Adrienne Wilkerson

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Expert Guide to Hiring a Local Inbound Marketing Agency. Part 2

Adrienne Wilkerson

August 29, 2017

Last week I started this blog duo with Expert Guide to Hiring a Local Inbound Marketing Agency. Part 1. In it, we covered the benefits to working with an agency, scouting to see if the company is using best practices online, evaluating case studies, and specialization. Today I’m picking up where I left off and will focus on items to look for during the interview process.

Do They Ask the Right Questions?

You want an agency that asks you a lot of questions, especially up front. Listen for questions about your goals and any current and past marketing activities. A good company will want to know what has and has not worked for you before. The right agency will go deep with you into the whys and the hows of your business. They will dig until they know what makes you different, what makes you, you. This might not all happen during the interview process, but if they don’t ask you if you are interested in talking to them about some of these deeper questions, then you might want to keep looking.

Are They Focused on the Success of Your Business?

Inbound marketing is not a magic pill that solves everything overnight. It is an investment by both parties so be suspicious of anyone promising results in the first 30 days or even the first three months. That does happen, and it’s exciting when it does. But any inbound marketer worth their salt knows it a process that builds momentum to be really successful. You want to look for the online marketing company that is invested in your success. When you succeed, they do. Listen for questions like: “What does marketing success look like for you in 3, 6, or 12 months?” “How much would you like to increase sales in the next 3, 6, or 12 months?” “Is the primary focus of your marketing to increase sales and if so, what is your second reason for marketing?”

Make sure you ask about the “out” clause in the contract. If the local inbound agency is focused on the mutual success of both your businesses, then they will be more forgiving with this piece. You want to avoid a company that “locks” you into a contract with no way out. Frankly, if the online marketing agency isn’t doing their job, you should be able to move on to a company that can do the job or is a better fit for you. You should want to stay because of their customer service and the results, not solely due to a contract. Look for a 30 day out, no questions asked.

Will They Develop a Strong Strategic Plan Focused on YOUR Goals?

It is highly unlikely they will develop a full strategy for you before you sign on the dotted line, but that doesn’t mean you can’t ask about their process for creating the marketing plan. From personal experience, I will tell you that marketers usually just can’t help themselves. We are creatives as much as we are numbers people so when we get excited about your business are your marketing goals, ideas will start flowing. We’re nerds ok. We admit it, and we own it. We love our industry, and there are exciting things happening, things that can help your business.

As you are interviewing online marketing companies, it is likely you will be talking to a sales person and not one of the marketers. However, many of the local marketing agencies are small enough, like ours, that the individual making the sales is also one of our best marketers. Personally, I believe this is the best of both worlds because you get to talk to the person that is going to be part of creating your strategy and knows the ins and outs of this new marketing paradigm. As digital marketers today, we have a lot of tools at our disposal. You want to look for an agency that is excited about putting those tools to work for your business.

Do They Have a System?

Inbound marketing is not rocket science; there are techniques that work consistently. Those techniques usually have to updated or tweaked as technology changes, which is part of the challenge of digital marketing. However, especially if the online marketing agency is focusing on a particular industry or two, they will know what works and what doesn’t. They should have a reliable system. They should be able to tell you what elements of an inbound marketing plan work for your type of business.

Do They Value Strong Reporting?

One of the best things about inbound marketing is the access to real ROI (return on investment) data. A good digital marketing agency will be able to track a lead from the first contact with your company online through right up to the first phone call. Between Google Analytics, Facebook Analytics and services like CallRail and Agency Analytics it is possible to see when someone has viewed a post. Also when they liked it, shared it, clicked on it, and visited your website. The reporting shows us which pages they visited on your website, how long they spent on your site, and when they called your office.

You should expect to get monthly reports from the local inbound marketing agency that reflect where your money is being spent and what the return is for that investment. The reports should include items like:

Social media engagement
Additional fans on social media (though this isn’t as important as it used to be)
How many people are viewing the posts or blogs the agency is putting out
How many unique visitors are coming to your site
Where the visitors are coming from
How the Facebook ads are performing
How the Google AdWords are performing

The reporting is the digital marketing company’s report card. It shows you how well they have done their job that month. Remember where I mentioned that 30 days out earlier? This is also where it comes into play. You want to know that if the monthly reporting is consistently not good, you can move on. That being said, inbound marketing does take time. Expect to invest 3-6 months in building up good sales momentum.

How Good is their Project Management System?

Earlier I said inbound marketing wasn’t rocket science and I stand by that. However, it does have a lot of moving pieces and deadlines. Material has to be posted on a daily, weekly, monthly basis and as I mentioned before, consistency is everything in this game. So you are going to want the company you invest your time and money with to have a good project management system in place. It doesn’t necessarily have to be any specific system, just one that works for them that works for them. Some of those systems include:

- TeamWork
- Basecamp
- Function Fox
- dapulse
- Function Point
- Wrike
- Asana
- Workamajig

Some of these project management systems that will allow the client (you) to interact with the marketing team and see where things are at in production.

Who Does the Actual Work?

In our ever-evolving global economy, it is more and more common for work to be done by subcontractors across the country or even across the world. This isn’t necessarily a negative, part of it depends on what you are comfortable with. According to an article by Forbes, freelancers now make up a third of the workforce in the US. Often, highly skilled individuals find they can make a better living working from home and businesses find they can get highly qualified and motivated workers with a lot less overhead. If the agency you are interviewing has a lot of contractors doing work, then ask about their communication structure with their contractors. Communication remains the biggest challenge when engaging contractors, so when an agency gets that issue worked out, it can be a real benefit to you as the consumer.

Are they Willing to Train your Internal Staff?

One of the best scenarios for a great working partnership between a business and an inbound marketing agency happens when internal staff can assist in certain pieces of the marketing efforts. This might take the shape of feeding your new inbound digital agency information about staff birthdays or awards, community involvement projects, fun staff facts, testimonials from clients, and more. You want an agency that is willing to include some staff training time in the quarterly budget.

Choosing to work with a local inbound marketing agency can be a very positive step for your business that will make a dramatic difference for your bottom line. Putting the time in upfront to investigate and interview agencies can be the deciding factor between a great experience and a terrible one. I hope these tips have been helpful as you check out the local agencies and make your decision.

Expert Guide to Hiring a Local Inbound Marketing Agency: Part 1

Adrienne Wilkerson

August 22, 2017

Marketing, especially In bound Marketing, is time-consuming and requires some focused specialties. Making the decision to partner with a local inbound or content marketing company is a big decision for most businesses. Bringing in experts who have the time to stay ahead of the curve and focus on moving your marketing goals forward can dramatically boost your bottom line.

What are the Benefits of Partnering with a Local Inbound Marketing Agency?

