Hot answers tagged inbound-marketing
11
The only thing that really makes a difference in organic SEO matters these days is quality content and links to your site (from other good sites i.e. not mass-ad sites).
I don't know what your business is going to be about but you should think about how to get generating useful content for your users, in a broader sense than only the services that you ...
8
This is why everyone says you should always be developing your personal network. This is one of the uses of it.
Assuming you don't have a (very large) one, you need to get help from those who do.
Bloggers/Twitters are the most obvious source. Some ideas:
Give away free software to any blogger who will write about it. You don't get editorial control ...
7
I Voted you up because this is a genuine question that I am sure someone here will have over and over again.
I had this fear before here too, I didn't post my idea here. Tell us who your competitor is, and what you are doing. We can help you better like that, update this question if you want to add your idea, I will check it as soon as you update
Once ...
7
"No. "Link building" is never legit. It's frowned upon by Google because it makes the internet worse.
Sorry, but this is totally inaccurate. Google doesn't frown upon it...they talk frequently about good and bad techniques and provide guidance about what you should and shouldn't do. Here's a recent video where Matt Cutts talks about effective link ...
5
You seem to have a very executable plan already - go for it!
The idea sounds similar to what Mahalo is doing - check out this interview with Jason Calacanis. There is plenty of niches to be filled.
Tips:
For setting up - There are hosted Wordpress solutions. Fast and easy.
For managing it - Best to do it yourself in the beginning - but when it gets ...
5
Assuming you can afford a PR agency (say $8K/month for 6 months minimum), here's a simple way to find the one for your space (you seem to be in the travel space). Look up your competitors and similar businesses. Find their press releases.
Write down the names of the PR agents mentioned at the end. Repeat for a while. Notice a trend? Call the one you ...
5
Chris,
I'm not trying to be a wise guy, but I'm a little confused. Maybe I am mis-reading what you are saying. You mentioned
"I would love my primary company focuses to be Inbound/ Social Media Marketing and Consulting, to best utilize my skills from a background of Management and Marketing" and "Developing Web Presences, and utilizing Social Media and ...
5
I'd say so. You're still solving problems for someone, right? Just because the features / implementation are more complex for your type of company doesn't mean you're any less capable of producing content about the benefits you provide, the problems your customers have, and the other issues that they're dealing with.
The challenge with your company is that ...
5
Search for websites that have a supporters page for those who donate: donate.
Submit your site to webpage galleries, app galleries and startup lists.
Submit screenshots of your site to Deviant, Flickr, etc--they also have web site gallery sections...and while the links may be no-follow, people do repost links they like. (There are submission services that ...
4
Should you look for analytical skills above all others? No. That's a great way to get a trial-and-error approach that comes up with a lot of errors before anything actually worth trying.
Good marketing exists at the intersection of awareness, analysis, and creativity.
Awareness: Of the market, of how it will perceive different messages, of what others are ...
4
Sort of by definition you need a low-cost way to generate leads for small- and mid-sized clientèle, because there's so many of them and because you're not going to extract a lot of revenue per client.
If you won't get a lot of revenue per client, the per-client acquisition costs have to be smaller.
Cold-calling is OK if you're getting $100k deals -- it's ...
4
This is really a tough question, because I don't think there is a magic recipe that you can simply apply in this case.
Bear in mind that it is not that easy for somebody to copy what you do. Even if you think that your product is better than theirs, they may not see it that way. History shows that time and time again companies are reluctant to admit that ...
4
I don't think QR codes will ever catch on in advertising sense. Most people really don't care about the ad THAT much. Also, the QR codes seem like they also have potential for exploit, its impossible for the consumer to have any idea of what exactly will happen when they interact with a QR code and their smart phone. The advertising/marketing industry has a ...
4
$1,000 budget and a plan:
Market Samurai - http://www.marketsamurai.com/ - $149
Do a lot of keyword research
Fine-tune 100-500 long-tail (3-4 word) variations
Write a blog post about each variation (at least the important ones to start)
Spend some money on istockphoto for pictures in your blog posts
Build some links to it from external sites
Try and hire ...
3
In the past we've engaged with PointBlank. The contact there is Aaron Wessels.
