Increasingly, I have clients asking me how they can get more traffic to their website, more leads, more business.  Enter Inbound marketing.

If you’re not someone who does marketing for a living, let me give you this description of Inbound vs Outbound marketing from Wikipedia:

“HubSpot claims Inbound marketing is based on the concept of earning the attention of prospects, making yourself easy to be found and drawing customers to your website by producing content customers value.  Blogs, podcasts, video, eBooks, enewsletters, whitepapers, SEO, social media marketing, and other forms of content marketing are considered inbound marketing.  In contrast, buying attention, cold-calling, direct paper mail, radio, TV advertisements, sales flyers, spam, telemarketing and traditional advertising are considered “outbound marketing.”

So in essence, rather than buying advertising space or bugging people uninvited (read: cold-calling), you earn their attention – perhaps by publishing helpful information on your blog or sharing useful content with your contacts (see what I’m doing here?!)

People are already out there looking for what you offer (assuming you don’t have a really wierd, useless offering).  So instead of sending a sales flyer out to 1000 people, out of which possibly 1 person might be thinking about buying what you offer, you create content which gets found and shared by people who are already looking for what you provide.

Does it stack up?

If the concept sounds good, let’s have a look at some statistics.  I was recently reading Hubspot’s ‘The State of Inbound Marketing in 2012′.  It’s based on a survey of 972 professionals conducted in January 2012.  You can read the full thing here; if you don’t have time, I’ve pulled out four highlights that struck me:

• Leads generated via SEO have a 14.6% closure rate, while outbound sourced leads have a 1.7% closure rate
• Leads from inbound links (referrals) are five times more likely to become customers than outbound leads (although interestingly, Social Media leads are only twice as likely)
• The frequency of your blog posts correlates directly to customer acquisition
• (This is nothing new, but worth highlighting…) the effectiveness of different social media channels depends very much on your business type.  At the highest level, Facebook is more effective for B2C (Business to Consumer), LinkedIn for B2B (Business to Business).

So what does it mean for you?

• If you don’t already have a blog, get one (integrated with your website).
• What are you writing about?  If you are just waffling, think about your content strategy.  Think book rather than diary.  Before you write each post, think ‘how is this going to be of use to my clients/potential clients?’
• Ensure your blog posts are linked back to a conversion/sign-up page.
• Think about Social Media – which platform(s) could work for you?  If you are blogging regularly, use Social Media to make people aware of your content – in a meaningful way.
• Keep your eyes open for linking opportunities – partners, clients, guest blogging, suppliers… these are all people who potentially will be willing to link back to your website.  Don’t be afraid to ask!
• If you’re struggling to find the time to get this stuff done, outsource it – either in it’s totallity, or get someone to help you just with the strategy and planning (in a ‘mentor’ type fashion).  Tell me more.

 
photo credit: Eric Kilby via photopin cc

I recently read this post on the ‘Art of Designing and Marking Up Email Signatures’.  In other words, how to create a beautifully crafted, branded email signature.

I used to have an email signature like that.  Then I realised that:

• there is no way of guaranteeing that your logo image won’t appear as an attachment (yuck)
• it made reading through a long email conversation with multiple replies a bit tricky
• it meant that people printing out my emails used up more paper & ink because of the 3 inch footer at the bottom of each reply I made
• and actually… because it’s there all the time… people don’t even notice it anyway

Yes, brand is important.  But maintaining & promoting your brand does not have to equal logo (+ social media icons times 5, + lots of other rubbish too) in your email signature.

Besides, in the vast majority of emails I receive, the email signature is so poorly executed anyway, that if anything it damages the brand – let alone all the points I’ve mentioned above!!

A challenge

Ok, so perhaps getting rid of the signature altogether is a little extreme.  But how about we set a challenge.  Think about what really needs to be in your signature, and then get rid of the rest.  Here’s some food for thought:

• Use the right colours & fonts to ensure it stays consistent with your branding.  Does your logo really need to be there?
• Rather than listing 5 different contact methods, just give one or two & link to your website for people who want more info
• Email address in your signature…. umm, can’t I just hit the reply button?  Is it not in the ‘From’ field for forwarded emails?
• Rather than having 5 different social media icons, think about including a link to your latest blog post or status update… and change it each day/week (I said it was a challenge!)  Once you’ve got rid of all the gubbins, and have a single link that changes each week… people might start to notice your signature a little more.

Not everyone will agree, I know.  But I for one am certainly not convinced of the value of the traditional 10 inch email footer.

photo credit: Alan Light via photopin cc

visualpanic / Foter / CC BY

It’s over five months now since the new Cookie Law came into force (in May 2012), so I thought this post on Sitepoint was worth highlighting.  The author, Craig Buckler, says the following:

“I see no reason to implement confusing pop-ups or other technical solutions for a law which is ambiguous, unenforceable and mostly ignored. Until the situation is clarified, I still recommend:

1. You have a “privacy policy” link — probably in the footer of every page.
2. Explain your use of cookies and, where necessary, link to the privacy policies of third-party systems such as Google Analytics (google.com/analytics/learn/privacy.html).
3. If necessary, link to cookie resource sites such as aboutcookies.org which explain how to block, control and delete cookies.

Then forget about it. Unless you’re contacted by a regulatory body with a genuine complaint, there are far better things you can do with your time.”

I must say I tend to agree with him.  The ICO is encouraging members of the public to submit any complaints they have about Cookies use, which they are due to review in November.  It’ll be interesting to see what the result is; I doubt there’ll be any huge upheaval.

Personally, what I do think should be banned is advertisers presenting content/ads to you based on your earlier browsing/search history (on an unrelated site).  It’s too intrusive for my liking… but then I’m not an advertising agency…