Inbound Marketing With Google+

February 12, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

We are always exploring the edges of our approach to help our customers with their inbound marketing. The exploration and work is always a craft to refine. One of the areas which is continually growing is our use of Google+ in our client inbound marketing services. You can find our AscendWorks page by clicking here. We are growing this area in several ways to keep connected with a broader audience. Here are some of the strategies which will unfold over time:

  • Growing conversations. There are some wonderful conversations going on. We are monitoring and looking to engage. Our Google+ Company Page is meant to connect with the ongoing streams of conversation online.
  • Helping us grow. We can share our own explorations and capture those quickly in our research. As people provide feedback or reaction it helps us to understand what is in demand and what is irrelevant. We have opinions. Those viewpoints can be pushed on to help us get sharper in our thinking and approach.
  • Create a journal. It’s always neat to look back and see what is happening over time. As a team, we are all connected to be able to make posts. This can be used for seeing our progress on projects over time and our thinking evolve. We put out a lot of content with regards to advice, ebooks and white papers. Google+ affords us the opportunity to keep a journal of thoughts and see the timeline from a convenient vantage point.
  • Getting real. One of the things that our customers love is that we tell them the truth. They depend on this. We want to be real. We don’t want to get caught in hype or gimmicks. It’s about results. We can share our thoughts and journey along the way with candor.

If you haven’t joined us yet, click the sidebar link to find our AscendWorks Google Page and let us know you are connecting. We’ll add you to our circles and try to bring value to you over time in your own inbound marketing strategies. See you on the plus side.

 

Filed Under: Blog, Google Apps, Inbound Marketing ·

Managing An Inbound Marketing Team

February 9, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

When we share with our clients the work and production of our team to build and deliver an inbound marketing system, they come to appreciate what it takes to make everything work. Here are the conversation points which we have heard that have represented the value of partnering with a marketing firm like AscendWorks:

  • I don’t have to hire all those people. The talent required is broad for an effective inbound marketing system. Among these include:
    • Web developers
    • Graphic designers
    • Copywriters
    • Copyeditors
    • Project managers
    • IT
    • Strategy consultants
    • Marketing analysts
    • Database managers
    • Video technicians
  • I don’t have to manage the team. You can focus on your own business and work collaboratively and leave the headaches to us for getting things done.
  • I don’t have to manage the projects. We have publishing calendars, task lists, requirements documents and strategy maps to work through. Building this process is years of refinement and failures that you don’t have to worry about. You get the result of a well-tuned factory.
  • I can see what is happening. We communicate and stay transparent with what is happening. The work that gets done along with the results in the form of metrics is continually captured and presented to help you see what is working.
  • I can get new ideas. We have knowledge and strategies we share with our customers. We are in it together seeking to drive leads and customers with your inbound marketing systems and content.

Sure, if you want to take on the headaches, staff up and get ready to manage a process. It takes a lot of commitment and vision. But if you find that the reality is that you would rather do without the headaches and partner with less than half a head count, then we think it makes good business sense. Consider the work and focus on the result.

What are your thoughts?

Filed Under: Blog, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: , , , ,

Using Inbound Marketing to Maximize Web Effectiveness

February 8, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Inbound MarketingFrom a customer’s prospective, most websites are a one-and-done deal. These boring sites blast sales messages wherever there is free space and offer little to nothing that can compel anyone to stay for more than just a few minutes – boredom quickly sets it. People have always loved to buy and today’s technology is allowing them to do it while ignoring any annoying sales or marketing message. Boring sites kill web effectiveness and prevent current customers from becoming future customers.

It’s amazing how some brands rely heavily on interruption and unsolicited sales messages to maintain and grow sales. These strategies might have worked 10 or 15 years ago but today inbound marketing has become the required and necessary strategy for getting found online and building web effectiveness. People do love to buy but they absolutely hate being sold.

