Over the past ten years or so, we’ve seen social media move from being an early adopter’s marketing experiment to a tried and trusted channel for both B2C and B2B marketing.
But that doesn’t mean you should rush in and use it without thought – like any communications medium it has its benefits and its drawbacks.
And like any marketing medium, there are things it’s great for, things it’s not good for, and things it should never be used for.
The Sales funnel has been a cornerstone in marketing strategy for over a century. Believed to have been invented by E St Elmo Lewis in 1898, the sales funnel is widely regarded as the first formal theory of marketing.
However, in today’s buyer-centric environment the model is no longer fit for purpose. The traditional sales funnel prioritises marketing and sales over customer service and favours closing the next deal over your existing customers. Customers are a by-product of the sales funnel, not the central focus.
If you think about how a funnel works. You have a large amount of energy at the top with lots of people aware of your company, a smaller amount of people engaging with your company in the middle, and even fewer people at the bottom becoming customers, at which point they fall out the bottom and the process ends until you then pour more into the top.
Recently Adobe published their 2018 Consumer Email Survey based on research by Advanis. Whilst this was US-based research, we know that historically there are many similarities between the US and UK markets.
The survey contains a number of fascinating insights, including the astonishing fact that 28% of respondents check their work email whilst in the bathroom! Not sure how relevant that is to any campaign you might think of running, but it's an interesting insight nonetheless.
A colleague asked me yesterday, “Should I focus more on long-tail keywords or short-tail keywords? Should I be using them differently?”
I have to admit I was floundering a little. With so much changing in SEO, even within the last 6 months, it’s becoming nearly impossible to provide resolute answers to such questions.
But it’s a pretty valid question in the inbound content writing industry. Should we focus on one more than the other?
Well-crafted, purposeful and informative B2B blog posts are essential tools to help build your community and create the foundations for long-lasting relationships.
But in the midst of a demanding blogging schedule it can be easy to lose sight of why it is you're doing what you're doing; who you're doing it for and what it is you're looking to achieve.
In this blog post, we highlight five key questions that can help keep your content creation efforts on-task and on track.
September has arrived. The kids are back at school, this summer’s heatwave is a distant memory, and it’s starting to feel very autumnal. Dare I say it, but it will be Christmas before we know it. So it’s not too early to start thinking about the new year, right?
With the world changing a mile a minute, it certainly pays to stay ahead of the curve. Here are some thoughts about the digital marketing trends you need to keep an eye out for in 2019.
The internet is full to the brim with video marketing statistics proving just how powerful it can be as an inbound tool. On occasion, you might be faced with a campaign that has surprisingly under-performed. If you take a second look, you might see glaring areas for improvement. How can you be sure your next investment in video will grow revenue for your business?
Here are some of the most common video campaign mistakes, and how you can avoid making them.
Most managers and even marketers are probably familiar with SWOT analysis – Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats – as a way of analysing a business in respect of the world it has to operate in. Despite a range of other models to choose from PEST, PESTLE and more, it still proves very useful for formulating a strategy.
But this SWOT model can also be used in marketing, and in particular, it is a very useful way of looking at your content marketing.
It’s important that you spend some time doing your own analysis – but here are some general ideas to get you started.
If you are working in Sales or Marketing for a growing business, you will undoubtedly be looking for practical tools to help you grow. Tools that can keep pace with your ever-changing business model and that help you streamline efficiencies in the way you market, sell and communicate with your customers.
However as your list of tools grow, the amount of time and attention they take grows. Your tool stack can become disjointed. Some of your tools may not integrate so you spend more time moving data around from one to another.
With HubSpot’s marketing, sales, and CRM software, you can focus on generating leads and revenue and forget about managing a stack of scattered tools.
Here is how.
Until recently, Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Millennials have been the target demographics for most modern businesses when marketing their services/products.
However, businesses should consider the purchasing power and the burgeoning influence of another: Generation Z. Generally considered to include people born between 1996 and 2014, they are the rising demographic armed with an economic force to be reckoned with. So, turn your attention to the effects of the youngest generation of consumers. Many B2C and B2B businesses have already started.
The popularity of video marketing, podcasts and webinars are expanding the horizon for B2B content marketers. By comparison, the written word may seem unexciting and a little out of date. But sometimes, it's worth going back to basics.
White papers certainly aren’t the newest platform for sharing your company’s content - but the power they can yield is far from being extinct.
And the stats speak for themselves: 71% of B2B buyers have used white papers in the last 12 months to research purchasing decisions.
Here’s a reminder of why white papers are still a powerful magnet for B2B buyers in 2018 and beyond.
