Inbound marketing – Getting found using Google, social media and blogs

I have just finished writing a book review, which will appear in a future edition of Professional Marketing magazine, on the book “Inbound marketing – Getting found using Google, social media and blogs” which is one of the CIM’s standard texts for its Digital Marketing diploma (along with ‘Understanding Digital Marketing: Marketing strategies for engaging the digital generation’ by Damian Ryan and Calvin Jones and “Online marketing – A customer led approach” by Richard Gay, Alan Charlesworth and Rita Esen).

There were lots of interesting facts in the book, for example:

- The open rate for emails has fallen from 39% in 2004 to 22% in 2008
- Spend half your time writing your (blog) article, and half your time writing a catchy title
- 75% click on organic listings (rather than PPC and sponsored links)
- The 10 results on the first SERPs page capture 89% of the traffic
- Front page Digg articles can receive 25,000 views in a single day
- You should have a 1% visitor to conversion rate on untargeted traffic
- A good landing page can convert 50% of visitors into qualified leads
- Spend 80% of your time getting more visitors and 20% converting them
- On average, inbound marketing leads are 61% less expensive than outbound leads

Although it is an introductory book – and sometimes provides guidance on the most basic of Internet features – there is plenty of pragmatic advice that you can apply simply and easily yourself for instant results. Particularly easy to remember guidance included:

- VEPA (Valuable. Easy to use. Prominent. Action oriented) calls to action
- DARC (Digital citizens. Analytical chops. Reach. Content creators) hiring policy – and what questions to ask digital marketers and digital PR agencies at interview.

Happily, the need for quality content – and good titles - is stressed throughout the book. There were several helpful tools mentioned in the book, most of which are produced by Hubspot (the company of the authors), and I defy you not to be tempted run your own site, blog and Twitter accounts through them, for example:

www.website.grader.com
www.twables.com
www.google.com/addurl
http://twitter.grader.com
http://www.facebookgrader.com/
www.Compete.com
www.inboundmarketing.com

At the end of the book there is a valuable checklist of what you should do if you are just embarking on your use of inbound marketing. A summarised version is below:

1. Pick a name that works
2. Put up a simple web site (with a CMS)
3. Get some links to your web site
4. Set up a Twitter account
5. Set up an email subscription
6. Get a nice logo
7. Setup a simple Facebook business page
8. Create a simple Facebook URL
9. Kick off a blog
10. Write a blog article
11. Set up Google Alerts
12. Find your three closest competitors
13. Update your LinkedIn profile
14. Find related Twitter users
15. Create a Stumbleupon account
16. Subscribe to Linkedin Answers
17. Find bloggers who are writing about your topic area
18. Start building business contacts on Facebook
19. Grade your web site on website grader
20. Install web analytics software (why not at the outset?)
21. Engage your blog commentators
22. Promote your promoters
23. Grab your company name on Youtube
24. Create and post a screen cast
25. Make a list of the top people in your industry
26. Subscribe to your personal LinkedIn RSS feed

Kim Tasso

Developing the art of sales and marketing

I wrote a short article for the Finance & Management special report on “Starting a business" by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales. It attempts to tackle the issue of selling for those who are starting a business and unfamiliar with marketing and sales techniques.

Topics covered include:

- Finding out who your customers are
- Understanding buying processes
- Using marketing to raise awareness and generate leads
- Setting targets
- Getting some sales training
- Identifying the need
- Developing a strong proposition for your product/service
- Managing sales meetings
- Understanding people
- Valuing existing relationships

Having just completed another introductory sales training course for a large regional law firm, and being asked to regularly provide such training for a variety of legal and accountancy firms, I’d say that it’s not just start up businesses that would find the article useful.

The special report will be published in March on the ICAEW web site - http://bit.ly/dxRoOc - but will only be available to Faculty Members. Let me know if you’d like a copy of the article and aren’t a member.

Kim Tasso

Single mums vs single dads – A small social media story

It started with a simple Tweet – just six words (“Single dads idolised, single mums despised”) in a moment of frustration at how single mums fare so much worse than single dads. I had a Twitter exchange with a number of folk and was encouraged to write a comic piece for the wonderful site www.onlydads.org and you can see the article there: http://bit.ly/5VRrly

More tweets followed as the link was tweeted and then retweeted. More Twitter exchanges as the debate raged on and more new like-minded friends discovered. Then a media pal – who happens to be an editor – dropped me a line on LinkedIn so say how she liked the piece and had been wondering about incorporating some of the thoughts in a forthcoming feature on the challenges faced by working parents.

I offered to write something and it duly appeared as an opinion piece in The Lawyer on 15 February 2010 (http://bit.ly/9xzaWx). I received several emails (some from people I hadn’t heard from for ages) about the article. Then I was made aware (through Google Alerts) that it had been picked up by The Wall Street Journal blog (http://bit.ly/ckVBzw) where it promoted further lively online debate.