A visitor is a great opportunity but unless a site pulls in visitors with value then people will just walk straight out the door and most leads will become failed leads. Consider the following strategies that boost inbound marketing effectiveness:

  • Create great content. Buyers know how to filter junk and spam and ignore sites that attempt to sell them with irrelevant sales and marketing messages. Content that is worth mentioning will spread and remain relevant for far longer than any sales message. How you are getting found is key to discovering if your marketing strategies are effective or not. The key is to create great content that can be shared and spread.
  • Commitment doesn’t need to be an all or nothing deal. Gradual steps to commitment builds trust and prevents a buyer from having to make an immediate emotional decision. Many businesses leave people high and dry once a commitment is made – asking for a decision too soon pushes many people away.
  • Maintain ongoing value. A sales message required an immediate decision for the strategy to be effective. Once a customer leaves a website they likely will forget any sales message or advertisement – unless it added value and was relevant. Providing value over time and allowing gradual steps to commit builds fans, not just customers.

How you connect with your customers can either sink or swim your marketing strategy. The old, traditional sales strategies are failing as they continuously try and connect through interruption. Buyers have learned to ignore that which is irrelevant to their interests – inbound marketing is the only answer to this fact.

 

640x200jpg

 

 

Filed Under: Blog, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: ,

Automation Shaming The Conventional

February 7, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Boiler And On Demand Water Heater

 

Here’s a picture of how the world has changed. On the left you have a tankless water heater system. It provides on-demand hot water and is completely automated in load balancing the output of hot water between four different units.

On the right is the old school. The duct tape says it all. It’s a 300 gallon traditional water heater. This facility pays about $8,000 a month for hot water usage using the conventional. When it broke, the owner looked at his system and thought there must be a better way. He decided to automate. He pays less than $5K per month with four on-demand heaters and there is unlimited hot water. He never runs out. With all of the new equipment, labor and install, it took a little less than 8 months to recoup the investment.

No more duct taping the old system. It’s an eye sore. It worked, but there came a point where he had to make a decision. Does he keep patching the old or invest in the future with much less headaches and much greater efficiency and savings.

We all have this kind of decision in various parts of our business. I can recall spending over $50K for a PBX phone system for a large office space we owned less than a decade ago. That was what was available and conventional.

Today, $30/month does the same job with a cloud-based PBX system. Automation with convenience changed the game entirely.

You may not be dealing with hot water. It may be how you do marketing, sales or servicing your customer. Take a look around. Are you patching with duct tape? What would the savings and lack of hassle mean for you?

Don’t get used to the old. Eventually, everything becomes outdated and costly. Anyone want an old boiler?

 

Filed Under: Blog, Marketing Automation, Miscellany ·

Inbound Marketing And The Compound Interest Effect

February 6, 2012 by · 1 Comment

Inbound marketing at its core is a process. It is a system which continually produces leads. In the old days, we used to sit on our laurels with a site that was optimized. That is short-lived today. Content and value are being measured and presented by search engines to present people seeking to solve their specific problem with real answers.

When you have a system set up and tuned that revolves around your value, then the efforts of your outbound marketing whether via field sales, advertising or direct mail, become enhanced and effective. There is a process which caters to the buyer after you have grabbed their attention.

We speak to audiences and tell our clients all the time about how inbound marketing systems become assets to your business. Your investment has a compound interest effect that can be seen over time as you grow and leverage your assets. Here is how:

  • Content. Your content persists online. If your systems are set up well, then you will be getting found easily and frequently. Content lives and it serves anyone searching for what you have to offer say.
  • Automation. A process that a buyer can follow and be served with timely information works while you sleep, are away from the office or completely busy. It is more dependable than anyone on your team. It is the concierge for helping buyers get what they need at the right time.
  • Social outposts. Your reputation, relevance and followers that have been built up in the right social media venues has to be tied in tightly with your inbound marketing systems. These become permission avenues. You can announce new offers or get opinions quickly. It is a direct access asset for your business. It is also the avenue for driving referrals.

Getting found, providing value aesthetically and automatically and getting referrals becomes a system that produces on its own. As time goes by and the system continues to get tuned, the output is even more efficient. There are many businesses that have experienced such compound interest. They worked hard to tune their systems.