Experience & Expertise: It requires a broad scope of skills to handle a full digital marketing strategy, which could include content marketing, social media marketing, SEO (search engine marketing), ad campaigns, email marketing, blogging, web design and maintenance, graphic design, Facebook ads, and Google AdWords. It’s nearly impossible to find all of these skills and the experience to do them proficiently in one or even two people. When you hire an agency, you get access to their entire team, and the budget you would have spent on an internal person can go 100% toward your marketing budget.
Cost: The chances of finding that one rock-star intern that can do all of the above and wants to still around for the long haul is pretty much one in a million. That often leaves companies looking at either hiring a high salary marketing director or partnering with a marketing firm. Hiring a digital marketing agency means you get access to highly experienced experts usually for about the same amount you would have had to pay the marketing director.
Time: When you hire an online marketing company you have access to their entire team to executive the most effective marketing strategy for your business. There is no time for one person to execute a plan of that size, much less one person having all of the skills (as I mentioned before).
Administration: Let’s face it, all of the HR duties involved with bringing on and retaining an employee can be a headache. You have the opportunity to avoid that by partnering with a local inbound marketing agency.

The key is making sure you find the right local marketing agency for you. There are a lot of good companies out there and admittedly a few hacks, so it’s important to interview a few until you find one you are comfortable with. Most agency agreements ideally mean you’ll be working closely together for several months or even years. Therefore it is worth putting the time to do your research up front.

Here are a few pointers to help you through the research and interview process:

Are They Walking the Talk or Just Talking the Walk?

The first part of looking into an agency is to check them out online. They may talk a good talk, but if they aren’t walking it online, that is a possible red flag. Here are some things to look for:

Do they have an active social media presence? Are they posting regularly on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter? Not every agency is going to be strong on every social media channel. They are going to be most active on the channels that their target market frequents. For example, Facebook and Instagram are popular in Alaska and Twitter is not nearly as mainstream. So If you are looking for a local online marketing agency, then pay particular attention to how they conduct themselves on Facebook and Instagram. If you believe your target audience is on Twitter, you might also want to see how they do on Twitter.
Is their website current? If the agency’s website is out of date and not mobile friendly, that should be something to consider. Mobile optimization, for example, is one of the most foundational and critical things you can do to improve your ranking with Google. If the agency isn’t up to date with that piece, it could be an indicator they aren’t staying current with other marketing technologies. A current agency should also be putting out regular blogs about best practices and emerging trends in our industry.
How do they market themselves? It’s a good idea to ask them how they market themselves. It can give you an idea of where their experience lies and if they are using industry best practices.

Do They Offer a Variety of Services?

There are two schools of thought on the variety of services versus specialization. Some companies prefer to have one agency that manages all of their marketing services. They want one point of contact. This does keep things simpler and is most common amongst small and medium-sized businesses that are looking for an agency to be their marketing arm. It has benefits in that when all the services are under one roof there is usually greater continuity between marketing endeavors (Facebook, website, email marketing, Instagram, etc.) There is the potential drawback of getting an agency that while they can do a variety of services, they excel at some and are just ok with others.

On the other hand, some companies choose to work with a myriad of different agencies that each specialize in a particular area of digital marketing. The thought process here is that every business is the best at the area they focus on. This can be the case; however, the drawbacks are that it can be more expensive to pay each company, and you will have to employ someone in-house to manage all of the specialists. We often see larger enterprises and corporations take this route because they have bigger marketing budgets or because they have a marketing coordinator that is managing marketing for several departments.

Check out Their Case Studies

Inbound marketing is all about the numbers, so a great digital marketing agency should have case studies to illustrate what they have done for their clients. Case studies are a great way for you to understand what that agency can do for your company. They should cover what challenge needed a solution, what marketing tools were used to achieve the goals, and what the results of the marketing endeavors were. Especially look to see if the marketing agency has done work with other businesses in your industry and how they helped them.

Do They Specialize?

We talked already about specializing in specific services, but another thing to look for is a focus on your industry. An inbound digital agency has to learn a great deal about the clients they work for. Every time they take on a client in a new industry there is a tremendous learning curve beyond the norm that comes with a new customer/agency relationship. Ideally, try to find an agency that specializes in your industry, the learning curve will be a lot less, allowing you to see ROI faster.

Are They HubSpot Certified?

Find out if they are HubSpot Certified. Hubspot was the first mainstream company to pioneer inbound marketing, and one of their owners coined the phrase “Inbound Marketing.” They are still about the only ones offering certification and are considered the industry leaders in this very young industry. If the local digital agency is certified, they will want to highlight it on their site and at least in their staff bios.

All of the above elements are part of the exploratory process, which usually happens prior to making contact with a company. You can use them to narrow down your list to 3 or 4 agencies that you want to start interviewing. In our next blog, we’ll cover what to look for once you sit down and start to talk to real people.

Check out our next blog Expert Guide to Hiring a Local Inbound Marketing Agency: Part 2 for the rest of this expert guide.

What Does an Inbound Marketing Plan Include?

Adrienne Wilkerson

August 7, 2017

We spend a significant portion of our prospect meetings going over what exactly the Inbound Marketing plans should include. It’s usually a rather lengthy discussion depending on the particular client’s needs. Though there is a list that we recommend for most clients (a foundation if you will), it is important to customize each package to the client and their goals. A lot of the conversation seems to circle around how each of the different pieces of the plan will help that particular business.

Comprehensive Inbound Marketing Package

The way we see it, there are about 10 pieces in a full program. Not every agency will include all of these elements, but for clients willing to invest in the whole Inbound Marketing experience this is the way to go!

Ongoing Strategy & Analysis. An effective strategy is built on an understanding of the client’s goals and their target audience’s persona. We invest a lot of time in understanding what exactly motivates those you are trying to reach and how we want them to respond. Making sure we consistently hit that moving target requires ongoing analysis of the data from our efforts. We continuously adapt our strategy according to the data to ensure your ROI is as high as possible. Part of what makes this possible is your account manager.They are your advocate within our company, and they keep an eye on the analytics. Your account manager makes sure your Inbound Marketing strategy is running smoothly and handles any challenges that may come up.
Social Media Publishing & Monitoring. We create custom content, publish it and monitor the responses coming into your social media channel. In the creation of content, we will incorporate royalty-free photographs, custom videos, etc. We act as our first responders, so you don’t have to worry about the response time. In most circumstances, we will respond within an hour. The most effective social media channel for your business will depend in part on where your company is in the US and where your target market is currently interacting. For a robust strategy, we recommend 2-3 channels. For example Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest or Facebook, Twitter, and SnapChat. For some clients, we focus on just one.
Blogging. Quality, relevant content keeps your website current and increases your leads by two-thirds (according to a recent HubSpot survey). The best way to keep your website updated is to blog regularly. For smaller blogging packages we post twice a month, but ideally, we post once or twice a week. Our dynamite content creators write custom blogs based on questions your target audience is asking. By answering these questions, your website rankings increase as do your leads and conversions.
Content Creation. Putting out quality content is critical to a successful Inbound Marketing strategy. Content varies from webinars, YouTube videos, to whitepapers, infographics, and more. Our content creation process typically involves idea creation and research, copywriting (if needed), artwork/photography/videography, SEO optimization, web design and coding (if necessary), and publishing.
Landing Pages. When people are looking for a particular service or product, they often do not want to dig through your entire website and will bounce off your site before “converting” to a lead. The solution to this is to provide a “landing page” that focuses in on a specific service, offer, product, or piece of information that is of particular interest to the end user. When an interested party clicks on a PPC (Pay Per Click) ad of Google, a Facebook ad or a sponsored or promoted post it will take them to a landing page on your site. The user must then provide some basic contact information to access or receive what they are looking for. It is a “win-win” for both parties. The end users get the information they need, and our clients receive contact information for future marketing.
Pay Per Click (PPC). Is also called cost per click, is most often referring to Google AdWords, but Facebook has increased their ad system. In both cases, we leverage Google or Facebook’s targeting systems to ensure the ad shows up to the right target market. Our clients only pay when someone clicks or in some way interacts with the ad. We employ PPC to direct traffic to our client’s websites and their landing pages.
Google SEO and Web Maintenance. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can be a confusing term to grasp and this is in part because it is another moving target. Google is constantly changing their search algorithm, that thing that determines which website ranks where in attempts to improve the user experience. Blackhat marketers are always trying to figure out ways to fool the system. So there is never a clear target for long. We make marked efforts to stay on top of the newest Google requirements to ensure your website is organically ranking in a way Google approves of. This, in turn, keeps your site on good terms with Google, so it doesn’t get blacklisted. We spend time each month updating keywords, manually managing link-building, etc. Additionally, we maintain content on your website as needed for staff changes, new services, and more.
Email Marketing. It is not enough to just collect lead information; you must have a system to follow up with those leads. Email marketing through newsletters sent out at regular intervals is a powerful way to foster and develop leads into converting to regular customers.
Video Content. Facebook now has more videos being uploaded every day than even YouTube. Videos are becoming the most widely viewed content on the internet. On social media, 15-30 second videos are the most effective. We work with clients to create the strategy, record and post the videos on various social media channels.
Campaigns & Special Projects. Finally, campaigns can span multiple marketing methods and greater periods of time. They are a concerted and coordinated effort to push out a specific message or to tell a story. The size of the campaign will vary depending on the budget, the goals, and the impact required. We bring the full weight of our diverse creative team to bear for our clients to put together effective, innovative strategies that achieve their goals.

