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5 Tips to Stand Out on LinkedIn

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Adrienne Wilkerson

LinkedIn is one of the top three social media networking channels in the world and is a dynamo when it comes to personal, professional marketing and networking. Here at a few tips to help you stay on top of your LinkedIn game.

Introduce Yourself

Your profile picture should never be taken for granted or overlooked. LinkedIn is a professional networking channel, and the first impression you give is hugely important. Make sure you use a photo that is consistent with the job or position you want to have and is professional. I highly recommend you leverage a picture that represents you well, not just a quality photo but one that fits your personality. If your industry leans toward business casual and your comfortable style is upbeat and lively, then choose an image accordingly. In the same vein, if you work in a profession where formal suits are expected then your headshot should be consistent with those expectations.

Complete the First Impression

The background image is real estate often left undeveloped. It has great opportunities to communicate additional information about who you are and what you do. This could be a custom photo with your company’s branding, or simply an image that is consistent with how you want others to see you. This area is an excellent way to announce your personal branding that should be guiding how you present yourself on social media.

Enhance Your Profile

LinkedIn will tell you how far you have you might still have to go until your profile is complete. It is well worth investing the time to fill out each and every section. A completely filled out profile demonstrates you care enough to put your best foot as far forward as possible. Take advantage of the images LinkedIn encourages you to put into the Summary and Experiences sections of your profile. We are a visual society and pictures of projects, awards, and other items will grab people’s attention.

Build Your Network

It might seem obvious, but LinkedIn is all about professional networking. Many get themselves set up and then forget to go back and continue to build relationships. If you are wondering where to start, leverage your connections from past jobs and education. As you build your network, LinkedIn will begin to provide suggestions. These ideas are great ways to expand your reach however I highly encourage you to be selective. One thing many people look at is who you are associated with so make sure you research their profiles before connecting.

Participate Consistently

Persistence in regular posting and engagement are always going to be best practice with any social media channel, and LinkedIn is no exception. You have three primary methods of interacting with their peers.

  1. The newsfeed is the primary one most people see. Posting there a few times a week, ideally once a day is a great place to start. Additionally, on the newsfeed, you will have to opportunity to reply to other’s posts and engage with other LinkedIn members.
  2. Next, you can now publish blogs and articles like this one, right in LinkedIn. It is a great feature and can go a long way toward setting you up as an expert in your field. Wright and publish blogs on topics relevant to your industry and your career of choice.
  3. Finally participating in groups is a powerful way to discover new colleagues and engage in relationship-building conversation. Pick your groups based on your interests, your professional skills, and where you want to go with your career or business. You can post articles in these groups, respond to other’s questions and post queries of your own. Your can even start your own group!

What is Facebook Live and Can I Use it to Market my Business?

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Adrienne Wilkerson

Facebook has been rolling out it’s live streaming video feature in waves for the last four months. Live let’s you connect with real-time video to your friends, fans, and followers on Facebook. It is currently available to people with an iPhone and has been available to celebrities, athletes and other verified public figures via the Mentions app since August. Live is consistent with Facebook’s increasing dedication to video as a medium.

“Video is one of the most engaging and immersive ways to tell your story. Whether capturing breaking news, a baby’s first steps, or rising to a friend’s challenge for charity, it is a remarkable storytelling medium. Video uploaded directly to Facebook is an increasingly important part of News Feed, and more people than ever before are sharing, discovering, and engaging with videos that they care about.” –By Fidji Simo, Product Management Director, Video, Facebook

Though Facebook is late to the live-streaming scene behind companies like Blab, Periscope, and Meerkat the sheer volume of their user base gives them a leg up on the competition. For businesses, it means that the time invested in producing and distributing streaming video could have a much larger reach and a better ROI.

Facebook is currently testing live video with selected, verified, business pages and is suggesting that a roll out to all pages could come soon via their Pages app. We recommend companies start brainstorming now on creative ways to integrate this powerful new tool into their social media marketing strategy so they are ready to roll out as soon as it’s available.

Facebook Live

Here are a few suggestions for how to be effective using Live for your marketing.