Where do you feel your inbound marketing systems are at?

Filed Under: Blog, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: , , , ,

Salesforce Doesn’t Have To Start Perfect

February 3, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Salesforce.com is capable of a great many things to automate and drive your business processes. The misconception is that you have to have your business in order and visualized completely before starting. Such thinking may have been true of custom built software that was expensive to change.

However, the case is often true that your sales and business processes are continually evolving. Organizations gain clarity from feedback and iteration. It is hard to describe what you want without seeing something in action.

In our work with our Salesforce consulting clients, we encourage a smaller framework with the least amount of features. This enables a team to get off the ground using the system quickly and getting results. Inevitably, there are new requests.

With a Salesforce champion intact, requests can be collected and a decision process for what the team can benefit from is assessed in a collaborative fashion. A list of requirements starts to develop that makes more sense to everyone as each person lives with conveniences or inconveniences of various features and customizations.

Here is the mindset which tends to serve successful organizations starting or growing with Salesforce:

  • Openness. Everyone is open to changing. They know that they will decide on new ways of doing things as they use the system.
  • Focus. All feedback comes through a central leader who can facilitate and broker the merits of requests. This helps to drive towards effective decisions.
  • Process. Everyone is thinking about the steps to serve a customer or get things done. The steps constitute the process. They are looking for efficiency.
  • Care. Salesforce is an opportunity to do things better with execution and timing. They care about the customer and think about ways to make their experience world-class.

Your team does not have to start perfectly. However, perfection is achieved over time by having a focus towards perfection. It is what allows organizations to continue to grow and mold the tool to how they want to serve their markets.

How is your team doing with its processes?

Filed Under: Blog, Salesforce · Tagged: , ,

Using Google+ For Support

February 1, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Google+ is continually being explored for its many use cases. One of the less commented opportunities is to serve your customers with support. Every new customer or prospect can be added to a new circle called “Clients,” “Customers,” or “Support.”

You now have a specific area to share knowledge, best practices or anything you wish to support your customers with. There are numerous benefits for capturing your support content within the Google+ platform:

  • Social value. Content which points back to articles on your site can continue to drive both social and SEO value. They invite opportunities for +1′s.
  • Knowledge base. Email is a one-to-one, private conversation. You open up the conversation by broadcasting to a larger audience. Furthermore, the history can be searched and explored for past answers.
  • Tribe building. Your customers can be part of a select audience that receives special advice, insights or offers. It revolves around your content that you provide ongoing in a private circle. It is a forum with benefits.
  • Thought Leadership. Posting your content and sharing it with a select group continues to position your leadership. Share insights that help to benefit your customers – increase their health, grow their business or help them grow. It is a platform that allows you to provide value.
  • Interactivity. The dialogue around a problem can be expanded to benefit a group and commenting back and forth creates passion, clarity and resolution to challenges everyone is facing.

There are lots of different systems for building support or help desk systems. However, consider using Google+ and explore the use case. The platform itself has intrinsic leverage comparatively. It makes it easy to stay connected and to deliver ongoing service and loyalty for those that pay you for your products and services while getting real feedback quickly.

What do you think?

Filed Under: Blog, Google Apps · Tagged: , , ,

Stop Trying To Cheat Google

January 30, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Burning CashIt amazes me how many people spend energy and time trying to find workarounds to getting found or a sale rather than doing the hard work characteristic of those that truly pay the price. It’s almost like watching someone who is a cheat that would be better off getting a job. The latter would provide better and more predictable revenue.

Maybe there’s some other psychological kickback that comes from trying to cheat Google. However, here are the problems I see:

  • Google is smarter. They have paid millions for their talent. They are extremely talented and insightful.
  • Google is always changing. Their algorithms continually change, especially to thwart cheaters.
  • Google is in control. They control what search results come up based on criteria in their algorithms.
  • Google can create consequences for you. You may find it even more difficult to get found.