We love sitting down and brainstorming with our clients to come up with the best plans with the most value. If you are interested in what Inbound Marketing can do for your business, please click on the link at the bottom of the page for a free consultation or drop me a line at [email protected]. I look forward to hearing from you!

This blog was originally published in November 2015, but was updated for content and accuracy.

13 Inbound Marketing Stats Your CFO Will Love

Adrienne Wilkerson

May 8, 2017

“67% of the buyers journey is now done digitally.” -Sirus Decisions

The value of Inbound Marketing is unequivocal, and there is no denying the preponderance of evidence the data shows us (channeling my inner Law & Order here). When done correctly, inbound marketing is far and away the ROI champion in the marketing arena.

There are several reasons no one can even come close to competing for the ROI crown. One big reason is that consistently doing inbound marketing creates company assets that grow even without any additional investments. Each and every piece of published content (i.e. blog, landing page, white paper, video, etc.) continues to build value even over time.

Graph courtesy of Tomasz Tunguz at Redpoint

One great example is this blog by Tomasz Tunguz on “The Compounding Returns of Content Marketing”. His data shows a steady and consistent growth rate of 8% per month from core readers and 10%
per month from spikes (when a post becomes intriguing to a larger group). That is 18% per month with no additional investment of resources over a 12 month period!

In another example from HubSpot, we can see that over 90% of the leads from their blogs come from old posts and 56% of the leads they generate come from marketing they are no longer actively participating in.

But let’s get down to the stats you really came to this blog for.

Last year, 67% of surveyed B2B companies said Inbound Marketing was a top three or very high priority in their marketing strategy.

67% of B2B marketers see a 10% or more increase in sales opportunities throughout the sales funnel when lead nurturing is used. (DemandGen)

32% of surveyed brands have decided to reallocate marketing budget from outbound to Inbound Marketing.

Of the surveyed marketers, 23% of their overall marketing budgets was earmarked for outbound marketing and 34% for Inbound Marketing practices. (Gannett Local)

Businesses who focus primarily Inbound Marketing save more than $14 per each new customer. (State of Inbound Marketing)

When compared to paid search, mid-sized businesses save on average 31% on Inbound Marketing costs. (Eloqua)

B2B buyers seek out to the following top 3 sources while researching a purchase decision: Whitepapers (78%), Case Studies (73%), and Webinars (67%). (DemandGen)

Inbound leads cost 61% less on average than outbound leads. (HubSpot)

B2B companies that blog at least 1 or 2 times per month generate 70% more leads than the companies who don’t blog. (HubSpot)

After five months of consistent inbound marketing, the average cost per lead drops 80%. (Eloqua)

Inbound Marketing yields 3 times more leads per dollar than traditional methods. (Kapost)

Nurtured leads will most often make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (The Annuitas Group)

Companies that excel at lead nurturing generate 50% more sales ready leads at 33% lower cost. (Forrester Research)

If any of these stats catches your eye and you would like to know how if Inbound Marketing could work for your company, I would love to chat with you. You can even see some of the results we have gotten for our current clients on our portfolio page. You can reach me at 907-563-6008 or via email. I look forward to hearing from you.

This blog was originally published in August 2016 and has been updated and republished.

Secrets to an Award-Winning Anchorage Inbound Marketing Plan Part 2

Adrienne Wilkerson

January 12, 2017

Earlier this week we started the process of walking step by step through the elements of an award-winning inbound marketing plan. Today, we are going to continue that series, and I’m going explore some of the more effective social media marketing tools for those of us who have businesses in Anchorage.

Choose Your Inbound Marketing Tools

Now that you know why you are marketing, what your goals are, and who you are marketing to it’s time to choose your marketing tools. Here’s a list of some of the ones you might consider, it is not an exhaustive list by any means.

Facebook
Twitter
YouTube
Instagram
Google+
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Snapchat
Periscope
Website SEO
Website Maintenance
Landing Pages
Facebook Ads
Google AdWords
Email Marketing
Digital Ads
TV Ads
Radio Ads
Printed Advertising (brochures, flyers, signs, etc.)

Keep in mind that there are some items on this list that are not as useful in some areas of the country or, in some industries as others. Also, it does change depending on your audience. That being said, barring some of the obscure marketing channels and the ones that are new and not tested yet, these are the main ones to consider. Obviously, on your own, there is pretty much no way any business owner can manage all of these, you have a business to run after all. Unless inbound marketing in all you do, we want you to know, there is no human way you can do all of these, so I hope you can stop feeling bad now. My goal with this blog is to give you enough information to make the decision about which one(s) you can realistically manage, consistently, with your schedule.

I’m going to take off on a side note for just a second, bear with me; it’s important! Consistency is a foundational piece to any successful local or national inbound marketing plan. Posting heavily for several days or weeks and then disappearing for weeks or even months at a time is worse than if you had never started doing social media or inbound marketing at all. A good analogy would be if you had hours posted on your store front that you were consistently open for several weeks in a row. That’s a good thing! But then if for the next month, customers showed up and found the store closed during posted business hours one day, then open a few days later and so on; they would lose confidence in your company and probably start to frequent your competitor. It’s extremely hard to get that trust back if it is ever lost. So pick a schedule you can keep up with and stick to it. As we go through the different inbound marketing tools below we will give you some suggested posting frequencies.

Side note finished and we’re back on track!

Social Media Marketing Tools

Let’s move on to some of the great social media marketing tools that are out there!