  1. Use effective headlines: When your followers are making the decision to follow your live video stream, all they will have to go off of it the title. Make it interesting and catch their eye.
  2. Have a plan: Know what you are going to talk about before hand. This doesn’t mean script every second of the broadcast, in fact casual and “real” is more effective. But have a topic and a goal in mind before you start.
  3. Do a Q&A: Invite people who are following to ask you questions and answer them live. Or get a list of questions before hand and answer them live.
  4. Behind the Scenes: Show live video from “behind the curtain.” Do a quick snap shot of a day in the life, or how your team brainstorms creative solutions.
  5. Show and Tell: Show your expertise by walking through how to do a technique or make a product in simple, easy to follow steps.

If you are interested in Facebook Live and want to talk about how it could be a creative solution to marketing your business, we would love to talk with you. Give us a call at 907-563-6008 or email me at [email protected].

What makes a strong corporate brand

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Adrienne Wilkerson

Originally published on April 9, 2018. Updated on April 21, 2020.

The American Marketing Association (AMA) defines a brand as a “name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them intended to identify the goods and services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of other sellers.”

Basically, it’s what comes to people’s minds when they hear your company name or see your logo.

Your brand is a combination of three things: personality, image, and core competencies. It’s the impressions you make as well as the words people use to describe your company to others.

It’s easy to see why it’s so important. Your brand resides within the hearts and minds of customers, clients, and prospects. It is the sum total of their experiences and perceptions.

A strong brand creates customer satisfaction and helps establish the longevity of a company. It gives a company legitimacy and respectability. It creates solidarity and loyalty within and without. It will also deliver the message clearly, confirm your credibility, connect your target prospects emotionally, and motivate the buyer.

Read more: Why is corporate branding important?

How corporate brands work

What does that mean for you? Continuity. Continuity. Continuity. What is continuity? It is making sure that everything you do as a company has a coordinated look and feel about it. Graphically, this translates into a few things including the standard logo, corporate colors, a particular typeface, even a photo or illustration style.

Often, different departments within a company grab logos and typestyles and use them with haphazard abandon on everything from data sheets to PowerPoint presentations. They may ignore mandates from the home office and create their own marketing pieces, which bearing little-to-no resemblance to the carefully crafted look created by their own marketing department. The result is always the same – the company’s identity is diluted.

The worst-case scenario is that a lack of effective, unified marketing results in a drop in market share. That, in turn, requires a needless squandering of marketing resources to re-establish the company’s former brand awareness in the marketplace. Continuity helps achieve levels of image and branding efficiency unavailable to practitioners of hit-or-miss marketing with little or no image consistency between messages and media.

Want help with your corporate brand? Schedule a free consultation.

Psychology of branding

A brand encompasses the consumer’s experience and provides consumers with an avenue through which they can interact with the business. Fundamentally, people are emotional. Feelings like inspiration, positivity, trust, loyalty play a big part in our decision to interact with a business, buy a product or sign-up for a service.

As such, a positive brand can influence the buying habits of its target audience. Every sector has competition, regardless of whether your business is in functional health, construction, the not-for-profit sector or the beauty industry.

A brand will tell your prospectives what the beating heart of your company is about and why it’s different from its competitors. It’s both a first impression and a long-term relationship. Getting noticed is important, but so is telling people what your business aspires to become. Dreams are very persuasive.

Designing a corporate brand

As we mentioned earlier, branding consists of three main elements: company personality, image, and core competencies and characteristics. We’re now going to dive into that a little bit further.

When you’re designing your corporate brand, it’s important that the imagery and messaging associated with your brand reflects these so they reinforce the company’s story and establish a connection with customers. There are lots of different ways you can do this – for example, by inserting symbolism in your imagery.

Lots of brands do this in one way or another. For example, have you ever noticed the FedEx logo has an arrow pointing forward between the E and the X? It subtly reinforces the brand story.

How about the fact that the arrow in Amazon points from A to Z? Again, it sums up the business by subtly indicating the product line includes everything.

And what about Cisco? The lines in the background allude to the Golden Gate Bridge, which shows the brand’s San Francisco roots and therefore gives it a dose of personality.

Similar principles apply to brand stories.

With Airbnb, for example, you can “Belong Anywhere.” Nike will help you “Just Do It”. United Airlines will help you “Fly The Friendly Skies.” Even the U.S. Army is encouraging you to “Be All You Can Be.” Each of these slogans is a brand story. They summarize each organization’s personality, values and core competencies.

