Inbound Marketing Blog

Featured Business: Signs In One Day - Signage Retailers

Business Name: Signs In One Day
Business Web Site: www.sarasotasign.com
Business Location: Sarasota, FL
Marketing Decision Maker: Ken Frank
Business Description: Sign retailer - Manufactures, installs and repairs commercial signage

What are your current marketing activities?: Word of mouth, networking, yellow pages, web site search engine optimization.

What is your primary marketing method?: Yellow pages

What changes are needed (if any) in your marketing methods?: I am currently re-evaluating all of may marketing efforts. I took over this small business about 8 years ago and have grown significantly. I realize that what I have been doing needs evaluation and certain changes to keep current with the times. My issue is I don't know where to start and if I even have the time to devote these changes. I hired an SEO company about 6 months ago and have gone from zero internet presence to very dominant positions but I don't see it translating to the kind of customers and accounts I am looking for. My market is almost entirely local and I keep pretty busy but I do see the need for changes sooner than later.

Do you know what Inbound Marketing is, if so, please define in your own words?: Sort of - The truth is that I have little time and desire to learn anything new that will place new demands on my time. I usually stay with what works and even though the economy slowed, I have stayed busy. My understand of Inbound marketing is having a web site and some internet exposure so my customers can find me easier.

What percentage of your marketing budget is applied to Outbound marketing vs. Inbound marketing? In 2009 it was 100% of all our marketing budget. It is now 80%. We launch a new web site and hired an SEO company 4 months ago. Our rankings seem to be outstanding but I am not even sure (yet) what is translating into business customers. When I have more time I will evaluate this further.

What inbound marketing components are you currently utilizing?: Web site development (content) and an SEO program.

How are you currently measuring ROI?: I have only measured ROI resulting from my yellow page ads. I have not yet constructed the appropriate ROI measurement from my web site activity.

Have you ever executed a keyword development strategy for your web site?: Yes, as part of my new search engine marketing campaign.

How are you measuring your web site's traffic?: Not.

How are you measuring your web site's conversions?: Not.

What search engine strategy has been employed?: We have hired an SEO company to optimize our site for about 15 different keywords.

Are you using a blog? If so, how often are you posting a new article?: No, I don't see why people would care what I have to say about sign installation and I don't have the time to do the writing or blog development.

Who creates each blog article?: N/A

Does your business have a Linked In account?: No.

Does your business have a Twitter account?: No.

Does your business have a Facebook account?: Yes and my wife created a fan page.

How would you define your lead generation system?: It's more of a traditional, fly by the seat of my pants lead generation from referrals, yellow pages and now my web site.

How would you define your lead tracking system?: I have none.

How would you define your lead nurturing systems?: Follow up call from my staff.

Have you considered developing an Inbound Marketing Plan, if so, what are your challenges?: Yes, I would like to get more involved but I don't really know where to start and frankly I don't see it as a priority.

On a scale of 1-10, how important is developing a focused inbound marketing program?: 1

How soon do you plan on developing a better inbound marketing plan?: I developed a new web site 6 months ago and hired an SEO company to get search engine exposure. I'm not sure what my next step will be. I guess my main challenges is trying to understand what inbound marketing means to me and if I can really benefit without giving up my management time.

What would be your first step in creating a better inbound marketing plan?: Speaking with an expert on the subject.

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.

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.