They're a small firm which is ideal for a startup in it's early stages.
aaron wessels | principal | point-bl_nk communications
415.378.8090
www.pointblankcomm.com
Currently we use SpeakerBox, which is good when you're volume starts to grow and you need to increase your reach. ...
3
I believe you are approaching this wrong. Just like customer service, I don't think this should just be something you view as a black box. "Like, oh I know very little about online marketing I better hire someone else to do that." Screw hiring some new team. Do it yourself(ves). At least until you understand what works and what you like doing. Then ...
3
"Imagine you're trying to launch a new software product, book, web service, church, small business, social cause, consulting practice, school, podcast channel, rock band, whatever...The most important skill today is... teaching."
-Kathy Sierra
Go spend that time teaching people. Not teaching them about your product, but teaching them how to be smarter and ...
3
If your target audience is CIO's and CFO's of medium to large companies you can expect them to be reasonably sophisticated. Simple mistakes in grammar will cause many of these potential customers to disregard anything said in your blog. You need someone to review and correct each blog before it is posted.
There are numerous ways to differentiate your blog ...
3
No, your money would be better spent training existing staff (preferably founder) in marketing.
The truth is, marketing is quite easy but there's this misconception (and anxiety) that it's complex or time intensive. It's not. The solution is to educate yourself in this area; not to shoot arrows in the dark and expect some new staffer to save the day.
...
3
Victor, you'll have a hard time finding ONE strategy that can do the trick.
You need to invest in a variety of the elements you mentioned. The more channels you use, the more opportunities you have to get found, noticed and heard.
But beware: At the end of the day, it depends a lot of the target audience you're trying to reach.
If they're teens, you ...
3
As I see it, QR codes have value in that they profoundly reduce the friction in getting someone to visit your service, business, whatever. If some one is strolling through the airport or reading the newspaper on the train or otherwise being exposed to your advertising, they are probably less likely to go through the effort of typing in a URL than they are to ...
3
While is is a year old -- a great visual representation of the comment Adam was making.
But a lot has changed since then. Here is a chart on the follow up of a QR advertisement campaign. According to the description:
Source: MGH, “QR Code Usage and
Interest Survey,” March 2011. Results
of an online survey to gauge awareness
and usage of QR ...
3
When you read Inbound Marketing, you'll learn it has five steps: creating remarkable content, optimizing it for search, promoting through social media, converting visitors to customers and analyzing everything. The first three are designed to drive traffic to the "top of the funnel" (ToFu) while the last two concentrate on obtaining and improving results in ...
3
There are two things to keep in mind when you want to get a journalist/reviewer/blogger/etc to talk about you:
Make a personal connection. These influencers get a lot of emails demanding their attention, and the best way to differentiate yourself from the spam is to show that you're interested in them. Follow their blog/twitter feed/column for a while. ...
2
The most important thing to think about when making your video (or for that matter, any content) is your audience.
Make a concerted effort to product something that if you were in their shoes, you'd want to watch. This is usually not overtly self-promotional stuff that just talks about your company and your product.
Share useful interesting content that ...
2
Google cares a lot about how close your keyword is to the domain name. All else being equal, gmat-skill-guru.com is better than skill-guru.com/gmat which is better than skill-guru.com/blog/gmat. Google treats sub-domains as if they appear just after the slash, so gmat.skill-guru.com is equivalent to skill-guru.com/gmat.
So the question is really whether or ...
2
You bring up a good point. It's kind of a dichotomy really. On the one hand, how do you get the word out about what you do and on the other, how do you not be annoying.
As with most things, I think you need a balance. Inbound Marketing is a great long term strategy since you really can't scale the interruption stuff at all. You also need some interruption ...
2
Do you have enough cash flow to hire a person(s) just for marketing?
Would you have enough time to do this yourself? Marketing is not as simple as most people think, but it's certainly not rocket science. It's definitely something you can learn, although it will take time and some effort.
If you think you might want to try adwords, an inexpensive and ...
2
A few tactics I've discovered since I started looking into this:
Using Google Alerts to monitor for news mentions of the keywords I'm targeting is a great way to find content both to get links from and to respond to. Reaction pieces are not only easier to write since they have a built in prompt, but it's usually pretty easy to add value to what a harried ...
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