Facebook is a no-brainer to start with. It is the juggernaut of social media marketing as it boasts more active followers than any other online platform. In our experience, it is also the most effective channel when we are talking about the market in Anchorage, Juneau, Wasilla, Fairbanks, and indeed across the whole state. Here are some of the specifics about Facebook:

Pick how often you will post. In our experience, you can either post about five times per week and promote three of the posts or post three times per week and promote each one you post. It is rare for people to go and visit your actual Facebook business page anymore. Most of the time they are going to be seeing whatever comes up in their newsfeed that you have posted.
You HAVE to promote your posts. You might have 10,000 followers, but believe me, if you don’t promote or boost your posts, no one (or almost no one) is going to see them. According to Facebook, while the average user will have access to 1,500 posts on any given day, they will only view about 300 of them. So for your post to organically get through Facebook’s complicated algorithm and into someone’s newsfeed is just about impossible. The option that is available to us then is to promote or boost our posts. You can choose a very specific target audience to see your posts and pay Facebook for so many views of that post. This helps your return on investment (ROI) since we know that only people who are more likely to be interested in the post (if you have selected the right target audience) will see it. But know you have to invest time in learning how to boost (check out our classes on Facebook marketing) and money in the actual boosting. Expect to spend at least $150-$200 per month.
Use short 15-second videos. Whether you use Facebook live or prerecord and post, videos must be a part of your regular posting schedule. Even as much as one per week is enough, though more would be better. Through the Pages Manager app, you can do live video directly onto your business page. These videos should have professional content, meaning that if you wouldn’t say it to a client or customer’s face, then don’t put it in the video. Your videos do not have to be professionally made, however. There are a lot of programs out there that can help you make great, short videos to share on Facebook. People want to see the real you; they are attracted to “raw” footage so feel free to shoot with your mobile phone and have fun!
Build brand awareness. Facebook is powerful for building brand awareness and is good for business to business and business to consumer style companies. Considering that there is such a large pool of people to promote to, it can be relatively easy and comparatively inexpensive to get your name out to a lot of people quickly.
Drive traffic to your website. Arguably the most important purpose of Facebook, for most people, is to drive traffic to their site. You can post blogs you write (we’ll get to blogs in next week’s blog) with links back to your website. You can do ads that drive traffic back to your site. We see more followers convert to leads and then customers when they go back to your website (when it is a good site). So keep in mind that your goal is to connect, engage, and make it easy for them to go back to your website.

Instagram is focused on images (photos and short video) and is primarily a mobile app. It is very casual, and users are looking for businesses to tell a story, to let them in behind the scenes as it were. They want to know who you “really” are. Late in 2016 Instagram launched a live video feature that put it in direct competition to Snapchat. Considering the number of users already on Instagram, they have a good chance at truly competing with the newcomer. This social media platform is particularly popular amongst Millennials and GenX’ers.

Expect to post photos or videos 2-3 times per day to have a strong presence. The minimum is 1 per day at least during the work week.
Instagram is particularly powerful for a visual business like retail, restaurants, coffee shops, interior designers, personal trainers, photographers, and much more. Keep in mind though that just about any business can effectively use Instagram; it just might mean thinking outside of the box. Companies like American Express, FedEx, Home Depot and many others use Instagram to connect with the next generation of customers. Car companies like Jeep and Mercedez Benz have done a fantastic job over the years, and their feeds are worth following just to see how they do it.

Twitter is a fast-paced social media channel which limits its users’ posts to 160 characters. We frequently get asked about Twitter and its effectiveness in Alaska. We have seen local businesses use it well especially for those promoting events, restaurants, or in the entertainment industry. For many Alaskan’s businesses, the amount of time it takes is not worth the return. You need to post 6-8 times per day, though some of the content can be the same Tweet posted multiple times a day. There is so much material coming through our Twitter feeds (they don’t curate it like Facebook does) that users who login in the morning and someone who logs in later in the day, will never see the same post. So if you tweet it again in the afternoon, it is less likely to get buried by the entire day’s worth of content.

I encourage business owners who think Twitter might work for them to do some research. See if your competitors are on Twitter. If so are they getting engagement? Then check to see if your buyer persona is active on Twitter. If both these things check out, then Twitter might be a place for you.

Pinterest is still a very rapidly growing social media channel that drives a lot of web traffic. It is a digital pin board where users can save images and links to anything that might interest them on “boards” they create in the app. Mashable predicted Pinterest would hit 50 million users in 2016 and by October of last year they had surpassed the 100 million active monthly users mark. By Pinterest’s 5th birthday in March of 2015, 50 billion pins had been shared by users! 71% of users are female, and on average a single pin can generate six website visits.

So particularly if you are selling a product of any kind, you should have a presence on Pinterest. It takes a bit of time to invest in setting up your business account and being creative in generating your boards. Remember that buyer persona? It comes into play here again. Obviously, you have boards populated with your products or services. Then beyond that, you need to create boards that will be appealing to your target audience. To pull in an analogy from our blog earlier this week, if you are selling wool hiking socks, then you might want a board that focuses on hiking boots, hiking trails locally, nationally, and internationally. You could do a board on different types of outdoor clothes, hiking gear for pets, adventure getaways and more. Next, you need to find other companies and individuals on Pinterest that are also pinning similar stuff and follow them. Then you need to post anywhere from 2-10 times a day. Not everything needs to be your own, original content. Most of your pins will be repinning other people’s content. Check out our Pinterest classes for more training.

LinkedIn is a great business to business social media channel and can be an invaluable platform for networking with other professionals. In recent years, LinkedIn has tried to catch up with Facebook on the business page side of things, and while they are getting better, they still have a long way to go. But you can now post articles on your business page on LinkedIn and promote them. This is a huge step forward for businesses. Historically LinkedIn has always been about the individual professional connecting with other professionals, and this is still at the core of LinkedIn. Posting a link to your company’s blogs on your business LinkedIn page is always a good plan. From there you can sponsor it so that it shows up in more people’s news feeds, especially people who might not have liked your business page yet.

YouTube is a video sharing channel owned by Google. It is a solid place to post the videos you are creating for Facebook. One of the best things about YouTube is that you can post longer format video and people will watch it. On Facebook, for instance, research shows that most users will move on after about 15-20 seconds of video. Not so on YouTube. As of October of 2016, there were 1 billion users on YouTube, and about 4 billion videos are viewed each day. Many businesses put their videos on YouTube and then share the link on Facebook, thus killing two birds with one stone. There are now more videos uploaded on Facebook every day than on YouTube, yet YouTube remains a force to be reconned with, especially for longer format video. Keep in mind that 91% of internet users in the US age 13-17 use YouTube (in addition to other channels). 81% of Millenials and 58% of Gen X internet users also use YouTube.

Snapchat is arguably the fastest growing social media channel of 2016. It is a purely mobile app in which users send videos and pictures that self-destruct just seconds after being viewed. It is also commonly used as a messaging app. By the end of 2016, Snapchat had taken over Instagram as the number two used social media channel for the 12-24 age group. Many are now saying Snapchat is here to stay and is not going to be a “one-hit wonder.” So does that mean you should invest your time in it? There is quite a bit of debate about this amongst marketers. Some believe that early adaption is the way to go, other want to wait. Here’s my take on it. For the Alaska market, Snapchat is popular amongst the 12-24 age bracket, just like everywhere else in the state. These kids and young adults early adapters no matter where they live. Most of this age bracket are not decision makers, however and don’t hold the purse strings in the family. Most businesses are struggling to find a way to use Snapchat, especially in the B2B (business to business) arena.

