this web page. The feed link was correctly setup so that it can be auto-detected by feed readers and contemporary browsers. The feed URL for this site is http://www.virtualsupportsystems.com/CMS/UI/Mod....
B. Conversion Form : Found
Conversion forms are the primary way to get leads from your website. Collect contact information from your visitors so that you can follow up with them later and be in touch. Without forms, you can't convert your website traffic into customers.
We found at least one web form on your website.
V. Analyze
Check out how you compare to other similar websites. You need to monitor your traffic rank as well and see if your optimizations and new content are showing benefits. You will be able to draw conclusions from your competitors and other sites that are related to your business.
A. Traffic Rank : Top 3.362 %
Alexa is an online service that measures traffic for millions of sites on the Internet in a similar way to Nielsen television show ratings.
Your website has an Alexa rank of 1,045,553 which is in the top 3.362 % of all websites.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Fri, Mar 05, 2010
Targeted Website Traffic (con't)
This blog post is a continuation from our post of yesterday (March 4th, 2010). so please start there if you haven't read part 1...
So, we took the time to talk and I explained to him these fantastic changes from a 40 year concentration on Outbound Marketing to the newer, more effective Inbound Marketing solution. We continued our discussion about the magnitude of this shift from interrupting people and businesses with your message to making sure the message is available when his prospects are in need and actively searching. I also explained all the different ways they are searching and how people can be "talking" about him, his company and his products. He obviously new something about SEO but really didn't realize the other elements of Inbound Marketing such as:
- Accurate keyword analysis
- How to created targeted website traffic
- How important active blog development can really be
- The impact of his message through social media channels
- Lead generation
- Lead tracking
- Lead nurturing
- ROI analysis and evaluations
- Mostly how powerful content development makes the biggest difference
We basically came to the conclusion that he need to do much more and the answers we arrived at 8 months earlier don't apply in the same way as they do today. I was able to teach Kevin that he needed to be much more comprehensive. I told him that this doesn't mean he has to spend gobs more money. He just needed to understand the philosophy and methods needed to reach his target markets have changed and this means, he has to change. The fact is that all business owners and professionals need to make these same changes. They need to be involved in the creation of the content needed to meet the needs of their "potential" targeted website traffic.
What my client taught me? Kevin taught me that it is the client's knowledge and experience that needs to be exploited and will best determine the most fruitful target market both sort term and long term. This may seem like common sense to most but I see it overlooked a little too much when developing targeted website traffic, Inbound Marketing and even more so with a specific search engine optimization plans. Kevin brought up the question of shifting focus from the national market to targeting his local markets more for a number of reasons. One was that a few of his new clients that did find him from his SEO project were local. From there, Kevin then thought about this further and came to the conclusion that perhaps his targeted website traffic would be more prone to hire local design companies.
No matter if Kevin is right or wrong, the point should be considered by all companies getting involved with the new Inbound marketing and that point is to be very clear about your target markets segmentation. The more a business can segment the different target markets that would be interested in those products or services, the better (and more quickly) the Inbound marketing project can gain traction and accelerate the pace of the website's out reach. Lower hanging fruit can be identified, further defined and targeted with the appropriate message(s) using the appropriate technologies.
There is no doubt in my mind that the result from this elementary conversation will be huge. Why?
- Targeting the local market will remove 90% of Internet competition.
- The more targeted keywords will gain search engine positions faster.
- His local prospects will find him easier & faster.
- His message will be more focused in this target market (effective).
Conclusion: Carefully examine all your market segments and with the help of your Inbound Marketing Consultant either before you launch your comprehensive Internet marketing plan or before you continue your plan. Some times the basics can be overlooked an in this case, the client had the best solution for his marketing challenges.
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Thu, Mar 04, 2010
Targeted Website Traffic
Do you have an advantage you are not seeing? Do you understand all you can about your targeted web site traffic? More to the point, your potential targeted website traffic.