If you insist on looking for workarounds or paying some SEO company for so-called optimization, then your work could not only be wasted, but your future efforts may be harder.

Here is the way we look at getting found online when billions of searches are occurring for goods, services and information:

  • Build information assets. There is a compound interest effect if you have a volume of information. It lives and persists online forever. It is an asset. Adwords and pay-per-click are fleeting. You get a click and pay a lot of dollars. You still don’t have an asset.
  • Create valuable content. It is not good if people land on your pages and find your content worthless. The foundation for truly getting found is around having something real and valuable to share.
  • Join the conversation. There are conversations online in legitimate places. Other authors, social media and sites can endorse you as legitimate thereby creating valuable equity for your online assets.
  • Continually innovate. Thinking that someone will set up your SEO and you are done is naive. You have to be committed to being continually relevant and current. This requires innovation. It is today’s business. It’s not very different than seeing a bricks-and-mortar business and their continual maintenance and innovation. If they stop growing, they are opening the doors for failure.

The truth is that you have to be smart, hard-working and substantive. It’s honest and fair. Google rewards such behaviors as you can see from your own searching and consumption. Avoid the gimmicks. Pay the price and do the hard work of being truly valuable.

What do you think?

Filed Under: Blog, Feature Articles, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: ,

Google Apps Calendar For Setting Appointments

January 27, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Google Apps has a feature which many may not be are of in the Google Calendar area. You can set appointment slots for your customers, partners and co-workers to use as part of a self-service process. This can prevent the back and forth associated with trying to pin down a time and coordinating with a busy schedule.

Recipients are able to find an open slot based on the availability of your own calendar. You set the time slots and your appointment function is associated with a url that you can distribute via your web sites, landing sites, inbound marketing campaigns or simply by email.

You can see the screenshot above to start the process. When making a new Google Calendar appointment, select the function for Appointment Slots. The wizard there will help you create the url with appointment times that you want available for anyone seeking to make an appointment.

Here are a few strategies to take advantage of this Google Apps feature:

  • Sales Meetings. Make it convenient in your sales follow-up to set a time to meet with a prospective customer. You can edit the meeting with online conference call information later.
  • Support Calls. If your customers are having issues, you can have a landing page for them to set up their own calls based on your own limited availability times.
  • Office Hours. If you have visiting times as part of your management, teaching or professorship, you can set office hours this way. If the time is taken, then it will not be made available.
  • Training On New Systems. To help drive success and adoption of technologies and process, you can send a calendar invitation with your appointment slots. This allows your team or customers to train when it is convenient.

Think strategically about how to incorporate this feature in your own workflow and process. It is powerful for automating the flow of your knowledge work.

How can you use this in your business?

Filed Under: Blog, Google Apps ·

Old Marketing Still Persists

January 26, 2012 by · Leave a Comment

Unused Yellow Pages

I saw this stack of yellow pages. They were pristine and untouched in a mall after a full day. Noone took one. Why would they?

I see the yellow pages thrown out on streets when they are distributed. On a rainy day, the pages mulch up from the moisture.

Why still kill trees to get out advertising? The books look silly. The world doesn’t pick up the yellow pages to find something. It’s bulky, outdated and inconvenient now.

Here is what is convenient:

  • I find you on search when I am thinking about something
  • I read about you on Yelp to find out what others think or what is nearby
  • A Tweet mentions you in a story
  • A Facebook page is continually updated and I find it
  • I see pictures and audio/visual on Google+ of your products in customers’ hands
  • I look you up on my iPhone or Android device

Old channels of marketing still hold on. Most buyers of this kind of advertising are hoping something will happen. There is nothing to measure. You can get a feeling of whether it’s working, but there’s nothing analytical about it.

Well, one thing is for sure. As long as people are not picking up the old stuff, the attrition is natural and accelerating. We will always have those that hang on and hope instead of get on and do what’s relevant.

What old forms of marketing are you still finding work?

Filed Under: Blog, Inbound Marketing · Tagged: ,