It is possible that as this age bracket matures they will continue to use Snapchat and older generations will embrace it as well (this is the trend we saw with Facebook as it matured). If this happens, it will have broader appeal as a marketing channel for the masses. As it stands right now, I believe Snapchat is only worth the time investment for B2C (business to consumer) companies who’s primary target market is 12-24.

From our list of inbound marketing business tools at the beginning of the blog you’ll see we only made it through the social media channels today. There’s a lot to talk about with social media, and we’ve only just scratched the surface today. If you would like more in-depth information about social media marketing, feel free to check out our blogs, we love to talk about Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and others (we’re kinda nerdy that way). Next week we are going to focus on additional inbound marketing tools like your website, landing pages, blogs, Facebook ads, Google Adwords, and more. I hope you come back and check out the next blog on Thursday the 19th. In the meantime and if you haven’t already, you can download a free copy of our Inbound Marketing Planning Guide by clicking here.

Secrets to an Award Winning Anchorage Inbound Marketing Plan

Adrienne Wilkerson

January 9, 2017

Effective inbound marketing is almost always dependent on having a plan. Shotgun marketing (shoot out a bunch of random things and see what sticks) is a common but failed method we see all too often. The best secret to any marketing effort is to take the time to build a strategy and then stick to it. Marketing in today’s world is a bit of a moving target that can take some practice to hit consistently. We’re going to walk you through the steps to create an inbound marketing plan. These are the same steps we use to create award-winning strategies that have increased our clients’ business by over 30%.

It’s Easy to Get Overwhelmed

One of the main reason I believe the shotgun marketing method is so commonly employed is because it is so easy to get overwhelmed by all of the options out there! It seems like every other second another social media channel pops up and is the next best thing! The question then comes up, should you jump on that bandwagon? Are you missing out? Should your business be on Facebook or Twitter? Are your clients on Instagram or Snapchat? How does Periscope, Flickr, Vine, Reddit, and Medium play into it all? What are they anyway? These are very common questions we hear from every new client we sit down with. There is a lot of information coming our way, and it’s easy to get buried under it all.

The social media channels are one thing but to have a well-rounded plan; you also have to consider the other aspects of an inbound marketing strategy. There is blogging, your website, your search engine ranking (where you fall in the search results on Google), video marketing, landing pages, search engine optimization (SEO), and much more. Knowing which tools to use when and which to pass on is one of the biggest challenges. It’s right up there with trying to stay current with the marketing trends and best practices. Small business owners often take one look at all of these options and throw up their hands in understandable frustration!

“Where do I start? I don’t know what is going to help my business the most! I only have a limited amount of time and energy to do this, where do I invest it?”

If any of these questions have ever crossed your mind, know that you are not alone and you are at the right blog. Help is here.

Be Calm and Market On!

Not every plan works for every company. While there are essential pieces that work for many businesses in Anchorage and throughout Alaska, there isn’t exactly a one size fits all sort of plan. I say this because while a particular type of plan will work for 70-80% of businesses throughout the state, not every business owner will have the time or resources to implement it. In that case, they may have to adapt the plan to fit what they are comfortable with or look at hiring a company that offers inbound marketing business services.

There are four main steps to this whole thing:

Set a goal
Define Your Market
Pick Your Marketing Tools
Implement, measure, and revise as needed.

Set a Goal for Your Inbound Marketing Plan

Over the last five years at Beacon, we have found that there are different reasons businesses choose to market. While the most common reason is to increase sales, we have concluded that there are other reasons as well. Take a look below at a few of the common ones. Does your company fall into any of them?

Increase sales
Increase market share
Increase brand awareness
Introduce new products or services
Connect to the community

Increase sales. As I mentioned before, this is the most common reason companies market themselves. They need to increase the amount of sales made each year. They need to bring in additional clients or customers. One thing to note, most of your inbound marketing efforts are not going to produce results immediately, and that applies to marketing in general. The best time to market is when you don’t need the sales. Inbound marketing is most effective and has the best ROI when you have time to let the momentum build on its self. It is a bit like a snowball effect as it gets going. There are a couple of exceptions to this rule that we will discuss later.

Increase market share. You may have a steady and stable stream of clients coming in, and we are thrilled for you! As I just mentioned, this is the best time to market! Typically though at this point, you will market a bit differently. The focus is on increasing brand awareness and thus your market share. You don’t want to leave any kind of void for your competition to fill. You want the public to see you everywhere and think of you first! You want to saturate the market and own the biggest share of it.

Increase brand awareness. This goes hand in hand with growing your market share, but it also has other uses. If you are a new company to the area, the first step is to let everyone know that you have arrived! Take a new restaurant for instance. Even before they open their doors for the first time, they need to create brand awareness in the community. Generating a buzz about the upcoming grand opening is a powerful way to leverage social media and inbound marketing and to have a great opening night!

Introduce new products or services. Launching a new product line is exciting and getting the word out there through marketing is critical to its success. You can create excitement around the release, starting everything off on the right foot. Marketing a new service or product strategically also reflects well on the rest of the company and can encourage previous customers to come back and check out old favorites as well as the new.

Connect to the community. There are a lot of organizations in Anchorage and the rest of the state that may not be selling anything. However, they do need to market themselves to keep up the steady stream of volunteers or donations they need to keep going. Often non-profits, charities, parks, etc. can benefit from inbound marketing to connect with their supporters and disseminate information.

To begin, as yourself: Why am I marketing? How will I know if I have succeeded?

As you sit down to start the process of putting together an inbound marketing plan, you will need to answer these two questions first (don’t worry, there will be more later). Knowing your goal will help you figure out how to measure your successes and see where you need to adjust your strategy (remember what I said about the moving target?)

If your answer is: increase sales, then the next question is how much? Do you want to add two new medium accounts and four small ones each month? To accomplish this, you could say that you need to increase Facebook impressions by 50% and your website traffic from social media by 20%.

If your answer is: increase brand awareness, then your goal could be to increase your Facebook reach by 1,000 people in the next four to five months and your impressions by 40%.

If your answer is: connect to the community, then your goal could be to increase your email mailing list by 10%, increase your social media engagement by 35%, and increase new volunteer applications by 7%.

Only you are going to know how many new accounts you can handle or how many new volunteers you need, so be realistic about what your business/organization wants to handle and needs. If you don’t know what realistic inbound marketing goals are, don’t worry, take your best guess at first and keep an eye on how things develop. You might need to adjust your goals along the way as you get the hang of this.

Who are You Trying to Reach? Define Your Ideal Client

After you answer the two questions: Why are you marketing? What are your goals? Then the next major question is WHO? More than ever before it is absolutely, positively, vitally important that you take the time to describe who you want your client to be. Inbound marketing in Anchorage or any other city is based around connecting to the individual you want to be a customer. The old demographics: “single, Hispanic female age 18-45 who likes clothes” just doesn’t work anymore. The challenge is to go so much deeper with the personas. Ask questions like:

What are her hobbies?
What are her interests? What does she do when she isn’t working?
What does she like?
What does she dislike?
Is she married? How long? To whom?
Does she have kids? How many? What are their ages?
Does she have pets? How many? What kind?
Where does she work? How long has she worked there?
What are her aspirations?
Does she drive? What does she drive?
Does she carpool? Does she take the bus? Does she like to bike to work?
What kind of home does she live in? For how long?
What does she watch on TV? Does she watch TV?