Now I have been invited by www.wikizine.com – the magazine of the divorce site www.wikivorce.com - to contribute to a regular column with two other single parents about the highs and lows of single parenting.

I love social media!

Productivity – Inputs vs outputs

Long ago a senior management consultant for whom I had great respect admonished me for working long hours and stressed the importance of focusing on the outputs rather than the inputs. At the time I was rather indignant – he was advocating that we should not be hung about what time people start or finish their day nor about all the “stuff” that they might do during the limited hours that they were actually in the office but on what they achieve and accomplish.

As the years have gone by I have watched the support teams at many professional firms work exceedingly long hours with never-ending lists of tasks that grow at an alarming rate. These young professionals risk burning out and then crashing out. Many cannot understand why their enormous efforts do not appear to be appreciated by the partners who crack the whip and drive them to take on even heavier workloads and burn even more midnight oil. Particularly during the recent recession where head counts have been slashed whilst the workload burgeoned.

In many of my training sessions with young professionals we reflect on the importance of goals and how they help us focus on the most important things and prioritise our activities. Goals focus on the outputs. No one (who isn’t a fee earner) wins a prize for clocking up the most hours at the office or for having the largest number of “Dones” on their to-do list.

The fee-earning culture works against us though – when the billable hour dictates how much income is generated, the focus is again on the input of the lawyer, accountant and surveyor – rather than the outcome or solution achieved for the client. Would clients mind a large bill so much if they achieved a valuable outcome in record time? Is it any wonder that clients react against large bills for lots of time when the outcome took ages and wasn’t strategically important anyway?

The winners are those who are effective at setting a goal, selecting a strategy and ensuring the desired outcome materialises as quickly as possible. It’s a hard lesson to learn, but one that’s worth remembering – they won’t remember your input (unless, as a fee-earner, it was a huge time bill for an unsatisfactory outcome), but they will remember your output. Sounds obvious, but focus on outcomes.

Great events - Speakers for business

I receive lots of invitations from suppliers trying to secure my attendance at some event or other and most end up in the bin. But recently I was tempted by the combination of a great venue in an accessible location (The BFI Imax at Waterloo), at a sensible time of the day (4pm-6pm) with an interesting offer – hear a series of leading business speakers do short presentations to get a feel for what they have to say and how they deliver. An excellent choice which really appealed to my MBA memories.

80 minute MBA – in 8 minutes

First up was a double hander by Richard Reeves and John Knell with a citius est melius (quicker is better) introduction of their programme and a dismissal of the enormous range of books about leadership. The five key themes they explored (at lightning speed) were were: sustainability, leadership, culture, cash and conversation. And their three key messages – Go green. Read less. Listen more. Marvellous.

Philip Collins – Prime Minister’s Speech Writer

Whilst politics isn’t my thing it was interesting to hear anecdotes about No 10 and I liked his reminder of Aristotle’s keys for great speeches – Ethos, Pathos (emotion) and argument (a key point). He also warned “remember that you are not as good as you think you are” when it comes to speeches. Good advice indeed.

Professor Richard Scase – Leadership, innovation and change

An academic interlude which started slowly with a review of the global remix, the third revolution and chaotic behaviour but speeded up.

Patrick Hennessey – An officer and a gentleman

Hearing how soldiers deal with war zone, life-threatening situations on a regular basis makes many business leader ideas seem facile. The tenets of officer training should be shared in the business world – leadership, intellect and character.

Tim Waterstone – Retail books genius

I never realised that he was ousted from W H Smith, created Waterstones and then sold it to them before buying it back again - How gratifying that must have been! Interesting insights into funding for small businesses and the need to have zero fear of failure and “an insane ability to cope with financial stress”.

Jay Bregman – Purple Van Man

A story of how frustration with couriers led to the creation of the purple van “Happiness delivered” phenomenon which started in Shoreditch and became a £6m business in under four years.

Magnus Lindkvist – Mad Swedish Trendspotter

With weird tales of ukeles, and images of web sites promoting “Cats who look like Hitler” with Magnus’s huge personality that persuaded us all to routinize creativity in our organisations.

Richard Gerver – Headmaster

Turnaround and change management strategies and a message that “routines can be deadly” from a winner of the National Teaching Awards “School Head of the Year”.

Steve McDermott – Yorkshire smiles and empathy

Motivational and extremely funny, Steve interacted with the huge audience about the relationship between those people who are happy and those who believe that they are totally accountable for what happens in their life.

I am sure that as a result of this event, the speakers who presented – and others at SFB – will receive a significant amount of work. Nice event guys (and brilliantly followed up with an email of links to video highlights) - and next time it would be great to see some females up on the stage too.

Kim Tasso