Developing slogans is not an easy task, so you may benefit from the help of a professional marketing agency. Striking the right tone is incredibly value from a brand awareness point of view. Keeping it coordinated and consistent will help the public understand what your business is about so they can find you when they need you.

Want to learn more about developing a brand? Read about our marketing services.

Protect your corporate brand

There’s no shortage of firms that use two, three, even four versions of their logo on a regular basis, with no particular rhyme or reason. The same goes for corporate colors – often a victim of one or more employee’s personal taste (“I HATE that color, I’m going to use green instead!)

This carelessness is made even easier by the proliferation of PowerPoint, Publishers and other tools used by more and more employees. The longer this continues, the more it will cost your company in time, money, awareness and – ultimately – market share. Think of it this way: how many variations have you seen of the Walmart logo? How about McDonald’s? Amazon? Facebook? AT&T? Ford?

Big companies know that value of a strong brand. Their logos are instantly recognizable, which generates a feeling of trust among customers. They are familiar with the stories of these brands, the legacies, so they keep coming back. It makes sense, then, to establish company-wide standards and maintain them.

Issue a simple style sheet that everyone can understand and follow and then enforce it. Make graphical elements of your company images available to the people that might need them and enforce their use. Help remind employees that it is about putting the end user before the personal tastes of individual team members.

A strong brand enables a company to prosper and grow at a healthy rate while ensuring longevity.

Ready to get started? Schedule a free consultation today.

Publish a Book! It’s Great for Business!

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Adrienne Wilkerson

Just as factories and products dominated the industrial age, knowledge and content define the information age. Our economy is based on information, and those who know more and are experts are commonly considered to have more economic clout. One of the most effective ways to demonstrate you are an expert in your field and to put your company on the information map is to publish a book.

In our knowledge-based society, those who have published a book stand above the crowd, which provides numerous benefits for you and your company. Here are just a few of the notable ones.

We Keep Books!

While business cards are still handy to have around, mostly because they are easy to carry, the truth is most people will very quickly throw them away. We just don’t keep business cards anymore. We want the information on our smart phones so we won’t lose it and it is always handy. Books, on the other hand, we keep. They represent a collection of information and knowledge that we own, even if we haven’t read them all.

Even in this digital age, a well-designed book carries weight and will usually be added to a collection rather than thrown away. Books have the added benefit of continuing to market for you. Every time the owner sees that book or even a visitor sees your book; there is additional, residual marketing for you.

Publishing a Book Adds Value to Your Brand

Both your personal and your business’s brand will benefit from publishing a book since it becomes a dynamic extension of your resume. One caveat I would bring to light is that your book needs to be well written and interesting to read. Specifically, this means you need to have correct grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. Beyond that, your book needs to be something that is interesting to read. (For more on this, check back for our next blog on how to write a good business book.) A published book does, unfortunately, have the potential to reflect badly on your brand if not done professionally. But that’s not what you’re interested in, right? You wouldn’t be researching this if you weren’t interested in putting out quality content.

When you put a book out there that is well written and engaging, people get a chance to see you beyond the resume, beyond the sales pitch. You have knowledge to share with the world and when you become a published author you further your credibility as a business person. People get the opportunity to see just how deep your knowledge runs. You might argue that what you know isn’t that special and you might be sure someone has written on the same topic at some point. But studies show that while 85% of business people say they want to write a book, only about 5% succeed in writing it and getting it published. So beat the odds and get what’s inside your head and heart on paper and get it published!

Develop Instant Credibility: Write a Book!

Interestingly enough, publishing a book puts you in an entirely different category. Most authors will tell you that as soon as they got that book published others instantly saw them as smarter and their companies as more credible. They see that you are the expert you said you are, because look, you wrote a book! Think about it from your clients’ point of view, who are they going to inherently trust more, the person who just tells them this is the best service or the person who wrote the book on that service? There is an assumption in our society that if you wrote a book about it, you naturally must be the authority on it. So make that work for you, beat the odds, and write a book about the services or products you sell.

