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.