I know this sounds like a lot of work and believe me, many of these questions could leave you wondering; “How would I know?” But trust me, it’s worth it. There are several ways to pull together this information. First, ask some of your existing customers. Pick your top 2-3 clients and ask if they are willing to share some information with you (all strictly confidential of course). This persona may be one you create from scratch; it may be someone you would like to sell to or connect with.

Here’s why it is so important to spend time perfecting your target persona. All of these pieces of information will help you craft the content and figure out which channels are going to be effective. Regardless of what the persona looks like when you are finished, you want to make sure your content includes material that will be interesting to them. This is important regardless of what products or services you provide. You always tailor the content to fit your audience. You must provide them with posts, blogs, videos, tweets, etc. that they will find interesting and engaging. This is how you connect and build trust with your prospects. Then when they are ready to buy, they are more likely to come to you. Again, this almost doesn’t matter if you are selling toilet paper or wool hiking socks. The messaging in the content has to be relatable to them. For example:

If your target audience is an avid outdoors person, who enjoys spending their weekend hiking, exploring, backpacking, camping with their friends and pets and you are selling wool hiking socks, then make sure your social media content shows people of the appropriate age, gender, ethnicity, etc. enjoying the outdoors. Talk about good hiking trails in the area, share posts from the local health food store, write a blog about how to avoid blisters or how to treat them once you have them.
If your target audience travels a lot for business and your product is membership in trendy airport lounges in key cities, then your content could include travel tips. Your posts could include things to do in the cities you had lounges, reviews of new luggage options, telecommunication tips with family and the office, tips to sleeping on a plane and much more.

The persona you create is the foundation for and guides the content you produce as part of your strategy, so it is worth investing the time to develop it.

Choose Your Inbound Marketing Tools

Now that you know why you are marketing, what your goals are, and who you are marketing to, it’s time to choose your marketing tools. In our blog later on this week, we are going to go into which tools are useful for building your inbound marketing plan for Anchorage and other cities across Alaska. We will also spend some time going into how to use each one and the time commitments involved. While you are waiting for that blog, check out our free guide that compliments these blogs to help you draft your inbound marketing strategy.

Out with the Old! In with the New!

Adrienne Wilkerson

December 19, 2016

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity” -Albert Einstein

For many businesses in Anchorage, Alaska 2016 was a rough and “interesting” year. A lot of changes and uncertainty challenged a lot of us in ways that were uncomfortable. I believe it is safe to say that many of us have had to tighten our belts and take a hard look at why we were in business and what we needed to change to stay in business. Here are some lessons we learned in 2016 and what we are excited about in 2017.

Too Much Growth Too Fast is Dangerous

This is not a new concept and one we thought we were familiar with. But I’ll admit, when you are in the thick of it, and new opportunities keep presenting themselves, it is easy to get carried away. The excitement is heady, and us entrepreneurs tend to suck at saying no. We see opportunities in everything and always want to say yes, believing we will figure out a solution as we go. Figuring it out as we go is a hallmark of the entrepreneur, but it is also a weakness of ours. There is a limit, and we found ours and then had to deal with that reality, trust me it was painful.

So what do you do when you’ve overextended yourself? How do you pull things back and make all your deliverables? My answer isn’t the kind most would want to hear because it will depend on how far you’ve extended and what your deliverables are. But the consistent part is that you have to let go of what is dragging you down. You have to trim what fat you can so you can deliver on your core pieces. This is where making hard decisions comes in. We had to look at which departments were profitable and which we were carrying just because. As we really looked, we realized some were still around just because they always had been and others we were still hanging on to because we thought we had to keep them for reputation’s sake. Some we just didn’t know how to bow out of gracefully.

In the end, we let stuff go that had meant a lot to us in the past, but was not longer current. We said goodbye to a department even though the exit was less than graceful, but it had to be done. We struggled, but as a team, we stood by the decisions we made. Now I am thankful to say we see the benefits of the choices we made. They were the right departments to let go of.

Moving into 2017 we are a nimbler, more agile company who can adjust more adeptly to current trends and developments in marketing. Our team members are operating more in their strengths, which has increased our efficiency and quality of work. We are seeing success financially from our decisions and are excitedly watching those trends continue.

We LOVE to Help Companies

Part of the challenging journey of 2016, forced all of us at Beacon to look at little or a lot deeper at why we were at Beacon and why we were in marketing. The single most unifying purpose amongst us all is that we want to help people and to help the businesses we work with. We love what we do because it makes a difference we can see and measure. One staff member said:

“I love coming to work because I get to help people find the right business to work with and the business find the right customer.”

This reinforces our mission; that we want to be a beacon of light guiding businesses through the murky world of marketing. As we look into 2017, we will continue to use this statement as our beacon as we ask ourselves fundamental questions: Does this new trend help our clients? Is what was working three months ago still working? If not, why not? What can we do it improve? How can we help our clients succeed?

Telecommuting is Not the Same as Face-to-Face

In the fall of 2016, I moved with my family to Ohio and suddenly Beacon Media + Marketing was operating in two very different time zones. And I am not the only executive member who travels. At the date of this blog, we have executive team members in three time zones.

After spending almost five years running Beacon from Anchorage, it’s so much more challenging to try and run it from 2/3 of the way across the US. The move was mostly for personal reasons having to do with the health of various family members. I’m thankful for staff who are willing to put up with the challenges of me telecommuting to help make this possible. Honestly, I’m truly grateful that the technology exists at all that we could even consider this as a viable option.

Making telecommuting work for extended periods of time has been “interesting” to say the least with adjustments required on both sides of the US. There is a four-hour difference between Alaska and Ohio. So the Alaska staffs’ lunch meetings are my evening meetings. Weird things are challenging: Like when we are in brainstorming sessions, I can’t say “this is so much more effective that that” when we can’t share a screen. “This” doesn’t have any context to the people on the other end of the line. What worked so well when we were all in the same room doesn’t work anymore. So we have to remember to change our language to be more descriptive, especially when technology doesn’t cooperate and our video conferencing goes down.

Though telecommuting will forever have its challenges, we have all adapted well. It will never be as nice as being able to be on the ground with colleagues. Sharing an “air-five” in celebration can not replace a real high five, but it is the next best thing. In 2017, we are looking at strategically, and by that I mean slowly, expanding our presence in the mid-west and east coast.

Transparency is Painful and Invaluable

From the beginning, it has been Jennifer’s and my vision to have a company where transparency and honesty are values we live by and not just give lip service to. So this sounds good and great in theory and on paper, but it is challenging to live out day to day. Through the last five years and especially in 2016, we have discovered many layers and dimensions to committing to personal and company transparency.

Internally, we have had many frank and painful conversations between staff, between executive members and between the executive team and staff that I don’t believe would have happened at too many companies. Having walked through those conversations, I understand why most choose to avoid them. They force us to see things in ourselves that are not so pretty, and once we see them, they are a lot harder to ignore. Beacon is not an office where you show up, do a job, and leave. We show up, we work hard, we care for and about each other, we grow as people and as professionals, then we leave. I firmly believe we have stronger teams because of the commitment we make to honesty, but I will be the first to admit that it can be a painful road.