Writing a Book Opens Doors for Speaking Engagements

You are more likely to get speaking engagements at events or talk and radio show appearances if you have a book published. Why you might ask…. yep… you guessed it: You published a book, you’re an expert! Are you catching the trend yet?

Publishing Your Book is A Powerful Content Marketing Tool

Consumers are devouring content at ever increasing rates. The content from your book makes great material for your blogs, social media posts, vlogs, and so much more. The reverse can also be true. If you’ve already been blogging for a while on topics you are an expert on; you probably have enough content for a book. The average non-fiction self-help or how-to book is between 40,000-50,000 words or 160 to 220 pages. So take a look at your blogs, you may have most of what you need for a book already!

Use Your Book to Educate

This might seem obvious: isn’t that what books are for, to educate? But bear with me for a minute. Your book can be a powerful lead generation tool and educate at the same time. Say you offer classes in the area around which to do business. Anyone who attends a series of your classes or even just one class could receive a copy of your book. It adds value to your classes and is now a source of continuing education for the attendee. It also has your contact information in it, or should. As they read more and learn more about what you do and how you do it, they can see more value in the services or product you provide.

The scenario also works for new clients. Give them a signed copy of your book. True, you might be losing money on the book its self, but the value it adds to your company if your client reads it and becomes more educated, is invaluable. Additionally, the client is exposed to other services you offer, perhaps in a slightly different area than what they initially hired you to do. Now you have the opportunity for an additional sale because the client knows you have the expertise to help them with other problems they need solutions to.

If you don’t have landing pages, you should. Using a print on demand service, you can give away books that again are loss leaders but have great value as lead generation tools.

Your Published Book Can be an Income Stream

There are more avenues than ever to sell you book online. Your book sales have the potential to be a revenue stream all in of themselves. Social media and places like Amazon provide outlets to sell even your self-published book. Keep in mind, you can’t just publish it and hope people will magically find it and buy it. You have to invest some time marketing your published book. With some elbow grease, the opportunities to make money as a published author are more attainable for the average person than ever before. Additionally, as you get more speaking engagements and do classes, you can always have copies of the book for sale in the back of the room.

While most of the benefits of writing and publishing a book result in intangible benefits like additional quality leads, charging higher rates, and landing better quality speaking opportunities, it is also worth noting you shouldn’t over look the tangible benefit. In 2006, the Wellesley Hills Group, a marketing consultancy, did a survey of 200 business-book authors. Mike Schultz, the principal of the firm, commented that:

“It may sounds obvious, but the biggest find was that authors who sold more than 10,000 copies of their books were much more satisfied with how the effort paid off than were those who sold fewer than 10,000. Those who sold 20,000 copies of higher were off the charts in their enthusiasm.”

Writing Your Own Book is a Good Investment

Schultz also commented saying:

“The vast majority of the authors we surveyed, 96%, said they did realize a significant positive impact on their business from writing a book and would recommend the practice.” 

So while there are some qualifiers, the book needs to be well written, design attractively and engaging, there is potential for positive return on your investment that goes far beyond the book sales themselves. Making the time to write and publish a book increases the value of the products or services you sell as well as your company’s earning potential. Your published book increases brand equity and opens doors. To do this you must be committed to the process of writing, publishing, and marketing you book.

What then is holding you back? Go out and get started writing! There is no time like the present.

How Much Should I Spend on Marketing?

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Adrienne Wilkerson

Fall is rapidly descending on the US, and the summer is winding down, especially in Alaska. As we all prepare to settle back into the fall routines for many of us business owners, that means it will soon be time to start planning for next year. One of the main things that should always be part of planning for the next year is budgeting, where are you going to spend your hard-earned money. Where is the money going to benefit your company the most? Many Alaskans are facing uncertainty and recession like environments in their industries. Therefore, where the money goes becomes even more important. Sadly, it is common for businesses facing hard times to consider cutting their marketing budget, while this is the worst thing you can do. Marketing keeps the flow of clients steady, which in turn keeps much-needed cash flowing through your business.

How Much of Your Revenue Should Go to Marketing?

Traditionally the rule of thumb is that your marketing budget should be between 5-10% of your total revenue. According to recent surveys of businesses across the US, we can see that companies are now allocating on average between 7-12% of the total revenue for marketing. Those who are wanting to increase their market-share, especially during slow times, are usually on the higher end of those averages while companies that are more focused on moderate growth or maintaining their current market share are falling on the lower end.