I had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a client. Normally, no matter who I am speaking with, my goal is to educate and teach as much as possible about the new age of Inbound Marketing and achieving targeted web site traffic. It's something I am passionate about and very committed too. But, yesterday, my client taught me or maybe simply reminded me about an extremely important element of search marketing that needs attention BEFORE actual website efforts are initiated.
Client: Peartree Graphic Design
Client Length: Approximately 1 year
Client Services: Logo creation, graphic design, web design, brochure and other advertising material creations.
Client History: We were hired by this client about 8 months ago to create and develop a 15 keyword search engine optimization campaign for a 6 month period. This project ended some time in December 2009 with mixed but admittedly limited results. Although the client did achieve a return on his investment, some search engine positions and increased overall activity, we both agreed more work needs to be applied to achieve our initial objectives.
His first question when we spoke yesterday was: Why haven't we achieved the results we anticipate when we originally spoke back in May of 2009? My answer was as follows:
I explained to Kevin (Peartree Graphic Design) that SEO (search engine optimization) has changed or evolved dramatically in the last year. I explained that from my perspective, marketing itself has changed significantly in the past 12 months. Maybe more so than at any time in recent history. Then I went on to explain that these changes are so significant and so important that we need to discuss this in length, and so we did.
Kevin talked about the fact that he has been very busy lately with multiple deadlines and hasn't really had time to lift his head for air and look around to study what is happening with his own site, the marketing of his site. Obviously my client doesn't see these massive changes in the marketing industry and I can't realistically expect him too monitor and evaluate:
Kevin isn't a marketing professional, he has his own graphic design business to look after, clients to support, projects to oversee and oh yeah, he has a personal life too (I hope). With all this considered, what is the best course of action?
Our continued conversation and conclusions will be detailed on my next blog article tomorrow Friday, March 5th. Stay tuned, it's interesting!
Posted by Daniel Shlifer on Tue, Mar 02, 2010
The Marketing Revolution & Your Online Marketing Strategy
One of my primary objectives as an inbound marketing consultant is to inform and educate clients and others, that we really are in the midst of a serious marketing revolution.
Although I will explain this in more detail, my message is simple:
Those business owners that don't recognize these many significant changes and react accordingly, will be passed by those that do. Changes like these simply can't be ignored or even placed on the shoulders of another. This particular marketing revolution calls for company leaders to be more involved in the new online marketing strategy process.The art and science of lead generation is evolving quickly.
As a business owner, business professional or company leader, you have something (hopefully many things) to say to your clients and target markets. As a business owner, business professional or company leader, your clients and target market actually want to hear what you have to say. They want a different relationship with your organization. It is no longer enough to place this responsibility on your advertising or outbound marketing agency alone. As a leader, you must be involved with your online marketing strategy and B2B lead generation.
Your target market(s) are tired and even turned off by "interruption" marketing and are offering open ears and real loyalty to those organizations who have something to say and offer when they are asked. "When they are asked"? What does that mean?
It means this marketing revolution allows you to place your powerful message in front of your target market when they are actively searching (asking), as oppose to jamming it in front of them at the time of your choosing. More and more businesses and consumers are becoming very skilled at filtering out outbound marketing messages. There are 2 important points here:
- The significant money being spent on outbound marketing messages are less effective and therefore, more costly.
- This marketing revolution is providing opportunity for those companies with less or lower marketing budgets to create a competitive presence.
Doing things the old outbound way or utilizing traditional marketing methods will always have it's place and in many cases will provide a return on investment. However, there is more power being shifted with those that are paying attention and embracing the new age of inbound marketing (Internet marketing) and they are being rewarded. If you are considering getting involved with this marketing revolution and creating a better online marketing strategy, I encourage you to keep moving forward. Why?
- Search engine and a good online marketing strategy now offers the #1 return on investment when compared to ALL other marketing mediums.
- Consumers now use search engines more than any other resource to research, consider and select their goods and services.
Statistics don't lie. We are in the midst of a marketing revolution and your online marketing strategy is more important than ever. It represents more opportunity than ever.