Transparency externally means we own our mistakes and work hard to make them right. We have made our share of mistakes, and it’s not fun to own them privately or publically. I keep reminding myself when I get down that no one, no business is perfect. Mistakes will be made, errors and accidents will happen. But I am proud to be part of a company that looks at mistakes in the context of the learning process. The world of inbound and digital marketing is one of trial and error. As Thomas Edison said:

“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”

I’m sure 2017 will hold more trials and more errors and more finding things that won’t work. However, I am encouraged because I believe it will also be full of successes that we have because we have been willing to take risks and try new things.

In 2017 and beyond we will continue to take calculated risks. We will continue to learn from our mistakes and our triumphs. We will honor ourselves and our staff as we work hard and want so much to help clients. We will continue to be thankful for our customers, our partners in marketing; that honor us with their trust. We will continue to excitedly explore the new frontiers of marketing.

2017….here we come!

Beacon Media + Marketing Wins Big at AMA Alaska’s 2016 PRISM Awards!

Adrienne Wilkerson

December 5, 2016

Our marketing team works hard, and most of the time it’s nose to the grindstone. We love what we do, and we do what we love. So when we have the chance to shine, blow off some steam, and highlight the great work we get to do for clients, well we’re all about that. That opportunity came this fall at the 2016 AMA Alaska’s PRISM Awards.

I am very proud to announce that our co-founder and VP of Marketing, Jennifer Christensen won Marketer of the Year. Jennifer is a long-time Alaskan with a 20-year history of award-winning sales and marketing in the online media, retail, and service fields. She has a Masters Certificate in Online Marketing and Social Media from the University of San Francisco. Jennifer was the first Alaskan to be Inbound Marketing Certified. She is a co-founder of Beacon Marketing Academy and the Alaska Inbound Marketing Summit. Jennifer is fulfilled by serving her community as a whole, and uplifting women in business and she is one of the founding members of the community organization, We Are Anchorage. She is a 2015 winner of the Green Dot Violence Prevention Bystander Award and is the Director of Women Entrepreneurs of Alaska.

Our account strategist, Arie Henry, won Student Marketer of the Year for 2016. Arie came to us as an intern as he finished up his marketing degree at UAA. After his internships, we were thrilled to have him join our team, and he continues to be a valuable member of our company. Arie excels in coming up with creative and off the wall ideas during our marketing brainstorms. His ideas have been foundational to several very successful campaigns including the one that one Beacon the Merit Award for Small Business Campaign at the 2016 PRISM Awards.

In the Pinnacle Awards, design team Adrienne Wilkerson & Courtney Moses took the Logo Design of the Year for their rebranding of Beacon Media + Marketing. Courtney started as an account coordinator and quickly moved to website design, which was a much more comfortable fit. Over the last two years, her design skills have expanded both in the web and print arenas. The print side is as much a surprise to her as to anyone.

“We love branding projects. Not just because we love designing them, but because it’s an opportunity to use our skills to help companies be seen and acknowledged. We have to find the perfect balance of elements that not only communicates what the company does but goes deeper and shows the spirit of the company as well. Every company is different, every project has its own obstacles and challenges, and we relish that challenge in every project that comes our way. When you live and breathe design like we do, every challenge is an opportunity to grow and reach another level that you didn’t know existed yet. Every company we work with gets to benefit from that passion.” -Courtney Moses

Also, Beacon Media + Marketing received Merit Awards for in the following categories:

Radio Advertising
Website Design
Logo Design
Outdoor Advertising
Print Advertising

We’re thankful to all of the clients who trust us with their projects and give us the freedom to be creative and push the envelope to develop great work. We’re looking forward to even bigger things in 2017!

The future of marketing as we know it

Adrienne Wilkerson

November 2, 2016

Originally published on November 2, 2016. Updated on April 21, 2020.

The only constant in marketing these days is change. Trends come and go, platforms rise and fall in popularity, algorithms are constantly tweaked and best practice is ever-evolving.

A few years ago, HubSpot published a video at the start of its “The State of Inbound 2016” report that said: “in five years, marketing and sales and you know it will no longer exist.” Fast-forward to 2020, and it still rings true. What does that mean for business owners, sales professionals and marketers?

Here is a summary of the key points, which give you an idea of how much changed since then:

In the last 20 years, we have gone from getting hundreds of emails per week to THOUSANDS of emails per week. This isn’t news to anyone, but let’s take just a moment and remember the “good old days” when email was manageable and your to-do list fit on a regular-sized post-it note.
Yes, your mobile device is buzzing at you more now, 34% in fact. If you have more than one mobile device (and who doesn’t), then each one is probably buzzing, dinging, ringing, chirping, or otherwise notifying you of yet another message of some kind. It’s been a major adjustment for us all.
The majority of people surveyed say they now use social media to keep up with the news. This statistic is yet another indicator that the way the public consumes information continues to evolve.

Remember when all of those things were a surprise?

The point HubSpot makes in the video, which is still totally valid, is that businesses cannot continue to communicate with consumers the same way they always have. None of us in marketing, sales, or business can pretend nothing has changed and expect our result to stay the same. On the name note, inbound marketing cannot stay the same either. It has to continue to morph with the needs and wants of the consumer.

As far as advice goes, that’s marketing gold. It’s just as important in 2020 as it was back in 2016. Change really is the only constant, which means you have to stay on your toes and keep up-to-date with what’s coming.

Read more: Is marketing the new sales?

Future of content marketing

Back in 2016, we wrote that quality content was KING. It still is. Just about everything in inbound marketing seems to change and evolve, but through it all, quality content continues to be king. The more consumers get overwhelmed with emails, messages, notifications, etc. absolutely, it is even more important that the content we are putting out is targeted toward them. More than that, it has to be relevant and helpful.

We’re looking to add value to their day. Do that, and they’ll keep coming back.

People are skilled in finding what they want through search and on social media. They have questions. They have problems to solve. They feel inspired. Our products and services are the answers. We have to stop focusing on selling and instead turn our efforts to educating and informing our audiences with quality content.

When we do, the quality of the leads increases, which can make it easier for our sales people to convert leads to customers. Quality content also helps our existing customers to continue to feel confident that they picked the right company, because, “See, they are still the experts! They are still putting out information that I need.”

Not sure where the future is headed? Talk to our social media experts.

Marketing to empowered consumers

The public has access to more information than ever before in history. It takes but a moment to look up the three closest gyms and compare services, prices, and amenities. A few moments more to read reviews, check out their Facebook and Twitter feeds, and to verify any offers or claims.

Many consumers take it much, much farther; spending considerable time researching and following a brand before they make a choice to buy. Businesses cannot pretend that consumers will primarily rely on traditional methods of marketing like print ads, TV or radio ads to influence their decisions.

This has perhaps been the biggest shift in marketing, as it’s evolved from traditional methods to digital methods. We’re no longer casting wide nets in the hope of picking up a few bites (outbound marketing). Instead, we’re refining our bait so the right fish can find us when they’re ready (inbound marketing).

Knowing your customer

The key to success in this environment, of course, is knowing your customer.