Interestingly enough, the businesses under $25 million a year in revenue tend to spend more on marketing, usually in the range of 10% or more of their total revenue. The type of business you are in can also affect how much you invest in your marketing. For example, a recent CMO Study found that business to business firms (B2B) typically spent about 7-8% of their total revenue on marketing while business to consumer companies (B2C) averaged 9% of their revenue on marketing.

One quick item I want to point about these numbers is that the 7-12% listed includes marketing staff salaries, marketing agency fees, and direct marketing costs. Some companies manage all of their marketing in-house and only have salaries and direct marketing costs. Other companies leverage marketing agencies, which means they have the fees associated with the agency and the direct marketing costs. Still, other businesses have found that a hybrid of the two is the most effective. They will have in-house people as well as an agency and the direct costs. Direct costs include pay per click fees, Facebook fees for promoted posts and ads, Google AdWords, digital ads, TV and radio airtime purchases, and printed advertising costs.

Where Should I Spend my Marketing Budget?

The answer to this question is going to vary based on your goals and your marketing budget. First off, take a look at the chart below. Based on historical data and current trends, eMarkeeter is predicting that in 2017, spending on digital advertising will surpass TV for the first time! We’ve been rapidly approaching this tipping point as TV marketing consistently loses effectiveness and people increasingly turn to digital. Likewise, the disruption of the digital world is eating away at the print advertising world. HubSpot consistently reports that inbound marketing (also called digital or content marketing) costs 62% less per lead than traditional advertising. This means that while TV may still be getting over a 1/3 of the marketing budget, it is significantly less effective than the 38.4% of the budget being spent on digital advertising.

If you are considered a “mid-sized” company, which means you have revenue of $10+ million, then your marketing budget is going to be larger, and you can afford to spend money on TV advertising, even if it the return on investment isn’t as good as digital marketing. If you are a small business with revenue between $750,000 to several million or a micro-business with revenue under $750,000, then I would strongly advise you focus on digital marketing due to its much higher return on investment.

Now those revenue numbers are my own and not based on information from the Small Business Administration (SBA) because but the hard thing is that no one can agree on what is a small business, a mid-sized business, and big business. Plus there is the emerging term of “micro-business” now. According to a recent US Census survey, businesses with nine employees or less make up 95% of the “small-business” classification. Additionally, the solo-entrepreneurs and freelancers (so-called micro-businesses) make up 78% of all businesses in the US! Yet the SBA says a “small-business” can have up to 199 employees and revenue of $25 million. Those of us in the 95% know we have different marketing needs and entirely different structures than companies with almost 200 employees.

Okay, enough of the rant, the bottom line is that you need to have a marketing budget and it must contain digital advertising pieces. Traditional advertising methods of print, radio, and TV have a rapidly dwindling place in a marketing plan. An effective marketing budget does not have to be hundreds of thousands of dollars. Take a good look at your revenue, commit to spending at least 7% of it on marketing and check out our blog What Should Your Marketing Plan Include for tips on what to spend your money on. Take a good look at your local digital marketing experts, get competitive quotes, and figure out the company that is going to help you reach your goals and you’ll enjoy working with.

 

5 Content Marketing Tips to Improve Your SEO

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Adrienne Wilkerson

If you’ve spent any amount of time online, you’ve probably gotten sick of hearing that content is king, but while the phrase is beyond overused, it is still true. As Google continues to change it algorithm at the rate of 500-600 times per year in an unending quest to improve the customer experience, we end up relying heavily on techniques like content marketing to keep our SEO rankings high.

To start off with, let’s define some terms and get on the same page. Search engine optimization (SEO) is an often misunderstood process in which your website is “optimized” to rank high in relevant searches and therefore performs better in lead generation and conversions. What is content marketing? I believe the Content Marketing Institution has one of the best definitions:

“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.“

A well executed, effective content marketing strategy leads to your website ranking better and bringing in more traffic, which can lead to more conversions and more sales. So let’s look at some of the most valuable tips for your content marketing.

