An impromptu manifesto to a colleague about Inbound Marketing

M, 

I am a firm believer of "inbound marketing" - companies such as http://www.hubspot.com have truly proven to me that the concepts of combining Social Media, Blogging, Email Marketing etc. all with amazing, relevant, and valuable can drastically increase a customer base. I understand your point, that if I was to creating content only concerning my own products and company the value would be considerably less on a subdomain of my own site/store. The content I am going to be creating is not going to be directly related to sales - It will truly be valuable to the reader - not just a sales trick. Topics like installation of parts, how to buy the right part, and troubleshooting - all extend value way above and beyond just writing about why 'My company is great' all the time. In appearing as an expert in the industry and then educating my customer I create a process that keeps them coming back, not as in a lifelong customer, as in when they are comparing the same product we sell on other websites. In educating the customer at the very top of the sales funnel, in then information gathering stage, there is a feeling of added value later on. Even if perhaps my product is 10% more than the competition I am embedded as the industry expert in the customers mind.  

3 major reasons I am hoping to find a way to host a blog on the same domain - 1. SEO, every time I publish a new article, theres a new indexable page - if that page is not on my store's domain it is not nearly worth as much. 2. Branding, the content that is going to be created will be searchable for years and years, if possible customers are accessing this information in a format and design very different than my store - I lose all kinds of branded value. Even just a customer looking up and seeing "blog.premiumstartersandalternators.com" is important for branding. 3. Centralization, to have a blog on another domain is counterintuitive - I would literally be sending potential customers to another website. My blog is supposed to be the 'bait' to attract people organically to my website, in the effort to convert them into buying customers. 

Content and the blog it lives on is basically the core of Inbound Marketing. it is the 'home base' that content gets spread out from, sent to Facebook, Twitter, etc.  and then (hopefully) shared many times over, creating a steady stream of new customers. 

I know I went a little overboard with this one - I just wanted you to see what my goal really is, as you said you were unclear.  

SMarketing: Mastering Sales and Marketing Alignment w/ Dan Tyre

After walking an empty 'Hynes 302' Room and realizing that (Yes! I do remember  that there had been room changes), I found my way into Ballroom A on the 3rd floor of the Hynes Convention Center. This being only the second session of the conference I was still purposefully not making eye contact with the people sitting around me for fear of an actual conversation. This concept was fleeting as a kid from Vermont sat in the seat next to me - with the entire row wide open and proceeded to ask me about my pen, yes my pen - And the well rehearsed elevator pitch's were exchanged, and yes, you guessed it...Business Cards too. Right at the moment when we both were running out of things to say and start talking about the weather... Dan Tyre gave his mic a "Test, Test" and my delightful interaction had come to an end.

I sought out this session because of the title - Smarketing. As with many of the session titles at Inbound, it was crafted to draw people in. Dan Tyre has been using this self-coined term for quite some time. Dan touched on the fact that in many organizations Sales and Marketing teams work independently form each other and can sometimes have an imaginary wall between them - then he got into how to change that and the results it can bring.

What I found most important from Dan Tyre about Smarketing:

• The advantages of aligning a companies marketing and sales efforts results in 20% higher growth 
• Marketing needs to become part of a companies core; not remain a line item on a financial statement
• Rely on data and facts to measure marketing success and impact
• Alignment will maximize ROI and close leads faster
• In educating customers through marketing conversion rate increases dramatically for sales
• It is not always true that more leads equals more sales, quality of leads plays a large role
• A series of ping are needed to nurture a lead - Emails and Phone calls. 
• Lead intelligence occurs with integrating marketing into sales
• Closed Loop Marketing will allow customers to 'move at their own pace' while companies can track and qualify by following signs of buying behavior. Knowing when a lead comes back to a website, or posts relevant content to social media will send signals to a company as to where that customer is in the sales funnel and what kind of marketing/sales process is needed. (The topic of Closed Loop Marketing has always impressed me - endless possibilities in my mind)
• By the time the leads are ready to talk to a sales person/moved into the bottom part of the funnel they have become highly convertible and ready to say yes. 

Dan really did a great job of holding my attention through the entire presentation, as I am sure every one else in the audience felt too. I am really looking forward to applying the concepts he discussed and continue learning the most efficient ways to align sales and marketing. 

Follow me @JNLaBrecque and Follow Dan Tyre @DanTyre

*I hope Dan doesn't mind me using that picture of him

Science of Inbound Marketing w/ Dan Zarrella

Dan has an extremely unique way of looking at Inbound Marketing. He actually backs up his statements about topics like SEO, Social Media, and Blogging with statistics. Actual, tangible, meaningful numbers. It is absolutely refreshing to see. To steal a reference from Dan, there really are alot of "Unicorns and Rainbows" type people out there, alot of "Be Awesome" and "Engage in the conversation". As he states: "Stuff that can be hard to disagree with on the surface, but isn't based on anything more substantial than what feels right."

And that is why he is called the Social Media Scientist. 

So a few things I took away from Dan (He talks so fast it was tough to keep up):

• E-books are most preferred on an E-reader or tablet; with less than 5 pgs or more than 40-50 pgs.
• E-books are shared mostly by recommendation and should have print in mind when being designed. 
• Facebook likes spike dramatically on the weekends and later in the day during the week - 7pm-10pm
• Photos on Facebook get the most likes, as does positive/uplifting content.
• Twitter's most followed accounts share a ton of content, but are not as conversational as thought to be
• Creating 60-80 % of all tweets with links in them is the "Sweet Spot"
• Use of "Please Retweet" works about 50% of the time - So try it.
• Retweets spike late in the day between 4pm-5pm, busiest time of day on Twitter
• Counter-Competitive Timing: Tweet on off times to be heard through the crowd.
•  Blog POSTINGS peak around 7am-8am.Blog VIEWS peak around 10am.
• Publish article early on in the week, try Re-Sharing over the weekend to increase viewers.
• More Posts = More Unique Views. There is no relationship between comments and views.
• Emails should be positive (best) or negative - not neutral (worst). Take a viewpoint.
• Don't use the '( ' and ')' in email titles  - Use '[' ']', it will get more clicks.
• Think 'Value' and 'Content' to increase clicks. Sending early morning is best.
• Paid Lead Generation will work the best. Email and Social 2nd and very close.
• Do not ask for street address or age, ask for zipcode or town.
• Text on button shouldn't be 'Submit', use 'Click Here' for higher conversion

Follow me @JNLaBrecque