It’s critical that companies invest time and resources into clearly defining and fully fleshing out the buyer persona. Understanding the tone of your audience and the questions they are asking will equip you and your staff to generate content your potential customers want to consume. You might find it helpful to engage a professional marketing company to work with you to develop this, especially if you need to do some surveys.

Another great source of information is asking your employees. Who in your company is the first point of contact with prospects? Who is answering all of the questions people always ask? These staff within your company are gold mines of information to generate content. What questions do they always get asked? What follow-up questions get asked after the product or service is purchased?

Once you know what your potential customers want to read, then you need to figure out where they want to read it. Which social media channels are your target audience participating in? There is a lot of data out there about how and where consumers want to read content. Of the people surveyed for HubSpot’s State of Inbound report back in 2016, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter were the clear winners for business use. That’s still true in 2020.

If your target is stay-at-home moms (hello, Instagram) or college students (what’s up, TikTok?), then where they spend their online time will be different. Don’t assume all so social media channels are the same. Investing the time in researching best practice for your target audience right at the start will be well-spent.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation today.

Beacon Adds SEO & Traffic Analytics and Call Reporting to Our List of Services

Adrienne Wilkerson

August 15, 2016

We are always on the lookout for new ways to improve our customers’ experiences and continue to bring more value to the table. With that in mind, we are excited to announce two new services we are rolling out in August; Call Tracking and SEO & Traffic Analytics.

Call Tracking

Our call tracking allows us to drill down and track more precisely which of our social media marketing campaigns are performing. We can identify which one is garnering the return we expected them to and which we might need to tweak to be even more efficient. We can now create trackable phone numbers that seamlessly tie into the numbers our clients already have with no disruption to their daily business activities. We now have a more robust picture of how our PPC (Pay Per Click), organic, social media, or another campaign are impacting our clients’ customers and prospects.

We are particularly excited about the added benefits to our clients, like email notifications when leads come in so they can be followed up on while they’re hot. Our customers can now get a host of data on each call to equip them better to convert the lead to a sale.

SEO & Traffic Analytics

We believe marketing is all about the numbers and having accurate, easy to interpret data is critical to successful campaigns and happy clients. So it is with great excitement that we are launching the SEO and traffic analytics services. The new dashboard goes light years beyond spreadsheets to show live, visually appealing reporting function for our clients to view at their leisure. Now we can bring together your Google and Bing rankings, Facebook, Google Analytics, Google Adwords, Twitter, Instagram, and so much more all in one place. Since the dashboard is interactive, it allows for richer, more robust data that speaks directly to the bottom line.

The expansive list of features, interactivity, and ease of use come together to provide a dynamic and productive tool. We are proud to offer this new service to our clients that we know will enhance the effectiveness of their marketing campaigns and bring a new level of transparency and understanding to inbound and social media marketing.

Does Inbound Marketing Work for My Construction Business

Adrienne Wilkerson

August 8, 2016

We are often asked if inbound marketing or social media marketing works for general contractors, roofers, painters, landscapers and more. We always reply YES with utmost confidence and here is why. Consumers have embraced the internet as their primary resource to research products and services before making a buying decision. In fact, a recent study by Pew Research Center reports that 73% of Americans are online on a daily basis. Think about the last important purchase you made. Did your research start on Google? If you’re like most people, your answer is probably yes.

Construction Information on the Internet

An obvious question is: Do consumers use the internet to research general contractor information and particular problem or issues with their home, yard, plumbing, etc.? The answer is an astounding YES! People often spend considerable time researching the problems they have and who they can trust to fix it. Having a high quality and consistently posted blog makes all the difference in attracting the right leads to find you online. When people are researching their problem online, and they find your blog addressing their needs, they will come to see you as an expert and someone they can trust. Blogging also provides Google with the new, fresh content on your website ranks so highly in its search algorithms. The short version is that blogging increases your ranking on Google, which increases your lead generations.

How General Contractors Can Benefit From Inbound Marketing?

To be successful in your marketing, you must go where the people are- connect with them, engage them and delight them. Inbound marketing is the practice of getting yourself or your business found online when prospects are searching, getting more people to your website and then converting them into customers. This is in contrast to traditional marketing, which includes tactics like magazine and television ads as well as telemarketing.

“Inbound marketing is the practice of getting yourself or your business found online when prospects are searching, getting more people to your website and then converting them into customers.”

The Four Core Services of Inbound Marketing

Inbound marketing for plumbers, roofers, landscapers, asphalt contractors is not one particular action but a cohesive system of proven, effective tactics that work together and become greater than the individual pieces.

Building traffic to your website via blogging, SEO, and social media

Converting this traffic into leads by providing premium content offers

Converting leads into customers with lead nurturing, lead scoring and email marketing

Measuring and analyzing every step to see what’s working and improve on what is not.

Bottom line? Inbound marketing works. When implemented correctly, you’ll start to see results and new faces and clients come through the door. In fact according to Oracle, “the average cost per lead drops 80% after five months of consistent Inbound Marketing.” (Eloqua) I hope after reading this, blog you are intrigued about inbound marketing and how it can help your business.

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Adrienne Wilkerson

“Content marketing’s purpose is to attract and retain customers by consistently creating and curating relevant and valuable content with the intention of changing or enhancing consumer behavior.“

Adrienne Wilkerson

Do They Ask the Right Questions?

Are They Focused on the Success of Your Business?

Will They Develop a Strong Strategic Plan Focused on YOUR Goals?

Do They Have a System?

Do They Value Strong Reporting?

How Good is their Project Management System?

Who Does the Actual Work?

Are they Willing to Train your Internal Staff?

Adrienne Wilkerson

What are the Benefits of Partnering with a Local Inbound Marketing Agency?

Here are a few pointers to help you through the research and interview process:

Are They Walking the Talk or Just Talking the Walk?

Do They Offer a Variety of Services?

Check out Their Case Studies

Do They Specialize?

Are They HubSpot Certified?

Check out our next blog Expert Guide to Hiring a Local Inbound Marketing Agency: Part 2 for the rest of this expert guide.

Adrienne Wilkerson

Comprehensive Inbound Marketing Package

Adrienne Wilkerson

Adrienne Wilkerson

Choose Your Inbound Marketing Tools

Social Media Marketing Tools

Adrienne Wilkerson

It’s Easy to Get Overwhelmed

Be Calm and Market On!

Set a Goal for Your Inbound Marketing Plan

Who are You Trying to Reach? Define Your Ideal Client

Choose Your Inbound Marketing Tools

Adrienne Wilkerson

Too Much Growth Too Fast is Dangerous

We LOVE to Help Companies

Telecommuting is Not the Same as Face-to-Face

Transparency is Painful and Invaluable

2017….here we come!

Adrienne Wilkerson

Adrienne Wilkerson

Future of content marketing

Marketing to empowered consumers

Knowing your customer

Adrienne Wilkerson

Call Tracking

SEO & Traffic Analytics

Adrienne Wilkerson

Construction Information on the Internet

How General Contractors Can Benefit From Inbound Marketing?

The Four Core Services of Inbound Marketing

Converting this traffic into leads by providing premium content offers

Converting leads into customers with lead nurturing, lead scoring and email marketing

Measuring and analyzing every step to see what’s working and improve on what is not.