  1. Give Advice, Not Pitches. Content marketing is all about providing information that is useful to the customers at various points of their buying journey. Pitching people is not the “content marketing way” and should be avoided at all costs. Create quality content, establish yourself as the expert, make yourself and your company invaluable to them. Then let them come to you.
  2. Answer Critical Questions. Your customers are online “Googling” a question right now, or they will be very soon. Are you answering that question? What issues or pain points are your clients or soon to be clients asking about? One of best places to get information on which questions you might need to be answering is to go to your sales team and/or your customer service team. What do they get asked frequently? What do consumers want to know? Then answer these questions one by one in your blogs. Some of them with long answers could even be a whole series of blogs!
  3. Original Content is Gold Standard. Republishing old content isn’t the worst thing you can do, but consistently adding original, new content lets the search engines know they need to keep coming back. Fresh, SEO-friendly content is engaging for readers and can keep you higher on the search page results.
  4. Compelling Visual Content a Must. Visual aids are still powerful, especially in the digital world. Use graphics like pictures, infographics, charts, and Content marketing and is critical to better SEO resultsvideos to engage your reader and keep them moving through the text. We are a visually stimulated culture, give the reader a reason to stick around. It is important to remember to make sure you use Alt Tags with any uploaded images. This gives the search engines information about the content and again improves SEO.
  5. Utilize SEO Keywords. Keywords need to appear in the body of your text as well as within the title of your content. There is a balance to be struck in how many times you use the keywords. Use them too often and both Google and your user will think you are “spammy.” However, if you don’t use them often enough Google and other search engines won’t know what your content is about. The important part to remember is not to force them into the content; you want the reader to enjoy the experience. So a good rule of thumb is to include your keywords in the first 160 characters of the meta description of the page as well as in the first 200 words of content.

It is easy to get lost in the ever-changing world of SEO, search engine rankings and more. That being said following tips like these and others can help you have a positive and productive experience. If you are interested in how our content creators improve our clients’ search engine rankings and generate more leads, we would love to show you. Feel free to reach out at 907-563-6008 or via email at [email protected].

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

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Adrienne Wilkerson

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:

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

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Adrienne Wilkerson

Marketing, especially Inbound 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?

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Adrienne Wilkerson

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!

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.
  10. 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

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Adrienne Wilkerson

“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.

Blogs deliver compounding returns 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.

  1. Last year, 67% of surveyed B2B companies said Inbound Marketing was a top three or very high priority in their marketing strategy.
  2. 67% of B2B marketers see a 10% or more increase in sales opportunities throughout the sales funnel when lead nurturing is used. (DemandGen)
  3. 32% of surveyed brands have decided to reallocate marketing budget from outbound to Inbound Marketing.
  4. Of the surveyed marketers, 23% of their overall marketing budgets was earmarked for outbound marketing and 34% for Inbound Marketing practices. (Gannett Local)
  5. Businesses who focus primarily Inbound Marketing save more than $14 per each new customer. (State of Inbound Marketing)
  6. When compared to paid search, mid-sized businesses save on average 31% on Inbound Marketing costs. (Eloqua)
  7. B2B buyers seek out to the following top 3 sources while researching a purchase decision: Whitepapers (78%), Case Studies (73%), and Webinars (67%). (DemandGen)
  8. Inbound leads cost 61% less on average than outbound leads. (HubSpot)
  9. B2B companies that blog at least 1 or 2 times per month generate 70% more leads than the companies who don’t blog. (HubSpot)
  10. After five months of consistent inbound marketing, the average cost per lead drops 80%. (Eloqua)
  11. Inbound Marketing yields 3 times more leads per dollar than traditional methods. (Kapost)
  12. Nurtured leads will most often make 47% larger purchases than non-nurtured leads. (The Annuitas Group)
  13. 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

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Adrienne Wilkerson

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.

Live Breathe Alaska's Facebook profile

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.

AK Starfish Co's Instagram feed

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.

Kaladi Brother's Twitter screen shot

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. 

REI Pinterest screen shot

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.

LinkedIn screenshot

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.

YouTube screenshot

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.

snapchat screen shot

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

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Adrienne Wilkerson

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:

  1. Set a goal
  2. Define Your Market
  3. Pick Your Marketing Tools
  4. 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.

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